This review contains spoilers for episode 1 of Loki.
After a longer wait than last time, Marvel’s latest streaming series is upon us. While WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier took their time before diving into the main conflict, the God of Mischief is on trial before a Time Variance Authority judge for his “crimes against the sacred timeline” within a few minutes of Loki’s premiere episode “Glorious Purpose.”
Based on the first episode, Loki could be the most deliriously entertaining MCU series to hit Disney Plus yet. Tom Hiddleston has plenty of fun hamming it up to reprise Loki’s original characterization as a classical mustache-twirling villain, while showrunner Michael Waldron (best known for his work on Rick and Morty) doesn’t waste an opportunity to introduce a new facet of the TVA’s surreal multiversal operations.
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Like WandaVision, Loki’s pilot episode is pretty short on action as setting up the world takes precedence, but there isn’t a dull moment in the entire runtime. Loki has a lot going for it, from eye-popping visuals to great performances, but arguably the show’s greatest asset is its zany comedic tone. Waldron was clearly influenced by Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok in coming up with the show’s offbeat sense of humor and the deadpan nature of the TVA worldbuilding.
But despite Ragnarok’s influence, Waldron makes it clear in the pilot that Loki won’t be 100% comedic. The episode still has some emotionally resonant moments, like when Loki browses through all the tragic events in his future. This brief but poignant scene added depth to Loki’s character without slowing down the fun. Seeing that he and Thor would eventually become real brothers who care about each other brings tears to his eyes. The stage is set for the trickster god to enjoy another redemption arc. With any luck, he won’t be gruesomely murdered shortly after being redeemed this time.
One of the most common criticisms of the MCU is that its original music isn’t very memorable. While audiences can hum the themes from Star Wars and Jurassic Park at the drop of a dime, they’d be hard-pressed to remember any themes from Marvel’s movies except for Alan Silvestri’s triumphant Avengers theme and Michael Giacchino’s orchestral reworking of the theme from the Spider-Man animated series (which is kind of cheating, because that tune was already familiar). The MCU’s most memorable music is usually licensed, like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies’ “Awesome Mix” soundtracks. Loki has already established itself as one of the first MCU projects with a distinctive musical identity. Composer Natalie Holt’s use of synthesizers and what sounds like a theremin on the Loki score recalls dystopian ‘80s sci-fi, which fits perfectly with the pulpy aesthetic of the TVA.
Waldron’s densely packed, but economical script introduces a ton of mind-bending concepts at the TVA, like batons that inflict slow-motion injuries and an airport-style metal detector that melts robots who don’t realize they’re robots. The TVA is said to have the unsettling ability to “reset” people. Hopefully, the showrunner has plans to integrate these ideas into the storytelling later in the season and they won’t end up just being random gags or unresolved setups like a lot of the intriguing ideas brought to the table in the early episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Hiddleston is undeniably the star of the show, but he has some strong support. Owen Wilson’s dry, understated line deliveries as Agent Mobius evoke the actor’s nuanced performances from Wes Anderson movies. His scenes with Hiddleston exemplify the oddball chemistry they developed in the roles of F. Scott Fitzgerald and a nostalgic time-traveling writer in Midnight in Paris. Gugu Mbatha-Raw only appears briefly as TVA hunter-turned-judge Ravonna Renslayer, but is seemingly (and hopefully) being primed for a larger role in future episodes. With limited screen time, she gets an interesting introduction here as a TVA bureaucrat whose sense of bureaucracy intimidates other TVA bureaucrats.
Loki’s cameo in Avengers: Endgame’s 2012-set sequence has been the focus of fan discussions for more than two years now. “Glorious Purpose” picks up right where Endgame left off and introduces Loki’s current predicament nice and succinctly. A handy TVA cartoon explains the multiverse a lot better than the Ancient One did in Endgame. It also has a hilariously anticlimactic explanation for the much-teased revelation that Loki is the true identity of D.B. Cooper in the MCU: he lost a bet to Thor.
The main conflict of the series is set up essentially as Loki vs. Loki, which is certainly exciting. It’ll be fun to see what Hiddleston does with the opportunity to play multiple Lokis of varying degrees of evilness. “Glorious Purpose” has deftly laid the groundwork for the rest of the series to dig into the rich, complicated world of the TVA while chronicling Loki’s efforts to fix broken timelines.
Like most television pilots, “Glorious Purpose” sets up the series’ premise and leaves the audience to wait until next week to see that premise realized. But in Loki’s case, that premise is utterly unique: it’s a law enforcement procedural in which the law enforcement agency polices the space-time continuum. While the MCU’s big-screen output generally follows a well-worn formula and has little room for innovation, its recent streaming shows have proven the franchise’s ability to venture further outside the box on a smaller screen.
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