The next installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is wildly popular. Loki brings a breath of fresh air to the MCU as it changes our usual perspectives, featuring Loki as our new beloved antihero.
Being part of Phase Four of the MCU, Loki has received critical success in the show’s first two episodes. With a rating of 100% each week hence far, many already fans are patiently waiting for the release of episode 3 on June 23rd. The show mainly takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame following the actions leading up to the stealing of the Tesseract. Here, the rest of the show is established when an alternate version of Loki is brought to the mysterious Time Variance Authority (TVA). This bureaucratic organization, which exists outside of time and space, monitoring the timeline, gives Loki a choice. Faced with being either erased from existence or cooperating to help fix the timeline and stop a greater threat, Loki finds himself trapped in a crime thriller as he travels through time altering the events in human history.
What has stood out the most in the first two episodes of the series gives good promise for all aspects of the show. With an enjoyable relationship between characters Loki and Mobius, Tom Hiddleston, who effortlessly slides back into his version of Loki and Owen Wilson, creates a fun banter that hilariously plays out through their interactions. Being Loki’s owner, Mobius’s and Loki’s first several exchanges force Loki to reveal more about himself than ever before as the one interrogates the other, creating unique depth to the character as he becomes many fan favorites of the MCU. On top of this, many reviewers of the show have praised the outstanding production design from Kasra Farahani amongst various praiseworthy design elements within the show. Particularly the cinematography from Autumn Durald Arkapaw saw great reviews. Kate Herron, the director of the upcoming series had a strong desire for the show to be a love letter to the science fiction films such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Alien (1979), and Brazil Metropolis. Most interestingly, the series Loki received visual inspiration from the childhood show Teletubbies, a more unique setting that will certainly pose questions to the remainder of the series, but likely a delightfully bizarre influence on the show as a whole.
With only two episodes broadcasted, the remainder of this 6 episode series is yet to be known. Much is possible as the show has been painstakingly set up at the end of the second series with exhausting detail to the setting of the show. With the recent introduction of the female variant of Loki, the show is at a tipping point that may venture off into possibly zany Rick and Morty-styled adventures. With a dense first episode, the show launches into a new direction from the second episode onwards after going through the logistics of time travel and possibly opening up the rest of the MCU to a multiverse of action-packed madness. The show is bound to be a sci-fi gem, which leaves us giving the show a review of 5 stars.
Check out our review of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.