Loki
Year: 2021
Created by: Michael Waldron
Starring: Sophia Di Martino, Tom Hiddleston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw & Owen Wilson
Episodes: 6
BBFC: 12
Published: 15/07/21
Created by: Michael Waldron
Starring: Sophia Di Martino, Tom Hiddleston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw & Owen Wilson
Episodes: 6
BBFC: 12
Published: 15/07/21
After making his debut in 2011’s Thor, Loki has become one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His unpredictability, wit, and ruthlessness has made him the series most memorable villain, alongside Thanos, as well as one of the few characters who has had a true character arc, alongside Captain America and Iron Man.
So, it seemed for a while in Avengers Endgame as though we had seen the last of Loki, considering he was killed in the opening scene, but what with Endgame’s time travel shenanigans he cropped up later on, as an earlier version of himself, only to steal the Tesseract and escape the Avengers. What happened to Loki next was one of the biggest questions on everyone’s minds when walking out of Endgame, and now Disney+ has the answer for us.
Following the events of 2012’s Avengers Assemble, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is captured by the Avengers and taken into custody. Following a mishap with Tony Stark and Scott Lang from the future, Loki uses the Tesseract to teleport himself away and disrupting the flow of time in the process.
It isn’t long before Loki is arrested by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) for breaching the laws of time and is taken before Judge Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to be sentenced for his crime. His trial is interrupted by Mobius (Owen Wilson) who requests Loki’s assistance in hunting another ‘variant’ breaching the natural flow of time. Sensing an opportunity to escape his capture, Loki works with Mobius to track down this variant, and plots a way to take down the TVA by killing the people who run it, the Time-Keepers.
So, it seemed for a while in Avengers Endgame as though we had seen the last of Loki, considering he was killed in the opening scene, but what with Endgame’s time travel shenanigans he cropped up later on, as an earlier version of himself, only to steal the Tesseract and escape the Avengers. What happened to Loki next was one of the biggest questions on everyone’s minds when walking out of Endgame, and now Disney+ has the answer for us.
Following the events of 2012’s Avengers Assemble, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is captured by the Avengers and taken into custody. Following a mishap with Tony Stark and Scott Lang from the future, Loki uses the Tesseract to teleport himself away and disrupting the flow of time in the process.
It isn’t long before Loki is arrested by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) for breaching the laws of time and is taken before Judge Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to be sentenced for his crime. His trial is interrupted by Mobius (Owen Wilson) who requests Loki’s assistance in hunting another ‘variant’ breaching the natural flow of time. Sensing an opportunity to escape his capture, Loki works with Mobius to track down this variant, and plots a way to take down the TVA by killing the people who run it, the Time-Keepers.
It’s kind of hard to talk about Loki’s story much more without spoiling it, so if you don’t want spoilers then my general opinion of the show is that I found it kind of underwhelming, needlessly complex, and generally forgettable. For me personally, it was the weakest Disney+ MCU series yet, and I can only hope that the inevitable Season 2 goes a long way into making the show better. It’s a really interesting concept, and some of the things introduced that will undoubtably bleed into other MCU content is intriguing, but I feel as though the show could have done it better.
From this point on, no hold barred on spoilers, and I’ll be able to explain why I feel this way about the show.
First up there’s Hiddleston’s performance as Loki. I feel it was a massive mistake to take Hiddleston back to the Loki he was in Avengers Assemble after all the work that went into his development in the mainline MCU films over the past decade. I found it hard to get on board with the character at first because he is just so juvenile and self-obsessed. I’d argue Loki only became a truly interesting character in Thor: The Dark World, following the events of Avengers Assemble, so taking the character back before that moment was jarring for me. Then, to add insult to injury, he goes through most of that character development again, but just in a different way. Rather than bonding with Thor and going through the same character development but from different ends of the spectrum, Loki now does it with himself…sort of. Hiddleston in this series, I feel, didn’t give the same energy to the character he did in the films, he kind of just coasted through it. It felt lazy, or as though he stopped caring. I don’t blame him considering all the work he did with the character over the last ten years for it all to be wiped clean to start from scratch.
From this point on, no hold barred on spoilers, and I’ll be able to explain why I feel this way about the show.
