Disney Plus
The latest and penultimate episode of the season of Loki is called ‘Journey Into Mystery’, which is actually a reference to the name of the comic book series where Thor first showed up, in what was then called Atlas Comics and what turned into Marvel Comics. Naturally Loki also was revealed as a villain in one of the issues, but there’s also the non-subtle meaning of uncovering the mystery of the show.
As we follow Loki, we discover he has ended up in a place called ‘The Void’, a place at the end of time where all pruned timelines and people are dumped, because they will be devoured by the ‘angry cloud’ creature Alioth (a reference to a time travel monster from the comics, of course). Intriguingly, we follow the same set of Lokis in the ways they change and don’t throughout the episode, and throw out different little variant ideas.
The older Loki (eventually credited as ‘Classic Loki’) doesn’t really seem to care much about betraying anyone, and seems more tired of dealing with everything — he calls them ‘broken’, that they ‘cannot change’, and that they are the ‘god of outcasts’. So naturally when Mobius (who I am unsurprised was not killed off permanently) offers that ‘people can change’ while talking about how he was wrong about the TVA, it’s clear that this is meaningful to Classic Loki.
It’s interesting in general that Mobius has the capability to actually reach and affect these Loki variants in positive ways when given the opportunity, which begs the question of how much good he could’ve done in his long time at the TVA. A Loki is the opposite of self-sacrificial, selfish, and caring about survival and power, so having vulnerability and sacrifice makes a difference in showing the growth of them — perhaps subverting the TVAs will as mentioned, perhaps because whoever runs the TVA knows that a ‘good’ Loki is too powerful?
Kid Loki, who starts by saying his variation was killing Thor, later complains that Lokis are not allowed to change — but although he does not sacrifice himself, he does give Loki his clearly powerful magical sword, a different sort of meaningful vulnerability. Not as much to say about the Alligator Loki, who is there mostly as a joke (and a consistently funny one at that), but I did notice a little Frog Thor trapped in a bottle flashing by quickly in one scene. That’s a classic silly reference too.
Disney Plus
The scene where a series of Lokis betray each other was amusing, if more an impetus to the changes we’ve seen, and the ultimate end of the episode where Classic Loki shows off a lot of power (foreshadowed by his notes about fooling Thanos) and sacrifices himself to let Sylvie and Loki make their way to the hidden house at the center of the Void.
On the TVA side of things, everything is still muddled — Ravonna seems to be actively pursuing the truth about who runs everything, because why else would she ask Miss Minutes for help? Although it is curious that the animated helper is clearly the one who knows more than anyone, but I don’t know what that might mean.
With one episode left, there are still a few unanswered questions and possible problems to resolve, but this was a pretty good episode regardless. Although Mobius might have been revealed to be alive, we did see the ‘permanent’ (I think) death of Classic Loki, so maybe Marvel is willing to be a bit more dangerous in that way.
It’s a lot to resolve, but overall I think the show has worked very well — I’m cautiously optimistic to see how they’ll wrap this whole mess up (although I could’ve handled another hour I’m sure).
New episodes of Loki premiere Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
Share this post
