Loungin' With LOKI - Ep. 1 - Glorious Purpose (Patreon)

“The MCU is really more like television!”

For years I’ve been hearing that comparison and it never really jibed with me. Sure, it makes sense in the way that the MCU created a sprawling, interweaving web of characters that are spread across twenty-some-odd films, often teasing out events that will happen in the next one as if these were all episodic affairs. But honestly I feel like the MCU always lacked the precision of good television. It’s as if they understood TV only so much that you could tease things out and stretch the framework in a way that prevented any big movie-like climactic developments from ever really forming. But where I assumed the wait would be fatal for a lot of viewers waiting for years between films, it turns out that it was the perfect amount of time for people to forget the tension of the last moment and instead eat up whatever they were being offered in the current moment... I don’t mean that to sound so jaded. The truth is I’m only talking about narrative plotting, and the success of the MCU is far more simple in that it offers likable characters and getting to spend time with them in these topsy-turvy inconsequential romps is pretty fun. So perhaps the wheel-spinning plotting was one of those “brilliant / bad” choices that worked to their advantage (I mean, the results speak for themselves). Still, the “it’s really more like TV” misconception led many to believe the MCU would be even better suited for that medium. But instead, I argued going to the TV format would instead shine a bigger light on that imprecision... and maybe even help the MCU show it’s whole ass.

So far I’d argue this assertion has been more or less right.

Because the MCU’s grand television experiment has thus far resulted in two mixed bag affairs. Wandavision succeeded in it’s week to week curiosity driving with equal parts mystery boxing  and sitcom distraction. People were engaged right until the end. But it ultimately left a laundry list of mystery disappointment and moral confusion (my god, the entire handling of the torture thing), but overall was admittedly buoyed by wonderful performances and a few genuinely great moments and goodbyes. Admittedly, less successful on the public front was The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which actually offered a promising start with fun banter dynamics between the two leads, some powerful images, and some lovely straight-forwardness in the story. But by series’ end? It collapsed underneath the weight of its complete lack of thematic clarity. For a show that was *supposed* to be about the burdens of being Black and taking up the Captain’s mantle, it spent so much time avoiding the crux of that exploration all before whimpering to a middle-of-the-road, status-quo upholding political speech, an ending that more felt like a crushing nadir.

Both shows offered promise. Both had lots of fun. Both even had an interesting framework and approach. But both ultimately showed a lack of story finesse and thematic grasp to pull it off and drive those conceits home. So now only one question remains:

Will the same be true for everyone’s favorite Asgardian little brother?

* * *

I would argue that LOKI has one massive advantage over the other TV entries, in that they have absolutely utter clarity about who this character is. After all, Hiddleston has been playing Loki with joyful aplomb for a decade now. And he was never really so much of a side character, as he was a focal point, an arch-villain, a dastardly complication whose presence always made the plot so much more engaging. And unlike MOST of the characters in the MCU, we’ve actually seen a genuine arc from him across the series, culminating in genuine moments of both allyship and decency, cresting into his untimely end. Which leaves me with a pointed question…

What is the purpose of this show then?

If we already had seen this arc play out, what worth is there in replaying it all out? It honestly gets at this weird fear I have about the way Endgame “reset” certain characters in our story, whether they be the new Visions or whatever the heck is going to happen with past-timeline Gamora in the new Guardians. Like, are we just going through the same cycles again? Is it just making death meaningless? Again, that question is “why?” Why go back to that “phase one” Loki when he steals the tesseract during that added complication? Is it simply so that the show can exist? It has to be more than that. But to whatever credit I can give this show, they’re at least asking the same exact question…

For it seems our mischievous prince has found himself having to deal with the Time Variance Authority or TVA and the messy complications that come from it. But I will say, the idea that time itself is nothing but a giant bureaucracy almost makes too much sense. Moreover, it’s one of the more genuinely fun settings we’ve gotten to see in this entire damn universe, for it’s both so cosmically out there and yet so lovingly droll; a place awash with beige ubiquity and helpless peons (like Pillboi!) who treat infinity stones like paper weights. Better yet, it’s the kind of place that would blink Loki - and all his pompous, godly grandeur - out in an instant and not think twice about it. This all drives Loki mad, of course. Which is good because seeing him flummoxed and frustrated is one of our great delights as an audience. But within all this frustration there is one character, Agent Mobius, who is offering him a lifeline…

I can’t tell you how nice it is to see Owen Wilson again?

I mean, he hasn’t technically gone anywhere, but it’s been 5 years since he’s even appeared in broad comedies and 7 years since I’ve actually seen him in anything (that would be 2014’s Inherent Vice). For all the clunkers across his career and all the shorthand imitation jokes about “wooow,” I feel like it’s easy to forget the things he does so incredibly well. Like when he plays a low energy character there’s such an ease of charm about him. Specifically the way that faint, low-key texan drawl that coaxes little bits of calm humanity out of people. And it’s all of this which is thankfully on display here in Loki. I honestly can’t remember the last time I could just sit down and just listen to a conversation in the MCU that wasn’t trying to rush me through plot garble or leaning too heavy into jokey banter. They were having an honest to god conversation.

And that’s what this episode really is: one big conversation about Loki himself, his psychology, and what amounts to his desperate displays for control. Now, as a fifty damn minute episode of television it’s a little shaggy and repetitive, but I’m still thankful the show 1) actually got psychological in a meaningful, honest way that wasn’t just lip-service and 2) seems to have made the only correct choice with this TVA scenario and used it as an opportunity to show him past / present / future as if some Christmas time spirit. It effectively allows us to put the “current” version of late-period Loki, who has learned his lessons and such, back into this old one from the past. Meaning this is a “second chance Loki” we’re looking at. Now, is this a cheat? Yup! But a pretty necessary one if we’re going to avoid any retreading in the story to come.

Moreover, the show’s now given us two critical bits of narrative incentive.

The first is A FRAMEWORK - It seems we are dealing with a hyper-powerful time authority who is policing the “sacred timeline” above all else. Now wait a minute, why didn’t these jerks show up when The Avengers were doing all their timey-wimey nonsense in Endgame?  Well, it seems that time-travel was supposed to happen in the sacred time-line! Of course! Yeah, it’s another one of those hand-waving gestures that makes our heroes faultless and free from consequences, but whatever, I’ll roll if this distinction has some sort of purpose in the here and now. Which it thankfully seems to have. Because this all-powerful organization seems to have genuinely humbled Loki, who even while being a god, is absolutely the most grudge-laden before god character in the entirety of the MCU. But then, the show goes one better…

Because the second narrative incentive is A MISSION - Loki’s wait out of nothingness is that he has to catch… himself. On paper, this is the exact correct decision. Because if you’re gonna tell a timey-wimey story about this anti-hero having to truly grow, then they have to defeat their worst selves anyway. The literal shadow-self and I can think of no better construct for a short series. But I’m already nervous that it isn’t much more than an obvious feint and that the MCU will do it’s classic thing of setting up a hidden big bad who is the REAL enemy instead! You know, instead of actually getting the character to confront the enemy within (this was poorly handled in Wandavision, too). And so I sit here, all together happy with this first entry in the series, but all together trepidatious, stomach coiled around a simple question…

Is it gonna have the courage to actually be about what it says it’s about?

<3HULK