Major Spoilers

Loki and Sylvie are rescued but questions are starting to be asked…

Yet again this show surprises and it does so in a good way. At each stage the showrunner, Kate Herron, has delivered us something which twists and turned like a landed eel. Last week we had an interlude which was executed in such a way it felt like a perfectly composed piece of character work set amongst an apocalypse (so much so many felt it owed a debt to the science fiction structure of Doctor Who). It ended on a cliffhanger but, really, the revelations in that show were far away from the setting, focused both on the protagonists and on the universe they find themselves in.

Episode 4 takes that tension between the main characters, turns us ninety degrees and puts its foot to the accelerator. Hard.

We’re back with Wilson’s Analyst Mobius and Wunmi Mosaku’s Hunter B15 and the consequences of what went down at the Roxxcart in episode 2. What I particularly like about this is how the focus is on Mobius and we’re led to believe it all sits with him but then the show pivots to B15 and the impact of Sylvie’s enchantment of her. I appreciated being called on my assumption that Mobius was the character to watch – even as B15 makes critical choices which follow entirely logically from her experiences.

It goes without saying that Loki and Sylvie are retrieved but the manner of their retrieval leaves lingering questions over the logic of timelines and branches which I suspect we’re not going to see answered until later – they certainly aren’t answered here. If they aren’t addressed then this is a jarring moment where the show suspends its rules for the sake of narrative. The narrative is fine and the moment upon which their rescue is predicated (Loki realising he cares for Sylvie) is moving and wonderful to watch but…on the surface it is a breach of the rules the show has set out repeatedly for how things work.

Having said that, pretty much every other in-world rule the show’s set out has been shown to be false, nearly all of them in this episode, so there’s plenty of room for this one to also be a case of misdirection.

Sorry. This episode is so twisty and with such big revelations that I’m struggling a bit to form a coherent picture of what happened and how to explain it without a series of ‘and this happened’, which I’m sure would please the god of mischief no end. Perhaps that’s the point here – the show is chaotic but finely balanced a bit like my desk where the best I can say about it is this: it is organised chaos.

That’s not to imply this show isn’t structured to within an inch of its life – it is. However, it is done so with real confidence. I can almost hear the writers saying ‘and we could have X link back to Y and twirl it all around so B comes back into play’ and cackling as they do so. It is delightful to watch as my expectations crumble around my knees.

Furthermore, what we have here is a show which is fitting more plot into its first four episodes than WandaVision and Falcon managed combined across both shows. That’s not to disparage them but to try to lay out the depth of what Marvel is putting onto the screen. You could see this and worry it’s too heavy handed or exposition laden but it’s suffused with wonderful characterisation from the cast and really tight scripts which give just about every cast member moments to shine.

I asked in my review of episode 3 why you’d have the three most powerful beings in the cosmos stuck up an elevator shaft – the show sees my question and slaps it back in my face with the worst amusement park exhibit ever conceived. In doing so they leave us with several cast members missing or unaccounted for, others in positions entirely switched from where we’d expect and still others almost certainly dead – halfway through a season and just when we begin to think of them as being heroes ascending.

In a more level headed moment where I’m not still reeling from the assault on my imagination I’d ask about whether Loki isn’t quite as central a figure as you might like – whether his experience of this world is perhaps changing him too quickly.

I’d perhaps wonder why this hasn’t happened to the TVA before? Although bureaucracies tend to ossify in such a way that the vulnerabilities which can lead to complete collapse are hidden almost until the moment they lead to catastrophe.

I’d also wonder why the Supreme Sorcerer hasn’t yet made an appearance since it’s their job (according to Avengers: Endgame) to protect the timeline.

I try to keep my knowledge of the comics out of these reviews because the MCU diverges from them substantially but also because these shows are made to be watched without prior knowledge. Yet there are several characters in the show whose presence is hinting at a much broader story bubbling under the surface.

You could ask whether the show is managing one of its jobs – changing the stage of the MCU to introduce the multiverse for phase 4 – at the expense of Loki and a slicker, more streamlined show. My own answer is, so far at least, this show has been about Loki with the happy side effect of introducing us, in a way which my entire household is thrilled at, to the wider chaos that is the multiverse of the comics. There are hints of Kang the Conqueror, the Watchers, Marvel’s take on vampires, the Fantastic Four and so much more – none of which matters unless you already know to look for it.

I will lay out one bit of speculation though. If Loki isn’t dead then nor is anyone else we’ve seen get ‘pruned’. Given the contents of the cut scene it strikes me that the ‘sacred’ part of the timeline might be a full on fascist take – that there are many timelines but the TVA has been keeping the MCU pure by stopping it from interacting with any others – which appears to be done via pruning the branches (at least if you remember the explanation for the creation of the TVA in the first place). If that is the case then ‘pruning’ is likely to dump unwanted people into alternate timelines which are entirely unconnected to the one our Loki grew up in. It might mean there’s already a multiverse out there that the MCU is currently cut off from and which the TVA is trying to keep from rejoining. Or some variation on that theme. I know, I know, but it makes sense in my head.

I come back to the point that this show is Loki in televisual form – chaotic, charming, slightly sinister, layered and barely predictable. It isn’t afraid of answering its mysteries with a haddock to the face, daring us to keep asking, demanding we think about the new ideas and questions it lays out before us.

Verdict: In short, it’s full of glorious purpose. Lokis may fail but they do not die. Rating? 9 robot overlords out of 10.

Stewart Hotston