Disney+ is on an MCU kick this year, with Wandavision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier being storming successes. Its latest offering, a 6 part series focusing on Loki, debuted on 9th June with the episode ‘Glorious Purpose’. Right from the start, it was clear just how high budget this show is, and the production value is through the roof.
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Opening
I loved that it opened with the scene from Endgame where Loki escaped with the tesseract; it was a fond reminder of what had happened, and set the series up nicely. I must admit I thought the music in the opening credits was a tad underwhelming, despite being hauntingly beautiful, but I loved that they designed the Marvel logo to display Loki’s colours. It was a really nice touch.
Tom Hiddleston’s acting is on point, and he perfectly mirrors the audience’s own confusion as we’re introduced to the TVA. The Time Variance Authority sounds intriguing from the moment it’s mentioned, and it only gets more compelling as we’re introduced to it. From the get go, I love how they manipulate time, and there was a really clever scene where the agent made Loki move in slow motion, whilst time itself continued at its normal rate. When they arrived at the bureau, the tesseract was confiscated and given to a random office worker, and I remember thinking how insane it was that a relative nobody was holding an infinity stone. How little I knew…
I must admit, time travel is one of those things that always messes with my brain whenever I watch it, so I was a little nervous about being able to keep up with everything happening. Fortunately, once inside the TVA, they need to catch Loki up, and this works as exposition for the viewer, too. There’s a really fun cartoon that he watches which explains the lore, and I loved the old-school style. The cartoon narrative structure also allowed for a really basic breakdown of how the TVA worked. This meant I could follow along without feeling like an idiot, because the whole purpose of that scene was as a playful homage to children’s edutainment. I could appreciate the nuance of the reference, whilst still actually learning what the hell is going on.
Setting the Scene
A time bureau is a really interesting concept, and a bold step to take the MCU in. It was fascinating to see that they knew every word that Loki had ever said, and demonstrated just how phenomenal their knowledge and reach is. However, it also raised some questions, most notably – where were the TVA when the Avengers started messing with time so they could beat Thanos? I was worried that it was something that the showrunners had overlooked, but thankfully it was explained later in the episode as being something that was “always meant to happen”. There are mentions of ‘preserving the sacred timeline’ throughout the episode, and I’m excited to learn more about what exactly that entails.
I have to say, Owen Wilson was an odd choice for Agent Mobius. I can’t fault him, he does an excellent job with the acting, but it’s just incredibly hard to take him seriously given his reputation for comedy roles. The agent does have a good sense of humour, but ultimately he is still a serious character. However, once I got over my initial hesitation, I did somewhat manage to see Mobius outside of the constraints of seeing him as just Owen Wilson. His scenes with Loki are compelling, and I’m looking forward to watching more of the two of them together.
“Mum, can I have a redemption arc?” “No, we’ve got a redemption arc at home.”
The best part of the episode was the moment when Loki escapes. He finds the same office worker who confiscated the tesseract and demands to get it back. That’s when he realises that the drawer it’s in is full of powerful objects, including… Multiple infinity stones?! I literally gasped when I saw it, and all of a sudden it made sense why this guy had been so casual when he received the tesseract at the beginning of the episode. It really put everything into perspective. We had 3 phases of MCU movies completely centred on bringing together and then overcoming the infinity stones, and yet here is this guy with a drawer full of them.
Naturally, this sparks an existential crisis in Loki, who realises that in the grand scheme of everything, his endeavours amount to nothing. He returns to the interrogation room, and with a new outlook, he watches scenes from his future. Loki sees his mother die and realises that it really is his fault. He sees himself bond with his brother. He sees himself fighting on the side of good. And then, he sees himself die. I was wondering how the show was going to deal with Loki’s development, seeing as he teleported away before he’d begun his redemption arc, and it would be hard for the fans to root for the old, evil Loki. This was a succinct way of getting Loki to a similar emotional stage, without having to go through several episodes worth of growth.
Cliffhanger
Near the start of the episode, we’d seen Agent Mobius dealing with a pretty gruesome murder scene. There had been hints of the monster who had done this, but all the audience knew was that it was an escaped variant. Mobius clearly wanted Loki’s help to track down and defeat this enemy, and I was keen to find out who the big bad was going to be. And then, right near the end, Mobius tells Loki the truth, in a line that sent chills down my spine. “The variant we’re hunting is… You.”
Overall
One of the most stunning things about Loki is the visuals. The cinematography is perfect, and the CGI is just gorgeous. In one scene we look outside the window, and see this bustling futuristic view, and it’s truly breath-taking. Every scene looks high quality, and every camera movement is so precise and calculated. My only criticism would be that some scenes are unnecessarily dark, and although this was obviously a deliberate choice to create the mysterious atmosphere, it’s still one of my pet peeves in shows and movies. I want to be able to see everything going on in the scene. I like to notice the subtle changes in a character’s face or mannerisms, and that’s harder to do when they’re draped in shadows.
Throughout the episode, there was a good balance of drama and humour, and I think that was an excellent creative choice. Tom Hiddleston is a very talented actor who commands a scene, but he also has a comedic edge. Loki included that funny side, whilst still making the character believable, and it helped break up an episode that actually was very heavy on exposition. Any piece of media dealing with the space-time continuum is always going to be very complex, especially when it’s not previously been established in said franchise. There were some really great one-liners throughout the episode, and it felt good to laugh as the plot was pretty intense.
The episode was very plot heavy, with a main focus on dialogue, and not much action. There were certainly some scenes with cool choreography, such as when Loki breaks out of his collar and attaches it to the other agent, but for the most part the scenes were deliberately slow-paced. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does make for quite intense watching, and might not be what you’d expect from an MCU entry. Ultimately, I think the series got off to a good start, and I’m intrigued to see where it goes from here.
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Loki Episode 1
Pros
- Gorgeous visuals
- Excellent acting
- High production value
- Introduced the lore of the show
Cons
- Not much action
- Some scenes are very dark
- A little hard to follow
