2021, d. Kate Herron - Disney+
I've found the conversation around the Disney+ Marvel series, as a collective, fascinating. Each of the three major shows we've received so far - Wandavision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and Loki - have their champions, but also their detractors. I think each show is received with a lot of fanfare initially, and there were always those multitude of enthusiastic episode-by-episode breakdowns on youtube, but as a show progressed the criticisms and complaints began to pile as expectations weren't met (expectations often fueled by nerdy speculation within those enthusiastic episode-by-episode youtube breakdowns and other fan forums). In hindsight, after time has passed, the lasting impression a show leaves is probably its biggest marker of success or failure... and it seems subjective.
Wandavision I thought was phenomenal in its ambition until it lost its sitcom pastiches, and ended with a big dud of a boss battle that failed to really tie the series together as a whole aesthetically (emotionally it resolved well). The Falcon and The Winter Solder was wildly uneven not just from episode to episode but within each episode (although it did come together for me in the end), but a few frustrating decisions along the way make it a rocky, not very uniform piece.
Loki is not as high-concept a production as Wandavision, and not as burdened with world building/world updating as TF&TWS, although it's plenty ambitious, and it has its own world/reality building it works with.
Of the five leads of the Disney+ shows so far, Loki is by far the most established character with the most facetime in the MCU. The role made Tom Hiddleston a star, and it's clear he relishes playing the character...why wouldn't he? He gets to be pithy, vainglorious, ambitious, conniving, wicked, catty, arrogent, smarmy, callous, but most of all, charming. I think the charm is all Hiddleston, as in other hands Loki could very well have been a stock villain. Hiddleston elevated the character to, very nearly, co-lead of all the Thor films to date. A solo spotlight television isn't necessarily the most expected decision for the character, but it certainly is not an unwelcome one.
All the D+ MCU shows are burdened with having to pick their stories up from where they were left after Avengers: Endgame, although Endgame being the most successful film in cinema history, it's possibly not that big a burden. Loki, the character who we know from the Thor movies and Marvel's The Avengers was killed by Thanos at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War. However due to time travel shenanigans in Endgame the Loki from Marvel's The Avengers, managed to escape, thus creating a branching timeline (as also explained in Endgame).
At the start of Loki on Disney+, it's this Variant Loki we follow, as he is promptly hunted down by the Time Variance Authority ("TVA") and his new timeline deleted, as is their mandated. The TVA and its operatives, it is explained, is tasked with maintaining the one, true "sacred" timeline. All variants and variant timelines are to be deleted. However, in some cases, as with Loki, Variants are give the option to sign up with the TVA, rather than be eliminated. Turns out there is another version of Loki jumping between newly branched realities killing TVA Hunters, and they want this Variant Loki's help bringing the other Variant Loki in.
Owen Wilson plays Moebius M. Moebius, Loki's guide,interrogator, and defender at the TVA. Moebius is a crafty figure who has seen enough variant Lokis to know how to communicate with one. This one variant in particular, he knows where his soft spot is (family - Odin, Thor, Frigga) and pokes at it. He wears down Loki, the villain of Marvel's The Avengers until he more resembles the softer, friendlier Loki from the end of Thor:Ragnarok. Wilson excels in the role, his relaxed demeanor the perfect companion to Hiddleston's playful intensity.
The second episode puts Loki and a team of TVA hunters (including the great Wunmi Mosaku from Lovecraft Country as series regular Hunter B-15) on the trail of the murderous variant Loki who's hiding out in a Wal-Mart-like department store as it's about to get hit by a tornado. Surprisingly, rather than dragging out the chase longer, we meet the murderous variant Loki (who seems far more adept at being a Loki than our Loki), and at the end, both disappear together.
The unexpected turn is that the murderous variant Loki they are chasing identifies as female and prefers the name Sylvie (played by Sophie Di Martino). This reveal, in episode 2, I have to admit, was initially underwhelming. Marvel has been so good at casting, that I was expecting to find a familiar face playing this female variant, some immediate sense of stardom to glom onto. Instead Di Martino has the unenviable task of proving herself to a legion of Marvel geeks, and going toe-to-toe against Hiddleston in practically the same role that he created. The remarkable, very divergent third episode is a big blockbuster two-hander with Loki and Sylvie forced to rely upon one another for survival on a planet that is about to explode, with little options before them. This episode is magnificent at establishing Sylvie as a distinct character from Loki, as well as establishing a bit of a warped, fraught love connection between them. Di Martino definitely proves mettle in the role quickly, and the dynamic that she has with Hiddleston takes no time at all to establish. It's a highlight, but the show has other highlights still to come.
One slight downside is this episode doesn't just take us away from the TVA, it destroys the never-quite-established status quo of Loki-as-TVA Agent. It's also ends with an amazing faux-single shot tracking sequence that is very tense and chaotic.
People would be forgiven if they came out of the the first episode expecting a series-long venture of Loki and the TVA hunting the other Loki, culminating in a big conflict between the two. I can see there being disappointment with that not exactly happening, and perhaps the show needed at least one more "chase" episode of Loki getting into a groove with the TVA while persuing other Loki before usurping any sense of "format".
We come back tot the TVA in Episode 4, which is what I'd call a spinning wheels episode, except it's there to really demonstrate the relationships that have formed, key among them the Loki and Sylvie bond. It's important we believe that maybe their pairing is worth destroying the sacred timeline for. The episode deconstructs the TVA by exposing their overlords as a sham, though the search for the person behind the curtain (Wizard of Oz-style) becomes the next thread to follow.
Episode five is a delight with Loki winding up in "the Void at the End of Time", where he encounters many different Loki variants (including the new meme sensation, Loki-gator) who have managed to survive in the void for some time (including a hilariously comics-accurate Loki played by Richard E. Grant). This is a marvelously (no pun intended) playful episode that is kind of beyond explaining, and certainly an adventure that is joyously comics-like, the type of uber-nerdy scenario you never expect to be put in front of the masses (I keep forgetting a decade of Marvel films and superhero saturation has made the world receptive to this uber-nerdy content).
Pulled all together, Loki is most heavily influenced by Doctor Who, more than I think anything else, with the added benefit of a huge budget per episode that would likely fund a season's worth of the good Doctor's show. There's just a generally playful sense of "timey-wimey-ness" to it all that worked for me but most definitely didn't work for some people. The show struggles with needing to establish two separate relationships for Loki, first his friendship with Moebius, and second his budding romance with Sophie, and it's disappointing that they didn't manage to work this all into some form of relationship triangle. Moebius is kind of left to his own devices for at least half the episodes (a lot of which is interacting with Gugu Mbatha Raw -- a TVA judge and Moebius' superior, but also his friend - who has her own ulterior motives) and it seems like fans are divided on who Loki should have been spending his time with.
It's the first of the Marvel shows/movies to take advantage of the Volume effects stage created for Star Wars' The Mandalorian, and with exception of the opening desert sequence which doesn't look great, it all works very, very well. The show and effects all look pretty great.
Hiddleston, for his part, rules this whole series, and gives us everything Loki and more. It's hard to not be charmed by the trickster god. While the season finale effectively broke the MCU, it's mercifully not the end of the story, as the credits announce a Season 2 is coming (the first Disney+ Marvel show to confirm a follow-up season). Even those that were maybe disappointed with the show will be back for a second season because of the strength of Hiddleston and all the other major performers who created very likeable, watchable characters.
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