In my humble opinion, Loki had a slow start. Given the heavy nature of the TVA and concepts of divergent timelines, it relied heavily on expositional scenes in which one character has to explain things to another. As a result, I began to lose some interest, but being that the series is only six episodes long, decided to stick with it. And as we dive into episode four this week, I’m glad I did, because this week marked a turning point in the series in which it became very interesting.
Keep in mind, there are tons of spoilers going forward, so you’ll probably want to watch the episode before continuing.
The latest episode of Loki, titled “The Nexus Event,” opens on Asgard. Inside the palace, a young girl plays with her toys. She’s minding her own business when a Timedoor opens behind her and Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) appears in full Minuteman garb. She arrests the girl and takes her through processing at the TVA. Just before going in front of the judge, the girl steals Ravonna’s TemPad and disappears, leaving the TVA behind her. We understand from the situation that this girl is Sylvie, and this is her origin story.
Meanwhile, in the present, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) are still trapped on Lamentis, with the destruction of the ark leaving them with no other recourse off the doomed moon. All of the resources of the TVA are used to look for them, and Mobius (Owen Wilson) wants Ravonna’s permission to question Hunter C-20 (Sasha Lane) about what she experienced in the Roxxcart from Episode Two. Ravonna reveals that C-20 is dead, that the damage Sylvie did to her was too extensive.
On Lamentis, Sylvie opens up to Loki, explaining the circumstances of her life we witnessed in the opening scene and her struggle to survive. This honesty forms a bond between the pair, which creates a nexus event that alerts the TVA to their whereabouts. Mobius sends two Timedoors down to Lamentis just as the first asteroids begin to destroy everything.
Loki and Sylvie are arrested by the Hunters and detained separately. Mobius questions Loki on his plans with Sylvie, revealing to Loki that he was hurt by Loki’s betrayal. As punishment, Mobius sends Loki to a time warp, forcing him to relive a belittling experience. Just before Loki is banished, however, he warns Mobius that he’s being lied to by the TVA.
The scene involving Loki’s punishment is a fun one as it features Sif, played by the wonderful Jaimie Alexander, whom we haven’t seen since Thor: The Dark World (or the “Who You Really Are” episode of Agents of SHIELD, if you’re counting that). Loki relives a moment where Sif abuses and belittles him, saying that he’s destined to be alone because he’s a weak man. Just as psychology advises, if someone hears something enough times, they begin to believe it, and after numerous encounters with Sif, Loki’s arrogance begins to falter.
In the other holding cell, Sylvie gets a visit from Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku), who demands answers from the Variant. She takes them someplace private, back to the Roxxcart nexus event just before it’s destroyed. B-15 thinks Sylvie messed with her brain when she enchanted her (again, back in Episode Two), but Sylvie explains that those memories were already in B-15’s brain; she just dug them up. B-15 wants Sylvie to show her more, which Sylvie obliges.
Loki’s words have gotten to Mobius, and after a conversation with Ravonna about the Time Keepers, where she closes the case, he switches his TemPad for hers. Using the TemPad, she discovers a video of C-20’s debriefing. She’s lucid in what she’s saying, which contradicts Ravonna’s claim that Sylvie’s enchantment killed her. With this knowledge, Mobius pulls Loki from the time warp, telling him that the Nexus Event he and Sylvie created could destroy the TVA. They agree to work together to find the truth but are soon confronted by Ravonna and a group of Minutemen. Mobius surrenders the TemPad and, knowing that he’s trapped, reveals to her that he knows he’s actually a Variant and not a construct of the Time Keepers. Ravonna orders Mobius to be “pruned,” and one of the Hunters obeys.
Visibly distressed by the “death” of his friend, Loki is escorted to the elevators that lead to the Time Keepers. He offers some resistance, but not much. Ravonna, meanwhile, collects Sylvie from the other holding cell and takes them both to see the Time Keepers. While on the elevator, Sylvie asks Ravonna what the Nexus Event was that lead to Sylvie’s arrest. Ravonna heartlessly tells her she doesn’t know.
