So after an episode that everybody unanimously dragged for being filler, episode 4 gave us a WHOLE lotta shit. It was like the writers knew folk were gonna be pissed that episode 3 didn’t do enough (I disagree) and then had to throw in the kitchen sink for the next episode. But we also have to remember that this show has to move pretty licketty-split because it’s only 6 episodes long. But this also keeps in tone with the urgency of the setup of the show, of fixing time, quickly. Pruning folk, quickly. And catching variants, quickly.
Episode 3 blew the lid off of two things. One was that the Loki variant goes by Sylvie and had a whole different life to Loki. The second was that everybody in the TVA is a variant. I’m not counting the ark blowing up as anything, because as soon as that shit happened, I knew that episode 4 was gonna have the TVA turn up and rescue them from being killed right at the start - which is exactly what happened. But not before we got a bit of backstory on Sylvie.
It turns out that Sylvie was bagged by the TVA as a child, but was never told why. We see her go through the same Variant processing that we saw Loki go through in episode 1, but it’s far less comedic. When Loki went through what seemed like a circus, it was funny. But watching a young Sylvie (who was still Loki at that point) go through it grounds the reality of how awful the whole ordeal is, especially for somebody who has no idea why they are even there and going through it in the first place. And after the mentions of ‘Time moves differently in the TVA’ and that everybody that works there is a variant, seeing the processing of Sylvie is a cool way to also show this. We see the same guy who asked Loki to sign a document of everything he’d ever said, and the same guy at the robot detector neither of whom have aged.
Something that I’d mentioned in my review, discussion, whatever-the-fuck of episode 2 was that the Hunters and Minutemen at points feel like reflections of enforcement in the US. The Hunters and Minutemen see Variants the same way that police see Black people, and ICE see non-white immigrants. And watching them snatch a girl and manhandle her was another window into this; made far worse by the fact that we watch them snatch a girl who was doing nothing wrong, yet is apprehended for the supposed breaking of a law.However, in a cool twist, Sylvie’s backstory is not only hers, but also part of Gugu Renslayer’s; who we discover was the Hunter who grabbed Sylvie from her own timeline. I wonder why there wasn’t more of a reaction to Sylvie and Gugu Renslayer meeting face-to-face in episode 3. But, whatever.
The flashback is kinda genius, because it’s not just a backstory for Sylvie, but partially for Gugu Renslayer too - as we see that she and Sylvie have a history and that their beef is personal.
We always got a sense that something was a bit off with Gugu Renslayer. Episode 4 confirms many suspicions, whilst still leaving us with a whole lotta questions. Gugu Renslayer had to have been a Variant at some point, but she clearly has a level of awareness of what’s going on that others in the TVA do not have. When Hunter C-20 spilled the tea that she and everybody in the TVA is a Variant, Gugu Renslayer had that bitch pruned. But how much awareness remains to be seen, because we still at this point are unsure as to whether she knows the Time Keepers are a jig or not.Oh yeah. The Time Keepers are fake. We been knew from the start. But episode 1 opened with a glimpse of Gugu Renslayer meeting them that had me like ‘Oh wait...so they’are actually-’. Until the episode pulled a Wizard of Oz and The Last Jedi mashup at the end, when one of the Time Keepers gets Snoked and then the curtain is pulled back, revealing that the Time Keepers were just a bunch of robots. Which begs the question, why even bother being that extra in the first place? And also, how!?
After episode 3’s air of ‘Hmm...maybe Loki and Sylvie will fall in love with each other’, their self love is confirmed in episode 4. But the relationship that has me on the edge of my seat is that between Loki and Mobius. From the start the two of them have had a love / hate relationship. And despite getting off to a shitty start, we did see a bond forming between them, particularly in episode 2, which is what made Loki’s getaway at the end of the episode such a gut punch. You wanted him to stay and show Mobius that he could be trusted, but you also fully understood why he fled after Sylvie, which was ultimately the right thing to do. But, bitch, episode 4 takes us through a JOURNEY with Loki and Mobius. We got a taste in episode 1 of how Mobius’ wit and intellect is a match for Loki, and that he’s never encountered somebody who can get inside of his head the way he can. Mobius knows how to push Loki’s buttons and can read him like a book - something Loki is reminded of when Mobius interrogates him. Mobius wants answers from Loki, and Loki...as he does...lies, but is also truthful on occasion. And the lies Loki tells is to protect Sylvie, not to just be a mischievous asshole.
