S01.E01: Glorious Purpose

[Wynterwolf]

25 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

Why would the French kid be dead?  I would think resetting means his life just rewinds to before he saw Loki in the church.  Killing him off would be another variant to the sacred timeline, wouldn’t it?

Because from the point the branch happens, there are two of him (and everyone else). One still on the "sacred" timeline and the one we saw, which was now on a different path. So clipping that branch, or 'resetting it, appears to mean he (and everyone else that is on that same path with him), ceases to exist. 

[Kel Varnsen]

16 hours ago, Wynterwolf said:

Eta: Oh, you mean why wasn't it here for Tony to take.  Maybe they didn't clip that branch all the way back. Maybe there is still a nub? Like if they reset Loki back to just before he teleported maybe, and had someone stop him? I'm not convinced that the TVA aren't cultivating branches for their own purposes, but just ones that they are controlling so... it's an intriguing question.  

Exactly if they reset the timeline so Loki doesn't grab the tesseract then the 2023 Avengers can grab it and undo the snap without needing to go to the 70s. It is just weird that the tesseract is the space stone, and Loki used it to travel to Mongolia. He didn't create another timeline. It just seems weird that he needs a trial more than anyone else in that timeline and I am interested in finding out why.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Kel Varnsen

[Sakura12]

I took reseting the timeline to mean that they reset to the point before the variant happened. Not that they were killing people. Wouldn't that create different timelines if people suddenly disappeared or didn't exist?

I'm wondering if the other Loki is the future version of this Loki and he's trying to destroy the timekeepers. Because that will have to happen for the multiverse of madness to happen.

 

[Wynterwolf]

13 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Exactly if they reset the timeline so Loki doesn't grab the tesseract then the 2023 Avengers can grab it and undo the snap without needing to go to the 70s. It is just weird that the tesseract is the space stone, and Loki used it to travel to Mongolia. He didn't create another timeline. It just seems weird that he needs a trial more than anyone else in that timeline and I am interested in finding out why.

I was thinking more about this and I *think* it might be that Loki was still approved to grab the tesseract and mess up the Avenger's plans, but he wasn't supposed to actually get away with the thing. So the TVA showed up as soon as he teleported. The teleporting was the initiation of the branch they didn't want, not him disrupting the heist. 

As to why he needs a trial? Got me, other than I can imagine that Loki causes them a boatload of trouble setting off branches all the time, so they are probably pretty done with him in general. 😄

[tv echo]

FYI, here's Marvel.com's recap of this episode:
https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-episode-1-event-report-recap

Quote

How does Loki factor into this and how did he land in the TVA’s lap? Well, according to Miss Minutes, “Sometimes, people like you veer off the path the Time Keepers created. We call those Variants,” and “stepping off your path created a Nexus Event, which left unchecked, could branch off into madness, leading to another Multiversal War.”
*  *  *
Standing before Judge Ravonna Renslayer of the TVA, Loki learns the crime he’s accused of is deviating from his set path, grabbing an object he was not supposed to, and causing a branch on the Sacred Timeline.

Loki argues it was the Avengers who should stand trial as they were the ones who time traveled through time with the Tesseract. Judge Renslayer states that the Avengers are not guilty as “what they did was supposed to happen; you escaping was not,” according to the Time Keepers.
*  *  *
When Mobius catches up with Loki, in a brief moment of vulnerability, Loki reveals he does not enjoy hurting people; he’s just always had to do it to survive – “it’s the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear; a desperate play for control.” Fortunately for Loki, Mobius does not see him as a villain.

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by tv echo

[pezgirl7]

2 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

I took reseting the timeline to mean that they reset to the point before the variant happened. Not that they were killing people. Wouldn't that create different timelines if people suddenly disappeared or didn't exist?

I think some people consider it killing, when an entire branch is cut down, and all the people in the branch cease to exist. I can see if from both ways. Are they are actually rewinding time to before the branch existed? Or somehow removing the entire branch at a later point? Either way, a second variation of the people existed at some point, and now they don't, due to a group's decision that they should not exist. This could be seen as "killing", although I don't think that's the best word for it.

[silverstream]

5 hours ago, Crs97 said:

Why would the French kid be dead?  I would think resetting means his life just rewinds to before he saw Loki in the church.  Killing him off would be another variant to the sacred timeline, wouldn’t it?

Depends on how you view it - some people have made the argument that without the reset, the kid (and everyone else in that universe) would have lived a life separate from one in the sacred timeline (which would have still existed as well, otherwise there wouldn't be the issue with developing multiple timelines that could potentially go to war), so resetting is tantamount to murdering everyone in this universe.

There's a couple different variatians of that argument, but that's the gist as far as I can tell.