First up there’s Hiddleston’s performance as Loki. I feel it was a massive mistake to take Hiddleston back to the Loki he was in Avengers Assemble after all the work that went into his development in the mainline MCU films over the past decade. I found it hard to get on board with the character at first because he is just so juvenile and self-obsessed. I’d argue Loki only became a truly interesting character in Thor: The Dark World, following the events of Avengers Assemble, so taking the character back before that moment was jarring for me. Then, to add insult to injury, he goes through most of that character development again, but just in a different way. Rather than bonding with Thor and going through the same character development but from different ends of the spectrum, Loki now does it with himself…sort of. Hiddleston in this series, I feel, didn’t give the same energy to the character he did in the films, he kind of just coasted through it. It felt lazy, or as though he stopped caring. I don’t blame him considering all the work he did with the character over the last ten years for it all to be wiped clean to start from scratch.
Then comes Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), or Loki but from another universe, the variant that Loki must help find. She represents a Loki that has experienced different things and as a result has a slightly different perspective on life. Where Hiddleston’s Loki wants power, Sylvie wants revenge. She doesn’t know how to trust anyone, and he is completely untrustworthy.
It’s an interesting power dynamic the two share and the scenes where they bond with each other are the best in the entire show. Episode 3 in particular which sees the two characters stranded on a world on the brink of annihilation is a series highlight as almost the entire episode is dedicated to them leaning about each other, and how to work together to achieve the same goal.
Sylvie isn’t the only Loki variant in the show, with Episode 5 introducing dozens of Loki’s, each with slightly different experiences. This whole concept is great and the show’s strongest component. But it’s not used enough.
What really annoyed me about Loki is just how boring the storyline concerning the TVA is. It should be an engaging mystery you want to find out more about. But the characters of Renslayer and Mobius I found to be very shallow and difficult to engage with. Add to this that the whole concept of what the TVA does, and what the Time-Keepers are, and why this is necessary to keep the multiverse in harmony, is not communicated in a way that is particularly viewer friendly. I ended up with more questions than answers most of the time, and maybe I’m just being pedantic and looking for problems with the concept, but to me I’m just as lost on this Time Agency thing after finishing the show than I was when I started it.
I expect most of my questions will be addressed in the second season of the show, considering how this season ended, but not explaining how something works just so you can long it out isn’t something I’m willing to just overlook.
Whilst The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was underwhelming because it didn’t do enough with the premise it was basing itself on, Loki has the problem of being underwhelming because it tried to do too much and not execute it skilfully enough. The concept was far too large for a six-episode series, and whilst there is going to be a second season, that’s not an excuse for the first season not adequately explaining the mechanics involved in the plot. It was also extremely disappointing seeing Hiddleston practically phone it in as Loki, and it has me wondering whether he ever wanted to return to the character following his death at the start of Endgame but has been forced to because of contractual agreements.
Whilst I hold out hope that Loki will be a great series once more episodes are released, as it stands, Loki is something I wouldn’t say you need to rush to watch.
It’s an interesting power dynamic the two share and the scenes where they bond with each other are the best in the entire show. Episode 3 in particular which sees the two characters stranded on a world on the brink of annihilation is a series highlight as almost the entire episode is dedicated to them leaning about each other, and how to work together to achieve the same goal.
Sylvie isn’t the only Loki variant in the show, with Episode 5 introducing dozens of Loki’s, each with slightly different experiences. This whole concept is great and the show’s strongest component. But it’s not used enough.
What really annoyed me about Loki is just how boring the storyline concerning the TVA is. It should be an engaging mystery you want to find out more about. But the characters of Renslayer and Mobius I found to be very shallow and difficult to engage with. Add to this that the whole concept of what the TVA does, and what the Time-Keepers are, and why this is necessary to keep the multiverse in harmony, is not communicated in a way that is particularly viewer friendly. I ended up with more questions than answers most of the time, and maybe I’m just being pedantic and looking for problems with the concept, but to me I’m just as lost on this Time Agency thing after finishing the show than I was when I started it.
I expect most of my questions will be addressed in the second season of the show, considering how this season ended, but not explaining how something works just so you can long it out isn’t something I’m willing to just overlook.
Whilst The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was underwhelming because it didn’t do enough with the premise it was basing itself on, Loki has the problem of being underwhelming because it tried to do too much and not execute it skilfully enough. The concept was far too large for a six-episode series, and whilst there is going to be a second season, that’s not an excuse for the first season not adequately explaining the mechanics involved in the plot. It was also extremely disappointing seeing Hiddleston practically phone it in as Loki, and it has me wondering whether he ever wanted to return to the character following his death at the start of Endgame but has been forced to because of contractual agreements.
Whilst I hold out hope that Loki will be a great series once more episodes are released, as it stands, Loki is something I wouldn’t say you need to rush to watch.