Finally, we’ve reached the end credits scene from Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and get more context about why Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) were poking around in 1893.
This week’s Loki, titled “1893,” takes us back to a World’s Fair era where Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors) is presenting a prototype of the Temporal Loom. Yes, the very mechanism that’s barely holding onto time as the branches expand, threatening to end reality. Loki realizes that Timely is one of the variants He Who Remains warned him about, and that the threat of Kang Dynasty is beginning.
Before we catch up with the 1893 Timely, the episode began a few years earlier with Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) dropping off the TVA handbook through the window of a young Victor’s bedroom—a plan that Miss Minutes explained is something He Who Remains set in motion before he died. The team up with Ravonna and Miss Minutes is oddly contentious, and we soon find out why.
Back at the TVA, the meltdown of the Temporal Loom continues to get out of control. O.B. (Ke Huy Quan) explains that the branches Dox pruned are growing back, and without the temporal aura of He Who Remains, they’re stuck outside as the knotted timelines expand. They need something to detangle the mess. Casey (Eugene Cordero) gets a hit on the temp pad tracking Miss Minutes and Renslayer and that’s where Mobius and Loki go.
Now, back in the 1893 scenes we watch the presentation where Timely presents the concept of his loom taking the energy of the past, present, and future to power their world. Majors overly hams it up as Timely—there’s a lot going on here that feels different from his performance in Quantumania, and not in a great way even before you get to the uncomfortable elephant in the room. The pacing gets thrown off in these scenes, with Majors cutting the momentum. There are some great beats when Timely and Renslayer bond, and seem to vibe off each other with an immediate connection. But Timely is a hustler who’s full of it, and quickly goes on the run from the investors he scams—which quickly turns into running from Loki and Mobius, once Renslayer turns him against them, when they’re only trying to bring him back to the TVA to open the loom firewalls with his aura.
During the chase Miss Minutes gets some fun moments being a spooky old-timey ghost clock. Timely seems to favor Renslayer, and then Loki catches up to try to convince Timely to go back with him. At the Ferris Wheel more investors Timely conned show up and now, so does Sylvie. It’s all about Timely as he’s getting cornered in the midway attraction. In a fight between Sylvie and Loki, the two debate Timely’s right to live. Loki explains they need him to save the TVA and timelines because if they don’t the free will and life Sylvie fought so hard for would be eradicated, along with everyone else’s lives. If she kills Victor, there won’t be a life to go back to for anyone. That he’s required to restructure the TVA means Sylvie is still down to kill him though, so Loki helps him escape and the ghost of the midway strikes again—getting Timely back on track with Renslayer.
On a ferry, Victor and Ravonna flirt and catch up on why he’s so important and how they could work together. There’s a bizarre emphasis on Miss Minutes getting jealous all of a sudden. It feels weird this season, especially as the show’s played up the bro-y vibe between Mobius and Loki much more, to see the female characters only really interact in this pettily negative way—it’s not a welcome change from season one. Miss Minutes literally helps Timely throw Renslayer overboard and then, in his private lab, is all of a sudden horny for Timely, begging to be put in a body because she loves him. He then switches her off, and makes it clear he works alone. It’s all weird!
Loki, Mobius, Renslayer and Sylvie show up again to try to bring Timely in, and they all have to fight again over a man who isn’t this big threat that the show really wants to set him up as yet. Sylvie almost has him, but then relents on killing him as it would go against her free will crusade—letting Loki and Mobius take him in so she can deal with Renslayer. The two (who, again, have valid beef) argue and Sylvie kicks her into the crumbling kingdom at the end of time. There, after finding the corpse of He Who Remains, she re-unites with Miss Minutes, summoning her on her tempad, and the latter teases that she knows some of He Who Remains’ biggest secrets—including ones about her, enough to get them to both turn on him and his variants for good.
On the one hand, it feels good to see that turn, but on the other, “1893” is full of these bizarre moments putting the female characters of Loki at odds with each other, only aligning when they’re scorned by the far more interesting male characters of the series. They all feel one dimensional so far compared to how the first season so far—and as Loki works to try and set up the threat of Kang beyond what stumbling effects it makes here, it’s one of our biggest concerns about the show right now.
Loki streams weekly on Disney+.
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