'Loki' Takes Us Behind The Curtain In An Episode That Shakes Up Everything We Thought We Knew
Loki's fourth episode, "The Nexus Event," gets downright bonkers. Yes, I know it's not surprising for things to get mind-bendy on a show about multiverses, Variants, and multiple timelines. But "The Nexus Event" is still bonkers, even by those standards.
We do get some answers, but I also have a lot more questions. So many questions! This also seems to be the episode where we're moving from establishing the world/stakes/characters to the whole whodunit of what's going on with the TVA and the Lokis. Read on for a breakdown of the latest episode.
Warning! Spoilers abound below for the fourth episode of Loki, "The Nexus Event."
Loki-on-Loki Action Apparently Rocks The Sacred Timeline
Last week, we left our favorite Lokis — Tom Hiddleston's OG Loki and Sophia di Martino's Sylvie — facing certain death on Lamentis-1. Before we head back to them, we get a bit more of Sylvie's origin story. Turns out she's been on the run from the TVA most of her life — Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) was the one to bring her in as a child. Young Sylvie escaped, however, and grew up in the (usually) Nexus-free zones surrounding apocalypses.
Sylvie and Loki have a heart-to-heart as they face their demise. It's a touching scene, and one that is earned by the groundwork laid last episode with the two Lokis being forced to work together and come to understand each other.
Their bonding has another effect — it causes a major Nexus event (AKA a branch off the Sacred Timeline) that clues the TVA in on their location. The TVA grabs them at the last minute and subsequently imprisons them.
Work Your Loki
Mobius (Owen Wilson) is pissed off at his Loki, and sends Hiddleston into time jail where the Asgardian repeatedly relives a memory of Sif (a nice cameo by Jamie Alexander here!) beating him up over and over again. The bit is funny and a nice perk for MCU fans, but it also hammers home how Loki's actions cause him to go through life alone, and how, ironically, Loki is largely the way he is because he's scared of being alone.
The TVA is Lying, and Some Agents Are Realizing It
Loki isn't the only one facing hard questions about themselves this episode. Mobius and B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) also know that things at the TVA don't add up. B-15 gets there first — she has memories of her life before becoming a Hunter and she's ready to take the TVA down.
Mobius takes a bit longer — he doesn't have his memories pre-TVA, but he knows something isn't right. He ends up stealing Ravonna's TVA data pad and confirms that she not only knows what's up, but is responsible for killing C-20 (Sasha Lane) after the Hunter realizes she used to live on Earth.
Mobius is planning to spring Loki, and the two have a nice scene where the TVA agent tells Loki that he can be anything, even someone good. It's a touching scene, and should also have clued me in that Mobius was about to die.
Everybody Gets Pruned!
Okay, not everyone. But two major characters! Ravonna catches Mobius trying to escape with Loki and "prunes" her supposed friend, obliterating him into dust. Loki and Sylvie are then taken to the Time Keepers for their imminent demise, when B-15 unlocks their collars and things get messy as a massive brawl breaks out.
At the end of the scene, Sylvie tries to kill the Time Keepers, only to reveal they're merely automatons, marionettes for whoever is pulling the strings. (It's also here where Marvel played with my expectations for comic book adaptations — the Time Keepers looked like not-so-great CGI renditions. My thought in the moment was that their budget must have run out, since they looked pretty fake. Turns out, they were fake! Clever, Marvel. Clever.)
So who's behind the Time Keepers? The Wizard of Oz behind the curtains? We don't know yet. And just when Loki seems to be professing his feelings to Sylvie, Ravonna prunes him as well. Did Loki just...kill Loki?
You are Alone and Always Will Be…Which, For Loki, Means You Can Hang Out with Other Lokis
But Loki can't be dead?! Again? That's what I yelled at my screen as I watched the credits. And thank the gods of mischief I stuck around, because we got a mid-credits scene here that confirms Loki is still with us, along with a whole bunch of other Lokis.
Hiddleston's Loki wakes up on the ground in a post-apocalyptic New York City (you can see a destroyed Stark Tower in the background). What's certainly more interesting, however, is that he's surrounded by four new Variants: Richard E. Grant dressed as an old, classic version of Loki, a kid version of Loki (Jack Veal), an alien alligator Loki, and what is perhaps a Thor/Loki Variant combo (played by Deobia Oparei), given he holds a steampunk version of Mjolnir's hammer.
Is Loki in Hell? Not yet, according to Grant's Loki! But he will be if he doesn't go with himselves somewhere.
Where will the Lokis go? And what does Ravonna really know about what's going on? Is Mobius really dead or is he in the same place Hiddleston's Loki was sent to when he was pruned? I have no idea! One thing Loki is doing really well is subverting expectations each episode. Just when you think you have a handle on where things are going, the story takes a twist and lands somewhere unexpected. I can't wait to see where things go from here, though don't ask me to speculate because whatever I guess, I'm pretty sure I'll be wrong. And I love that.
New episodes of Loki drop Wednesdays on Disney+.