Loki - Episode 1
By Ephraim Belnap
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Created by: Micheal Waldron
Episode 1 directed by: Kate Herron
5 Out Of 5
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is so ubiquitous that it can seem trite. There's always another story, another place to save, another installment that you absolutely can't miss. It's led to some backlash, with criticism for its repetition and formulaic set-up. It's not a story, critics argue, so much as a series of character exhibitions that have lost their ability to enkindle investment. But the critics are wrong. Loki is the latest work showing the Marvel Cinematic Universe at its storytelling best, with pathos, wit, and genuine weight accompanying Marvel's great worldbuilding and action.
Warning - the events of this episode and indeed the whole series are predicated on key events that happened in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. If you don't want to be spoiled for those films, go watch them first.
Loki is dead. This is well-known. He was killed by Thanos at the start of Avengers: Infinity War. Loki is also still alive; a version of him went AWOL in Avengers: Endgame at the point in time when Loki is most amoral and vicious. He teleported away with the Tesseract - an artifact of unspeakable power - and could not be pursued. Now there's this TV show about him, where he's charming and sympathetic, not the old-man-killing terrorist he was in the first Avengers film. How will he get like that? How will he be involved in a good struggle? How will he end up if this is separate from the main story? How does this all make sense??
Marvel answers these questions in the premiere with a hand so deft you'll forget you ever asked. We're introduced to the Time Variance Authority - a super society that resets timeline-breaking hazards. A video in the vein of a '60's ad campaign tells us. Once there was a war of timelines fighting for dominance, but the Time-Keepers - omniscient masters of reality - brought order and created one unified timeline. And because timelines are tricky things, they created the Time Variance Authority, so that any aberrations - a man stepping through the wrong door, a god teleporting away at the wrong time - could be captured and reset; set back down the path they were meant to follow, so the timeline can be what it's meant to be.
Needless to say, the implications of this are pretty nutty. "Do I not have a choice, then?" crows an indignant Loki. "Does nothing I do matter?" Ironically, that question doesn't matter here, because instead of being reset - plopped back into the timeline of the movies - Loki gets offered ... a job. A rogue time traveler is killing Time Variance agents (something that can apparently happen) and they need an outside-the-box thinker to nail him down. At least that's what Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) says.
Played with cop-like insight and sardonic charm, Mobius is Loki's handler/advocate/therapist - the one who suggests bringing him out, and the one who makes him want to. Indeed, about half the episode is devoted to an ad hoc therapy session. "Why do you do what you do?" probes Mobius, "Do you enjoy hurting people? Do you enjoy killing them?" With a video monitor that can essentially replay the movies - a tap on the fourth wall as gutsy as it's helpful - Mobius unwraps the appeal of Loki that's endured for the last ten years. Someone who's hurtful and yet hurting. Someone who's clever and yet shortsighted. And he calls out not just the character at his worst, but the decaying formula of Marvel. Is he just going to keep doing the same things? Losing to diminishing returns? Or is he going to forge ahead and open up and escape a self-destructive path? Commentary so close to the audience is very hard to find in film; indeed it's mostly the domain of boundary-breaking thinkpieces. But this direction strikes at the heart of the Marvel formula in a way that enhances it. Repetition is destructive; is change really possible? In this premiere, Loki - after some serious prodding - eventually decides it is. And the mystery of the rogue time traveler, who is name-dropped in the most compelling way, is truly in motion.
Marvel is good at CGI. It's good at set design. It's good at acting, and casting, and action scenes. But what's really made it shine is knowing how to write itself. How to surf the wave of popular interest and redirect it and innovate for a new day. Nothing lasts forever, that's the truth of it. But with this episode of Loki, Marvel proves it's still got what it takes to keep audience interest. The series promises adventure, excitement, and genuine staying power for the duration of its six-episode run. Five Out Of Five.
Loki is currently streaming on Disney+. Episodes release each Wednesday. The first two episodes are available to watch now.
Comments
Post a Comment