Loki is turning out to be one of the best series MCU has to offer. The Episodes are packed with Gritty Humour, rich character banter and stakes which turn the events of movies like Avengers: Endgame, completely upside down. It successfully establishes a new power in the universe, which is beyond any Mad Titan. And amidst all of this, there’s the good old Loki with his funny little gimmicks and tricks which, even after all these years, haven’t gotten one bit stale.
Loki Series Season 1 Plot
Loki revolves around the mischievous villain escaping the clutches of The Avengers and getting caught by the Time Variance Authority. This sends him on a mission to catch the different antagonist who has been troubling the timelines.
Loki Series Season 1 Cast
- Tom Hiddleston as Loki
- Owen Wilson as Mobius
- Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Renslayer
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 1 Review: Glorious Purpose
Loki starts off just after the events of Avengers: Endgame, where Loki being the quick-witted mischievous god he is, escapes from the fresh ruins of New York to a desert in the middle of nowhere. He gazes across the vast span of land covered in sand but just as he is about to breathe the fresh air of freedom again, the guards from the Time Variance Authority catch him and render him without his magic.
A super slow punch does the trick to incapacitate an Egoist Loki and suddenly he is transported into the facility where there are more papers than humans and the sense of bureaucracy is only amplified ten fold. Each system has another system and so on and so forth. It’s a place where a ticket is required to pass a queue of two people and a signature is required to testify each and every word a person has said. There’s a certain uniqueness to the place which hasn’t ever been seen before in any Marvel project. Where most of the settings are ridiculed by magic and technology, the Time Variance Authority plays off as a parody, and ironically it is the most powerful place in the MCU that we have seen so far.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 1: Rich Character Development From The Pilot Itself
That’s the most I will divulge into the plot of the episode, because it surely has some epic surprises which are wrapped up in both, the past and the future. The Pilot of Loki works so well in bringing out the fun and goofiness that the character has possessed for so long.
Even though his character during the events of The Avengers tipped more towards darkness rather than humour, they have appropriately amplified him which fits somewhere between his Avengers and Thor: Ragnarok persona. And frankly that works the best because neither of those extremities would have suited his character after all the viewers have seen and been through throughout the span of 4 phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Owen Wilson’s Mobius is introduced and he comes off as an easy going guy who just wants the best for everyone involved. Tasked with a mission, which involves Loki directly, the entire episode sort of gives in towards developing their peculiar chemistry where trust can’t be achieved on both sides yet there’s a slight sliver of mutual understanding which can’t be denied. When Loki is reluctant to accept his fate and truly understand the scope and reach of the Time Variance Authority, Mobius makes him go through the moments in the past and the future which he has and will regret.
The untimely demise of his Mother and his own death in Avengers: Endgame work so well in establishing a massive jump in the character, who, having just obliterated New York in the most ruthless and sadistic manner, falls on his knees teary eyed. It’s such a meta thing to know from the backend that Loki isn’t the same person he was in Avengers, but having Mobius bring out the present timeline personality of Loki, in the Loki of the past is easily one of the best highlights of the episode.
The screenplay of Loki easily trumps anything I have seen in the MCU television scene so far, and the philosophical and quirky comebacks of both Mobius and Loki are so abundant yet hardly anyone of them feels forced or leans in towards a childish humour aspect, like it did in movies like Thor: Ragnarok. In fact, this is probably one of the first MCU offerings I have seen that doesn’t cater to that young humour, which mostly revolved around misspelled names and pop culture references. It is witty and written with respect to the character’s personality and it doesn’t reduce them in any manner whatsoever.
Loki episode 1 has me in high hopes about the show and the direction it is headed towards. From the concept to the writing, it clearly looks like Marvel is onto something sensational and if done right, this could truly be a triumph in the overall MCU.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 2 Review: The Variant
The much awaited second offering of Loki aired and it was mesmerizing. While the first episode made me fall in love with the writing and the character development, this episode made me appreciate the aspects of score and production quality so much more.
