I have to hand it to this show. Because based on shit I’d read online (with set photos and everything) and YouTube videos speculating, I already knew that this Variant was going to be deemed a variant of Loki and that it’d turn out to be a woman. And yet, the whole build up to that moment was still immensely satisfying, because everything about this show up until this point has been so fucking good. And the biggest focus of this episode for me wasn’t who exactly the variant is and why they’re doing what they’re doing - it was seeing more of Loki and Mobius together. And their interactions together were easily the highlights of this episode, where we got apocalypses, jokes and an opening fight scene to Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero”.
Despite the TVA being a bureaucracy, and having this vibe in the comics of everybody being the same, and there being no real distinctions between the people that work there, episode 2 goes at length to show that everybody in the TVA IS unique in some way. They may all be drones doing the same thing, but they still all have personalities. But we also see that Mobius perhaps isn’t as detached from his work as he should be. He’s incredibly invested in what he does, and what he uncovers; sometimes to a fault, as we see later in this episode. Because of this, it’s going to be really interesting seeing what Mobius’ arc is and where his character ends up by the final episode. Because it’s becoming very clear at this point that the TVA is a shady agency and that it’s hiding secrets that Mobius isn’t aware of. Episode 2 goes to such a length to hammer home how much Mobius loves his job, how much he accepts his life, and believes the TVA is his sole purpose, that there has to be a rug pulled from under him which will change him and his perceptions of all he’s worked for his entire life. Or what he feels has been his entire life. I don’t buy that he was created by the Time-Keepers for a damn second.
In some sense, Mobius’ story is similar to that of Loki. Loki eventually discovers that he wasn’t who he thought he was in the first Thor film, and then sees at the TVA that the life he thought he was destined to have doesn’t come to fruition. I feel that Mobius will eventually discover that he wasn’t serving the purpose that he thought, and then realise that the TVA is a lie. It’s no wonder that the two of them connect and manage to have more patience with each other than they’ve probably ever had with anybody else. Not only do they share high levels of intellect and a knack for looking at things differently, but there are life parallels that they are destined to share. There’s so much talk of things being pre-ordained, that’s it’s almost poetic that Mobius and Loki would end up together. The TVA deemed that Loki’s escape into a branch timeline wasn’t meant to happen under the order of ‘The Time-, but it’s feeling more and more like it actually was. And that the course of events set to happen through the show were actually meant to happen, because there’s no wrong or right way, and there’s nobody writing out time. It’s just that ‘The Time-Keepers’ are selective about what happens in how it serves them.
Loki continues to be Loki and do Loki shit in this episode, but you do start to see a different side to him. He’s still mischievous and self-serving, but there is also a care that he displays for those around him. He genuinely cares what Mobius says, does and thinks of him. When Hunter B-15 goes down, Loki genuinely seems concerned. Again, this mirrors what we see of Mobius. He really does care about Loki. In many ways Mobius represents the fatherly and brotherly camaraderie that Loki didn’t always have with Odin and Thor. Because remember, this Loki hadn’t yet experienced all that had happened in Thor: Ragnarok, where Loki got his admission from Odin, reconciled with Thor and got to play the hero. So it’s cool to see Loki is still at that junction which will determine who he does become, and I’m sure the show will dip into showing us and Loki different versions of who he is and does become in other timelines.
Episode 2 is also a low-key (Loki!? BU-DUM-TSSSCH!) Mobius-centric episode. He gets a lot of screen time with and without Loki, and we get a real sense of his character in relation to Loki, different people in the TVA and his approach when he’s out in the field. Mobius cares. A LOT. And episode 2 goes at length to show that Mobius caring as much as he does isn’t a standard characteristic of the TVA. And we also get nods to Mobius’ infatuation with things from different time periods, specifically the 90s. This episode and last he was chugging on a soda which debuted and was discontinued in the 90s. He reads magazines from the 90s and has an obsession with jet skis. And of all the trinkets from cases in Gugu Renslayer’s office, the one he’s drawn to is a roller skate. There is clearly a connection between Mobius and the 90s as to why he seems so smitten with this era in time.Mobius feels very much like a father figure in this episode. We got hints of it in episode 1 when he spoke to the little girl in the church upon discovering another Minute Man murder scene. But we get it again here. When Loki tries to play games during his first field mission, Mobius berates him how a father would his son, and Loki looks hurt like a child. When he’s out on a field mission in an upcoming apocalypse, he’s concerned about how a Minute-Man is acting like a damn ICE agent amongst people who are already terrified.
