“Glorious Purpose”
What They Say:
Loki learns the true nature of ‘glorious purpose’ as he rectifies the past.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The finale of the second season of Loki is a nearly masterful culmination of the character’s storyline since his introduction in the original Thor movie. While this version of Loki was essentially the one we knew through the 2012 Avengers, he was at least aware in full of what his Sacred Timeline self was up to for several years beyond that and through his death in Infinity War. That can shake a person and even a god, hence his attempt to figure out over the course of the two seasons what’s truly meaningful in everything. Much of season one felt like it was him trying to fall in love with himself through Sylvia and there are interesting angles to work with here. But I was glad that those elements were suppressed in this season because it moved us from an inward-looking Loki to an outward-looking one. And that makes for the masterful ending sequences here.
Loki spent much of the previous episode attempting to figure out how to bring his friends together and thinking that they’d be the unbreakable stick that would allow them to alter the course of everything and deal with what’s happening. But the reality of it is anything but. Through the first half of this episode, we get a lot of familiar tropes and cliches playing out as Loki attempts to understand how to fix the Temporal Loom and it’s engaging. They’re dealing with the problem as you would normally deduce and mixing in the fun of his time slipping where he keeps going back further and further in trying to find the right point from which to accomplish the goal of expanding the throughput of the Loom. We even get him finally realizing that he can’t rely on others and needs to actually understand the science of it and spends looping centuries attempting to do so from OB and Timley, which amazes them when he slips back into another period and just does everything confidently and several steps ahead of where they’re thinking.
Loki simply doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Loss is part of what Sylvia said is being a Loki, losing in particular, but losing here means the end of everything and the end of his friends that he now places value in – something that he never really did before. Even when it comes to Thor, it was never as complete as the kind of value that he places now on Sylvie and the rest. There’s an honest earnestness to his attempts to save them and going through understanding who they are in the previous episode only reinforces that. It’s engaging watching him deal with them in different points in time that we’re familiar with from earlier in the season but also going back into the first season with Mobius. It’s a loop but it helps to bind it all together in understanding where he’s coming from.
The realization of what has to be done is handled well as Loki, going through a lot of repetition, ends up back at the beginning at the end of time where Sylvie killed He Who Remains. This upends part of the first season finale in a good way as we get the two of them sparring – though Sylvie is unfortunately displaced as nothing more than a prop at this point – but it’s refocusing on the lead and the villain of the story. He Who Remains has seen everything and watched it play out so many times but we also see how Loki has done the same and has found the one option not taken before. To eliminate He Who Remains by taking his place, essentially.
Loki going and destroying the Temporal Loom and unleashing all of the timelines into the wild, and breathing life into them, is fascinating to watch. I believe he ends up with his old classic comic costume in some form here but we also get something that takes us back to the Thanos storyline and that throne of his. Loki now has to take a throne, which also reminds us heavily of how he deposed Odin for the throne in Asgard before as well in the Sacred Timeline, but in sitting in this throne he has to bind all the timelines to him. This gives them all existence and lives – ones that some of the TVA characters will be drawn to and who see moving to their next places in things – but it ultimately comes down to Loki himself. Sylvie asked him early in this episode about why anyone, him included, she be the one to decide which timeline lives and which one dies. He basically tries to push the can down the road a ways here by giving them all life at the cost of his own existence but I can imagine that this is how we’ll see him next – hopefully not until Secret Wars or the end of the Kang Dynasty film. Loki is waiting in patience here to give everyone else time to figure out how to defeat Kang and find a new path to saving everything. And, in the meantime, allowing all separate realities to exist at once. The ultimate self-sacrifice from the character least capable of doing so for so long.
In Summary:
Loki delivers in a huge way for me with this finale. While it basically splits in half with what it’s trying to do I found both sides of it to be engaging, from the frenetic attempts at trying to save everyone through means and trial-and-error and then to the ultimate sacrifice. The full ensemble is here for the most part from this season and some characters get small nods toward the end to hint at where they can go from here. But it’s very much an episode that focuses heavily on Loki himself while also making the TVA and what it is a big part of it. I loved the cast for this, the way things were woven across the season, and what it lays out for the future. If we never see Loki again that will be fine. But when we do see him again, it should be one of those big and important moments a few years down the line that helps to serve as the reboot into what’s next for the MCU in a post-Secret Wars world. This series delivered for me just as much and more than the first season and is the best of the Disney+ MCU series from head to toe in every department.
Grade: A
