S01.E03: Lamentis

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Loki finds out The Variant’s plans, but he has his own that will forever alter their destinies.

Dropping on Wednesday, June 23, 2021.

[vb68]

Well that was an interesting change of pace episode for sure. For all intents and purposes, it was almost a RomCom-Loki Style. There just wasn't a kiss. (Yet?) Good chemistry between Hiddleston and Di Martino even if I prefer Loki with Mobius. I was missing Mobius this episode.

I really think Renslayer may be a Time Keeper...if not THE Time Keeper.

Edited June 23, 2021 by vb68

[paigow]

Reading the actual credits for an Aliens easter egg... the train guards were Pvt Hudson & Cpl Hicks

[magdalene]

This episode had a vibe of the best kind of Doctor Who episodes for me.  So, it seems the TVA has taken real people and enslaved/brain-washed them into serving it. That is so creepy. 

The actor playing Sylvie is very good and I enjoy her sparring and banter with Hiddleston.  They have good chemistry.

There was a lot going on so I didn't miss Mobius, still I want to see him back next episode.

Another episode with great visuals, fantastic world building and superb writing and acting.

[Peace 47]

1 hour ago, vb68 said:

I was missing Mobius this episode.

Me too.  I didn’t really love this episode as a result (missed the odd couple energy between Loki and Mobius), but I did really like the one-minute interlude towards the end, where Sylvie was explaining to Loki how she enchanted that TVA guard.  I think Loki is going to take her instructions and apply them to Mobius, and I found that setup for what I assume will be coming to be quite intriguing.

[arc]

Sylvie's history must have branched quite dramatically from mainline Loki. Presumably she was a child at the time. How did she grow to adulthood if the TVA was gunning for her all her life?

Props to everyone from the last episode thread who called that she'd be called Sylvie and that TVA employees are brainwashed variants rather than Time Keeper creations.

[Spartan Girl]

So TVA workers are brainwashed variants? Another notch for “the Time Keepers are actually evil” theory. That would explain Mobius’ love for jet skis: he must have owned them in his past life.

I did miss Mobius, but hopefully he’ll be back next week. In the meantime, I like Sylvie. Their interactions were good, just like I thought they’d be.

Confirmation about Loki’s sexuality! Yippee!

Loki getting drunk on the train was another iconic moment. He even did the “Another!” glass breaking! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Aww, him remembering Frigga and singing Norse/Asgardian songs. There’s just something about Tom speaking other languages that is just so hot.

Another cliffhanger! But that’s the risk of hiding in an apocalypse. My guess is that TVA tracks them down, but we have to wait until next week.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Marvel has made me fall in love with a song I didn't know existed. Dark Moon was originally recorded by Gale Storm in 1957. Watching the meteors fall just at the end there, after the destruction of the ark, was really creepy.

53 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

So TVA workers are brainwashed variants?

And apparently rendered immortal. Sylvie said she had to recover a memory that was a few hundred years old, from before that hunter worked for the TVA. "She was just a normal person. Loved margaritas."

Dueling Lokis was really interesting. Even if Sylvie doesn't think of herself as one, she's got his chaotic determination in spades, though she hasn't yet said why she wants to destroy the TVA. Somehow I doubt it's just because she wants to free the people who work there, since even if they're variants, they all came from other times and places.

[Llywela]

12 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

And apparently rendered immortal. Sylvie said she had to recover a memory that was a few hundred years old, from before that hunter worked for the TVA. "She was just a normal person. Loved margaritas."

Time works differently in the TVA indeed!

 

[Featherhat]

I liked that. It was good to get an ep with both Lokis together. I thought they did have chemistry together but I'm not sure about how I feel about "Sylvie" on her own. I kind of wish they'd cast GuGu Mbatha-Raw as Sylvie because  she's being a bit wasted, although I think will Di Martino grow on me more. 

No one should ever set up shop in a place called Lamentis for goodness sake, it's bound to go wrong. I noticed half the people in the crowd scenes had masks, obviously to protect themselves from apocalyptic ash as well as covid. 