ETA ...or what other people have said, didn't realise the thread had ticked over to the next page, oops

Edited June 11, 2021 by silverstream

[swanpride]

I don't quite get the logic to plug out the Variant instead of resetting him....

[silverstream]

5 minutes ago, swanpride said:

I don't quite get the logic to plug out the Variant instead of resetting him....

Yeah, I'm wondering if being plugged out and being convicted at trial doesn't actually mean killing the variant but doing something else with them. What that is, I don't know - brainwashing them and making them work for the TVA? Feeding them to the lizard people? Could be anything.

But just killing seems weird, especially since we've seen that they don't even need to have willingly or knowingly messed with the timeline to be convicted.

[Wynterwolf]

20 minutes ago, swanpride said:

I don't quite get the logic to plug out the Variant instead of resetting him....

I'm wondering if it's because free will does indeed exist, but the TVA are actively suppressing it. So pulling out trouble makers, analyzing every word they've ever spoken, and putting them through a judgement/trial process is part of how they determine if someone was just late for work one day, or if they might be a recurring threat to their "sacred timeline".  Plus I agree that a lot of them might become worker bees. They seem to need a lot of them, and getting zapped as they go about their duties seems like it's not an infrequent occurrence. 

[johntfs]

14 minutes ago, silverstream said:

Yeah, I'm wondering if being plugged out and being convicted at trial doesn't actually mean killing the variant but doing something else with them. What that is, I don't know - brainwashing them and making them work for the TVA? Feeding them to the lizard people? Could be anything.

But just killing seems weird, especially since we've seen that they don't even need to have willingly or knowingly messed with the timeline to be convicted.

The TVA doesn't care about your intentions, just your results.  If you're driving down the street and feel hungry, you have a choice between trying that new Thai-fusion place or grabbing a Big Mac from McDonalds like you do every day.  You decide to go Thai, hit it off really well with the waitress there, stop eating Big Macs and start working out end up marrying her and your kid grows up to be the President of the US who goes to war with Canada - all because you didn't just grab a Big Mac like you were "supposed to."

So the TVA plucks out the "you" who went Thai tries you and vapes you so that the Sacred Timeline of you being a fat, boring office drone who eat Big Macs can continue.

Presumably the Holocaust happened in the MCU.  So, there were TVA agents whose job it was to make sure that 6,000,000 Jews (among others) died in concentration camps for the sake of the Sacred Timeline.

[swanpride]

To be fair, it would have happened anyway. There just would have been a second timeline, where it didn't happen. 

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, johntfs said:

Presumably the Holocaust happened in the MCU.  So, there were TVA agents whose job it was to make sure that 6,000,000 Jews (among others) died in concentration camps for the sake of the Sacred Timeline.

Hopefully we can get some clarification as to if every decision every person ever makes creates a new timeline or just time travel. And if all alternate timelines have to be eliminated or not. Because now I wonder if Thanos turning back time in Infinity War created a separate timeline and if so, was the one where he didn't turn back time eliminated?

[Crs97]

I keep wondering if all this means there is a timeline in which Tony and Pepper are happily raiding their daughter and maybe more kids.  If so, I am good with that explanation.

[johntfs]

1 hour ago, Crs97 said:

I keep wondering if all this means there is a timeline in which Tony and Pepper are happily raiding their daughter and maybe more kids.  If so, I am good with that explanation.

Right now, no, there's not.  The whole point of the Timekeepers and the TVA is to service and maintain one single sacred timeline.  All other timelines (including a happily-ever-after for Tony, Pepper and Morgan) get reset/destroyed.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

On 6/10/2021 at 12:47 AM, shoetingstar said:

Loki declaring, he “does not enjoy hurting people," was pretty monumental.

He said that, but he also said he doesn't like to talk, which Mobius called him on. "But you do like to lie, which you just did, because you *love* to talk."

10 hours ago, Crs97 said:

Why would the French kid be dead?  I would think resetting means his life just rewinds to before he saw Loki in the church.  Killing him off would be another variant to the sacred timeline, wouldn’t it?

They were going to do a reset in the Oklahoma scene too, after they found the scepter or spear or whatever it was. There was no one around then to be a witness, so why would they bother?

Edited June 11, 2021 by Cobalt Stargazer

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

They were going to do a reset in the Oklahoma scene too...

because a new unwanted branch was created... witnesses are irrelevant

[johntfs]

6 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Hopefully we can get some clarification as to if every decision every person ever makes creates a new timeline or just time travel. And if all alternate timelines have to be eliminated or not. Because now I wonder if Thanos turning back time in Infinity War created a separate timeline and if so, was the one where he didn't turn back time eliminated?

