REVIEW: Loki Ep. 1

Minor Spoilers Ahead!

Marvel has released its latest Disney+ entry with the first episode of Loki now available. Much like with their previous two entries “Wandavision” and “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” Marvel has once again created an opening act that was both entertaining and intriguing. I often find myself watching a new show and really needing to give them at least 3 episodes before really feeling like “oh this is gonna be good” but Marvel seems to be able to get me to say it after just one. Now could that be because I’m a huge fan of the MCU…probably, but these shows have been put together so well and have the cast to back it up that I truly believe they would be enjoyable to almost anyone…even Krystle enjoyed it!

While all of the Disney+ Marvel properties are helping us move into the next phase of the MCU, Loki is the one that most directly takes place right after the events of Endgame and I feel may end up being what really helps separate the first three phases (aka The Infinity Saga) from the fourth (and probably fifth, and so on and so on). Although the very first scene of the series is picked right from past Avengers films and the transition to the start of Loki’s new story is literally seconds after where we last see him escape using the tesseract, the show quickly moves us, quite literally, “out of that time line.” By the end of the episode, I found myself thinking this could actually be the “line in the sand” that most definitively moves us past the Infinity Saga (although we still need to see what the multiverse and quantum realm have to offer as well) and into a whole new story arc.

The introduction of the “sacred timeline” and the TVA (even at this extremely early point) has already provided a clearer idea of how time-travel works in the MCU and even though that may change as we delve deeper and deeper into this new aspect, it serves as both a great end point for essentially everything we’ve known so far before the Disney+ shows, and a jumping off point for where we might be headed. The way the show portrays the extreme power of this new aspect of time (even though done in a pretty amusing way) still gave me mixed emotions. While I was mostly super excited about where all this is heading, I did find myself asking, “does this make everything we’ve gone through over the past decade feel ‘unimportant’!” Almost blasphemous I know, but still the sheer power of what was shown in this very first episode, which may just be scratching the surface, does make you think.

While the storyline is the foundation of any good story, it’s the characters that make them memorable and that might be why Loki was such a great choice to lead us into this brand new arena of time. Tom Hiddleston continues to portray the Norse god of Mischief (MCU’s version at least) perfectly and his charisma and love of this character continues to shine through. His ability to play a “villain” that we love is what really makes his character (and most likely this series) so enjoyable. However, Loki the series, is not without another interesting character for Loki to play off of. Just like in all of his appearances in past MCU films, Loki shines when he’s forced to work alongside, fight, or manipulate others and the new show provides what so far looks like will be a great relationship for probably doing all of those things at once. That is of course the “time cop” Mobius played by Owen Wilson!

When I first heard about “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” my immediate thought was, “This is going to be great! A Marvel buddy cop story!” and that show did deliver a number of moments where that really came through. I did not, think the same thing when I heard about “Loki.” Honestly, I really had no idea what we were going to get, much like I felt about “Wandavision.” However…after the first episode, I honestly am getting those vibes all over again, if not more so than I did with “F&WS!” The interactions between these two actors and characters was by far my favorite part of the episode. Owen’s comedic background really shines through in his portrayal of Mobius and makes for some great one-liner’s between the two and provides an excellent counterpart to Loki’s more “trying to be serious, but because he’s the god of Mischief, it comes across humorously” (don’t really know how else to describe it ha) attitude. I honestly can’t wait for more of this!

Overall, the first episode was honestly great in my opinion. It gave us more Loki (a character we all enjoy), introduced a new strong counterpart in Mobius, used so many different emotions from humor to grief skillfully, provided enough intrigue to get us guessing again (is it Mephisto all over again?) and gave a little taste of the past but a whole lot of what might be coming in the future (Pardon all the word-play regarding time…but I just can’t help myself). If you asked me should you watch it? Definitely!

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Thanks for reading everyone! See Ya Real Soon.