The whole interrogation is great from a scriptwriting, narrative and cinematography perspective, but is so maddening to watch as somebody rooting for these two characters who are clashing heads when they need to be working together. You want to wring Loki’s neck, because Mobius is asking questions to things that Loki genuinely does not know, just for Loki to lie to save face and make like he has information - proving Mobius’ point that he always lies, which leads to Mobius dismissing Loki’s claims about the TVA being a lie. But you wanna slap Mobius, because you can see that he’s letting his personal feelings about Loki ‘betraying’ him get the better of him; and that as much as he shits on Loki for being a liar, Mobius is spinning lies left, right and centre to get what he wants out of Loki. Mobius’ entire interrogation is becoming personal. He wants to punish Loki for hurting him, not for anything that he’s done to jeopardise the sacred timeline.It’s a heart-breaking scene to watch, because Loki looks so deflated over somebody he thought he could trust not believing him in the instances he is telling the truth, and their inability to see that he’s trying to protect Sylvie AND Mobius himself. But Mobius is so hurt at Loki’s truth not being what he wants to hear, that he’d rather believe that it’s a lie.
Marvel Studios really be loving the whole thing where characters are in denial, huh? First Wanda is like ‘Nope’ and now Mobius is like ‘Nope. LALALALALA!’
Friendships be hard y’all. That is one of the lessons here. And it’s the biggest. Because the one person Mobius thought was his friend, the one person he thought he could trust, has been lying to him the whole time. And the one person Mobius wanted to believe could be his friend, whom he now feels he can’t trust, has not only told him the truth, but been more honest with him than anybody in the TVA. Shit. Loki has never been as honest as he is with Mobius, PERIOD. And Mobius’ betrayal of an old friend to side with a new one, leads to him getting pruned.
Yep. This fucking show ‘killed off’ Mobius.And as much of a bitch as Gugu Renslayer is, you really do get the sense that she truly did care about Mobius and that in that moment. She only ordered Mobius to be pruned because she had no choice. She’s still trash. But there were layers in that moment. Gugu Renslayer couldn’t even watch as a Hunter did the deed and Owen Wilson’s wig fizzled into sparks. But Mobius isn’t the only one who gets their wig fizzled. Loki does too.
One shock pruning wasn’t enough for Marvel Studios, so we got 2 in the space of 20 minutes. Gugu Renslayer prunes Loki at the very end of the episode. But we get a post credits sequence showing us that Loki is still alive. The post credits sequence is great for several reasons. First, we get to see a bunch of other Loki variants of different ages, shapes, races (Black Loki y’all), species (we get Alligator Loki) and sizes; which alongside Sylvie debunks the theory that all Loki variants look the same. But it also confirms something HUGE, which is that pruning isn’t death, as we and folk in the TVA, including Gugu Renslayer had thought. Pruning seems to just transfer the victim to another place in time and space. But the question is where, how and why? And funnily enough I decided to watch Thor: Ragnarok today and noticed that when Thor arrives on that junk planet, you can see portals in the sky which are just transferring junk. Given the way the MCU weaves in even the most nondescript things that had no meaning at the time of their initial creation, I wonder if this is connected and similar to what happens to things and people when they are pruned. I’m probably off. But it’s food for thought.
