'Loki' – Episode Four, ‘The Nexus Event’


I'm still kind of enjoying 'Loki' but can't escape the feeling that it's a six episode season that seems to have no sense of urgency about getting the job done and telling its story in good time. Last week's episode was a great example of this; not even the prospect of a moon hitting the planet could coax the show into getting on with it and telling the damn story. Yeah... I'm still a bit annoyed about that, can you tell? ;o)

Still, it looked amazing and the half decent cliffhanger (along with the fact that there are still some questions to be answered) was enough to have me remember to watch 'Loki' this week. I say 'half decent cliffhanger', you know what I mean... We all knew the TVA would be Loki and Sylvie's ticket out of there, it was just a question of how the TVA found them. 'The Nexus Event' was an improvement on last week's episode, but a lot of last week's problems were still there. Yep, there are going to be spoilers here by the way. If you haven't already seen 'The Nexus Event', you might want to do that first and then come back here... ;o)

The Sacred Timeline isn't the only thing in danger of fracturing here... The capture of Loki and Sylvie gives rise to a lot of questions that the TVA don't want to have to answer. Will a visit to the Timekeepers solve the problem, or create an entirely new one...?

If this episode is anything to go by, I'm expecting Episode Six to be this mad dash to tie everything up as quickly as possible, it's not happening here. As usual, there's a lot to enjoy in 'The Nexus Event' but there's also a lot of getting people into position, to either die suddenly (one of which was a real gut punch but then you see what happens to the other one and you think there may be some hope after all) or to get ready for next week's episode. All I'm going to say is that we're running out of time to get everything set up, it should already be set up really. Enough posturing now, let's just get on with it, please?

'The Nexus Event' is a strange episode though in that I'm moaning about the pacing of it but some of what they fill it up with is just great. Even though it holds things up a bit, I loved the way that questions are starting to be asked (by TVA employees) that are slowly, but surely, eroding the bureaucracy of the TVA. And on those lines, it's an episode where Tom Hiddleston is still being the best Loki, he can possibly be, but he is not the star of the show. That title is shared by Agent Mobius and Hunter B-15 and their journeys to realising not only what they are but also the lie that they have been forced to live. Sylvie's backstory though... All I'll say is that I found myself saying 'fuck the TVA' quite loudly, which was probably the intention of the show. Well played show, well played...

And then it all kicks off and it's so much fun and I'm pretty much buying into any theory that says Kang is playing a part somewhere in all of this. I can't get away from the feeling though that the show isn't leaving itself much room to round everything off over the next two episodes. This means we'll either get some taut, lean storytelling next week or I'll be having the same mini-rant that you saw up the page. I honestly don't know what it will be so lets do this again next week and see what happens... ;o)

P.S. Richard E. Grant though... Just having his name in the credits makes it all feel better. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him and his friends next week :o)

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