![]() Hiddleston’s performance is no doubt powerful, but these moments feel disconnected from what the show is trying to achieve. ![]() Rather than making Loki reflect on (or wrestle with) his essential nature - a key question for him in both episodes - these events are treated akin to Loki mourning people and things he hasn’t actually lost. When Loki inspects the TVA’s files, the show repeats a dramatic beat that didn’t quite land last week, by having him read about the destruction of Asgard, an event familiar to the audience from prior films, but one that has not and will not come to pass for the character himself. Thanks to Wilson’s sincerity, this feels less like duplicitousness or cunning, and more like remnants of conflicting drafts, as if what’s being said in a given moment is what’s most convenient for the plot. ![]() In one moment, he behaves as if he doesn’t care about what makes Loki tick, while in the next, he treats this as the most important path to catching the Variant, and he gains nothing from showing these two completely different fronts to Loki and Ravonna respectively. The episode gives Mobius a few quiet ruminations, but it’s still unclear how he feels about Loki, and not as a matter of mystery. However, while the show’s comedy beats are on point, its dramatic conceit still feels half-baked. This dynamic is even replicated in more upbeat moments and adjusted accordingly while running a temporal experiment during the destruction of Pompeii, Wilson tries to go undetected, but Hiddleston bounces around like a kid in a candy store. Hiddleston’s words are a justification, but his body-language reads like a desperate apology. Mobius remains centered in the frame, unwavering, while Loki crouches and hovers around him as he attempts to explain his actions. After Mobius convinces his boss Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to let him keep working with Loki, a simple scene of Wilson and Hiddleston walking through a hallway becomes instantly hilarious because of their physical dynamic. In addition to the setting and costumes, the actors’ timing and movement make the series feel like a hybrid between police procedural and workplace sitcom. The frame holds on a medium two-shot of both actors as they play silently within the tension, only to diffuse it at the precise moment. Kate Herron directs even these little moments with an eye for performance. Of course, Agent Mobius sees through this ruse, and lets the air out of Loki’s plan to get an audience with the all-powerful Time Keepers (if they even exist). ![]() The show’s central Loki sports a beige TVA jacket, and he can’t help but resemble a hard-boiled detective, especially when he pretends to deduce the traps laid out for their unit, with Sherlock-esque cognition. Loki is at the mercy of forces infinitely more powerful than himself - so powerful that he’s treated like a lackey, or a sideshow - so his usual bag of tricks won’t cut it.Īfter a briefing that reveals a number of previous Loki “variants” - a Frost Giant, a Hulk-Loki, and a smiling Olympian - Mobius takes the God of Mischief out into the field, to the Ren Faire where the hooded Variant murdered several Minute Men. The exposition moves smoothly along whenever the grandiose, self-serious Loki shares the screen with the laid-back Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson), a disconnect that informs the show’s comedic premise. Subsequent scenes are forced to catch the audience up on what the characters already know about time travel, though these generally take the form of banter, rather than characters sitting around to explain things. This setting resembles one of Takia Waititi’s dryly funny Thor shorts prior to Thor: Ragnarok, and it makes for an appropriately silly reintroduction, even though it skips over much of what Loki has actually been learning at the TVA. The Loki we know (Tom Hiddleston) has taken up a desk job under the tutelage of Miss Minutes (Tara Strong), a sentient, clock-faced equivalent of Clippy from Microsoft Office.
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