Loki S1 (2021) Review

 

Loki S1 (2021)

Following his divergence from the timeline in Avengers: Endgame, Loki Season 1 follows Loki, who after being snatched up by the Time Variance Authority, seeks to uncover the plot behind who controls the sacred timeline. 

In his decade long run, Loki has proven himself to be one of the most compelling and persistent villains the MCU has ever seen. So, with his own show, expectations were admittedly high but boy, this succeeded them by a longshot. While we got to see him grow into an eventual hero of sorts (and die as one), Loki sets him back to his mischievous Avengers 1 version, full of glorious purpose, which gives him plenty of room to grow once again. 

What’s neat about this show, is that the main threat, and the primary reason these characters come together, takes a back seat to Loki’s overall journey. His real ‘glorious purpose’ is learning to love himself (quite literally). He is confronted with the fate of his future self and through Sylvie, accepts that his destiny is written; he can be what he wants, even good. Nothing represents this more than him literally falling in love with himself, or a variant of himself—Sylvie (which is such a Loki thing, it’s uncanny). 

It’s the looming threat and mastermind behind the TVA that really blows the doors open for what’s to come though. Happy to say we didn’t get Ralph Bohner’d with the reveal either, fully unleashing a variant of Kang the Conquerer (!!!) and introducing that the beginnings of the multiverse, which is just huge. 

We get a stellar cast as well, starring Wunmi Mosaku, Tara Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Richard E. Grant, Jonathan Majors, Owen Wilson, Sophia Di Martino, and Tom Hiddelston. Grant, in his brief, 1 episode appearance, really stole the show, with his jaded yet kind (and uber powerful) Loki variant showing us just what an older Loki would be like. Hiddelston and Di Martino are also fantastic, as they make a terrific pairing that really fleshes out sides of Hiddelston’s character we’ve not yet seen before.

Loki Season 1, directed by Kate Herron, is a visually stunning and introspective look into the character of Loki as a whole, beautifully developing him (or this variant) into a caring and compassionate character with the ability to love and to care for others, while simultaneously blowing open the doors of the multiverse, setting up Phase 4 of the MCU to be bigger than ever. 

9.2/10