The Stereo Geeks have another impromptu review for you! This time, we're discussing Loki, the Disney+ series that follows one of our favourite Marvel villains, the God of Mischief himself, Loki. This episode is mostly about us processing our feelings after the season 2 finale. Spoilers ahead, so beware.

Read a more detailed review from Ron at Women Write About Comics, and by Mon at Vocal.

Listen to the episode on Spotify.

Hello, and welcome to a new episode of Stereo Geeks.

Today, this is a spoiler-filled review of Loki.

I'm Ron.

And I'm Mon.

All right, Loki.

Well, that was some finale, huh?

Well, let's just talk about the first season first.

You and I weren't the biggest fans.

We were excited about it.

I mean, how can you not be?

It's Loki, everybody loves Loki.

But the first season left us wanting.

It's not that hard to pinpoint why.

I know a lot of people enjoyed the fact that it was more cerebral, it was slower paced, it wasn't the usual Marvel formula.

We have nothing against something being a little bit different.

Hey, we are fans of She-Hulk.

My biggest problem with the first season was that it didn't actually treat Loki as the kind of character that he is.

He was very much a joke, a sort of punchline.

His growth as a person who is now displaced, who is no longer who he thought he was, was kind of underdone and also played up for laughs.

And I really had a problem with that.

And I feel that's where the first season really fell away for me.

I agree.

I also feel like the pandemic had quite an impact on the first season.

They probably had a much greater vision and different ideas, but it ended up becoming all about exposition.

These long, long conversations between characters, which really didn't do anything, they didn't help progress the plot at all, and didn't even give us that much insight into the characters themselves when it was really necessary because Loki was kind of the only character we really knew in that first season.

We were meeting all these brand new characters and their backstories were not really given to us at all.

When you have a conversation and you want to be cerebral, you still have to get somewhere at the end.

But a lot of those conversations were just cyclical, repetitive, they went on and on, they rambled, they meandered.

What is the whole point of it?

Who knows?

Unfortunately, that was a really disappointing turn for the first season, especially for a character who we're all really excited about.

Loki has died so many times in the MCU and he keeps coming back because the fans love him.

I mean, at the end of Infinity War, it seemed like Loki was never going to be able to come back.

Like there was absolutely no way.

And in Endgame, suddenly we're back in 2012 and we're fighting Loki.

And then we get this variant that was very exciting for people who were fans of Loki.

It's always been kind of a battle, Loki versus Thor.

I've always been on the side of Thor, but I have to admit that the charisma of Loki, it's honestly hard to find even in the MCU, which has a lot of characters.

So yes, we really wanted a lot from the first season.

And when we were getting into the second season, you and I were apprehensive.

I was downright concerned.

In fact, I was in two minds about actually watching it.

But of course we did get some screeners and I thought, why not?

Let's give it a go.

And we were invested from the get go.

I was really surprised at how much I ended up enjoying the second season.

I'm anyway a real sucker for time travel stories, but when the story itself seems to really enjoy that aspect, that makes me want to watch the show.

More than anything else, maybe because the first season had already done all the set up work of creating the characters and showing us our relationships with Loki, maybe because all that work was done, this season didn't have to do all that heavy lifting.

So what we ended up getting was just plot, drama, action, suspense and spectacle.

I like that.

And also it builds off what we know from the first season, which is that Loki has met these people, the people from the TVA, Sylvie, who is his other variant, and also he who remains or his variants as well.

And it builds off the fact that we know that these are the characters who have been introduced and we need to find out more about Loki and his relationship with them.

I really like that.

Instead of going all, let's just be plot and sci-fi, it's also at the end of the day about human emotions or rather God-like emotions for the people around him.

And I think that was also what was missing in the first season where the interactions were there, but not really working from time to time.

And here it really is about Loki has this group of people.

He's very close to them.

And central to the plot is Loki trying to save these people so that he can be with them.

