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Posted in: Disney+, Marvel, Review, TV | Tagged: Eugene Cordero, Ke Huy Quan, loki, Marvel Studios, owen wilson, Review, sophia di martino, tom hiddleston, Wummi Mosaku
Loki Season 2 Episode 5: A Science/Fiction, Double Feature (REVIEW)
This week, Loki goes to Hell and back to recover not just his TVA teammates but also their memories - and we're not even at the finale yet.
As if the headline wasn't a dead giveaway, our hero (Tom Hiddleston) is stuck in a perpetual "time warp" in season two of the Disney+ series Loki. There's not much to come off from given the depressing previous episode in "The Heart of the TVA" without diving into some serious spoilers here. Suffice it to say, the follow-up episode in "Science/Fiction" provides a unique lead-in to the season finale. I'm going to predicate this by saying the series hits a reset of sorts for the world Loki occupies and makes for a mostly solitary affair. This is your spoiler warning.
Loki's Journey to Solving the Temporal Loom
When we last left our heroes, the gang recruited Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), who might have developed a way to end their lingering crisis that will potentially upend the universe as they know it. As he suited up to put in his solution, the destructive radiation forces proved too powerful, rending him to spaghetti. I'm starting to believe it's the VFX team's favorite non-gory way to kill someone with stringy CG. "The Heart of the TVA" ends with the group consisting of Loki, Mobius (Owen Wilson), Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), B-15 (Wummi Mosaku), Casey (Eugene Cordero), and Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) overwhelmed by the force, left to an ominous fate.
At the beginning of "Science/Fiction," we find Loki as the sole survivor, but alone at the TVA. Gathering what little of his bearings, he's having more trouble maintaining temporal form but finds a TVA manual because of plot reasons. Our hero finds himself trying to recruit the gang again, but we discover are spread out throughout time and space with no memory of their TVA selves. It's up to Loki to convince them in a leap of faith to press on and resume what they're doing before ending up in their individualized scenarios. I did enjoy what they did with Cordero's Casey, especially if you're a true crime fan. I did enjoy Sylvie's sequence at the record store with its blend of serenity and chaos.
Directed by Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, who did the same for "The Heart of the TVA" and the upcoming season finale, and writer Eric Martin are playing their cards close to their chests as far as the next puzzle pieces are concerned. I don't feel like the next episode will definitively answer anything, given how much of an important piece Loki is in defining Phase IV and setting the groundwork for the phases to come. The series has already been to oblivion and back as has the greater MCU. In a sense, it deflates any surprise or sense of urgency of Hiddleston fulfilling some final destiny for Loki the way other MCU characters like Iron Man, Black Widow, and Captain America felt like closing a major chapter.
We also can't see Loki as some anti-hero with everything the character's been through. He's far removed from the survivor and sniveling coward he once was, and it feels like anything less is a huge step back with his growth. It's a shame we won't see any of that fully realized redemption in the Thor universe despite that one-off cameo from Jaimie Alexander's Sif. I actually want to see Chris Hemsworth back – not to steal Loki's thunder, so to speak, but for him to see just how much of a genuinely changed man his brother became. The season finale streams on November 9th on Disney+.
Loki Season 2 Episode 5 "Science/Fiction"
8/10
This week's episode of Loki, "Science-Fiction" is about our hero finding himself as he is finding everyone else and their memories. Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Sophie Di Martino, and Ke Huy Quan put in memorable performances in this intense, discombobulated episode. Bonus? Eugene Cordero gets a surprisingly unexpected bad-ass moment on top of his already impressive turn as Rutherford on Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Credits
Director
Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
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