Glorious Loki

Last night's finale of Loki season 2 was really good. It was appropriately epic and, while I think it fell short of being truly satisfying, it was certainly better than the first season.

I watched it at 11pm after having been awake since 4am so I may have missed some details. But we find Loki, who, in the previous episode, had expressed his anxiety about losing his friends, steadily being forced to do everything himself.

There's a lot of nice dialogue about what it means to have the power and position of a god. "With great power comes great responsibility" is by no means a foreign concept in the superhero genre but, in recent years, Disney and other studios have so steadily beat the drum for everything coming down to teamwork, it was refreshing to see a story about how, no, sometimes it takes one visionary. Hopefully it's the right visionary.

Loki uses his time-slipping ability as he tries to correct for every little mistake leading to the destruction of the Loom that seemingly keeps the branching timelines in order. That fails because he and his cohorts had been operating on a false premise--the Loom doesn't keep the timelines in order, it was only designed to protect one timeline while setting the others up for pruning. So Loki realises he has to stop Sylvie from killing He Who Remains, the event at the end of season one that set up season 2.

Sylvie is eternally committed to killing He Who Remains, even if her rationale is a little vague. Loki confronts her about it in this episode and the dialogue sounds an awful lot like modern political discourse. Sylvie says we have to overthrow the old regime at all costs because it's corrupt, and Loki says, what good is that if it means everyone ends up dead? She has no answer for that but, like a lot of revolutionaries, she doesn't seem to have spared room in her mind for contemplating that. Someone, somewhere, will surely take care of it, and this time it turns out to be Loki.

I wish it'd been made a little clearer what Loki was doing at the end, but it's certainly an epic sequence in any case. He strides out into space, his costume transforming into one more befitting a god, and takes the dying timelines into himself. He takes a lonely throne at the centre of what becomes a tree of timelines, seemingly meant to be Yggdrasil, the world tree from Norse mythology.

As an arc for Loki in the MCU, going back to the first Thor movie and The Avengers, it makes sense. There's a lot of talk about Loki being selfish but he had a very specific kind of selfishness--he wanted the recognition and validation that Thor had. That's why he wanted to see himself as one with "glorious purpose". Well, he certainly attained that. That's the kind of thing that takes commitment. Unlike Sylvie, who, after causing all the trouble, was happy to slack off in a cosy McDonalds life, Loki never for a moment stopped trying to unravel the knot, never stopped trying to find a way to be the one who saves the whole damned universe. His commitment was so strong he didn't waver even when he realised he had to spend centuries studying to attain the acumen of Ouroboros.

So now he's basically become Atlas, the god whose job was to hold up the world. Aside from that one episode earlier in the season, he really doesn't come across as a god of mischief. But whatever, it's a good story.

Loki is available on Disney+.

Do the Loki Motion with Me

Last night's Loki was the weakest of season two, being essentially filler. It also had one very weak point in the writing but, on the whole, I enjoyed it.

If I were superstitious, I'd say the episode was reading my mind. Sylvie ordered bourbons for herself and Loki at the same moment I was pouring myself some Wild Turkey. It also so happens I've been listening to The Velvet Underground a lot lately and last night had that lovely scene of Sylvie listening to "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" as everything dissolved around her.

I also just recently watched Escape from Alcatraz and it turns out KC's real life was as one of those real life escapees.

It was fun seeing everyone's lives, particularly OB's. Ke Huy Quan is a constant delight.

The weak part of the episode is that Loki had just convinced everyone the universe depended on their cooperation before Sylvie convinced him it was all in his head, Mobious had, I suspect, the audience's reaction when Loki told him about it, understandably upset that Loki had just told him his children's lives were at stake. Honestly, it made Loki seem dumb and weak willed and Sylvie seem dumb and brutish.

The episode ends with Loki taking control of his time slipping. It would be kind of interesting if that's a permanent power he has in all MCU media moving forward though I doubt it will be. Or, who knows, maybe that'll be a crucial part of Deadpool 3.

Loki is available on Disney+.

Doctor Loki

Last night's Loki was pure Doctor Who, in a very good way. People were already comparing Loki to Doctor Who in season one, but this season the show's gone from being an imitation to something that really shares the spirit. The end of the episode could've had that descending, synthesiser sound Doctor Who episodes have ended with since the '70s.

I have to admit, I slept through much of the episode. This is not a remark on the quality of it, I was just really tired. I didn't realise I'd slept so much until this morning I looked at reviews and heard about a bunch of stuff I didn't remember. All I remembered was people running around and then Victor Timely turning into spaghetti.