I think what really made me love this second season was the fact that it realized that what makes Loki interesting isn't the fact that he's power hungry.

It's the fact that he's really lonely.

Yeah, you're very right.

Because Loki is a very interesting character, but he's constantly had to live in the shadow of his warrior-esque brother.

He kind of didn't really get to be his own person.

And the first season didn't quite know what to do with that.

But this second season just is like, no, Loki made these friends.

He can see this huge threat.

He knows that something has to be done to stop it.

And he will literally do anything and everything if he can stop it and save his friends.

It's not really about power anymore.

That's what Loki always believed he wanted, because that's what he thought that a god should want.

But what he actually wants is just to save his friends.

And also sense of belonging, right?

Loki, without actually realizing or knowing his true heritage, always felt like he was outside his own Asgardian family.

When he finds out why, because he's a frost giant, it makes him angry.

So, you know, he lashes out and acts out, you know, he's very childish.

He's just like his brother that way.

The growth that we see in this season, without much exposition, we just see it through the actions that Loki is constantly hanging on to these people, coming back to these people, relying on these people.

So by the time in the fifth episode, Loki tells Sylvie he wants his friends back.

And that tells you exactly how much this character has grown from the person we saw in 2011.

We should also talk about Loki's new friends, because it's quite a large cast of characters around him.

We've got Owen Wilson playing Mobius.

I really liked Mobius.

I was like surprised when they cast Owen Wilson.

I was like, really?

This guy in Marvel?

Yeah, but I think he really fits, because he has that sort of average, everyday kind of person vibe, but he's got a very important role to play, and he is supportive of Loki from the get-go.

Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson have great chemistry.

So that really helps their interactions and makes their friendship very believable.

At the end of the day, Mobius is a fan of Loki's.

Yes, yes.

We also have Hunter B-15, played by Umini Masaku.

I think she was a little bit underplayed.

Yeah.

We needed more scenes with her, but she's so interesting, and she has this amazing presence about her.

You just know that she's there.

She is keeping everything together, keeping herself together, and there's a calming presence at the back.

Even though she's way at the back in the frame, I really like that about her.

I like how principled Hunter V15 is.

Yeah.

In the first season, when she only knows the way of the Time Variance Authority, she's like, yes, I have a mission to prune variants, and I will do it.

And the moment she realizes that the TVA is actually peopled with variants, and they all have lives, that's it.

She's just like, I am going to ensure that all these variants have the lives that they wanted to have, and I'm going to make sure that they don't get pruned.

Yes.

And she just sticks to that.

She will not let go of those principles.

She's just so passionate about it.

I really love those scenes with her.

I definitely feel like we could have got a lot more with her, because she's just so full of conviction.

And I loved watching that.

And it feels like the actor herself knows so much about this character and this world and the character's feelings about these events.

I think it would have been nice to just see a bit more.

Agreed.

The other character is Casey, played by Eugene Cordero.

He had a really like small scene in the first season.

Maybe he came back twice.

I don't remember.

Honestly, like I was like, okay, whatever, this guy has a scene.

But then, in the second season, he's part of Loki's inner circle.

Like I love that, because there's this nerdy guy who really knows the TVA inside and out.

And he's so close to Loki.

Like Loki is so fond of him.

I love that.

I look at it this way.

Casey is basically a pencil pusher in the TVA.

Yeah.

He would not have actually amounted to anything in that kind of a system.

But because of Loki's antics, he ends up being a really important part of this entire time travel, time slipping story.

Maybe Marvel realized that Eugene Caldero just has a lot of chemistry with Tom Hiddleston and people just gravitated towards the character.

He also voices Rutherford on Star Trek Lower Decks.

People are huge fans.

So I guess that's why they just went with it.

I think it was a good decision because he's so much fun.

Yes, I think that's what was missing in the first season, that fun aspect.

Again, not comic relief, just somebody who is a little bit more vivacious, a little bit more energetic.

