10 Thoughts on Episode 2 of Loki

I’m willing to say that episode 2 of Loki surpassed episode 1. We get to see the Variant and we get more Loki and Mobius interactions. The show is more WandaVision then Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as we have new questions each week. Here are my thoughts after my second viewing of episode 2.

1. The intrigue of the series is right there with WandaVision. Only rather then wondering who the bad guy is, you are wondering when Loki is going to turn on Mobius and the TVA. Granted, they took years of character development and tried to reapply it in a matter of minutes in episode 1. I don’t think it completely stuck and Loki is only looking out for himself.
2. I don’t think the Timekeepers are real. I think they were created to keep the TVA workers in line. I believe either Immortus or Kang are really running the TVA (more on them in #3).
3. Kang the Conqueror is a time traveling Avengers villain that has been confirmed for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania. Kang is Nathaniel Richards, a possible descendant of Reed Richards, from the 31st century. Kang learns about time travel and first goes to ancient Egypt to attempt to take En Sabah Nur (the mutant Apocalypse) as his heir. After being defeated by the Fantastic Four, he goes to the 20th century where he meets Dr. Doom. He ends up back in the 31st century and battles the Avengers multiple times. He also becomes a rival to Dr. Doom. After failing as Kang, Richards takes on the persona of Immortus and works for the Time Keepers. He continues to battle the Avengers while protecting the timeline. He’s also become rivals with Kang; remember, comics are kind of crazy.
4. Ravonna Renslayer would factor into the Kang/Immortus angle. In the comic, Ravonna is the love of Kang and she’s been in and out of his storylines. It would make sense that she’s covering up the lack of the Time Keepers for Kang/Immortus. She’s obviously hiding something and I think Mobius is starting to figure that out after Loki proding.
5. After the episode, we’ve learned that the variant they are searching for is Lady Loki. In the comic, Lady Loki is just regular Loki, who changed his gender for a while. As established in the show and comic, Loki can change shapes. Having a separate Lady Loki can mean a few things; this variant is pulling a con by being Lady Loki, or the multiverse has a bunch of different versions of our characters and there are subtle differences. We’ve seen in the Sony multiverse that the second is possible. I’m curious to the MCU version.
6. Another option for Lady Loki is she isn’t Loki, but rather the Enchantress. The Enchantress is an Asgardian sorceress who’s battled Thor multiple times and has been an ally with Loki. Part of her motivation is a love of Thor; maybe resetting timelines will help her end up with him. She also has a sister, Lorelei, who has a sorted past and could have a hand in this, if they want to go really deep.
7. Or there could be nothing hidden with what’s going on. As we learned with WandaVision, there are plenty of ways they could go and they didn’t do any of them. Then Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn’t try to pull any swerves. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
8. I was glad to see more of Miss Minutes. Tara Strong is too good of a voice actor to only get that little bit in the first episode. Hopefully we’ll see more of the character, as she was good comic support to Loki; she stepped in for Casey in this episode.
9. If they were to use Kang here, it’s more set up for a potential Young Avengers series or movie. A young version of Kang unites the Young Avengers in the comics; he’s trying to change his future so he doesn’t go bad. We’ve already gotten Cassie Lang in Ant-Man, Billy and Tommy in WandaVision and Eli Bradley in Falcon and Winter Soldier, along with Kate Bishop coming in Hawkeye. They also could pull in Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) and America Chavez (Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), who are the same age range as the others.
10. An interview with Tom Hiddleston (mentioned in the Phase Zero Podcast) said that the best episodes were 4 and 5; I’m expecting we get a Lady Loki story for 3 before we get back to the main story. I will say I’m disappointed that this is only 6 episodes.

No talk on the PC Bombcast this week (no new episode), but I’ll be back sometime after Wednesday with 10 more thoughts on the next episode.