I loved the train scenes, it's Loki's turn to get in an adoption quip, which was fun. The Lokis talking about Frigga was great and TH always infuses that with a lot of layers. 

Love is hate. And also "love is....something I have to have a drink to think about"  "Love is a dagger." They're not the most profound or surprising ways of putting it but it seems to define a lot of Loki's interactions with people. 

Canonical bisexual (or pansexual perhaps) character! As well as genderfluid of course. 

Loki getting drunk and singing in Asguardian was perfect as was Slyvie's reaction to it. They had the maudlin song sandwiched between the funny songs fit in pretty naturally there. 

I did miss Mobius, Owen Wilson is very hit and miss for me but I thought he did great as the straight man with TH. 

Yeah the Lizards who rule the universe are actually shady! Big surprise. I feel like it would be more of a twist if they were actually trying their best and that was them being "kind" to variants. 

We obviously don't have a handle on Sylvie's plan but whilst it's against the Time-Keepers I doubt it's going to be altruistic and beneficial for most people except her. But as with "our" Loki they'll be just enough there to have her mischief again another day. 

And she was always a variant from very young? This was easier to keep a handle on before the "sacred timeline" stuff, you could just say "alternate timeline/multiverse" and now the multiverse is just the different dimensions from Doctor Strange. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Featherhat

[AimingforYoko]

3 hours ago, magdalene said:

So, it seems the TVA has taken real people and enslaved/brain-washed them into serving it. That is so creepy. 

Well, variants. I suppose it's better than pruning them. I do wonder if it's just the minutemen or everybody there. Can't wait for Loki to happily inform B-15 she's a variant, just like him.

[thuganomics85]

Loki getting drunk and smashing the glass after yelling "Another" shows that he can be more like his brother than he thinks.  Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he and Thor actually got along very well after they had a few drinks in them and tore things up a bit.  I'm sure plenty of drunken revelry was had!

Definitely a change of pace from the past two episodes and I did feel like there was more set-up than pay-off this time, but I still enjoyed it and I suspect most everything will come ahead in the next episode or two.  Not surprised that this Sophia Di Martino ended up being a great fit as Sylvie, and works well together with Tom Hiddelston (granted, I think Hiddelston is one of those actors who can work with almost everyone, so you have to really be trying to not have chemistry with him.)  Still don't fully trust her, but I do suspect she will have good reasons for doing what she is doing (especially after the reveal about the variants and TVA employees.)

Did miss Mobius, but hopefully we'll be seeing him and his Owen Wilson-ish charm next week.  Did like the brief glimpse of Ravonna getting ready to throw down.  I think she'll end up being someone you really don't want to mess with!

The opening scene of Sylvie using her powers on that hunter and how it works was interesting.  I have a feeling that will come into play again eventually, although part of me is wondering if that is already the case, and most of this is an illusion she's putting Loki through to get more info.

But, yeah, it certainly looks like TVA workers aren't actually just "created" by the Timekeepers, but might actually be variants who had all been brainwashed/lost their memories.  That's certainly interesting!  I wonder if Mobius is one of them and what he use to be before he joined the TVA.

The more Frigga is mentioned or referenced, the more I wonder if she'll end up showing up here in some form.

[VCRTracking]

I liked the Snowpiercer vibes from this episode. 

Hiddleston and Ana Di Martino have great chemistry. Their interaction was fun.

I'm okay with Sylvie being the MCU version of the Enchantress.

Now that it's revealed the TVA employees are variants it could be Mobius was unknowingly remembering things looking at the jetski magazine.

I thought it was going to turn out Loki and Sylvie were the ones who caused ghf Ark's destruction!

[Cobalt Stargazer]

29 minutes ago, thuganomics85 said:

Did like the brief glimpse of Ravonna getting ready to throw down.  I think she'll end up being someone you really don't want to mess with!

Notice her indifference when Sylvie was trying to use Loki as a hostage. She probably hoped he'd get killed right there so she wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.

 

34 minutes ago, thuganomics85 said:

The more Frigga is mentioned or referenced, the more I wonder if she'll end up showing up here in some form.