Speaking of energetic, this season comes alive with the introduction of Ki-Hui Kwan.

He is Obi Ouroboros, and he's basically been hiding out in the recesses of the TVA, but he becomes an integral part of the storyline.

Honestly, without him, they wouldn't have survived the first episode.

Forget the entire season.

He's just amazing.

Really like raw ball of energy, this guy.

He was a really fabulous addition to the second season.

He brought not only just the energy, he had that chemistry with all the actors.

He felt like he had always been in the TVA and people just forgot that he was there.

And that's quite hard when you're coming in after an entire season.

But he made it look effortless.

He's got this infectious, happy personality.

Even when Ouroboros was giving people the worst possible news, and it was just negative, negative, negative.

Even then you're just like, oh, this guy is amazing.

He's trying his best.

Exactly, yeah.

So rounding out the group is Sylvie, who was introduced in the first season.

She is a variant of Loki's.

Honestly, I've never taken to Sylvie, and I didn't take to her in the second season either.

Oh no, she got better, but I just, you know, we've been watching Tom Hiddleston since 2011.

Not consistently, he's not been Loki every year, but that kind of presence that you have from this person who is so sure of himself, so confident, even when he's wrong, or he's realized he's made a mistake.

I just didn't get that from Sylvie.

Now, understandably, her life has been very different, but I think that bitterness, the anger, even that was kind of missing.

And in this season, she's more resigned, or at least content, but I feel like she was still too angry.

I think there's something missing with Sylvie.

I'm not sure.

I feel like Sofia DiMartino really tries very hard with the content that she's given.

And the first season, the pandemic really made it very difficult for them to have the scenes that they wanted.

So a lot of what Sylvie's life and her difficulties were, it was just told to the audience.

Whereas with Loki, we've actually got to see his life.

That kind of did the character disservice.

I also feel like the first season was mostly setting her up as a love interest for Loki.

So that has never done any female character any good in the history of cinema.

The second season, maybe again, we had the entire first season with her.

So we understood a lot of aspects about her.

So I felt like I could understand where she was coming from with some of her decisions.

You're right in the fact that it didn't always flow.

She seemed to be content living on this branched timeline, working at McDonald's, of all places.

Yet when she was brought to the TVA and Loki asked for her help, she was really angry about everything.

Are you happy that branch timelines exist?

Do you just want to see the destruction of the TVA?

Which is it?

I felt like she just became the mouthpiece for the audience in this season.

Like she was just asking questions and she was just constantly angry.

And I'm like, let her just be more.

I agree with you.

Again, it's a case of a female character not getting the kind of characterization she deserves, which is a real pity.

I mean, it's Marvel.

We've been watching Marvel since 2008.

They should know better.

But they don't.

It seemed very much like Sylvie got shunted into the role of love interest in the first season.

And in the second season, she became the facilitator for Loki's arc.

Like there were definitely a few scenes, especially in episodes five and six, where Sylvie gave Loki the kind of advice that helped him make decisions and helped him realize so much about himself.

We don't get the same for Sylvie though.

Yeah, she's sort of left to her own devices, which is weird considering she spent her entire life hiding and running away.

Now, why isn't she craving for community?

Loki's doing it.

Loki's found his friends group.

Why isn't Sylvie done the same thing?

Exactly.

And now I feel like the show has ended, and what's going to happen with all these characters?

Because that's it.

There's not going to be a season three.

I mean, there can't be, which we'll get back to in one second.

But first, we have to talk about the fact that Sylvie at least had a scene in every episode.

Are we going to talk about Ravonna Rensselaer, who really got the short straw, this entire show, not just this season, this entire show, what were they trying to do with this character?

Well, in the first season, it was like, oh, she's this person with a lot of power.

She's the judge at the TVA.

And that's a great thing to say and have a black woman in that role.

But at the end of the day, she was just on this very high podium, and she was just giving judgments, and that was it.

Where was the growth?