It is such a Mobius and Loki centered episode and there’s so much to gnaw and go through each and every philosophical discussion they go through. Meanwhile it also explores the intelligence of Loki which has sort of been neglected in the past MCU offerings. And obviously, that breathtaking climax where it all comes together. Man, this show is really growing on me.
So, to begin with, Loki has just discovered why Mobius is so interested in him and it is because Mobius is also hunting Loki. Well, not the same one. A different and, in the words of present Loki, a far ‘inferior’ Loki is on the loose and catching the officers of TVA and ambushing them.
This Loki has caused a menace in the TVA and till now, Mobius and his team were out of clues about how to proceed with this different version of the Notorious god. And then Tom Hiddleston’s Loki appears out of nowhere and so an opportunity presents itself in their footsteps. Mobius then works towards understanding how and from where this version of Loki attacks, and the present-day Loki, while going through the mass reports of the mass destruction of Asgard, uncovers the secret which sets loose a climax of Sci-Fi heavy, sort of Blade Runneresque vibes.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 2: The Absolute Banger of A Score
So from the get go, I need to talk about the score of Loki. It hasn’t been stated enough how freaking insane the music of Loki is. Coming from Marvel, a company which has taken a long while to really create memorable scores, Loki is dark, brooding, sinister, mischievous and epic all at the same time. And this realization only hit me when they, in the end of the episode, go decades into the future to 2050 Alabama, where the city is about to get struck by an apocalypse.
The vibrant billboard has a pole smash through it and it is obliterated in the wind as we see a fiery, stormy and thundering city of Alabama, about to witness extinction. The music in this particular scene was enough to send chills all over my body, and even though this is a really unpopular opinion, that 20 second introduction to 2050 was the best scene of the episode in my opinion.
Now that I have that aside, let’s talk about the more plot heavy points of this episode and boy this episode is full of it. So the Time Variance Authority works in a way that in order to eliminate a timeline inconsistency, they essentially cause a mini apocalypse of their own which eliminates all the changes in that inconsistency riddled setting and things go back to normal again. So when Loki finally realizes that this past, “inferious” Loki could be hiding in an apocalypse, it only makes so much sense. And so they embark on a journey back in time by thousands of years, and Loki yelling Nothing Matters as a volcano is about to erupt behind him made me absolutely lose it. It’s so true yet so eerily sadistic, and such a Loki like thing to say.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 2: Jet-ski, The Wonder of Mankind
Mobius only becomes more and more interesting as the show progresses and his love for Jet-ski is something I very much relate with. And like him, even I have never been on one, so let’s just wish we both get that opportunity sometime in our lives. Loki and Mobius having a discussion about the relevance of beings and what makes someone authentic feels so real.
It’s all about a perspective and in Loki’s perspective, his birth is the natural process and so he can’t relate with Mobius being a product of the Time Keepers. But by the end of Mobius’s stance on Loki’s ignorance, his character takes a slightly nihilistic path, where he knows that nothing in the world matters, yet he has found his “Glorious Purpose” and that’s what gets him awake in the morning.
And finally, the other Loki is revealed, the Lady Loki. More than the reveal, her intention in the climax was what took me absolutely off guard. The collection of the reset bombs and how she lets every bomb loose at the same time creating so many different branches of timeline, only creates so much more potential to visit each one of those timelines and witness the reckoning of each and every place, in the future and the past. I am sure we will know more about Lady Loki in the upcoming episodes and I can’t wait for Loki to visit all these timelines. This makes me even more excited that the creator of Loki, Michael Waldron, is also the lead writer of Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 3 Review: Lamentis
The Third Episode of Loki was definitely slower than the first two bombastic ones we saw earlier, but it sure was necessary. And while the majority of the episode builds up an entire new world and a character, it’s the last 6 minutes or so which really create one of the best-looking Sci-Fi one take sequences that I have ever seen in a MCU offering.
The episode begins with Loki and Sylvie stepping in the Time Variance Authority with the officers behind them. Lady Loki aka Sylvie, goes on a killing rampage with these guards who oppose her, yet Loki tries to strike a deal with her nonetheless.
Like an array of MCU heroes and the audience have learnt, trusting Loki for a collaboration is never, I repeat, never a good idea. And Sylvie can see through that in an instant which is why she is so adamant on killing him and everyone else she sees.