Yep.  This is a fan-wank, but I would assume that the Sacred Timeline is filled with various subtle themes/memes/etc. designed to make things happen the way they're supposed to happen and that variants are pretty rare (the show seems to bear this out with the mostly empty "ticket line" prior to Time Court.  Variants occur when certain strong-willed/independent/resistant beings jump off the path of the Sacred Timeline or some 1 in a million bit of random chance/chaos pops up.

Maybe what was "supposed to happen" was that when Tesseract got knocked away from Tony and came out of the case, it was supposed to bounce to some other person who grabbed it and got teleported to a black hole.  Or the 2012 Avengers retrieved it.  The trip to 197* was supposed to happen, so the 2023 Avengers were not supposed to get the Tesseract in 2012 - and they didn't.

That all said, the point is that it was not supposed to end up beside Loki so Loki escaped.   Loki was not supposed to escape.  He was supposed to be delivered to Asgard as a prisoner, inadvertently cause his mother's death, etc until Thanos snapped his neck in Infinity War.

[SnarkShark]

Goddam that was good. It was everything I hoped it would be, but more. 

Even with it's eventual flaws, I loved WandaVision.  But this wins for Best Disney+ Premiere episode.  I can't think of a single thing I'd change. 

I'm left with questions about if a Variant doesn't continue with his timeline (it was reset behind him, so presumably wiped out) but also isn't RETURNED, if the original timeline continues with a doppelganger (well, the Variant is the Doppelganger, actually). Loki's realization that he can't go back (assuming he's not lying, which he often is) doesn't seem to actually be based on seeing his mother die, or even himself die.  If he actually believes he can't simply go back and change things, he must have realized something along the lines of, if he was placed back there, either another him would already be there, and/or if he changed anything, he'd just split the timeline again (and presumably draw the TVA like a magnet to him).  Plus, the TVA might seem too big for him to defeat.  I mean the OTHER Loki variant is apparently doing a good job of pruning them, but can he possibly bring the TVA down?  Answer: actually yes.  We KNOW there's an eventual Multiverse by the time of Dr. Strange 2, ergo the TVA is no more.  But does this Loki know that?  Maybe. He could just be playing along.  Again, WE ALREADY KINDA KNOW THE TVA HAS TO LOSE.

Very fun. 

[Cthulhudrew]

On 6/9/2021 at 8:05 AM, Lady Calypso said:

But here's the thing I've been thinking about; there's only a couple of ways his story could conclude in this series. Either he helps stop his future variant by destroying him and then agrees to be reset in order to save the timeline, or he stays in the TVA forever and they reset the other variant to reset and go live out the timeline. So I guess this story, either way, is more about the journey, since the destination might already be set in stone. 

Or option 3: the rascally scamp takes control of the TVA and becomes the most powerful man in the universe.

And realizes just how much of a nightmare it is to try and run an omnipotent bureaucracy and decides to tear the whole thing down and let chaos and freedom run rampant (which may also free him from the "destined" timeline he is currently on.)

[SnarkShark]

1 minute ago, Cthulhudrew said:

Or option 3: the rascally scamp takes control of the TVA and becomes the most powerful man in the universe.

Option 4: the TVA is wiped out. 

My explanation in the previous post.  

[Cthulhudrew]

On 6/9/2021 at 8:22 AM, tv echo said:

Some timey-wimey thoughts:  If I understand this episode correctly, the TVA protects the "sacred timeline" but they only get involved if the "variant" creates the danger of a multiverse by his actions. By taking the Tesseract and disappearing from 2012, Loki became a variant and created an alternate timeline in which he is forecast to do terrible things that would create the danger of a multiverse. So the TVA captured him and brought him in to be tried as a criminal. On the other hand, the Avengers' time-traveling actions in Endgame were "supposed to happen" as part of the sacred timeline, so the Avengers were not brought into the TVA. 

One thing to bear in mind, the Avengers at least made an attempt to reset the other timelines to where they found them (other than what seems to be the Steve Swerve). Maybe that counted in their favor in the TVA court judgment. I doubt this version (any version?) of Loki would have been so inclined to do something similar.  

48 minutes ago, SnarkShark said:

Option 4: the TVA is wiped out. 

My explanation in the previous post.  

Agreed. I think that is ultimately where this goes (and sorry for not seeing your post earlier; I really should have waited to respond to anything until I hit the end of thread, but couldn't contain my eagerness. 😁)

I actually think that is the outcome, and it can almost directly be linked to Mobius' comments about Loki being an agent of chaos in order to bring out the "best selves" in others. I think Loki may end up justifying bringing down the TVA using similar language: by ending the deterministic bureaucracy of the TVA, he is freeing countless trillions of lives to be able to become their best selves on their own terms, and not as dictated/written by anyone else.