Everything about Mobius feels so straight-laced and perfect for the bureaucracy of the TVA, which he respects. But there’s also a side to him which feels unorthodox for the TVA. But regardless, Mobius seems very respected. Even though Gugi Renslayer doesn’t always trust Mobius’ ways of working, she trusts and respects him all the same. And even Loki is developing respect for Mobius, being one of the few people Loki’s come across who can not only read him like a book, but outsmart and outwit him.There is too much setup in this episode for Mobius to not play a key part in things to come. Also, it’s fucking Owen Wilson in the role, who is fantastic by the way. One of his best roles for sure. He’s just a joy to watch and he has a great on-screen chemistry with Tom Hiddleston.
As was the case with episode 1, there is a continual sense of unease about the TVA, and that something isn’t right. Where-as episode 1 had you questioning the TVA based on little things you noticed about their operation and lack of transparency, episode 2 shows the hostility of the TVA through the Minutemen and the Hunters. They come off like Police and ICE agents, and I think that the way they step into timelines with an intent to always be hostile speaks to the nature of the TVA as a whole. But during these times, and with me being Black, I can’t help but draw parallels between the bureaucracy of the TVA and the sometimes excessive force of the TVA Minutemen and the Police. In the scene where there’s a mission briefing and Loki has on his TVA jacket, Hunter B-15 gets sick of Loki interjecting and asks him to do a twirl in his new TVA jacket, which results in snickers from the Minutemen at the sight of ‘VARIANT’ on the back. To which Hunter B-15 says ‘I don’t want anybody out there to forget what you are’ and refers to Loki as a cosmic mistake. Which again, Police. Black people. And I feel that the show knows exactly what it’s doing by having a Black woman as a high ranking Hunter say this, and also casting a Black woman as a judge.
We also finally meet the variant, who appears to be a female version of Loki. But I do wonder what her actual deal is, because I don’t think it will be as simple as her just being a female Loki. There will definitely be a twist abound about her true identity, and why as a Loki variant she doesn’t look like a literal female version of Loki as we know him. After all, when we saw Mobius showing some of the variant Loki’s he’s come across, they all looked like (as the name implies) variant versions of Loki. Where-as the woman we meet at the end of the episode looks like a completely different person, and I believe that she genuinely is based on her power set alone. I’m sure that there will be an explanation as to why she’s wearing a Loki-ish outfit. Die hard Lady Loki fans are disappointed that she wasn’t revealed to have the iconic Lady Loki outfit with the Mary J. Blige fur coat and the dark long hair. But again, I’m sure we’ll get a reason as to why she isn’t in this look - for no other reason than Marvel being comic accurate with looks of main characters for phase 4 thus far. With WandaVision we got a great look for Wanda which wasn’t fully comic accurate, but leaned heavily into her comic look. Shit. I actually prefer the MCU Scarlet Witch outfit to her red unitard and pink tights from the comics. We got a 100% comic accurate as FUCK outfit for Sam Wilson’s Captain America. So I’m sure that IF there is a Lady Loki crossover or a reference, that we will get the iconic look. And if the character turns out to actually be Enchantress, which is also highly speculated, we'll get that look if the show heads in that direction too. Marvel have done too much good work in WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier for me to worry who this character may or not be. Yes. Even though the Ralph Bohner reveal was some garbage, I can’t see Loki pulling off anything quite as heinous and damaging as that. Honestly, that shit’s gonna follow WandaVision around FO’EVER.