Where was the arc?

Like she's this very interesting character apparently, but we don't get to see any of that.

And then in season 2, she's literally there in one episode and that night at the end.

What?

I don't understand what happened there.

My hope is that she will return in a much more powerful, action-oriented, and I don't mean action scenes, I mean action-oriented character and role.

It just seemed like we cast this person, we gotta give her something to do, we're contractually obligated to tell her to come back for season 2.

It was so infuriating to see somebody of this caliber of talent completely wasted.

And the thing is that apparently in the comics, Kang and Renslayer have a very long history.

That's alluded to in the show.

It's alluded to that.

But in just one episode.

Yes, exactly.

It's just not enough.

It's just not enough for this kind of character and this level of acting.

I also feel like maybe there were one too many puzzle pieces.

You can't fit it all in.

Unfortunately, Ravonna was the one who did not fit.

And they kept trying to shoehorn her into the show.

And it just doesn't work.

But there's promise.

Like what the final episode seems to suggest is that she will be back.

She'll have a much larger role to play.

And we know that she already has a connection with He Who Remains.

So let's see where we see her next.

It's just that this show was not the right one for her to be introduced.

Well, looking at the format of the show, it's two seasons and six episodes each.

Too short.

It's just too short for this many characters, a brand new world, and you're trying to tie it into apparently the Phase Five's big villain.

That's too much to put on one show.

And it has all these different and new concepts for the MCU to be introduced, explained, to become part of the plot, etc.

It was just a lot.

In a way, I'm like, okay, you're invested for exactly six weeks, and that's good.

But I do feel six episodes is maybe just too little.

I mean, having said that, the first season, I was happy when it ended.

The second season, not so much.

Six episodes really made me feel like, oh, I'm gonna miss this.

And I do also wonder, does everything have to be so tightly adhered to?

Just because the first season was six episodes, does the second season need to be six episodes?

Couldn't it have been a bit longer?

There was a lot happening in this season and so many plot threads, which I feel like they were kinda dropped by the wayside.

I felt like it needed at least one more episode, especially after watching the finale, which we'll get to now.

I did feel like if we had one more episode of Loki, his friends group, him trying to save his friends, and then we go into the actual realization of what has to be done to save the multiverse, I think we would have felt the weight of it, the stakes even more if we had one extra episode.

I feel the same way.

Shall we talk about that, Indi?

Yes, let's talk about the finale.

So, okay, I'll start off by saying, I was a little bit concerned as the finale started.

It had some overlong scenes of talking, talking, talking, and I'm like, oh no, we're stuck in the trap of season one.

Stop talking.

But those scenes were actually like a game of chess, where somebody thinks that they're winning, and then bam, checked me.

So I did like that.

I also found it really funny that Tom Hiddleston was suddenly saddled with so much techno babble, and he's so good at it.

Having listened to so many Star Trek actors talk about how techno babble is so difficult, some of them avoid it like the plague.

It is funny, but also very impressive to see Tom Hiddleston who started off his MCU life as a Shakespearean Norse god, take on this sciency stuff and just run with it.

Really love that.

So basically the finale, it has a lot of Groundhog Day elements.

Loki has to keep doing the same thing over and over so that he can figure out how to save the day, which is that he has to stop the temporal loom from bursting and the multiverse of branches, timelines basically disappearing and people dying, trillions and trillions of people.

His motivation, of course, is that his friends will also die.

He doesn't want that to happen.

So he has to keep trying his level best to figure out a way to make sure Victor Timely, who is a variant of he who remains, can actually fix the temporal loom.

And then Loki has a realization.

He realizes the only way to save everybody, including his friends, especially his friends, is by sacrificing himself.

But not in the way you think.

Exactly.

I found that so intriguing because when Loki decides to finally go down in that TVA room and close the doors and lock his friends away from him, and he walks out into the temporal loom, I just kept thinking to myself, what is he going to do?

