Loungin' With LOKI - Episode 2 - The Variant (Patreon)

This show is actually playing fair, huh?

When it comes to writing you’re constantly asking these questions like, “what’s the intention of that? Why that choice?” and then you watch to see whether or not it plays fair by what it established. For instance, last time I remarked about the potential trouble of keeping the “Bad Loki” in the dark shadow, implying some kind of bait and switch. I specifically said: “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 dummy big bad whose the REAL enemy instead of actually getting the character to confront the enemy within.” And what’s interesting is that this episode ultimately splits the difference in a completely fair way.

Because it seems we have all sorts of variant Lokis who have been messing with The TVA for some time now (which I honestly don’t know if makes logical sense in terms of what they’ve established in terms of timeline or multiverse?), but luckily it was only a half episode feint before showing us that his shadowy adversary is indeed a “Lady Loki,” (which admittedly was already a spoiler hashtag on twitter before I even finished the episode at 2am). Cheers for a fun idea. Sure, we haven’t really gotten enough to see from Sophia Di Martino yet, but I’ve learned to trust their casting if she’s as fun as Hiddleston, it’ll work (at least I hope).

I also find it interesting that they have already got Loki peace-ing out from his little detective foray to go hang out with her and cause trouble? Perhaps it’s best? Because turning Loki a desk-bound bureaucrat was alternatively fun and… limiting? Like I’m just not sure you get a whole show out of that. At least not without severely altering what makes the character work. Because the actual fun of Loki is getting to see him play all sorts of sides of things (he’s gotta be like Hannibal in that show, for example). You can only have him frustrated and playing the peon for so long before you gotta branch out into other aspects of his personality. Just like you can’t have everyone tell him “you’re a schemer!” without, you know, showing him scheme. But again - right as I was worrying about that - the episode followed suit and delivered. Getting to see Loki go behind their back to try to make a new deal with “themselves” is the only time you’re really feeling like you are seeing “the real him.” Or at least the part of him you know best. But the whole thing about Loki he’s not even sure what he believes. Which makes a wonderful adversary, but a bit of puzzle for a lead. One that it’s this show’s job to truly figure out.

So far my only real complaint is pace of direction.

Please note, this is not pace of edit complaint. I feel like people make this mistake of assumption all the time. Because they think that when something “feels slow,” an editor can just swoop in and make it cut together real fast and fix it (believe me, some shows try and it just makes it worse). No, every edit feels on point to what the character’s pace is dictating. It’s just that this pace is a bit too lethargic for what’s on the page (a script which is sound btw, save for a few stop/start transitions instead of therefore / but-ing). But I’d also argue that that’s the only problem when it comes to direction. Because the performances are clear and I am actually getting deliberate sense of mise en scene, here. The show is neither coveraged to death, nor laying a stranglehold (though it does seem to have a certain preoccupation with low angles on our characters, when I genuinely thinks some Brazil-esque high angles could emphasize Loki’s inner feelings better). Again, it’s just that the actors are going at the pace of their scenes a bit too slow. Sure, we so moments where it busts out, but it’s not even an energy thing. Owen Wilson should stay low-key. But you need to be low-key in rhythm with a show that actually has a massive amount of dialogue (Columbo had this down). I’m honestly not talking about much, it just needs to be a half step faster. It sounds silly, but it’s really important. For when you are directing and you have have it all going in your head, you gotta clock that pace. Because often it’s the difference between 50 minute jaunt and 44 minute romp.

But if that’s honestly my biggest worry… we’re doing okay? Like there’s not a ton of big picture stuff to write about yet. So I continue to be curious what this will all add up to. But most of my specific ideas with this week’s episode are located in…

RANDOM THOUGHTS!

-The timekeepers are an interesting metaphor for the Fiege brain trust at the MCU. I particularly love the idea of them scrambling together trying to figure out how it “all ends” even if corporate time moves on ad infinitum.

-Kate Berlant cameo!?!??!?!

-You can’t play Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero,” without showing SOMEONE dancing like mad a la Footloose.

-Production design, the Fallout PipBoy vibes were up to the nth degree this week.

-So far the way the show is handling timey-wimey nonsense is… mostly okay? Like this is incredibly hard stuff and the “ya gotta go back in real time after not before” feels like a good enough explanation. And the hiding within destructive events of everything that’s gonna get destroyed anyway? That’s actually a pretty smart idea? Especially if they set up the destructive stuff earlier? So far I feel like they’ve handled it pretty good.

-Very eager to see what they do more of with Gugu Mbatha Raw? Because she deserves it.

-Any conjecture for who this “analyst on the side” is who went to Franklin D Roosevelt High School? Casual googling got me nowhere.

-Fun production thing. The TVA is of course filmed in the infamous Atlanta Marriot Hotel which has become home to so much Sci-Fi (especially given how much film production has moved to Atlanta).

-Wait did I see that right, in the destruction of Asgard that it was 9000 people who died???? That was all of Asgard? I could entirely be wrong, it’s just we just had 600,000 die of Covid in this country and I’m just… the scale of death is a weird thing in terms of how our brains process it.

-That BETTER be Chekov’s jet ski for Agent Mobius.

-Quick note from last week I forgot to mention: Anyone else wish the D.B. Cooper nod played a little more on the sly? Or if it was part of a bigger string of funny allusions? I dunno, that was laid on a tad too thick, especially with it being a joke bet? Like what’s even the joke there?

-An Amazon / Walmart slight? Look, I fully get making corporate slights from within the system but these shows are so ding dang corporate as is and YOU’RE DISNEY.

… Something about a pot and a kettle.

<3HULK