The entire episode leans in towards fleshing out their characteristics and even though they are different versions of the same Loki, their personalities are polar opposite. The writing makes it clear that in the time Loki would work his charm and diplomatic approach upon his enemies, Sylvie would have killed 10 of them. She is ruthless and doesn’t bat an eye before killing a person.
You could say she is more, or less sadistic than Loki, depending upon your point of view of looking at things. In a way she never tries to play with people’s biggest insecurities, like Loki tried to do with the old woman in this episode. Rather her method is more upfront and straightforward which I found very intriguing.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 3: A Dying Moon
Lamentis – 1 just goes on to prove how the science fiction aspirations that this show is heading towards. Everything in this episode screams pure sci-fi. This moon which is soon going to be obliterated by a freaking planet, still looked amazingly aesthetic with its blue hue and shining meteors crashing on the surface. It really emanates that Wasteland like feeling, as if Loki and Sylvie were two protagonists in a Fallout game.
The world building is what I love in each episode of Loki, and I feel like this world might be the most intriguing one I have seen so far in this series. My only minor issue with these Moon were the beings, some part of me really craves to see creatures that don’t have a human build up.
It was like I was watching a Mandalorian episode, and a creature with 4 legs and 5 mouths wouldn’t have necessarily brought down my immersion, to say the least. But yes, Mandalorian vibes are dominant with this episode and I for one loved watching that. Because in Loki, you still have a more Linear and Cohesive story as compared to The Mandalorian which was more like, separate missions leading up to that one goal.
One major revelation in this episode was that the people working in Time Variance Authority are actually variants themselves. I feel like that was the biggest plot revelation in this episode and now it makes me think about the origins of Mobius, who is also an officer at TVA and who still believes that it was the Time Keepers who created him.
I am still very skeptical about the ultimate motive of Mobius in this show, and even though the chemistry between him and Loki has been very quirky and charismatic as of now, I still think there’s a lot to his character than what meets the eye. Moving on with the episode, the quote, “Love is a Dagger”, was that just Loki being ever so consumed with himself or does this actually mean something?
Cause there have also been promotional material with the same quote slapped on them and it just makes me think about a possible romantic dynamic between the two. But again, they both are essentially Loki so I have no clue how that relationship would work. Two breakers of timeline falling for each other and breaking even more timelines, I think this is becoming too cheesy so I will stop.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 3: That Amazing Climax
And finally, that final one take sequence. I have a certain fascination with One Take Scenes and whenever I watch them, I just can’t help but be amazed. And I have to say that entire last sequence was so well done. While the cuts were visible enough, it hardly broke my immersion and watching Loki and Sylvie tag team as an entire freaking planet is about to crash on them was really, really fun.
Despite the bad reactions this episode is receiving, I really enjoyed watching it. It hit the right Sci-Fi spots for me, and the only hiccup would be the below average pacing of this episode. But the climax made it absolutely worth it.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 4 Review: The Nexus Event
With a rather slow last episode, episode 4 of Loki returned with a bang which easily made it one of the best episodes to come out till now. It was such an absorbing mixture of conspiracy, plot twists and revelations that it produced a shock at each and every turn.
The entire episode was centered towards the main reveal of the time keepers and each thing that happens in the episode, ultimately leads to that. As I had previously mentioned, the romantic dynamic between Loki and Sylvie is bound to be controversial, in a sense that it shouldn’t ever have been possible in the first place.
But now it is and it produces a branched reality so in contrast with the real one, that it tips the Time Variance Authority’s guards towards them and it ultimately leads to their survival. I always thought that the idea of attraction for Loki was very far off, but the development of the character during this entire season has been so phenomenal, that not for one moment did I question the weirdness of their relationship. It almost forced me to look at them as two distinct people falling in love with each other.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 4: The Underlying Conspiracy
Renslayer and her motives are unclear and the tip off that something was deeply wrong with the TVA since the beginning of the season, becomes more and more prominent. Loki as a show does extremely well in showcasing the hypocrisy and the god complex that comes with running an organization like this.