I wonder, and this is probably a huge stretch; if Sylvie is a variant of Loki, is there a variant of Frigga somewhere who wasn't killed by dark elves? She claimed not to remember her mother, something about the echo of a memory, but how many similarities are there between her and the Loki we're familiar with? If nothing else, she's probably not telling the truth about much except recovering that old memory from Hunter C-20, and even that seems like it could be just a lever to get "our" Loki to help her. He acted genuinely surprised to find out that the TVA didn't create the people who work for them, so the next time he sees Mobius should be interesting.

[Abra]

I was vaguely bored (?) - I'm not sure that's the right word - for the first part of this episode, and then as Loki and Sylvie got to know each other it got better. I think I was missing the connection that Loki and Mobius had.

Kudos to everyone who guessed that TVA agents were mind-wiped variants. That explains my question in another episode thread as to why they brought the variants back for "trial" and didn't just delete the timelines with the variants in them - they need a supply of brainwashed worker bees.

[silverstream]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Notice her indifference when Sylvie was trying to use Loki as a hostage. She probably hoped he'd get killed right there so she wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.

Lol, my very first thought when she grabbed him was "and why should Ravonna care?". The people of the TVA have made it very clear that they couldn't care less about the variants' lives and that Moebius is just an outlier (if he's even really interested in Loki as a person at all and not just as an opportunity). Of course, with the new reveal that they secretly recycle the variants that's even more disturbing. I wonder if Ravonna knows what's going on? Somebody has to be doing the "brainwashing" (or whatever happens to turn normal people into TVA employees), and I don't think anyone below her does; at least, we know the Minutemen don't and I doubt Moebius does.

I wonder if there's someone who's in the know and in charge of taking care of logistics - after all, it would be very inconvenient if a TVA agent ever accidentally jumped to the point in time where their previous self lives and realised something is going on - with the many times Loki's apparently shown up as a variant, I guess he's definitely not a candidate for TVA-agent-ification.

It felt to me that Loki and Sylvie bonded a bit fast but I don't really mind because the reluctant Loki/Sylvie teamwork was so enjoyable. If it's true that Sylvie's been running from the TVA her whole life (and don't think she's lying about that, though of course she could be) I get why she wants to bring them down; both for personal reasons and because she probably doesn't know any other lifestyle. I wonder who brought her up if it wasn't Frigga and Odin (at least I don't think it was, if her timeline diverged early and she's been in hiding ever since). I wonder if she has a Thor? I don't think she mentioned anything about him or any other sibling (and I don't think Loki did either?).

[calliope1975]

I knew something was shady with the Timekeepers and the workers. I wonder if the taser thing doesn't kill people but resets them as workers. I wouldn't be surprised to see that first guy from the ticket line show up later as a worker bee. 

[minamurray78]

1 hour ago, calliope1975 said:

I knew something was shady with the Timekeepers and the workers. I wonder if the taser thing doesn't kill people but resets them as workers. I wouldn't be surprised to see that first guy from the ticket line show up later as a worker bee. 

I thought so too, that it would be revealed by loki seeing him behind a desk somewhere. I wonder if the tva can only do that with humans or if other beings can also be brainwashed and put to work right away as if it were the matrix.

I actually really liked this episode a lot. It figures that Loki would only ever be truly honest and reveal personal stuff with, well, his own self.

Mobious is right, Loki loves to talk though, whereas Sylvie kept her cards closer to her chest. I can´t believe how completely he derailed the whole plan on the train. Still, that ark was doomed, Why wait until their moon is pretty much on top of the planet?

I´m looking foward to Loki seeing Mobious with the knowledge that he did have a life before the tva. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by minamurray78

[Wynterwolf]

Thoroughly enjoyed that! Lots to chew on. Appreciated getting confirmation that the TVA workers are reclaimed and reused Variants, that definitely ups the 'creepy' quotient for the TVA. And I especially appreciated getting that confirmation in an ep with clear depictions of systemic injustice. 

As far as I can tell, the only difference between a "real" person and a Variant, is that one does what the TVA wants them to do, and the other doesn't (until they wipe their past from their minds and control all their daily actions). 