ETA: I think the imagery of Loki as the Devil really drives this point home, insofar as some representations of Lucifer's rebellion against Heaven are linked to the notion of him as a rebel against the tyranny of God's determinism and a champion of freedom. At least in some of the more modern interpretations of the war in Heaven.

[SnarkShark]

2 minutes ago, Cthulhudrew said:

One thing to bear in mind, the Avengers at least made an attempt to reset the other timelines to where they found them (other than what seems to be the Steve Swerve). Maybe that counted in their favor in the TVA court judgment. I doubt this version (any version?) of Loki would have been so inclined to do something similar.  

I don't think either mercy or appreciation for trying enters into it, although the fact that this means many timelines self-collapsed back into the original one helped the cleanup.  I think any lingering timelines DID get erased by the TVA, there just wasn't the need for any individual judgements, because no lone variants escaped.   Through some predetermined timey-wimey bit, the time traveling Avengers returned to the core timeline.  Somehow the variations where they never traveled were the alternate timelines. Their time travel was apparently MEANT to happen, or that wouldn't be the case.  Whereas Loki didn't go back to where he started (at least yet).  And if he did, it's unclear if he'd be a duplicate of a version who never left. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

I watched it again last night and still loved it!

I think that resetting has two meanings on this show. Pruning definitely means killing.

Resetting means killing AND to just reset the timeline back to where it was before the variants showed up, and also in this case, before Loki showed up in Mongolia.

Because after they "reset", the TVAs and Loki were gone, but the Mongolians were still there.

And that other TVA person, Hunter whatever her name is--who has a hard on to kill Loki, wanted to "prune and reset" him, and had that thingamajig to do so.

 

[silverstream]

11 hours ago, SnarkShark said:

Plus, the TVA might seem too big for him to defeat.  I mean the OTHER Loki variant is apparently doing a good job of pruning them, but can he possibly bring the TVA down?  Answer: actually yes.  We KNOW there's an eventual Multiverse by the time of Dr. Strange 2, ergo the TVA is no more.  But does this Loki know that?  Maybe. He could just be playing along.  Again, WE ALREADY KINDA KNOW THE TVA HAS TO LOSE.

That depends on whether "Alternate Universe" and "Different Timeline" is considered the same in the MCU, which might not be.

Spoiler for future production details, in case people want to avoid that:

Spoiler

I'm a bit sceptic about that because we know season 2 of Loki has already been greenlit and is set to be released after Multiverse of Madness (or at least, while we haven't got a release date for Loki season two yet, I'd say it's unlikely to be released beforehand looking at the current release schedule for the MCU series). That means they'd have to develop a completely new storyline for season 2 if the TVA was already defeated by the time of Mulitverse of Madness (that's possible, of course, I just don't know how likely it is). Plus, according to the Loki series wikipedia article, the former headwriter for Loki switched over to co-write Multiverse of Madness during production - that, of course, might mean nothing, but it could also signal that there's some sort of connection.

Maybe the TVA isn't defeated and instead becomes a competing entity in a cross-timelines/cross-multiverse war?

 

Edited June 12, 2021 by silverstream

[Cobalt Stargazer]

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

And that other TVA person, Hunter whatever her name is--who has a hard on to kill Loki, wanted to "prune and reset" him, and had that thingamajig to do so.

At one point, probably after Loki's brief escape, the hunter and Mobius were having a disagreement in the hallway, because she was insisting that Loki needed to be reset, and Mobius shot back that she thought everyone needed to be reset. So although it is personal at this point, she would likely have that attitude no matter who it was.

Question, though - if/when the TVA is wiped out, where does "our" Loki go? Fact is, he's as dead as Vision in the prime timeline, and he's already acknowledged that he knows he can't return to it. If he helps them to capture or kill Variant Loki, he might end up surviving in some fashion, but if Mobius and his compatriots are the ones who end up dying (which as an aside makes me feel proactively bad for Casey, who seems strangely endearing) would he be destroyed along with them, since Mobius seems to be the only thing standing between him and being annihilated?

[GHScorpiosRule]

I’m not too worried about Loki’s fate this season as this is not a one and done season. Show has been renewed. I’ll worry when it gets closer to the series finale.

Yes, while Hunter TVA wants to prune and reset everyone, reset for her is kill. But we’ve seen reset also means that-reset the time line to right before the variant appeared. To me, it can and is two things.

[Morrigan2575]

31 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Question, though - if/when the TVA is wiped out, where does "our" Loki go? Fact is, he's as dead as Vision in the prime timeline, and he's already acknowledged that he knows he can't return to it

Loki is a Trickster/Shapeshifter, he can appear as anyone he wants. I doubt they'll kill him again. Most likely he'll pop up in various movies/shows (provided they can get Tom Hiddleson to sign on).