One thing that is surprising me about this Loki show is how much it truly is playing with time and the idea of the multiverse. I figured that Marvel Studios wouldn’t ever touch this shit, even after Endgame - where the rules of time travel and how it works were wonky and made no sense to me. Loki goes to some lengths and uses devices to try and further explain how time branching works, but I’m still not completely clear on it, and I think that this is partially intentional. Especially as the explanation of how it works thus far has been solely from the TVA, whose version of how time works, how a multiverse is bad and ‘the sacred timeline’ is the way, all feels like a lie. The sacred timeline is only sacred to ‘The Time-Keepers’. And even the premise of this is shady. Because from the start I was like ‘But how is there just ONE timeline!?’. And in light of what is rumoured to be taking place in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Loki may just be the setup for both MCU Spider-Man 3 and Doctor Strange 2 that many of us never saw coming. We were so fixated on WandaVision potentially blowing the multiverse wide open that we didn’t think for a second that Loki, a show we already knew was fucking with time, would be the one that would do it. But here we are. And then there’s Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, which features Kang the Conqueror as the main villain, who has a history in the comics of fucking with time, is a nexus being and has a history with Gugu Renslayer. And it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some link between the quantum realm and the TVA. After all, time moves differently in the TVA, just as it does in the quantum realm. And harnessing the power of the quantum realm is how the Avengers were able to time travel and how Paul Rudd doesn’t age. So Loki could potentially branch into 3 MCU movies - which is exciting and new, as neither WandaVision of The Falcon & The WInter Soldier had these big ol’ branches into movies that we thought they would.
Episode 2 ends with Maybe Lady Loki fucking up the sacred timeline beyond belief. So there’s gonna be a whole lotta mess coming in episode 3 and beyond, and I’m here for every piece of it. But I also don’t think that Maybe Lady Loki is the bad guy that the show wants us to think. She clearly knows something about the TVA and these ‘Time-Keepers’ that we don’t, and I think we’re going to end up realising that what she did was necessary and for an ultimately good purpose. But as was the case with Karli in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and also Wanda in WandaVision - it’s going to be a case of ‘I get why she did it, but don’t agree with how’. We can’t just gloss over that Maybe Lady Loki slaughtered a whole bunch of innocent people. If there’s one thing Marvel Studios aren’t good at it’s having characters face repercussions for their actions. So I am keen to see if Loki addresses what were glaring issues with the characters of Karli and Wanda; two of the most egregious things about The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and WandaVision.
And speaking of terrible bitches, there’s Gugu Renslayer. She seemed shifty in episode 1, but she’s definitely hiding something in episode 2, and her actions are starting to make the legitimacy of both the TVA and the ‘Time-Keepers’ seen all the more questionable. It’s notable that in her meeting with Mobius she deflects from his prying of the Time-Keepers and uses them as a tool to instil fear in Mobius that he needs to get the job done. The Time-Keepers reveal is the one I am really looking forward to, because it has to be something huge. Whoever is behind the TVA is clearly powerful to have ever been able to create it and have such immense access to time. But why tho?
As was the case with episode 1, the production design in this show is amazing. WandaVision delivered on both of these in spades, and now here comes Loki, snatching Wanda and leaving that bitch bald-headed like Vision. And the score!? BITCH. It’s like The Twilight Zone meets Blade Runner and my pussy tingles at some of the musical pieces in this show. Natalie Holt. You’re doing amazing sweetie.WandaVision caught flack for starting off too slow, as did The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. But Loki in 2 episodes has managed to set up things which could have such huge implications not just for the show but the MCU at large. I can’t even begin to think about where the hell this show is going to go in the few episodes that are left and how it’s all going to end. The TVA is going to get exposed for sure, but what will its setup be when this show wraps? Will it be run by Loki? Will it be run by Mobius? Will the whole thing just be time nuked?
Bitch. I’mma see you next Wednesday.