If Sylvie was telling the truth about knowing she was adopted, I wonder how many variant timeline they had to go through before they got one where Loki wasn't told he was adopted (which arguably set off a very specific course of actions on his part). 

That was also a helluva cliffhanger. 

[vb68]

54 minutes ago, silverstream said:

I wonder if Ravonna knows what's going on?

I think she clearly knows even more than she says. And she clearly likes all the agents to know she's king of the hill. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she's a Time Keeper.

[Wynterwolf]

10 minutes ago, minamurray78 said:

I thought so too, that it would be revealed by loki seeing him behind a desk somewhere.

I'm still pretty certain that taser stick actually purges/disintegrates/prunes the Variant, and I suspect that's what happens to all troublesome Variants. And probably most of the others too, until they need to refill their ranks. And even if we do see another version of someone we've seen previously, there would be no way to tell if it wasn't just a different Variant. 

Sylvie is the wildcard here. Because Mobius never would have thought to use Loki to try to catch her otherwise, and that Loki would have just been purged like all the other Loki Variants. So this is the deviation that the TVA can't control. I will be very interested to see exactly how she escaped in the beginning. 

[johntfs]

7 minutes ago, vb68 said:

I think she clearly knows even more than she says. And she clearly likes all the agents to know she's king of the hill. It wouldn't surprise me at all if she's a Time Keeper.

It would surprise me.  More than likely she was the first (or one of the first) Variants "reclaimed/recycled" by the Time-Keepers.  Mobius was probably a Variant reclaimed by her.

While it is a little creepy to consider that the TVA folks were all just Variants first, what better thing should the TVA do if it's doing it's mission as described - preserve the Sacred Timeline as the only timeline?  The only options I come up with are:

Murder/delete them.  That seems kind of harsh when a Variant's only crime was... eating at Pizza Hut instead of McDonald's on some particular day.

Put them in some kind of Time Prison from which they can never escape or be released (which is ultimately a worse form of murder/deletion).

Give them a job/purpose/life at the TVA.  They obviously can't go back to their own lives because there's a "TVA-approved" version of them already living their lives.  They can't go to some other part of the timeline because that would be a deviation from the Sacred Timeline.  So, they can either be executed (if they seem like they'll be too troublesome to be reclaimed (like Loki)) or they can have a new life inside the TVA.

I think the ultimate solution will be a new multi-verse, perhaps where all the TVA variants can follow their "variations" wherever they lead, but that's not on the table right now.

[Melina22]

5 hours ago, Featherhat said:

Loki getting drunk and singing in Asguardian was perfect as was Slyvie's reaction to it. They had the maudlin song sandwiched between the funny songs fit in pretty naturally there.

I really enjoyed this, although I personally found his singing haunting rather than maudlin. So it wasn't an actual language? I was thinking maybe Norwegian or Danish. Not that I'd recognize either. 

3 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

I liked the Snowpiercer vibes from this episode. 

My husband and I both said Snowpiercer! at almost the same time. 

38 minutes ago, Wynterwolf said:

That was also a helluva cliffhanger. 

The ending caught me totally off guard, literally saying "Wait, it's over?" For me that's the sign of a great episode. 

One quibble. Why on earth were guards bothering to fight them on their way to the Ark? Were they hoping for extra pay for the 5 minutes before they died as the planet fell on them? I'm a little vague on their motivation. 

[swanpride]

Honestly...didn't really work for me. The quibbling got old pretty fast, there was little meat in the actual conversation, I am actually by now kind of confused how there can be that many different Loki's when they are brought back on the "right path" as soon as they stray away, and was anyone honestly surprised by the relevation that the staff of the TVA are actually variants? Makes more sense than any other explanation. 

[MissL]

49 minutes ago, Melina22 said:

 

One quibble. Why on earth were guards bothering to fight them on their way to the Ark? Were they hoping for extra pay for the 5 minutes before they died as the planet fell on them? I'm a little vague on their motivation. 

I was thinking the exact same thing! At this point they have to know they are dead so what are they doing? Felt like the show just wanted some cool fights in that scene and you’d think the raining debris and chaos would be enough.