I know people are divided on Jonathan Majors' performance and I do think he's a ham. But he works as part of the ensemble, every member of which plays a vital role in this running, gunning, three ring time travel circus.

So I watched the episode a second time this afternoon and found I'd slept through a scene I'd been really looking forward to, the one from the trailer where Loki says to Sylvie, "We are gods." I love that bit. Even though I really don't find it plausible Sylvie would've set Loki up that way, still, it's great hearing Loki own that. I can easily imagine him saying, "We are Time Lords."

The episode ended on a big cliffhanger, with the whole universe seemingly being destroyed. I'm guessing it's in fact not. There's a gap in the episode--Renslayer, Timely, and Miss Minutes had a conversation we didn't get to hear. I'm guessing that whole group will somehow be back next week. Presumably Loki will be, too.

If Disney weren't always looking to cut corners on writing staff (and everything else involving personnel) maybe they'd have tried to get Steven Moffat to write Loki. Imagine how brilliant that would've been. But I guess this explains why Feige went after Rick and Morty writers, which is essentially a Doctor Who cartoon.

Loki is available on Disney+.

Real Loki Goodness

This season of Loki is just plain good. Episode three aired last night and it was as fun as the first two. It has dark moments and real character conflict but mostly it's pure candy. It has no heavy handed political messaging, no awkward, corporate mandated, representation zombies. It's just the thrill of a chase through time.

They turned the steampunk up to twenty last night as Mobius and Loki encountered Victor Timely, a Kang, or "He Who Remains", variant in 19th century Chicago at the World's Fair.

While Loki and Mobius want Timely to help them save the whole universe, Sylvie's trying to kill him and Renslayer and Miss Minutes want to nurture him into a powerful ally. Eric Martin, the head writer, does a much better job than Michael Waldron last season of keeping all these character motives in mind and allowing them to play off each other organically.

I loved the scene where Miss Minutes confesses her love for Kang/Timely. I wonder if we're going to see Tara Strong, Miss Minutes' voice actress, in a live action role. Strong is a prolific voice actress, she's had major roles in different series and movies for decades (various Batman series, Futurama, and more). It would be kind of interesting to see her ceremoniously given corporeal form. Anyway, the scene between her and Victor had the nice feeling of being totally off the rails.

That was the great thing about the old Hollywood serials that George Lucas was inspired by, that feeling that the action was just spooling out without any agenda but its own internal logic and character motives. That was why Clone Wars was a great series before Disney bought Star Wars. But now I'm rambling off on a branched topic . . .

Loki is available on Disney+. Do watch it. I know you've been burnt, we all have, but trust me, the magic is back.

The Loki Party Keeps Going

Loki season two, episode two: what a pleasant evening of television. Sure, it has its flaws but I was completely absorbed in the story. After a long day's work, I made dinner and sat in front of the computer and was transported to the world of the TVA and Loki and Mobius. There are many ways movies or TV shows can be great, and this is certainly one of them.

I really feel like the makers of the show this season looked at season one, saw what was working and what wasn't, and correctly adjusted the recipe for season two. Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson and their chemistry were the best parts of season one and now we're getting a whole lot of the two playing off each other. It was lame Loki couldn't be villainous or mischievous in season one, and here we got him being mischievous and kind of villainous.

He's actually using his powers, which were never firmly established in the films. I don't know how well delineated they are in the comics. But as a Norse god, he's got to have something. And here he's got that something and swagger, too.

Hiddleston is a delight to watch, especially when he was tormenting the captive Brad. Those expressive eyebrows of his are dynamite. And Owen Wilson continues to be the perfect foil or complement.

The best way I can tell the show's working is that its flaws absolutely don't matter to me. Sylvie instantly pulling info from Brad's brain when Loki had to go through interrogating him? The show doesn't need to handwave it, I'll do it for the show. I'm sure there's an explanation, mumble mumble, Dark Side. Whatever. I'm even liking Sylvie this season and how she just wants to hide from her destiny, working at McDonalds in the '80s. It kind of says something about nostalgia, doesn't it?

Loki is available on Disney+.

On Loki Time

Hooray, a Disney+ show that doesn't suck. Not so far anyway. The first episode of Loki season 2 is not only better than the recent Marvel and Star Wars content, it's better than Loki season 1.

Hitting the ground running, the premiere episode starts with the previous finale's multiversal peril cliffhanger and immediately starts piling on time travel and bureaucratic shenanigans.

Owen Wilson proves once again he's a perfect calm foil for this kind of plot and his chemistry with Tom Hiddleston continues to be very charming.