A question for fans which was lingering following the reveal of the Loki variant going by the name Sylvie is who exactly her character is. Is she Loki or is she Sylvie, who is known in the comics as the character Enchantress. The short answer, is that she’s a mashup of both Lady Loki and Enchantress. Either way, Marvel Studios have changed the entire history of both characters. But it’s a potentially cool and interesting one. And Sylvie going from a Loki variant to Enchantress would be in line with what we’ve seen across the Marvel shows so far. The idea of being able to create your own destiny, be whomever you want to be, and that your past doesn’t dictate your future.Sylvie seems Loki-like as a result of the life that she’s had to live since a child; a life on the run, living on the brink of apocalypses for years on end. But the glimpse into her childhood reveals that maybe her being a Goddess of Mischief wasn’t as simple as her being a Loki who would just go around and be as destructive as the Loki we saw in Thor and Avengers. After all, he did eventually become ‘good’. Maybe Sylvie always was. The show seems to make such a thing of establishing her as Sylvie (Loki is almost like a deadname to her) and mentioning that she enchants, that I strongly believe that she will ultimately go by Sylvie the Enchantress by the end of the show. Especially given that her ability to enchant seems to be the key to unlocking the memories of everybody in the TVA. So we’ll probably see her pull the same stunt that May and Kora pulled on the Chromicoms in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D finale, where Sylvie does some crazy ass mass enchantment broadcast on the whole of the TVA. And she’ll probably get a new outfit. Because we know Marvel Studios loves a formula; and if we go by WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, a Marvel show finale ain’t a finale without a new outfit reveal.
I also want to take a moment to talk about Wunmi Mosaku and how despite barely being in this episode, she acted her fucking ass off. Muh GAWD. Wunmi’s acting was so subtle, but beautiful and powerful. As we have continually seen with Black women in the MCU, Hunter B-15 has layers. She’s a bad bitch, but not at the expense of not feeling and not being able to show emotion.If you really followed the events of the show (like my neurotic ass), you would read from Hunter B-15’s first appearance in the episode that is clearly shaken. Some may read it as though she’s concerned about Hunter C-20 (which the show kinda wants you to believe), but in actuality Hunter B-15 is shaken by what she saw when Sylvie enchanted her in episode 2. I knew from the fucking start. Even in episode 2, the way Hunter B-15 woke up and her reaction when Mobius said ‘Where’s Loki?’ Hunter B-15 was thrown OFF like she saw THANGS. Wunmi plays this so brilliantly, because you can see a dialogue taking place in her face without her actually saying anything. But from a story perspective, seeing how Hunter C-20 reacted to being enchanted versus Hunter B-15 shows their difference in character. Hunter C-20 completely cracked when she came out of her enchantment, which led to her getting pruned. Meanwhile Hunter B-15 kept it together.
I don’t know how any of this shit is gonna end, but Marvel need to bring Wunmi back for a film another season. Suttin’.
4 episodes into this show and I still have no clue where this shit is gonna go. WandaVision has most certainly had me and the entire Internet manage their own theories and expectations. But even with these in back pockets and the back of minds, there are still so many different ways the story could go, which is so thrilling and has me eagerly waiting for Wednesdays.Despite Loki being in production alongside WandaVision, it makes me wonder how much of the script and the shooting of the show was done in reaction to the fan responses from WandaVision. Because whilst most can agree that WandaVision was a homerun for Marvel Studios, it raised very necessary questions of crazy fan expectations as far as theories are concerned vs. baiting that the show itself did which led to these theories in the first place.
The one big theory floating around Loki is that Kang the Conqueror is behind the TVA, which isn’t as unfounded as the Mephisto train most Marvel comics knowing folk were on for WandaVision. We know that Kang the Conqueror will be appearing in the next Ant-Man movie, the actor portraying the character has already long since been cast, and in the comics Kang has a history with one of the characters which is in this show who is already showing herself to be a shady bitch: Gugu Renslayer. And then there is the theory that the TVA and the quantum realm are somehow connected, which isn’t so crazy given that both have the ability to manipulate time, and that the title of the subtitle of the upcoming Ant-Man movie is Quantumania. But still. Even with this, we gotta keep expectations in check. But at least these theories are grounded in something tangible other than just sheer speculation. Although there is still a large amount of room for the show to not touch on any of this in the detail that some of us may expect. Especially with only 2 episodes left, and the formula we’ve seen of the previous shows, where the villain has been present all along. Also, with rumours abound that Loki will be getting a second season, maybe the mystery of who is behind the TVA won't be fully solved at all.
Let’s just see. The coolest thing about Loki thus far, is much like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, I’m just enjoying the ride and here for it.📒 My episode notes
- The lighting in this episode was gorgeous.
- Sylvie needs to stay with the wet hair.
- Run Wunmi her Emmy award.
- Owen Wilson is so fucking good in this show and grey hair suits him.
- That fight scene at the end was not good y’all. It was sloppier than Joe’s.