This Article Contains Spoilers for Loki's Season 2 FinaleThe God of Mischief finally achieves his "Glorious Purpose" by learning the true meaning of sacrifice. The frenetic and spectacularly convoluted second season of Loki limps to a thoughtful end. A once ruthless, arrogant, and murderous villain becomes the hero to save his dear TVA besties. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) replaces He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) as the puppet master, literally holding the strings at the end of time. It's a melancholic conclusion that makes sense but seems underwhelming.
"Glorious Purpose" has Loki, now in firm control of his time slipping, returning to the Temporal Control room before the Loom goes kaput. He watches Victor Timely (Majors) heroically haul the Throughput Multiplier onto the gangway before turning to metaphysical spaghetti. He grabs OB (Ke Huy Quan) and asks what they could have done differently. Timely wasn't fast enough. Loki slips back and replays the moment with a focus on alacrity. It's apocalypse redux, with the same outcome. This time he asks OB how long it would take him to learn the engineering expertise required to help. A befuddled OB replies, "centuries."
Hundreds of years later, Loki has the sequence to doom down pat. He tosses a confused Timely in the protection suit, scurries him along, and methodically guides the process. Timely installs the multiplier fix, but failure occurs again. He and OB posit that the multiplier cannot handle an infinite number of time branches. The "scaling" problem means that the Temporal Loom will always collapse. Loki comes to a startling realization.
Guess Who's Back?
He slips to the Citadel at the End of Time. Loki must prevent Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) from killing He Who Remains. He battles her repeatedly to no avail. He Who Remains cackles and freezes time to mock Loki. The Devil's Bargain is unchanged. He Who Remains gloats that the Temporal Loom is a fail-safe to preserve the Sacred Timeline. The only way to stop its destruction is to kill Sylvie. Does Loki have the guts to make that hard choice? Or will he end up fighting her over and over again with the same result?
Loki snaps his fingers. He has also learned the ability to stop time. Loki goes back to his initial interrogation with Mobius (Owen Wilson) at the TVA. Mobius tells him how Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) had to prune a child because he didn't have the nerve to do it. His weakness led to other variants being created and thousands killed. Sometimes there is no path but the difficult one. Loki finally understands what has to be done.
Loki has a final goodbye with Sylvie at OB's workshop as reality collapses. He won't kill her to preserve He Who Remains' order of the universe. The Loom must be destroyed. Loki walks down the stairway of the Temporal Control room. Mobius, Sylvie, Timely, and OB wonder what the hell he's doing. He lurches towards the bursting timelines and sheds his TVA garb. Loki, resplendent in his green robes and horns, watches the Loom explode brilliantly. He grabs time's loose threads, then walks forcefully to the seat at the end of time. He weaves them together to create a new Sacred Timeline in the form of a dazzling tree. The God of Mischief becomes the new Master of Time.
Bestie on a Jet Ski
A card reads, "After." The TVA bustles with activity as Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) observes a saddened Mobius. Casey (Eugene Cordero) reboots Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) as a kinder and gentler AI. OB opens a box of new TVA guidebooks that also credits Victor Timely as a co-author. In late 1800s Chicago, a young Victor never received it. The pruned Renslayer waits for Alioth to devour her from existence. Mobius accompanies B-15 to the leadership council but doesn't enter. He'll resign from the TVA for a new destiny. Mobius watches from afar as Don, his variant, plays with his sons in the front yard. Sylvie appears beside him for another farewell. Loki saved them all. He gave everyone a chance to pursue their happiness. Mobius doesn't move. He'll stay for a while as time passes. The final shot has a peaceful Loki resolutely holding time together.
The finale wraps every loose thread into a logical green bow. Majors again steals the show as both Timely and the delightfully snarky He Who Remains. The fate of the MCU's overarching supervillain depends on the ugliness of Majors' upcoming trial for domestic abuse. He was the best part of season two by a mile. Kevin Feige and the Marvel suits will have to be creative to replace him.
The culmination of Loki's hero's journey feels anticlimactic. Season two hit its peak in the fourth episode with Timely's totally unexpected spaghettification. The same visual effect was used by the Scarlet Witch to kill Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This is also very similar to what happened in the Blip. Disintegration into nothingness has become a Marvel standard. That said, season two's character development was very well done. The TVA ensemble, especially the addition of OB, endeared themselves further. We can see why Loki grew to love these weird people. But where does the storyline go from here? I'm honestly fine with leaving Loki in his current job.
Loki is a production of Marvel Studios. All episodes are available to stream exclusively on Disney+.
Comments
Post a Comment