Sylvie was just a normal kid in Asgard playing with her toys when the officials of TVA led by Renslayer, arrested her and put her into a never ending run for survival. And if there’s anything that the Lokis don’t suck at, it’s surviving. TVA as a whole was never an authority to be revered as it always hid its hypocrisy with mindless bureaucracy.
Everything it displayed was always a front to begin with and the people that worked there were constantly fed with the lie of the glorious purpose. There is no glorious purpose that’s handed to you. Getting to know Sylvie’s backstory was nice, even if we still don’t know what really caused her nexus event in the first place.
The final showdown between Loki, Sylvie and Renslayer in the chamber of the Time Keepers truly kept me on the edge of my seat. While I had minor concerns with the fight choreography in the show as there were many times when I felt that it had gotten choppy and riddled with weird cuts, the tension and the thrill while watching that scene play off was incredible.
The reveal of the timekeepers was bizarre and truly fulfilled its purpose, in which it highlighted the mockery that TVA has become and the people working there are nothing but mere puppets serving a false god. Who really controls TVA and the fate of time is still unbeknownst to us, and it is going to be the biggest twist that the show is now leading towards. Overall, Loki Episode 4 was clearly one of the most riveting pieces of MCU television I have seen and it only gets better from here.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 5 Review: Journey Into Mystery
Okay wow, episode 5 has easily become the best one of the series, and I know I say this for every episode but really, believe me when I say this, Episode 5 of Loki is as Loki as the show possibly gets. It is riddled with easter eggs, and a whole lot of Lokis.
From a child Loki to an actual Alligator Loki, everything that happened in this episode was equally bizarre and breathtaking. Loki got pruned in the last episode, along with Mobius and now Loki lands in the void, a place which is beyond time and beyond escape.
Guarded by Alioth, the monster covered in dark mist, Void is filled with people who are pruned in the Time Variance Authority. Nothing and Noone is meant to survive this place, and almost everyone who lands here gets obliterated by the demon. Everyone except the survivors, and as the show has made it very clear, if there’s anything Lokis don’t suck at, it’s surviving. So they run through the void, trying to get away from Alioth and soon they reach their bunker, the only place in this godforsaken planet where they get to play King again.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 5: The Heartfelt Hug
The dynamics between the different Lokis hinted back to the good old backstabbing days of Loki. It feels really earnest that the main Loki has evolved so much during the course of the show that when there’s an array of Lokis backstabbing each other in front of him, he can’t help but facepalm in embarrassment, knowing that this was the same state he was in a few weeks ago.
The whole sequence plays off in such a fun, bizarre manner and the score changes into something childish and it really puts the perspective in place. Moreover, when we are introduced to this bunker in the first place, it is situated adjacent to a Thanos Copter and as they go deep we see a Tiny Thor in a box trying to reach for his Mjolnir. These are just two of the numerous references present in the episode and with each one I saw, I tried to conjure up a story as to how they would have ended in the void in the first place.
What would have been their Nexus event which separated them from their original timeline. I am sure the show will never really give a concrete answer to these questions and I am perfectly fine with that cause coming up with my own interpretations is more fun either way.
We see the peak of the relationship between Loki and Sylvie & also between Loki and Mobius. And while both the relationships have undergone heavy development, I have an undeniable bias towards the character of Mobius and all the doubts I had about his “Ulterior Motives” in the first episode are gone for most part. The farewell between Loki and Mobius took its sweet time and when it hit, it sent us all in awe.
I can’t remember the last time Loki hugged someone, so this was definitely long awaited. Mobius might just be the first true friend Loki has ever had and it hits even harder watching the scene with that context. I am not really sure how his storyline will go further, I mean he has to burn TVA to the ground, but his arc after that is hazy at this point. Yet I do hope his involvement in MCU continues cause Owen Wilson is a gem and his performance as Mobius is undeniably heartfelt and absorbing.