The three meet the Time Keepers, a trio of oversized beings planted in large chairs in a dark, smokey room (and one of them, apparently, takes mustache trimming tips from the Lorax). The Time Keepers, unintimidated by Sylvie and Loki’s threats, order the pair deleted but before the order can be carried out, Hunter B-15 arrives and frees them from their restrictive collars. B-15 is quickly overpowered, leaving just Loki and Sylvie to fend for themselves. Sylvie is intent on defeating Ravonna and avenging her arrest, which she does fairly easily.
The Hunters dispatched, the Time Keepers offer to bargain with Sylvie, but she’s having none of it. She throws a blade at the Time Keepers, lopping off one of their heads. It rolls into the middle of the room revealing that the creature is nothing more than a robot, which was a twist that I greatly enjoyed as it validated my prediction from the first week! No eating crow for me!
Anyway, Loki and Sylvie now understand that the deception runs deeper than they realized. Remembering what Mobius said about the Nexus Event, Loki offers Sylvie his help in finding the secrets of the TVA. He’s about to confess his feelings for her as well when he is suddenly pruned from the timeline by Ravonna. Sylvie again overpowers her but instead of destroying Ravonna, Sylvie wants to use her to get answers.
But wait! That’s not the last of Loki! Like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, this episode has a brief post-credits scene. In it, Loki wakes up in some foreign world. He asks himself out loud if he’s in Hell if he is dead. He is surprised when a voice responds, “Not yet, but you will be unless you come with us.” Loki rises to find a trio of Variants of himself before him.
There’s a lot to unpack in this episode, most notably the three additional Loki Variants in the post-credits scene. At a quick glance, those Lokis include Kid Loki, a character taken straight from the comic books. Kid Loki was created by Matt Fraction and was a reincarnation of the original Loki after the destruction of Asgard in the Dark Reign storyline. Also present is an older Loki in a bright green and yellow costume, whom I assume is classic comic book Loki, back from the Stan Lee days when Thor constantly said “verily” and “forsooth.” The last Loki is a bit of an enigma to me, but IMDB has him listed as Boastful Loki. He seems to have no counterpart in the 616 universe, so we’ll have to wait a week to find out what his story is.
Also, where did Loki wind up? He looks like he’s in a city somewhere, and based on how the building on the right looks like Stark Tower, I assume he’s in New York. But the buildings are all mostly destroyed and overgrown with plant life, so what happened? Is this one of the abandoned timelines that was “fixed” by the TVA, left to rot and used as a prison for all the Variants who were pruned? That would be a cool concept, at the very least.
The audience is also left wondering what Loki was about to say to Sylvie before he was pruned. Based on the moment they shared on Lamentis and Loki’s fear of being alone, it’s easy to assume he was about to confess his love for her. Which, in a way, makes sense. Much of Loki has been spent discussing Loki’s narcissism, and who better for a narcissist to fall in love with than some version of themselves? It also explains the Nexus Event that was created, as the combination of two versions of the same person is likely to have devastating effects on the time stream.
The last major question was posed by Loki himself: if the Time Keepers are nothing by theme park animatronics, who created the TVA? One early theory was that Kang the Conqueror, a powerful time traveler in the Marvel Comics, was one of the Time Keepers, based on the drawings shown in the early episodes. Though that theory seems to be easily dismissed now, it’s still possible that Kang is somehow involved in the TVA and its activities. But is Kang powerful enough to create a pocket dimension and suppress the use of magical abilities? Seeing as how he’s set to make his true MCU appearance in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania, I’m thinking no. But if not Kang, then who?
I really loved this episode of Loki as it answered a few lingering questions but also posed a couple of much bigger ones. The reveal that the Time Keepers weren’t real has huge ramifications on the workings of the TVA and makes the next two episodes all the more important. Also, the fact that the writers weren’t afraid to hold back and seemingly killed the two biggest stars of the show was a bold choice. I cannot wait for next week to find out the deal with those new Lokis and learn more secrets about the TVA.
