Did the Loki finale complicate the MCU and not do justice to Loki?

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The opening of this episode with Tony's repulsor's powering up and all recognisable dialogues playing through the Marvel logo and real life people too are heard totally set the stage for this crazy episode. We have got three Disney+ series from Marvel Studios so far and it seems surreal after no MCU content for more than a year. However the much awaited Loki series is now complete and it's finale has me excited but worried. The Disney+ MCU shows had been character centric and didn't seem to cause much change in the larger MCU except for some moniker updates but Loki changed that by revealing 'He Who Remains', a variant of Kang played by the marvelous Jonathan Majors but did it take away from Loki's story? Was the story too complicated for the audience who watched and loved grounded Marvel stories? Let's discuss.

Loki's journey Looking back on the series the first two episodes set an expectation for what was going to happen, the third changed it, the fourth changed it and only in the fifth episode we got a clear picture of where the story is headed but despite the many easter eggs for Kang, alot of people including me thought the main villain could be an evil King Loki as they were scenes in the trailers that featured Loki on the throne of Asgard. That thought was mainly because we believed that the story would favor Loki and give us a satisfactory arc for the God Of Mischief. The variant we follow was trying to take over Midgard before he was captured, he was jealous of Thor and was working for Thanos. His journey was realising his destiny and where it all ended and hence he needed to change, the change comes in the form of another variant Sylvie who Loki instantly seemed to fall for and working closely with her to take down the TVA and meeting his variants made him realise that he is more powerful than he thinks but the fact remains that he can't be trusted. I think the moment where Loki tells Sylvie that 'She can't trust and he can't be trusted' is the point the show is trying to make on a personal level for Loki. I may be missing out on very important details that show the change Loki has gone through in the series, if you've noticed anything that changes the character forever like the rise of The Scarlet Witch or the new Captain America let me know.

Behold the multiverse! Did Sylvie open the multiverse? We all thought that Wanda would be the one to break open the multiverse in WandaVision, the finale clearly didn't do that but the post credits scene still left some doubts whether Wanda could break open the multiverse in search for her children who she let go after knowing they were not real and the pain she caused to others trying to make it real. Every setup like when in episode 3 & 5; Sylvie asks Loki how she can be sure he won't betray her started making sense when He Who Remains' explanation felt like lies to Sylvie and truth to Loki. Ultimately they fight it out and Sylvie finally kisses Loki which turned out to also be a distraction to send him out of the way so she could kill He Who Remains. I loved the dialogue where He Who Remains says 'I'll see you soon and winks, we all know who is coming. Sylvie does realise that she has made a terrible mistake it will be interesting to see what her role will be if she remains a major part of season 2. But the timeline had already started branching before Loki and Sylvie expressed their difference in thoughts about what was being said, some fans have synced the Scarlet Witch transformation scene with the timeline beginning to branch and it makes sense that Wanda accepting her role as The Scarlet Witch, a nexus being threw everything He Who Remains worked towards out the window as a Nexus being can't be controlled and could do anything, I mean she is a being capable of spontaneous creation as Agatha said. This could just be a coincidence but not impossible. It could be someone else off-screen who broke open the multiverse perhaps the main antagonist of Doctor Strange : In The Multiverse Of Madness or some scientist who discovered time travel/multiverse travel looking at you Nathaniel Richards a.k.a Kang, Reed Richards and Norman Osborn. All said and done the multiverse is now open and seeing three Spider-Man together with antagonists from the three franchise's seems more legit which will then lead into Doctor Strange cleaning up everyone's mess in his sequel.

Too Complicated? With the introduction of complex concepts like the multiverse, time travel and variants, I feel many casual audience may tune out of the MCU but if shows like Dark can be loved I think having a similar show in the MCU wouldn't hurt rather they would give us amazing stories set in the MCU and alienating some audience may be a price that needs to be paid. Not to forget we had a grounded story in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and Black Widow which will continue with Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, Black Panther : Wakanda Forever, the Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Armour Wars and Iron Heart Disney+ series.

He Who Remains As I said in the review for Episode 5 I went in with low expectations but when that elevator door opened I knew things just got real and that we were in for one crazy finale. I've heard alot about the acting of Jonathan Majors and Tatiana Meslani who were cast as Kang and She-Hulk and was looking forward to seeing them acting for the first time, to be honest throughout the episode I was wondering why had Jonathan Majors made the acting decisions he made but when I re-watched the episode his performance was just brilliant. Getting to see Loki (God of Mischief) interact with Kang (a time travelling super villain) in the MCU was surreal knowing the potential and comic history of these characters. One reviewer pointed out that He Who Remains laughs when the threshold is crossed because he is excited that for once he doesn't know what's going to happen and that is reflected in his acting where he brings the necessary unpredictability to his life by being unpredictable himself like jumping on the table in the midst of the conversation with Loki and Sylvie. On the first two viewings I was impressed with the route Marvel choose which was to make the character good and have him hint at his evil variants which was a terrific line delivered very well but I realised that he also mentions that he paved the way for Loki and Sylvie to be here and also sent Miss Minutes to make them an offer before he met them so how sure are we that what we witnessed wasn't part of a much greater plan. I think it's very likely that He Who Remains knew that he would and wanted to be killed which turned something in his favour, anything is possible when time travel and Kang are involved.

Season 2 Loki seems to have a finale that directly affects the movies which I wanted but I got used to having a satisfying end to the story arc for the lead character in these shows which I felt was missing here, maybe that's because the story arc is not complete which is taking us back to the movie formula where the story arc of a character spanned multiple movies. Season 2 will definitely deal partially if not entirely with the multiverse and Kang but I won't be suprised if major parts of the setup don't have any effect on the movies. Renslayer has headed into the unknown just like White Vision, she surely got a message in the files that Miss Minutes gave her from He Who Remains or maybe an alternate version of Kang. The ending where Mobius doesn't recognise Loki and the Kang statue is revealed doesn't seem like another TVA as there is supposed to be only one, it could be that after the multiverse opened up Kang brain washed everyone in the TVA to fulfill his agenda and hence he was allowing the timelines to branch and we will deal with this and his plans in season 2. Anyway Loki had a very unique feel and I would love to see more of it. Let me know your predictions for season 2.

Look out for blogs on the upcoming Disney+ series What If?