This is quite possibly the most plot and exposition-heavy episode of any Marvel series to date. Because of this, it could be easy for the pacing of Loki to slow down considerably; somehow, that’s not the case at all.
From the get-go, this episode throws you right into the action. There’s no wasted time, every scene matters, every conversation has a point. It’s TV boiled down to what the audience wants most with no filler -- its purest form, at least so far. There’s humor, action, character work and the occasional social commentary; it’s all handled and made exceptionally well.
Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson continue to shine in these roles, especially in their scenes together. The most fun of their scenes together takes place during the historic destruction of Pompeii, it’s a showcase of who these characters are and what they’re about, on top of being essential to the plot’s progression. It’s the kind of scene a lot of shows wish they could have, regardless of its overall simplicity.
Hiddleston and Wilson’s chemistry is palpable; their back-and-forths are so fun and entertaining. When they’re sitting down together and just having a conversation, it’s enthralling and often hilarious; this is almost never the case with these scenes in the MCU. The most recent examples of this are the Isaiah Bradley scenes in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, except here it’s every scene, and these scenes are often much more lighthearted than in the other show.
This show’s strengths are its writing and superb main characters, both of which are on full display this episode, just like they were in the previous one. If there’s any word that describes this series so far, it’s consistency.
This episode answers so many questions about how the TVA functions and how the different timelines work and sort themselves out after the TVA leaves. It just makes me wonder what else is going on with the TVA because things can never be as simple as they seem in the MCU.
The events in the last twenty minutes of the episode raise a lot of questions for what the rest of this series will be, who the true villain really is, and what the ramifications of this series will be for the rest of the MCU and its timeline. The Loki variant is still the big threat, but it’s really hard to tell where the plot is going as of now or if this variant is even the true villain here. That’s not necessarily a problem as there’s four more episodes left this season.
There’s a lot less to say about this episode than most of the other Marvel series’ episodes; this is mostly because the quality of the previous episode carries over. This whole series is consistent in its overall quality up to this point, which the other Marvel series did not have in common. All that’s really left to see is if this consistency continues and how everything plays out, hopefully in as consistently good of a manner as the series has done so far.
