Loki Episode 2 : The Variant Review

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Loki was captured by the TVA after escaping with the Tessaract in 2012 during the Avengers' Time Hiest. He learnt the great power of the TVA and is asked by Mobius to help in catching another variant of himself.

This isn't about you. - The Variant

We start this episode with the TVA checking on a Nexus event in the 1980's in Wisconsin, The Variant mind controls one of the minutemen and uses her to disarm all her fellow mates while the variant finishes them taking the reset charges and escaping. This scene reminded me of how Wanda used her powers on the Avengers in Avengers : Age Of Ultron.

Later, with Loki's help the TVA head to 2050 Alabama where a storm is going to cause major destruction and could be the hiding place of The Variant. The Variant interacts with Loki by mind controlling those around him while she sets up the reset charges. I liked the way the scene played out but I was not blown away when Sophia Di Martino took her hood off. Many speculated that The Variant was Lady Loki but during the interaction with Loki, The Variant didn't want to be called Loki. This made me think that The Variant could actually be Enchantress as rumours said that this would be a mix of Lady Loki and Enchantress, either the TVA has mistaken Enchantress for a version of Loki and she is tired of people recognising her as Loki or Lady Loki just hates to be called Loki for some reason. Another detail to note is that when The Variant first appears in front of Loki his lines to her asking 'What do you want from me? What is this about?' echo in the background, this could be an hint or something we may understand as the series progresses. I have high hopes for this character no matter who she turns out to be, my only problem is that if she is Lady Loki or Enchantress she doesn't look much like her comic book counterparts which is not a problem but makes me confused as to who is this character actually and what to expect from her. The fact that she was able to bomb the sacred timeline which possibly created the multiverse in her first appearance makes this variant so called version of Loki a character to keep an eye on and not be suprised if she did something even crazier.

Real Stakes?

As much as I love the first two Disney+ Marvel Shows, they felt like they were shying away from having events that were huge that altered the MCU, for example Wanda's hex could've affected the whole world but other heroes would need to interact somehow even if mind controlled by Wanda and WandaVision though very important for the Scarlet Witch remained mostly contained within Westview. With the amazing final segment of episode 2 it feels like that is about to change, though I don't believe there is one sacred timeline but if there is, the bombing by the Variant just altered the MCU by creating the multiverse, a first for an MCU Disney+ show in my opinion. This could be the origin (or reemergence if you believe Miss Minutes' explanation) of the multiverse and be the main catalyst for events like Spider-Man : No Way Home and Doctor Strange : In The Multiverse Of Madness with the former rumoured to have roles or atleast appearances from Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man from the Sam Riami Spider-Man triology and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man from The Amazing Spider-Man Duology.

The implications of this could possibly be limited to only the series and have no effect the MCU as a whole like Wanda expanding her hex at the end of WandaVision episode 5.

What's the plan?

When Loki mentions his plan about taking over the Time Keepers, The Variant's expression made me feel that there is something that we don't know and as revenge or in order to avoid being caught she bombed the sacred timeline. The field agent who was taken hostage by the Variant reveals that she disclosed the Time Keepers' location (so they are real?) and continuously utters 'It was real' which is surely a setup for some revelation in the future. There is also a possibility that the Variant has bigger plans and created all these nexus timelines to keep the TVA distracted or to get something from these nexus timelines. When the bombing occured, few notable places popped up on Renslayer's screen. Among many locations on Earth were locations like Asgard; Hala, the Kree's home world form Captain Marvel; Ego, the living planet from The Guardians Of The Galaxy : Vol 2; Vormir, the planet where the soul stone lies; Titan, Thanos' homeworld featured in Avengers : Infinity War; Xandar, home to the Nova Corps featured in The Guardians Of The Galaxy; Sakaar, the planet where the GrandMaster holds his contest featured in Thor : Ragnarok. This could just be easter eggs but could also be well planned setup for future stories involving the multiverse. These locations could be reset by the TVA after some nexus event but the Variant's actions could've undone them leaving these timelines to grow creating the multiverse.

The bombing of the sacred timeline also made the TVA agents who were mostly calm panic and Renslayer took her weapon getting ready for some action, seeing the TVA take this so serious and looking at that timeline branching and growing added to the effect of the bombing. Whether this will last and lead into following movies or get solved in this series is something that will determine the importance of events in this and upcoming series.

What happened to the guy I met on the elevator? Who didn't like to talk? Now I'm stuck with a guy who won't stop yacking away with what makes a Loki tick! - Mobius

A lot of big revelations come from dialogues between characters. Loki explains the difference between Duplication Casting and Illusion Projection which might be the difference between the powers of Loki and the new Variant, Loki has used both during his time in the MCU though. When Mobius is in Renslayer's office he asks her how the Time Keepers were hinting that he hasn't seen the Time Keepers. Renslayer hints that she has other analyst's working for her other than Mobius. In the comics the TVA consisted of duplicates of a single person, so could this be an hint to multiple Mobius' programmed to do work?

Mobius confronts Loki regarding the reason he is helping the TVA and calls him a little scared child who is cold refering to when Odin first found Loki as a baby meaning he feels bad for Loki and further conversation shows that Mobius knows how to handle Loki.

When taking break from finding locations of major catastrophies where the Variant could be hiding, Loki asks Mobius about the jet-ski magazine from earlier. Mobius expresses his liking for the 90's, could he be from the 90's mind-wiped to work here if not he certainly has some connection to the 90's. The duo go on to discuss about existence which also questions the existence of the Time Keepers as Mobius claims that they created the TVA and everyone in it. Loki replying to Mobius' scared boy comment says 'No one bad is ever truly bad. No one good is ever truly good.' just a hint at Loki's dual nature or will this mean something for future episodes?

This dialogue comes into play when Loki follows the Variant through the time door, he could be doing so to escape from the TVA who would most likely blame him or he wants to help Mobius by learning the Variant's plan or he wants to learn more about the time keepers and the TVA from the Variant to execute his plans. We can't predict, Loki can we?

Final thoughts

My expectations for this series is very high, hoping it would actually have some effect on the overall MCU unlike it's predecessors but I wouldn't hate another character centric series either.

Let me know who do you think the Variant is and why did Loki follow her ?