'Loki' – Episode Five, ‘Journey Into Mystery’


The spoilers are starting early today and there's a pretty big one in the next paragraph, just to warn you...

I'll be honest, If it wasn't for the fact that I can be all 'completist' at times, I probably wouldn't have bothered with today's 'Loki'. It's got all the ingredients needed, for me to fall completely in love with it, but the last couple of episodes have felt just a little off the boil for me. Part of it is the meandering pace (although if there's another season to come, that might explain that) but I'm also finding it difficult to really root for anyone here. Sylvie, well maybe but with Loki it feels like the plot is driving him rather than the other way round. I've got a soft spot for Mobius but I can't help but feel he is being pointed at a future with jet skis and left to drift into it. Which I could actually get behind but it doesn't make things particularly exciting, does it?

Richard E. Grant as Loki though... That was what led me back to DisneyPlus in the end, rather than looking up the synopsis on Wikipedia, as he was born to play Loki and we all know it. So, how did it go...? Erm... it was ok...?

What happens when you are pruned from the sacred timeline? Well, Loki is about to find out with the help of four other Lokis and the return of an old friend. He also wants to find out who controls the TVA and the answer might just lie within the evil purple cloud that wants to eat everything. Seriously...

Normally, the end of an MCU episode will have me being all 'Wow! Can't wait for next week' and looking for theories online, all the good stuff :o) 'Journey Into Mystery' though... I just about mustered a 'well, ok...' and then I was looking up the football score. The episode was alright but it drifted when it needed to move with a little more urgency. There's a big purple cloud eating everything and it might just hold the answers we all want, should we do something about that? Well, eventually yes but in the meantime, we get a big 'Loki Fight' that just seemed out of place and more than a little pointless, it may move our band of Lokis out but it doesn't really move anything on. It's a shame as Richard E. Grant's Loki was brilliant, all old and bitter but with that touch of the theatric that makes Loki, well... Loki. Kid Loki was also fun but for me, it was all about Grant and what he brought to the character. And the way he bowed out, we've seen it happen before but redemption really isn't beyond a Loki, any Loki. I like that lesson.

But is this enough though? I am quite happy to be proved wrong next week if it all comes together and makes sense; I want to be proved wrong and just watch the whole series again just to see how it works. Right now though, it feels like there's a lot of style and spectacle but not a lot of substance and maybe that's meant to be part of it (Loki's and illusion...), I don't know. Lets see what happens next week...

(P.S.I finally managed to post a 'Loki Post' on a Wednesday!)

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