Like, the radiation is attacking him, he's not going to survive this, but he's a god, and he uses his godly powers to grab all these branches of the timeline, bring them to life, and destroy the loom, so that the loom, which is basically holding everything back, and also the reason why everything was going to get destroyed, is gone.

And then after that, Loki is the one who actually has to maintain all these branches of the timeline.

So in essence, he takes over the role that he who remains apparently had all this while.

And that is now Loki's life.

He is now burdened with this glorious purpose.

I mean, we see Loki as his most flamboyant self atop a throne.

Literally a god of everything.

And it's the saddest thing we've seen in the MCU.

It is.

I couldn't believe the melancholy that I felt watching that.

I was really impressed, in all honesty.

Yes, I was very sad.

But in a way, Loki's path has always led to him being a hero.

In the sacred timeline, Loki sacrificed himself for his brother and in the TVA timeline, Loki sacrifices himself for literally everyone.

I guess that's a really good thing.

But it's also super, super sad.

I am very sad for Loki.

I know.

I mean, especially because he's come to a point where he realizes that he needs people.

He wants to be around these people and he really likes them.

Everything that he's done throughout the second season is to make sure that his friends are alive and that he can be with them.

But in the end, he's alone and he has to watch the lives of his friends continue because there's this moment where Mobius, who doesn't know what to do with his life either, is watching his variant self, I guess.

And he's like, I'm just going to stand here and let time pass.

And that dialogue floats through voiceover and we can see that Loki has heard it.

So he's just watching his friends' lives and he can't be part of it.

It was just amazing.

But wow, so sad.

I think sometimes the MCU really tries to get happy endings and it doesn't always work out.

And sometimes you're just like, it's a superhero movie.

Should it have a sad ending?

Like Infinity War.

Grindr ends up being everybody's favorite because that ending was so unexpected.

And I think this season of Loki ending this way, the show ending this way, I think it's the right decision because for this character, like what else was Loki going to do?

He's a variant.

It's not like he can go back to being with Thor either.

So might as well save the universe.

I'm okay with him saving the universe.

Does he have to be left all by himself to do that?

It's just so tragic.

It is.

That's a good thing though.

Every part of me is like, this is horrible.

Why does he do this?

And at the same time, I'm like, this was a good bold decision by Marvel, but I can't get over it.

And the choice to end the show on Loki's face and Hiddleston's acting where you can't make out what he's feeling because he is sad, he is resigned, he is happy.

All those things, they're all there.

And the restraint by him to not shed a tear because that would give it away.

That would be like, oh, Loki's sad.

No, no, no.

We don't actually know the extent of his feelings because he's feeling all the things just like we are feeling all the things.

Brilliant move.

Yes, I was very impressed by the second season.

I did not expect it to be as engaging, as fun, as Loki oriented as I had hoped, but it definitely managed to do a lot.

I still wish that Sylvie had been given her due, that Renslayer had been given way more to do, and that there was some inkling as to what will happen to these characters afterwards.

But as a show about Loki, I'm just glad that it ended the way it did.

And okay, fine, we close the chapter on Loki now.

It's a difficult chapter to close.

I think we'll see the TVA again.

They are on the hunt for the variance of Kang.

I don't know about Sylvie.

And with Loki, I don't know.

I hope he appears as the watcher does from time to time in the comics.

He's just there looking over the multiverse, looking over his friends and family.

He is now apparently very close to his comic book counterpart, which is the God of Stories.

That doesn't make me feel much better, but that was a really incredible ending, and I am still trying to process it.

The ending will be the most important part of your story.

It doesn't really matter what comes before, so I am actually ready to forgive season one because that ending was so good.

I know.

Well, that was our review on Loki the show and our particular love for that very sad ending.

We hope we'll see the characters again.

We hope we see Loki somewhere, but until next time.

See you all.

You can find us on Twitter at Stereo underscore Geeks or send us an email at [email protected].

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