[paigow]

38 minutes ago, Morrigan2575 said:

Loki is a Trickster/Shapeshifter, 

Loki can be replaced by a Skrull... the only problem is that Skrulls cannot project holograms of themselves or "amputate" parts of Thor...

[Morrigan2575]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Loki can be replaced by a Skrull... the only problem is that Skrulls cannot project holograms of themselves or "amputate" parts of Thor...

I don't understand your point?

[festivus]

On 6/10/2021 at 12:47 PM, Capricasix said:

There’s a French-language network in Quebec called TVA, and it’s gonna take me a while not to think of it when I’m watching the show 😄

It's the Tennessee Valley Authority for me.

I was late on watching this due to being out of town so I'll just say that I'm fangirling over the design of the TVA (all those lamps in the ceiling!)  and also the fact that Miss Minutes sounds like a Hee Haw Honey. ❤️

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Morrigan2575 said:

I don't understand your point?

All variants of Loki the Asgardian can be killed / pruned this season... Next season can be a Skrull Loki

[Morrigan2575]

24 minutes ago, paigow said:

All variants of Loki the Asgardian can be killed / pruned this season... Next season can be a Skrull Loki

I hope not, sounds awful

[Cobalt Stargazer]

1 hour ago, festivus said:

Miss Minutes sounds like a Hee Haw Honey. ❤️

I checked IMDB because I was wondering about the accent, and Tara Strong is from Toronto. I'm not familiar with her copious amount of voice work, but just the overdoneness of it almost had me fooled.

[Kel Varnsen]

Rewatching with my kids. One thing I noticed was that in the Miss Minutes video when it shows the variant creating an alternate timeline, there is a dashed line above and below the main timeline. And then in France one of the guard guys mentions that the timeline they are in is approaching redline. Which makes me think that timelines that aren't too different from the main, and don't cross the redlines, don't get reset.

[Wynterwolf]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Rewatching with my kids. One thing I noticed was that in the Miss Minutes video when it shows the variant creating an alternate timeline, there is a dashed line above and below the main timeline. And then in France one of the guard guys mentions that the timeline they are in is approaching redline. Which makes me think that timelines that aren't too different from the main, and don't cross the redlines, don't get reset.

That was my take too. Loki taking the tesseract wasn't enough to trigger a TVA intervention, but him teleporting to Mongolia was. And also that you don't have to mess with time itself to get in trouble with them, you just have to take a path that deviates too far from their "sacred" baseline. She called it a "standard sequence violation". 

 

Re: Resetting = killing - Loki took it as such. When he was sentenced, then Mobius intervened before it was carried out, he asked, "Are you taking me somewhere to kill me?"

Mobius says, "No, that's where you just were."

 

 

Edited June 12, 2021 by Wynterwolf

[Kel Varnsen]

48 minutes ago, Wynterwolf said:

That was my take too. Loki taking the tesseract wasn't enough to trigger a TVA intervention, but him teleporting to Mongolia was. And also that you don't have to mess with time itself to get in trouble with them, you just have to take a path that deviates too far from their "sacred" baseline. She called it a "standard sequence violation". 

Plus when he was in Mongolia one of the TVA officers mentioned that the slope of that variant timeline was very steep. Which seems to further indicate if a timeline has a relatively flat slope it is ok.

[Netfoot]

This was the stinkiest pile of steaming shite that ever fell out of the ass of an arrested adolescent script-writer. 

[SnarkShark]

8 hours ago, paigow said:

All variants of Loki the Asgardian can be killed / pruned this season... Next season can be a Skrull Loki

But there's no need for it to be.  It serves no legit plot purpose and in fact would immediately feel like a cop-out. Especially when there's a perfectly legit way for Loki to still be around.  Be THIS version.

If we posit that some Loki needs to die at Thanos' hands, maybe THAT'S your Skrull. 

[lawrbk]

On 6/9/2021 at 10:30 AM, thuganomics85 said:

And so begins Marvel's next Disney+ show: what would happen if Loki became The Doctor?!

Kidding aside, while this certainly isn't the first nor last show to dive into the time-traveling genre, I think it has enough intriguing ideas to make it standout.  I definitely get a kick out of the whole TVA and the general concept of an organization whose main purpose is to prevent certain folks from screwing up the timeline in ways that would be catastrophic.  Granted, I'm sure there are going to be a lot of exceptions or rules that probably will never make sense/be explained (I guess none of the time-traveling shenanigans on the last season of Agents of SHIELD mattered to them...), but that totally would be a thing if time-traveling was real and capable of doing by numerous folks.  Also like some of other ideas we got glimpses of like how they have records of every word spoken by an individual and an actual "nightmare" room.