This episode adds Ke Huy Quan to the cast as a maintenance guy at the Time Variance Authority and he rounds out the entertaining trio with an unflappable demeanour of casual urgency.

As in the last season, I dislike how Loki isn't especially Loki-ish. You could really swap him out for any generic guy in this episode, there's nothing about what he's doing that makes him the god of mischief. But from what I've heard about the writing in the rest of this season, there was a deliberate effort to make him more of an anti-hero this time. Hopefully they managed to pull it off.

Loki is available on Disney+.

Omnipotent Again

Loki season one concluded last night with an episode written by showrunner Michael Waldron and Eric Martin. The writing's not perfect but it's a cut well above the four episodes between the first (also written by Waldron) and this. In fact, most of the problems with the finale are attributable to baggage from those middle episodes. But not so much that I couldn't enjoy the terrific looking locations and what turned out to be a pretty good finale villain.

Everyone who predicted it would be Kang the Conqueror gets a gold star. Thank goodness the writers aren't of the new petulant breed who can't abide being predicted. Kang is played by Jonathan Majors from Lovecraft Country, a show I have no interest in because I love Lovecraft and find fiction and commentary that focus on his racism to be boorish and imaginatively dead. But Majors does a good job basically playing a version of Star Trek: TNG's Q, one of those wacky, theatrical, over-the-top, all powerful types, which seems a pretty credible take on omnipotence.

Even better than Kang, though, is his far out purple space mansion.

Fucking fabulous, man.

There's a little subplot business as Owen Wilson confronts Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), which felt superfluous and I'd still be arguing Mobius' survival was pointless except I liked the moment where he doesn't recognise Loki (Tom Hiddleston) at the end of the episode.

For most of the episode, Loki is pretty passive and Sylvie seems to be in charge. Which is odd for a guy who'd just been trying to take over the universe. It's been odd for the whole series, though. The relationship between him and Sylvie is meant to be point at which the big dramatic moment pivots as Loki is torn between his desire to avert disaster and his love for Sylvie. That love was never really credibly established, though.

The basic argument of the episode, and the series as a whole, seems to be about order versus chaos. Some have said Marvel has been influenced by Jordan Peterson, much as Benioff and Weiss clearly were with the final season of Game of Thrones, but order and chaos have been a recurring theme in the MCU since the first Avengers movie when Joss Whedon imported his long preoccupation with the topic--it was the centrepiece of the penultimate season of Angel. The Loki season finale seems to come down on the side of order as it looks like Sylvie's decision to tear down the status quo, damn the consequences, has indeed led to a worse situation. But to know for sure, I guess we'll need to shell out cash for the new Ant-Man and Doctor Strange movies. Good old capitalism.

Loki is available on Disney+.

Loki's Location

A strangely dull Loki last night considering all that happened in it. Maybe I was too tired from a busy day, I don't know. It came from writer Eric Martin whose previous most prominent credit was writing a Lifetime movie called The Other Mother. Really, Disney? This is the best you can do? Martin also worked as an assistant on Rick and Morty so, along with showrunner Michael Waldron, who wrote an episode of Rick and Morty, it seems someone at Disney, maybe Kevin Feige, felt the MCU needed to move to a tone somewhat akin to that cartoon series. I haven't seen Rick and Morty but I feel like the odd plot problems on Loki do seem like they come from people trying to write a series drama who are too used to working entirely with cartoon logic.

I found myself darkly amused, contemplating the possibility that the deaths of Owen Wilson's and Tom Hiddleston's characters last night were permanent. The show did a good job setting them up, establishing a relationship between them, and allowing chemistry to accrue between the actors. So there is at least some emotional weight when simple-hearted Mobius feels betrayed, though it's more and more frustrating that he and everyone else seems to be cleverer than Hiddleston's Loki. Killing him off now, though, would be sort of like killing off Scully in season one of The X-Files. The possibility of one or both of these characters really being dead would out-boner the boner joke from WandaVision. Hiddleston's Loki appearing in the post credits sequence would seem to suggest the writers aren't quite going that far. Probably.

I do like the idea of a romance between Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) and the weird narcissism of it. Though it's still not as weird as actual Norse mythology, of course.

This one episode sets up drama, and escalates to a showdown, between Sylvie and Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). I felt like I was supposed to be more interested in it than I was. Even less satisfying was the sudden importance of Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku). When Sylvie shows her her true past she says, "I looked happy," as though she were seeing her memories in third person. This is a clear example of Eric Martin thinking like a cartoon writer, failing to get into the head of a character. She should have said, "I was happy."

I liked the design of the Time Keepers, being pretty close to their appearance in the comics, and the effect on their voices. Their deaths were another thing that felt way too premature.

