Loki S02E05 Review: Breaking the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Walls

Loki, Season 2, Episode 5: Science/Fiction

 

And, yeah... it's these last episodes of Loki's second season that really manages to tell a really great story. It's just such a shame that it took so long for the story to be told, and in retrospect I definitely could've done with the random TVA no-name characters like Dox and Brad, or even the many, many references to He Who Remains and a potential conflict between Kang (or the Kangs) and Loki's TVA. So much of this season really just revolves around what the hell Loki wants in the fact of apocalypse. It's just perhaps the unfortunate result of my expectations from the first season that I kind of expect every episode to have a huge bombastic cliffhanger or something. But taking the big huge time explosion that spaghettified Victor Timely in episode 4 as the big event equivalent to the Thanos Snap in Infinity War makes the back end of Loki's second season a lot more fun to watch. 

And this whole episode basically deals with Loki as he goes through what Sylvie and Mobius have been discussing rather heatedly in the previous episode -- the fact that all the members of the TVA were plucked from rather ordinary lives from other timelines. Loki starts time-slipping again, just like how he did in the season premiere, and he starts to see these other characters throughout time and space. Right after seeing the completely empty TVA time-station and time-shifting away just as everything goes to shit and get turned into spaghetti. 

Casey (who remains rather irrelevant to the entire series) used to be a prisoner that escaped Alcatrqaz in the 60's. Hunter B-15 is Dr. Verity Willis, a pediatrician. Mobius M. Mobius is Don, a jetski salesman with two kids. Obviously Sylvie is still in that McDonalds. But Ouroboros turns out to be a sci-fi author A.D. Doug... who starts to demolish the fourth wall as he starts to talk to Loki about how Loki's time-slipping powers are working 'narratively'. O.B. is always a bit of a kooky character and I feel that this is where he's best utilized. Loki calls bullshit on this, but O.B. notes that this feels like science fiction. Or just fiction in general. Or maybe fiction is just science that isn't explained yet. Something along those lines. Things got a bit loopy. But O.B. gives a nice little in-universe explanation to Loki's fourth-wall breaking that doesn't seem as forced or 'just because the comics did it' as She-Hulk did. O.B. points out that clearly something has to be driving Loki's jumps so that he goes through the original lives of his TVA comrades, and if it's not the hand of an omniscient scriptwriter, then it's... Loki himself. 

And this does really tie in to the original 'glorious purpose' of this particular variant of Loki. He's in denial that he needs to do any kind of introspection about himself, and he immediately rejects the 'fiction' part of this equation... but then comes around to it. 

The actual time-slipping and time-jumping parts really doesn't work quite as well, and is honestly just driven by Tom Hiddleston's strength as an actor. I don't frankly care enough about Casey or B-15 enough, neither do we spend anywhere enough time with them or their 'original' variants to care. After the otherwise fun science/fiction spiel, O.B. also uses the power of time-travel and offscreen timeline working to create a primitive TemPad, even if it cost him 18 months of his life and his marriage. 

Rather understandably, the episode gives us most of the screentime with Don, the man formerly or will later be known as Mobius M. Mobius. We do get some rather sad moments as Loki tries his best to convince Don that he is meant for something greater, even if he has to give up his family and his life as a smooth-talking salesman. It's not the most glamorous life, but you can feel Don as he struggles to weigh his consequences... while Loki, as loath as he might be to admit it, is begging for help from one of the few people he might consider his friend. 

The final meeting is also a rather interesting one, with Loki finally meeting Sylvie... who retained her memories, a TemPad and is very much perfectly willing to continue being a McDonalds worker instead of being involved in all of this TVA bullshittery. I'm not that impressed about just how married she is to this particular life, but I guess it's the life she chose? Sylvie also correctly points out that Loki's motivations is less about fighting for the TVA, for the preservation of the multiverse, for the greater good... but more to hold on to the only place in this big fucked-up universe where Loki felt like he belonged. While the whole 'the TVA needs to stop this multiversal apocalypse' thing is a great counter-argument to Sylvie's cynicism, I do like that she puts Loki's true motivations into words.

With Sylvie technically refusing to join the team, Loki and the rest of the cobbled-together TVA team tries to do something and throw some comic-book technobabble at each other. Which mostly is just O.B. and Loki doing their work while Mobius plays the 'confused regular guy', B-15 just kind of stands there and Casey tries to steal stuff. 

We get a hauntingly terrifying scene as Sylvie just hangs around in a music store that she clearly frequents -- a nice little nod to the fact that Sylvie is out there having a life in this particular small branch timeline... and we just get a hauntingly wonderful and terrifying representation of Sylvie's own "head buried in the sand" mentality as she's stuck listening to the music even as her shopkeeper friend freaks out about the fact that their entire universe is being shredded and turned into even more spaghetti. And as Sylvie zaps to the point where Loki and the 'original' variants are trying to fix problems, everyone starts to get spaghettified one by one. 

And... again, kudos to Hiddleston for selling this scene, as he realizes and internalizes the rules of science fiction... and takes control of his time-slipping powers. Loki takes control of his power and the narrative, leaping back to episode four -- which essentially resets the cliffhanger... only this time Loki is here with a time-power related power-up, a purpose and an urgency to save everyone. 

Again... I will always say that I am not the biggest fan of how Marvel's Loki show is less about the mythos of Loki and the Asgardians, or Loki and how he relates to the greater MCU, but revolves around this wacky time-travel show. And I'm still honestly unconvinced if the way Loki tackles time-travel and its characters and its vague parallel buildup of Kang with the rest of the MCU works for me. But as far as telling a story about Loki, Mobius and Sylvie, and how they are just people trapped in this insane apocalyptic disaster, all the while Loki is trying to figure out what he wants? It's an all right show, as far as that bit is concerned. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Hunter B-15 is revealed to be the MCU incarnation of Verity Willis, a major supporting character in Loki: Agents of Asgard, who was the daughter of a family that was tasked to guard an Asgardian artifact called the Andvaranaut. Verity inherited the artifact's power to see through any lies, and this ended up with a strange relationship with a reformed Loki. 
  
• In addition, Verity's dad Roger Willis, who was also featured as a minor character in the 80's Mighty Thor comics, is referenced in the episode. Verity is working in the Roger Willis Children's Clinic. 
• Incidentally, while it's not stated outright, the idea of Loki transforming from the God of Mischief (or Lies) into the God of Stories is the central theme of the Loki: Agents of Asgard comic run.
  
• Reliving the same moment over and over again is one of the warnings against time manipulation that Karl Mordo told Dr. Strange in Doctor Strange.
• Loki references Mobius's 'form and function' line about jetskis in season 1 when talking to Don. 
• In the first episode of Loki, Loki threatens to 'gut [Casey] like a fish', which is the first thing that Frank!Casey says in this episode. 
• In the bar that Loki and Sylvie are having their conversation in is an arcade game of the Zaniac, the movie that Brad stars in earlier this season.