Last night's decent new episode of Loki, "Lamentis", was written by the upcoming Ms. Marvel series headwriter, Bisha K. Ali. Prior to the episode, commentary on Ali has largely focused on her outspoken left-wing political beliefs and the fact that she deleted over five thousand of her tweets when she was hired by Marvel. Whether she intended it to be or not, though, last night's Loki was pretty light on politics.
The female Loki, who goes by Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) for reasons she has yet to explain beyond a dislike for the name Loki, turns out to be physically stronger and a more proficient martial artist than our familiar Tom Hiddleston Loki. Where he was easily subdued by TVA agents, Sylvie, finding her powers useless in the TVA realm, easily overpowers and murders several guards. It's nice to see that the two are still being written as villains, though there are a few odd moments where it seems like Ali forgets, as when Sylvie accuses Loki of collaborating with fascists. What an odd thing to say to a man who'd just been trying to become ruler of the galaxy.
Loki, in turn, criticises Sylvie's apparent desire to destroy the TVA without any particular goal in mind. Whatever problems the system may have, surely it's better to have the multiverse kept in order, assuming that's what the TVA are really doing? The argument is reminiscent of the current dialogue between the Antifa/"Defund the Police" left and those of us who see the system as a necessary part of having an existence with any measure of safety and comfort. With the reveal that the TVA weren't being honest with their strangely incompetent employees, it seems like, within the MCU at least, Ali's point of view will be the accurate one.
Apparently last night's Loki has drawn comment for revealing that Loki is bisexual. Loki director Kate Herron tweeted:
I would quibble this doesn't actually establish Loki as bisexual, only that both men and women had been attracted to him. But okay, if Herron's happy, good for her.
It's been four years now since the San Diego Comic Con I went to where I first really began to notice nearly every panel for every TV series or comic had someone with a frozen smile, mechanically parroting lines about how we had to empower women by making them front and centre in our media, apparently all part of a massive ideological push in the wake of Donald Trump's election. Results of the effort have been mixed and whether or not they've done anything for feminism, or have in fact set back the cause, is certainly debatable. This latest example of a beloved male character pitted against a new, stronger female counterpart isn't as bad as some. At least the two performers seem to have interesting chemistry. Though when Sylvie claims to be just as much a hedonist as Loki--only so long as it doesn't affect the mission--made me wonder how much we really can regard these two as versions of the same character.
Loki is available on Disney+.
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