Not surprised that Tom Hiddelston not only fit right back in as Loki, but me made sure to make him feel like the one from 2012/first Avengers film, since this version of Loki hasn't experienced what he went through in Dark World, Ragnarok, and so forth.  Safe to say, he's definitely still the preening, arrogant megalomaniac who likes to blame others for his own actions and, despite his claims otherwise, I still suspect he enjoys at least some of the killing and destruction he causes.  But credit where credit is due, I think Hiddelston did a good job with Loki's reaction to his "highlight reel" and the tragedy (inadvertently causing Frigga's death, his own death, seeing that he made peace with both Odin and Thor at some point), and I can see the seeds being planted over Loki wanting to changes his ways (well, somewhat, at least!)  Hopefully the show can pull it off, but if nothing else, it will be fun to see Hiddelston in this role again.

Owen Wilson did not disappoint as Mobius.  As soon as I saw him trailers, he automatically shot up on my "casting that sounds bizarre on paper, but might work beautifully on screen" list and I thought it worked splendidly.  There is just something about his "aww shucks!" persona that works with the character, and Wilson's more easygoing style meshes well with Hiddelston's theatrics and dramatic showmanship.  But I do think underneath it all, you can get a sense that there is more to him and that he might even be capable doing his own form of damage, if he was ever put in that position to do so.  Can't wait to see more of him.

The rest of the cast was mainly in the background, but I'm curious to see more of Gugu Mbatha-Raw's judge or whatever she was, and Wunmi Mosaku's solider (she was awesome as Ruby on Lovecraft Country.)

Was that cat we briefly saw another flerken?!

This being Marvel and time-traveling, I wouldn't be surprised if we get at least one cameo of some kind.  I doubt it will be Thor, but my money is on either Frigga due to her relationship with Loki or maybe even Coulson due to the whole "Hey, my bad on the whole stabbing you in the back thing."

I so want to know more about the bet with Thor that led to Loki becoming DB Cooper!

So, the big bad is going to be a variation that seems to be on a murderous rampage and is... another Loki?!

Really liked Owen Wilson here and I’d been wondering if he’d be a good fit. One day I’m just going to trust they never miscast even when it seems a ‘huh?’

love seeing Gugu M-R. Gorgeous and a good actress. Love, love seeing Wunmi M as, yes, she was divine in Lovecraft Co.

and I wondered if it was a flerken too! 

they retconned Loki as being under Thanos’s mind control with scepter (whatever 🙄) so I wonder if they’ll touch that or ignore it. Because he doesn’t seem to be acting like he was. It was so moving though for him to see what his life had become only to realize he dies. I wish they’d added ‘the sun will shine upon us again brother’ line though. 

as for the sacred timeline, I always assumed the writers and their quantum physics adviser knew better than the directors what their intention for Steve was—a time loop, not an alternate timeline. Bruce spelled it out when discussing killing baby Thanos and how it wouldn’t work. Steve went into the past and that past became his future and his present became his past. He couldn’t change anything, thus couldn’t root out hydra or rescue Bucky or stop 9/11 or something. In endgame, the Ancient one never addressed time travel, just the removal of infinity stones. THAT caused alternate timelines as they disrupted the flow of time. But she’s always quoted as spelling out the time travel rules when she didn’t. Bruce did. Plus they would’ve busted him and, I guess, sent his butt back to 2023 if he was messing with the timeline. Since they didn’t, it seems he was, as the writers maintained, always Peggy's husband. I hope it’s settled once and for all. it’s a little hand wavey to say they gave the avengers a pass but, given their knowledge, I guess they realized they would return to their time after returning the stones. Except for Loki getting the tesseract they really didn’t affect anything significant so ‘who cares’, I guess. It’s be interesting to see a reference to Agents of SHIELD since they messed around with events A LOT during their last season. But you know the MCU will ignore it. They didn’t even show Loki Coulsen was alive. Unless that was just to mess with him. 
 

Given all the stones in the drawer, it’s a subtle nod to the ‘why don’t more people time travel to get them?’ Guess they do and the TVA is there to break it up. Maybe dr strange can get a new Time stone to guard. :) 

since Loki can never return to the sacred timeline as he’s dead in it, it makes me wonder if the writers will work in conjunction with James Gunn. Because these shows, unlike AOS and the Netflix ones, are supposed to be seriously intertwined. So whatever happens with Loki should affect 2014 Gamora too, I’d think, since sacred timeline gamora has been dead since 2018 and it’s now 2023 in the MCU. Maybe where she went after the battle and why Peter only got a ‘searching’ for her. We could see Loki not just answer questions—his own, obviously; Steve; the Avengers mission—but future MCU events, like gamora and moving into the multiverse. So I’ve really been looking forward to this on its own merits but especially how it answers questions and sets things up. 
 

