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Loki Episode 1: Even A God Can’t Change His Own Fate

At long last, Loki has premiered on Disney+! The first episode is titled “Glorious Purpose” and goes back in time for the MCU. So let’s dive right into the first episode’s review, shall we? Spoilers ahead! I’d take the time to watch the episode beforehand. That is, unless you want to get arrested by the Time Variance Authority for crimes against the Sacred Timeline.

We open on Loki during Avengers: Endgame, when the Avengers travel back in time to the moment after Loki’s defeat in The Avengers. He snags the Tesseract during the chaos and teleports away to a desert in Mongolia. However, some no-nonsense time cops quickly appear and arrest him. Apparently, he’s broken the timeline by escaping his imprisonment, and there’s dire consequences for that! Now, he’s labeled as a Variant, and they take him back to the Time Variance Agency, or TVA for short. He goes through a long and arduous conviction process. It’s fairly lighthearted, especially since Loki’s so insistent on the fact that he’s a god and shouldn’t be treated like a prisoner. But the concept of the Sacred Timeline and the TVA’s purpose are soon explained, and it raises a lot of questions. I’ll be addressing those later in the review.

Loki’s brought before a judge to plead his innocence. It’s hard for him to plead, since he doesn’t even know what he did wrong. But before he’s sentenced, a new character comes to his rescue. Agent Mobius, played by Owen Wilson, insists on bringing Loki in for further questioning. He cites that Loki could possibly help him with one of his time detective cases. As they’re walking to Mobius’s office, Loki gets a look at the outside world. It’s heavily futuristic, though fairly monotonous in design. Loki thinks he’s somewhere magical, but Mobius deconfirms this. Nothing there is magic, which is interesting. That makes Loki the odd one out. I’d say it’s similar to his time on Earth, but the MCU proved that there’s tons of magic there already. So this is definitely a new situation for Loki.

Loki’s conversation with Mobius is dramatic, to say the least. Mobius acts more like a counselor than a detective during some points. He shows Loki moments from his past, as well as some from his future. For instance, Loki gets to see Frigga’s death, which he’s responsible for during this timeline. But it hasn’t happened yet! After all, this series takes place after the events of The Avengers. Then, Mobius tries to get Loki to see his own logic. Sure, Loki wants to be king, but what then? Why does the God of Mischief insist on hurting and killing people? That’s not much of a trick, according to Mobius. Loki seems frazzled by this, but he takes an opportunity to escape after Mobius is called out of the room.

Loki proceeds to navigate through the TVA in search of the Tesseract. It’s in some random office worker’s desk as evidence, but that’s not all that he finds. There’s Infinity Stones in there too – lots of them. The office worker even admits that some of the others use them as paperweights. If Loki wasn’t frazzled before, he certainly is now. He makes his way back to the office, reviewing more of the footage of his life. He even starts crying, which hurts to watch. I know I’d be devastated if I was told my entire life was set in stone, that there was no way to change things. Mobius eventually comes back, and they have another heart to heart. Loki admits that he never truly wanted to hurt people. Mobius understands and associates this with Loki wanting power above all else, and he obtained it through fear.

The episode ends with Mobius asking Loki to help him with a particular case. He reveals that the specific Variant involved is violent and keeps killing other time cops. And this Variant is none other than Loki himself! We don’t know why this other Loki’s been targeting the TVA agents, but who better to track him down than Loki himself?

Based on this episode, I have a feeling Loki will be a little more out there than Wandavision. We’re dealing with time shenanigans and the consequences of messing with the time continuum. Avengers: Endgame touched on this when the Avengers went back in time, but now we’re tackling this entire issue with full strength. It also raises a lot of concerns about the MCU’s timeline and the higher powers controlling the Sacred Timeline. These beings, the Time-Keepers, sound like they could be our antagonists for the series. Seriously, why is Loki the only one who’s been caught for breaking the timeline? Why are they the ones controlling everyone’s fates? And why did they go through the trouble of making an agency to deal with Variants instead of dealing with Variants themselves?

All this being said, this was a great first episode! It’s lighter in tone than Wandavision and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier were, at least for now. I have a feeling that’s about to change. After all, Loki is a god, and he’s dealing with the fact that his fate isn’t his own to control. Someone else is pulling the strings, and I hope he gets a chance to cut them.

What did you think of Loki‘s first episode? What are you looking forward to in the rest of the series? Let us know in the comments or send us your thoughts on Twitter!

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Kayleigh Clark