Loki and Glorious Purpose have gone hand in hand throughout the runtime of the show. So in the final showdown against Alioth, Elder Loki steals hearts as he builds Asgard from dust to distract the terrifying monster. His laugh as he yells Glorious Purpose really ties his entire character in a single episode and made me appreciate Richard E. Grant’s acting so much more, and the episode ends on a massive cliffhanger, situated amongst a castle in the sky.
Loki Finale Episode is going to be wild and I have a feeling they won’t be answering all the questions, and maybe Loki gets renewed for a season 2 after all.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 6(Finale) Review: For All Time. Always.
And with that, Loki season 1 ends. First of all, the reveal is going to be the most talked about aspect of the finale, and rightly so. It effectively ties in with the MCU and introduces a character which is going to be deeply consequential in everything that takes place from now on.
He who remains and the actor who portrays him, Jonathan Majors, steal the finale as he explains the origins of the TVA and effectively, the origins of time. He is a person who posed as a villain but in the end, he was a mere peacekeeper, who had his own ways of maintaining peace.
Jonathan Majors emanated such a chilled out vibe in that character that it sort of defied everything that we as viewers expected from him. Each of us had our own theories for who really was running the TVA and maintaining the flow of time, and a lot of those theories included people who were all out bad and evil.
But “He who remains” is a calm negotiator, who loves stability as much as the other guy. He has a certain ego about him and that, combined with him loudly eating an apple as he explains the “Multiversal War” is just, really unique. It’s one of those twists which doesn’t make you go “Whoa” all of a sudden, but it gradually induces a long “oh” as you understand the guy’s motives and intentions.
Loki Series Season 1 Episode 6(Finale): Kang The Conqueror Reveals Himself
The Multiversal War, as I previously mentioned, has the potential to become a backbone for all the mad and menacing things that happen further in movies like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Multiversal War erupted with different versions of He who Remains, confronting each other. As he says, not all of his versions were nice natured and some had dark intentions driving them. This caused a war which ended all the wars and the confrontation with Thanos becomes miniscule in comparison with that.
Marvel immediately goes like, “Well, whatever has happened till this point wasn’t nearly as consequential as whatever is about to happen”, and this becomes clear when we get to know about the interdimensional war which was fought.
Kang the Conqueror is a huge Marvel character and introducing them in the finale of Loki basically outdid all the revelations that they have done in the TV show spectrum up to this point. With all the speculations that Dr. Strange would show up in WandaVision gone wrong, Loki went the opposite direction and introduced the main villain of a movie set to release two years later.
The big fight of morals between Sylvie and Loki erupts and even Kang the Conqueror, who knew everything up to that point, is clueless about what will happen next and he watches these two fight with a curious little smile on his face. And after a tiring confrontation, Loki decides to lay down his weapons and his life at the hands of Sylvie who has a blade on his neck.
Yet, just when their relationship reaches yet another peak, Sylvie kicks Loki back to the TVA to finish what she began. Her quest of finding the Time Keeper and killing them ends on a silent stab to the gut of Kang. Loki knew this isn’t the end of him and I feel like even Sylvie does to some extent.
But letting her personal intentions take the better of her might have just laid the foundations to yet another Multiversal war. Kang warned them, and as his souls escape his life, he merely winks at her and says, “See you soon”. Loki has entered the TVA, but now, he is not quite sure which TVA he has really entered. Has he really entered a different reality, or has the same reality changed so drastically.
Loki has been renewed for a season 2 and it is safe to say that Loki indeed was the best MCU show yet. It is equally dark, fun and poignant and not only does it set up the future of MCU but it also plays off as its own thing which is bound to be fun, even when you aren’t a die hard fan of MCU.
Loki Series Season 1 Critical Reception
Loki stands at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus being, “A delightful diversion from the MCU as we know it, Loki successfully sees star Tom Hiddleston leap from beloved villain to endearing antihero — with a little help from Owen Wilson — in a series that’s as off-kilter, charming, and vaguely dangerous as the demigod himself.” It has a Metascore of 74.
The Movie Culture Synopsis
Loki is one of the freshest MCU offerings I have seen in recent years and the scope and the potential for the series to progress and serve as a foundation for all the upcoming MCU movies is vast and ever expansive. I can’t wait to see what they do with these characters in the future episodes.