 

Edited June 13, 2021 by lawrbk

[lawrbk]

On 6/10/2021 at 12:18 PM, foxfreakinmulder said:

I agree. The first episode was a lot of fun and went by fast.

Steve Rogers will always be my Captain America. That was fun watching Loki shifting back and forth as Steve and when I was watching it I was wondering if that was a reshoot probably not but that would be cool if Chris shot that short scene for this.

I laughed too when Loki was spinning that time thingy with the agent.

I got a kick out of Casey not knowing what a fish was and didn't get the gut you like a fish reference. Hope we see more of him.

Owen Wilson's laid back acting style works here, it reminds me of Agent Coulson style.

Tom Hiddleston knocked it out of the park and Loki is a character I love to hate.

I'm glad this forum is here to help me understand the time travel that's happening because time travel gives me a headache, lol.

 

I’m totally with you! Steve Rogers is my favorite. #alwaysCap (seriously, love Sam as CA but don’t call him Cap! Lol ) So I totally squealed when I saw the ‘Loki mocking him’ footage. That was either deleted/an alternate shot or new. Loved it either way. Maybe that’s where the rumors of Chris Evans returning came from. Lol And Loki mocking Steve is hilarious and one of Thor 2’s best moments. I laughed at it in Endgame and here too. He knows he’s Thor’s closest Avengers friend (until later Bruce) and is just the anti-Loki. Perfect for mockery and mischief. Plus that it was that mockery which got that mouth guard slapped on him! But when he landed in Mongolia he wasn’t still cuffed (unless I missed it) because he was able to just rip the mouth guard off. 

Edited June 13, 2021 by lawrbk

[Llywela]

1 hour ago, lawrbk said:

I’m totally with you! Steve Rogers is my favorite. #alwaysCap (seriously, love Sam as CA but don’t call him Cap! Lol ) So I totally squealed when I saw the ‘Loki mocking him’ footage. That was either deleted/an alternate shot or new. Loved it either way.  that’s where the rumors of Chris Evans returning came from.

That footage came from one of the time travel escapades in Endgame. Seriously. I went back and checked, because so many people here seemed to think it was new. It's not. It's from Endgame. Possibly a new angle, they'd have filmed a bunch of takes at the time, but it isn't new. 

[merylinkid]

On 6/11/2021 at 8:31 PM, johntfs said:

they're supposed to happen and that variants are pretty rare (the show seems to bear this out with the mostly empty "ticket line" prior to Time Court. 

The whole ticket thing was just to show mindless bureacracy.   There might have been HUNDREDS of rooms they sent variants to, all empty but you still had to take a ticket.   Because them's the rules.   Usually used to show a depiction of Hell which I thought this was at first.

[paigow]

23 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

The whole ticket thing was just to show mindless bureacracy....

 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

1 hour ago, merylinkid said:

The whole ticket thing was just to show mindless bureacracy.

 

[foxfreakinmulder]

12 hours ago, lawrbk said:

But when he landed in Mongolia he wasn’t still cuffed (unless I missed it) because he was able to just rip the mouth guard off. 

He wasn't cuffed unless I missed it too.

[Wynterwolf]

32 minutes ago, foxfreakinmulder said:

He wasn't cuffed unless I missed it too.

This had bothered me at first too. You can see them - damaged and broken apart - in the foreground where he lands in the desert, but we don't see how that happened. I guess we're just supposed to assume they broke on impact (but that also brings up questions for me that I am trying to ignore). 

[SnarkShark]

17 hours ago, lawrbk said:

since Loki can never return to the sacred timeline as he’s dead in it

I'm not convinced he can't. I think there's still always a "present" in this scenario beyond which time is fluid.  That present is whatever the core last thing is sequentially we've been shown in a movie. Things before that, if altered, split the timeline. Things after that, are fluid to the extent they're not assured of actually happening (so any time traveler from the future is dangerous, but not inevitable). The present moves forward as we see more MCU movies.  It occurs to me that while Loki can't take the place of the version of him who dies at Thanos' hands, because acting to change that would just split the timeline, that he can reenter the same timeline at some point beyond either that death or reactions to that death. As long as it's the "present" for whatever defines that rolling, moving point, a new version of Loki doesn't necessarily split the timeline. Only changing things that DID happen does.

Maybe. 

In this scenario, variants in the past are only really created by outside interference.  It actually makes sense. After all, this Loki only exists because of that.  He's right that The Avengers created him. It's just that his existence is the abnormality, even if he didn't cause it. The words "guilty" and "not guilty" are just window dressing over that. 

