Main cast: Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Sophia Di Martino (Sylvie), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Ravonna Renslayer), Wunmi Mosaku (Hunter B-15), Eugene Cordero (Casey), Rafael Casal (Hunter X-05/Brad Wolfe), Tara Strong (Miss Minutes), Liz Carr (Judge Gamble), Neil Ellice (Hunter D-90), Jonathan Majors (Victor Timely, He Who Remains), Ke Huy Quan (OB), and Owen Wilson (Mobius)
Directors: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
Okay, there is a nice symmetry to giving this episode the same title as the first ever episode of this show, but this finale of the second season only highlights the sheer pointlessness of the whole multiverse angle.
Now that Loki has somehow discovered that he has powers to control time, he goes back in time to various points in the two seasons to undo the events that led to the ultimate failure of the TVA. In the end, he learns that there is only one way to make things right again: the ultimate sacrifice.
Well, I may care a bit more about that if Loki had been a consistent character with an organic character growth throughout the two seasons. Sadly, this character is a different fellow in every appearance of his in the MCU, and heck, the second season Loki is not the same guy in the first season.
Hence, when he does what he does here, I just shrug. Meh. Instead, I can only wonder why the special effects aren’t better in that scene. Those green things—they are supposed to be branches, I guess—look more like cheap paper-coated cardboard rolls.
What’s the overall point of Sylvie in this season? She basically just stands in a spot and scowl for the most part, and could have been removed altogether without any difference to the rest of the season. It’s not like there is some grand love story here between her and Loki anyway; they seem to have forgotten everything they went through in the first season.
Once again, Jonathan Majors is here just to mug in his loudest volume, which gets boring at this point. If he’s going to be the biggest threat to existence, can he start acting like one? Big hams aren’t scary by any stretch of the imagination.
In the end, this season is more of a bromance between Mobius and Loki. Mobius and B-15 are the only ones that care about Loki even a little, and B-15 has just a little bit more to do in this season than Sylvie—not much, in other words.
Will any other characters in the MCU say anything about Loki’s glorious purpose? Will they care? Given the current state of the MCU that is run by showrunners that are actually proud to tell everyone that they don’t care about the MCU or continuity or anything else aside from making everyone a gay and lame chick, I’m pressing F to doubt.
In the end, this season has a potentially poignant and epic story in there, somewhere, but the whole thing is botched by the careless treatment of Loki throughout the years. This Loki is a guy created just for this season, and I don’t have enough time or opportunity to give a hoot about him.
Also, this season has very little heart and soul to anchor it, as it’s all fancy CGI and lame multiverse tropes. A little more meaningful interaction between Loki and Sylvie, or more serious moments between Loki and Mobius or B-15 could have made this season a little more relatable, but sadly, I never get any of that here.
The worst sins of this season, however, is that it presents an existential threat, and yet, it treats this threat as a contained mini-series handled by a bunch of flailing sitting ducks with Saturday-morning cartoon-tier competency. It’s hard to take the plot seriously, especially when the guy pulling the strings is an annoying big ham that has never achieved anything so far aside from some ignoble defeats.
Anyway, this one is done, and I hear Tom Hiddleston is done with it too. So, farewell, Loki. He has never been given a chance to grow into any semblance of well-drawn character in the MCU, and he’s come and gone before I will ever know what kind of glorious anti-hero he could have been. Maybe in another timeline.
