When Marvel announced their list of movies and shows going toward, many pointed to series ‘Loki’ and wondered how it could impact the MCU. There were questions (spoiler, but if you haven’t watched it yet then it’s your fault) when and where will Loki be making his return after he stole the Tesseract in “Avengers: Endgame” after the Avengers attempted to retrieve it through time travel. Well, Loki took on a journey through time with his stand-alone series. Here is how I felt about the series, its impact on the MCU, and other things that happened in Season 1 of ‘Loki’.
The series kicks off right from the place where Loki was captured by the Avengers, but this time it’s the alternate reality where they go back to get the Tesseract from that timeline. After an angry Hulk foils the plan, Loki sees an opportunity amid the chaos and takes the Tesseract and disappears. Loki then appears in a barren desert, where he is then taken by the TVA moments later. We’re then introduced to Judge Ravonna and Mobius who are important people in the TVA. As Episode one progresses, Loki and Mobius get into a room and he questions him on what truly is his motives. The Loki we know up to this point is a narcissistic, conniving, and balloon-headed God who takes lives and lies to elevate himself. Loki then gets to see how his story unfolds, as he sees the events of his mother dying, Ragnarok, his father dying and then his drastic death at the hands of Thanos. He then realizes that the TVA is no joke, but a powerful force.
In episode 2, we get Loki teaming up with Mobius and the TVA to find, another…wait for it…Loki. We are introduced to the fact that Loki has variants across different alternate timelines, but they are in search of one in a particular elusive variant that has been strategically skipping across timelines to avoid bringing attention to themselves. In the end, though, Loki finally gets to talk to the variant face to face, as he realizes that this variant of himself is a woman. They try to scheme a plan, and Loki leaves Mobius in search of more answers. This leads us to episode 4, where we see “Sylvie” go back to the defenseless TVA to seek revenge on the Timekeepers, but after a struggle with Loki, they find themselves on the dying Planet Lamentisin 2077, where they have to team up and find a way off of the planet to survive. Throughout the episode, the two form a very strong bond, as they realize all Loki’s suffer the same fate no matter what version of themselves it is. After they think that all hope is gone and their fate is dying on Lamentis.
In episode 4, we are taking on a journey that takes us unexpected turn after another. It kicks off with Sylvie and Loki having a special moment to themselves while they watch the planet be destroyed in front of their very eyes. Right before the calamity reaches them though, a door is opened for them to escape the Nexus event. They are returned to the TVA where they are to be questioned and eventually pruned from existence. Mobius starts to question, Hunter B-15 starts to question, and everything slowly starts to unravel. Then we see Judge Ravonna prune Mobius because she sees him as a threat to the foundation of the TVA. Ravonna then takes the variants to the sacred timekeepers where they are to be tried and executed, but with a little help, the Loki’s reveal that the Timekeepers are just mindless machines, instead of living beings. Ravonna prunes Loki, Sylvie demands answers and that is how episode 4 ends. In the post-credit scene, we see Loki, in a barren land with what seems to be other versions of himself. And that, ladies and gentlemen, takes us to Episode 5.
Episode 5 takes us to the void, a place where things go from timelines after they’ve been pruned from existence. The Void is being monitored by a living creature, who consumes time, matter, and space once things enter the void. Loki is now teamed up with other variants of himself, a Black Loki, an Old Loki, a child Loki and an Alligator Loki????? They avoid Alioth in a secret bunker that they have been staying in for a while and they all explain the Nexus event that got them erased from their timeline. While this is going on, Sylvie and Judge Ravonna are trying to figure this whole thing out as well, but of course, Ravonna betrays her, and Sylvie Prunes herself into the void in search of Loki. When Sylvie gets there, she is greeted by Mobius who is also in search of answers.
After a few moments, Loki and the other Loki’s are met by, of course, even more Loki’s. This time these other variants are all trying to double-cross each other, and they escape the skirmish. Here they meet Mobius and Sylvie and try to devise a plan to take down Alioth and enchant the beast. At first, they struggled, but with the help of the Elder variant Loki, the two combined their powers and enchanted Alioth to see who the beast was protecting. All the while Mobius is going back to the TVA to confront Judge Ravonna Renslayer, but she leaves in search of her own free will.
In the season finale, Loki and Sylvie enter a dimension, where a citadel sits in the cosmos. Moments after they enter, they are met by “He Who Remains”. After a couple of attempts of Sylvie trying to kill him, he gives an extensive story of who he is, why he’s in this position, and offers Loki and Sylvie a deal. “He Who Remains” reveals he is a variant from a scientist from the 31st century, who used his tech to discover that there are multiple universes. He discovers himself over and over again, but eventually, the bad variants of his self create a multi universal war. He explains that he used Alioth to bring back peace to the timeline and he has been manipulating events to bring Loki and Sylvie in to replace him as the true watcher of time. Unfortunately, after some doubts, Loki and Sylvie get into a heated battle that sends Loki back to the TVA and Sylvie ends up killing “He Who Remains”. He did warn them that if they were to kill him, they would create branches in the timeline which would lead to variants of himself entering back into the timeline, some good, and some bad. When Loki enters back into the TVA, he runs frantically to warn Mobius of the events that just took place, but for some reason, Mobius doesn’t even recognize Loki. And as Loki looks up to see the large statue of what used to be the “Timekeepers”, it has changed to the face of “He Who Remains”.
Ultimately, this irrational and emotional decision that Sylvie made sets up the next phase of the MCU. Although they didn’t officially say who “He Who Remains” actually is, it’s a lock to say that he is a variant of Kang the Conqueror. We know that Johnathan Majors is cast as Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania, scheduled to release in 2023. This also confirms the multiverse that Marvel has been trying to incorporate over the years. We thought that we would get a multiversal story in Spiderman: Far From Home when Howard Beck said he was from a different Earth, but it turned out he was lying. But with rumors surrounding Spiderman: No Way Home, we may be getting a movie where we see different elements from a multiverse implemented. Also, Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness will be more or less the first ‘scary’ or ‘horror’ film in the MCU, and we will see Wanda Maximoff and Doctor Strange take on beings and creatures from different dimensions and possibly other timelines. For the next Avengers film though, depending on if Ant-Man and the Wasp can solve the issue of Kang in that film, we may see a world where Kang is the next ‘Big Bad’ in the MCU.
With all of this multiversal chaos going on now, Marvel may have found an easier way of introducing the X-Men and mutants into the fold, since they haven’t done that officially. Depending on how Sony plays their hand, we can see villains like Kraven, Rhino, and other adversaries of Spider-Man try to form the Sinister Six since they failed to do so with the two previous installations of SpiderMan films.
In conclusion, Loki has been the best series out of the three that Marvel has rolled out this year. WandaVision was cool, started off slow, but in the end, we got to see Wanda at her full capacity and how impactful her powers can be going forward. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was integral for the future, as it establishes the possible new leader of the Avengers going forward. But Loki took us on a journey, answered questions we may have had from past movies, and left us with even more questions about the events that will take place going forward in the MCU. Overall, in my opinion, I think that Loki is the best series that Marvel has released, and it shined some light on a character that was constantly been mistreated over and over throughout the last ten years.