 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

1 hour ago, SnarkShark said:

In this scenario, variants in the past are only really created by outside interference.  It actually makes sense. After all, this Loki only exists because of that.  He's right that The Avengers created him. It's just that his existence is the abnormality, even if he didn't cause it. The words "guilty" and "not guilty" are just window dressing over that.

That's arguable. Even in the event that everything else that's happened in the MCU was supposed to happen, Mobius said that Loki wasn't supposed to get away. His attempt to escape his at the time unknown fate in Asgard is why he scooped up the Tesseract and used it to open a wormhole to abscond. That's the anomaly, that he tried to divert onto another path, one that wasn't supposed to exist. If the TVA hadn't followed him to Mongolia, who knows what havoc he could have created. Only the locals apparently not speaking English is why he got confused enough not to just skate off into another portal.

[TrininisaScorp]

Fair warning - I adore Hiddleston, and I have been on pins and needles waiting for this series in particular (the announcement of this series is what made me convince my husband that we needed to get yet another streaming service).  That said, I have never had interest in wobbifying Loki too much.  He has done some bad things and actively made shitty, bad decisions.  People died actively or passively because of him.  Still, I think of him as an anti-hero after the 10 yr MCU arc.  And, rarely has an actor in the MCU given more to a character, IMO, than Tom Hiddleston has with Loki. 

That first episode was everything I wanted it to be.  I wondered how we were going to go from angry, megalomaniac, Thanos influenced Avenger's Loki to something that resembled IW Loki.  Truly, one of my saddest moments in Infinity War is that Loki's arc felt cut down too soon, and the cynic in me wonders if his redemption over time was really just b/c of the audience consistently positive reaction to Tom's work vs. a strategic choice.  Thus, I thought the "reel of life", while cruel in so many ways, was a good device to get us to some of that evolved Loki by quickly dashing some of his assumptions about his family, but keep his jagged edges (and that's the development we should expect to see in s1).  Hiddleston's range of emotion watching Frigga die, hearing Odin call him son, watching his triumph during Ragnorak, and then his death and Thor's reaction broke my heart (Tom's eyes are so very expressive at all times).  Watching the footage coupled with trying to use the tesseract and failing, makes his defeated attitude at the end all the more earned.  And maybe I am naïve, but I do believe that he doesn't like killing, and that sometimes the part we play to keep us under the illusion of control of our lives makes us do things we don't like.  It doesn't make it right, nor does it allay blame from us, but it's honest. With all the magical and surrealism, that rung true for me more than anything.  I wonder if the central theme of this series is identity and who we are/how we see ourselves.  These D+ series have been excellent at exploring what it means to be human using the medium of superheroes. 

I'm not yet at a place to talk about the predestination part of the show yet...I think I need to see more to see what they are really saying.  Mobius was cruel in his stark honesty partly to get Loki to heel, but how much was accurate?  I also don't yet really understand how their timeline theory works.  Like, maybe what the Avengers did was ok, but what about Steve choosing to stay in the 40s with Peggy?  How does that not fuck up the scared timeline? I guess they can handwave that was meant to happen, but...really?!  

Spoiler

Also, the speculation that ppl saw Peggy Carter being pulled into the TVA is intriguing.  It might be a coincidence b/c ppl always want to see more depth than there might be, but I wonder...

I hope Eugene Cordero's Casey is going to be the Jimmy Woo/Jaoquin Torres for this series b/c I already love him, and this actor has delivered in The Good Place, Kong (with Hiddleston!), and Tacoma FD. That Infinity Stones in the drawer/paperweight scene was shocking.  Upon thinking and rewatch, I have 2 major observations:  1) I personally think the ones in Endgame timeline didn't die without purpose b/c I think these objects/mcguffins work only in their own timeline or realm.  So, they don't matter in the TVA.  It's still shocking, but it makes sense in my simplistic little mind. 2) Watching Loki's face was SO telling in this scene.  I could feel his stomach drop with the reality of the TVA being a different reality that he is used to. 

I can't wait to see more of Renslayer and Hunter B-15, as both actresses have caught my attention right away. 

Like WandaVision rehabbing (IMO) Age of Ultron, I think Loki is working to rehab Thor:  The Dark World.  (Frankly, besides IM2, it is the movie I like the least of the MCU movies from phase 1-3...though, Hiddleston and Loki were the major bright spots then too)  One of my major issues is I'm never sure how much Loki knew he held some responsibility for Frigga's death, so that getting somewhat closed here was cool. Also loved the great Loki sass after he's captured in The Avengers with his hilarious little wave to Hulk and his turn into Steve. 

Finally, more of those fun, wild DB Cooper like things. I always like the glimpses we get of Thor/Loki/Et Al before the actions in Thor 1.  There was a relationship that was good and fun and built on some real brotherhood, and I wish we saw more.