The Short Take:
This fun, irreverent sci fi adventure successfully climbs a massive exposition hill. If you’re unsure about the commitment, I’ll let you know next week if the show delivers on the promise of this episode.
The Long Take:
The most valuable information I had going into Loki, Disney’s newest Marvel show, was that the head writer, Michael Waldron, used to work on the animated series Rick and Morty. I had suspected we might see the former’s influence, and I was right. The tone of the two shows are similar; Loki may understandably lack R-rated jokes, but it does have a sarcasm and humor befitting a “mischievous scamp” not unlike Rick. And one of the many genius qualities of Rick and Morty is its ability to juggle a playfulness and absurdity with a sense of cosmic grandeur. That’s working well here too. I laughed throughout the entire episode, but was still wowed by the scale of the setting and satisfied with the discussions you would expect from a show about metaphysics.
And so, if you aren’t already invested in the MCU or are more selective with what from the MCU you actually watch, I’ll ask this: Do you like sci fi adventure shows? More, specifically, I should be asking, do you like light-hearted time travel stories? If you’re a fan of Doctor Who, Back to the Future, or, if I’m going to make some deeper cuts, Quantum Leap or Sliders, then it’s very likely that you will enjoy this show. There’s also a dash of X-Files, Fringe, or Men in Black because the Time Variance Authority, or TVA, is a shadowy organization with cool agents who investigate irregularities. The introduction of “time keepers,” or those who maintain the integrity of a universal timeline, combined with the vast and elaborate look of the Time Variance Authority’s world made me wonder if this is going to be too similar to Doctor Who, time lords, and Gallifrey. But if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think I care if it is because I’m a fan of all those things.
Like all great science fiction, Loki has a lot of explaining and world-building to do, especially since this part of the MCU mythology has not yet been established. It’s executed elegantly and entertainingly. Loki has to watch a nifty PSA-style video that explains what’s going on for our benefit as much as his; the 2D animation it uses is delightful. And conversations sprinkled throughout the episode, albeit heavy-handedly at times, reinforce this information. At no point was I bored, and all the exposition only whetted my appetite for more of this new pocket of the Marvel universe.
Exposition does take up the bulk of the episode, though. So plot-wise, there’s little room for much else and not much actually happens. This one episode feels more like an extended post-credits scene or a short about what happened to Loki right after he peaced out with the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame. On the other hand, it’s pretty clearly setting up an upcoming escapade for Loki and Owen Wilson’s Agent Mobius, so I think it’s worth waiting before we even begin to pass judgment on the show as a whole. I want this to be setting up a more procedural type of show where we get a time case of the week that Loki and Mobius solve with little kernels of an overarching plot that build over time. The show has the potential to be even more like traditional television than WandaVision because it has a premise that could play in an endless (time?) loop for so many seasons that we forget that it’s on anymore. But with only six episodes, I doubt that’s what we’re going to get for very long, if at all.
As a pairing, WandaVision and Loki are almost like infinity stones in of themselves. WandaVision could be the reality stone, focusing on Wanda’s reconstruction of a new reality to process her grief, while Loki would obviously be the time stone, giving the God of Mischief an opportunity to contemplate how he chooses to spend his time and why. As the series goes on, I’ll keep thinking about how both shows could be meta-commentaries on the construction of reality, time, and space in television.
The reality constructed by the makers of Loki might actually be my favorite aspect of the series so far. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Waldron named Mad Men as one of his favorite shows, and the TVA will be pure eye candy for those who enjoy a mid-century aesthetic. Bureaucracy, but make it Mad Men. And Mad Men, but make it futurist. Never before have vintage dials and buttons been so slick and glamorous.
BUT WHAT OF MY BELOVED TOM HIDDLESTON, you might be clamoring to know. I, too, am a Tom Hiddleston fan, and I’m happy to report that he does not disappoint here. There’s one scene in particular — the emotional crux of the episode — where he really goes for it in a way that works for me because he captures how surreal and painful such an experience might be (I’d say more, but I want to avoid spoilers in this initial review). Seeing Loki so completely vulnerable and at the complete mercy of others keeps his antics fresh. Owen Wilson, however, nearly outshines him in a way that surprised me. I get that this show is supposed to tee up the next Dr. Strange film. Somehow it has to provide an engaging journey for Loki while also getting the MCU to a multiverse situation. But the fact that I just want a time detective show with Agent Mobius says a lot about Wilson’s performance, which plays against the goofy, dim-witted, but thinks he’s a smooth operator type that I associate with him.