This review contains minor spoilers.
In the third Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series, the villain and God of Mischief is finally given the spotlight. While “Loki” has its shortcomings, it successfully fulfills its role in the MCU: to give Loki an opportunity to develop and grow.
The story chronologically begins right after “The Avengers,” with Loki (Tom Hiddelston) in chains after a failed assault on New York City. In “Avengers: Endgame,” the Avengers go back in time to retrieve infinity stones and undo Thanos’ devastating finger snap. Yet, the Tesseract is dropped onto the floor — right within Loki’s reach. In the show’s version of events, instead of being taken back to Asgard by Thor, Loki sees his chance and takes it. He grabs the Tesseract and escapes to another planet.
Loki’s grand escape was not supposed to happen. Almost immediately upon landing on a random desert planet, fully armored guards show up through a portal. The leader, played by Wunmi Mosaku, stared at Loki and said, “On behalf of the Time Variants Authority, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred Timeline.” From here Loki is brought to the TVA, an uber bureaucratic agency formed with a singular goal in mind: to protect the “Sacred Timeline” at all costs and “prune” those that deviate from it, who they call Variants.
Loki discovers — from the help of a 50s style cartoon clock named Miss Minutes — his escape from the Avengers made him a Variant, and “prune” is a euphemism for being killed. He is luckily saved by TVA agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) from pruning because Mobius needs Loki’s help to capture a dangerous rogue Variant of himself, who has been killing TVA agents. From here Loki learns the dark secrets of the TVA and connects with the rogue Variant (Sophia Di Martino). Through his adventures, the director of the show, Kate Herron, also touches on themes of fate and freewill.
Overall, the most important part of the series is Loki’s growth as a person. Although his character briefly shows growth by attempting to kill Thanos in “Avengers: Infinity War,” here Loki has the chance to reflect on his choices and discover his “glorious purpose” in life. However, outside of this, the show does have some shortcomings.
Most of the episodes are very well executed, but some felt like dumps of information instead of a natural flow. This is especially true in the season finale, “For All Time. Always,” because the episode was dialogue heavy. While Herron touches on ideas of fate and freewill, the show did not fully complete or resolve these themes in a satisfying way. The series could certainly have benefited from having more episodes to allow breathing room for the plot and a deeper analysis of the themes.
A significant win for the show is its queer representation. From the very start of the season, Loki was confirmed as genderfluid. Then, in the third episode “Lamentis,” Loki responds to a question regarding his dating life by casually saying, “a bit of both,” confirming his bisexuality. Having this dually queer character is hugely excting to LGBTQ+ fans.
The queer representation is also coming on the heels of “The Falcon and Winter Solider,” where Kari Skogland explores the questions of race and patriotism in relation to Captain America. Hopefully, these progressive themes and representations become a trend in upcoming shows and movies.
Overall, “Loki” is an entertaining chance to grow for the God of Mischief. All six episodes of this season are available to stream on Disney Plus. Even though the show has room for improvement and may not be worth rewatching, it is certainly worth watching at least once.