A lot of this show reminds me of arguments I used to have with kids in Junior High School when my friends and I used to create our own fictional beings. One of us would create one all powerful being and then another kid would say, "My all powerful being is even more powerful." Then another kid would say, "My guy can eat planets!" and another kid would, "My guy can eat the universe!" I think of this as the moment I was born as a fiction writer, the moment when I realised that power in itself is really, really boring.

Loki is available on Disney+.

Another Slice of Glorious Purpose

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+.

The Mischievous Time Guardian

Last night's new Loki, the second episode, didn't have any big moments as great as the first episode but the writing was more consistent in quality. It comes from first time writer Elissa Karasik whose previous credits include working as an assistant on Bones and Backstrom and appearing as an actress in a short film called First Handjob. I continue to be mystified by Disney's hiring process.

Karasik's episode takes advantage of the format of a television series and allows the characters to settle into longer, quieter scenes and get to know each other. It's also a procedural with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) being detectives, spitballing ideas and doing research.

The show definitely has a very strong Doctor Who vibe to it, particularly bearing a strong resemblance to the Eleventh Doctor's first couple of seasons. The idea of the Variant Loki hiding near apocalypses isn't as satisfyingly complex as the kinds of things Stephen Moffat could dream up but it was still pretty fun watching Loki goof off in Pompeii.

I don't quite understand why the TVA don't disguise themselves when visiting different eras. Overall, they seem pretty clumsy and easily outwitted and it seems less and less credible they've never betrayed their presence before. But the chemistry between Hiddleston and Wilson is so good I'd be willing to forgive worse crimes than that.

I don't have any strong feelings about the Loki Variant being female. Since Loki is capable of changing sex at will, I'm not sure it even really means anything at all. Actress Sophia Di Martino has a long resume but I've never seen her in anything before. It'll be interesting to see her play off Hiddleston. I hope she's not going to be the replacement Loki in the next MCU Phase if only because it seems kind of silly to have this happen to every single Phase One character.

Loki is available on Disney+.

Another Layer of All Powerful

Last night brought the best premiere of an MCU series on Disney+ and the lion's share of the credit goes to Tom Hiddleston. The writing and direction on Loki aren't really bad but far from perfect. Michael Waldron is head writer on a series for the first time in a career in which his biggest previous credit was one episode of Rick and Morty. Now not only is he in charge of this show he's written the screenplay for the upcoming Doctor Strange movie and he's working on Kevin Feige's Star Wars movie. The people at Disney, for whatever mysterious reasons, really seem to like this guy.

I loved last night's premiere of Loki but the writing was decidedly uneven. Loki (Hiddlestone) is apprehended by the Time Variance Authority, which seems to be a sort of all powerful DMV presiding over the multiverse. Loki has gone from a frustrated attempt at becoming supreme god of the Earth and Asgard to being a regular schlub in a jumpsuit under the thumb of bored, slightly braindead office workers. Somehow, the God of Mischief has never heard of the TVA. It would have been nice if Waldron had given him some knowledge of it, especially since we see the TVA agents are pretty fallible. Considering they preside over all space and time, it seems like they should have left some evidence of their presence here and there in some way or another.

Loki is stripped of his clothes and forced along his path by cattle prods but it's only when he's finally before the judge (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) does it occur to him to try to use his powers. All of this does feel like it comes from someone more accustomed to writing cartoons than something that's supposed to be at least halfway dramatic--the focus is more on getting gags than on making sense.

Things improve considerably, though, when Loki sits down with Mobius, a TVA agent played by Owen Wilson. The two have enough acting chops between them to make the show captivating but Waldron's writing starts to get more interesting as he sets up the show's themes of free will and predestination. Loki himself had already been talking about his "glorious purpose", which sounds nice and all, until you consider it might mean he's stuck in the role of villain. Will the TVA be his chance to break out of this path the universe has written for him?

This is a very old story, one that goes at least as far back as 1667 and Milton's Paradise Lost in which Satan said of God's plan for him:

If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil

This gave rise to the whole archetype of the Satanic Hero which saw a new manifestation in the late '60s and '70s with stories about traditionally villainous characters from a new, more complicated perspective. There's always going to be plenty to mine from this premise because any of us who've contemplated ourselves and the universe have always had some anxiety about our own worth and ability to do anything meaningful with our lives.

Hiddleston draws us in with a performance filled with bitterness yet still with a kind of vulnerable agony. One is reminded that his character in Kenneth Branagh's Thor was originally meant to be a version of Edmund from King Lear. There's a lot of potential here and I'm looking forward to next week.

Loki is available on Disney+.