[arc]

2 hours ago, silverstream said:

I wonder if there's someone who's in the know and in charge of taking care of logistics - after all, it would be very inconvenient if a TVA agent ever accidentally jumped to the point in time where their previous self lives and realised something is going on

There must be. It might even be Ravonna, who authorizes specific missions. Presumably the TVA logistical apparatus coordinates which agents work on which situations.

1 hour ago, minamurray78 said:

Still, that ark was doomed, Why wait until their moon is pretty much on top of the planet?

Maybe they are as reluctant to face existential threats as real earth humans of the 21st century are? It would also explain how the citizens let the government build one ark that would manifestly be too small for the population.

[Featherhat]

9 hours ago, magdalene said:

This episode had a vibe of the best kind of Doctor Who episodes for me.  

It was exactly like a DW episode. They filmed it in a quarry and put an "alien" filter over it. Not to mention imminent death and a terrible plan for escaping it. 

1 hour ago, Melina22 said:

I really enjoyed this, although I personally found his singing haunting rather than maudlin. So it wasn't an actual language? I was thinking maybe Norwegian or Danish. Not that I'd recognize either. 

My husband and I both said Snowpiercer! at almost the same time. 

The ending caught me totally off guard, literally saying "Wait, it's over?" For me that's the sign of a great episode. 

One quibble. Why on earth were guards bothering to fight them on their way to the Ark? Were they hoping for extra pay for the 5 minutes before they died as the planet fell on them? I'm a little vague on their motivation. 

My subtitles had "singing in Asgardian" so I assumed it was made up. Not that I know Norwegian to check either. 

Maybe the guards had been promised seats on the Ark and two extra passengers would get some of them kicked off? IDK, usually the rich people have already scarpered by this point if they can so it didn't necessarily make sense to have less than 12 hours to the apocalypse and still have society in place anyway with an uninterrupted first class journey before Loki made an ass of himself. 

[tennisgurl]

Some real Doctor Who vibes this week, with the running around the alien world full of human looking aliens, the bantering, the space ships, the spectacle of space disasters, the British accents, etc. I really half expected a police box to show up any second to bail Loki and Sylvie out. I missed Mobius and the TVA, but I still thought this was a good episode. A lot of it was set up but the chemistry between Loki and Sylvie really kept the episode rolling. I really want to know about Sylvie's backstory, we got a little bit, that she has always known she was adopted, that she hardly remembers her mom, and that the TVA has been after her for most of her life, but I want to know more. What kind of Asgard is she from? Does she have a Thor, maybe a female version of him? 

I found Loki singing the Asgardian/Norse song to be quite haunting, he looked quite sad and wistful when he started it, transitioning to and from happier songs, like he was thinking of his old home and family, especially after just talking about Frigga. Was that in an actual language? It sounded a bit like Danish to me, but I really don't know. I always enjoy when the Asgardians show some connection to Scandinavia, like when Odin took Thor and Loki to Norway to look out at the cliffs as he died. 

Plus, Loki did the "ANOTHER" drink smash! He really isn't as different from his brother as he likes to think that he is. I bet they did have some wacky hijinks back in the day. It would certainly be interesting if he ever decided he wanted to go back in time to see his family again or to change what happened to them and to the Asgardians, knowing that his family really did love him all along but that now he can never see them again, both because he's now a time Variant and because his parents are dead, and he might also think Thor died when Thanos blew their ship up. 

I have been really curious about the TVA agents and their origins, and it turns out that they aren't actually artificially made humans created by the Time Keepers, they were all once normal people who became Variants and were brainwashed and enslaved to forget their human lives and work for the TVA. Mobius's wishful musing about owning a jet ski is probably memories of his previous life leaking through, the whole thing is really, really creepy. This pretty much clinches that the Time Keepers are shady as hell, although maybe they think that this is a Greater Good sort of thing where the timeline must be protected even if they have to do awful things to keep it on track, and that allowing Variants to live as TVA agents is more merciful than just killing them. Either way, its seriously messed up and adds a whole new level of eerie to the TVA. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by tennisgurl

[Melina22]

1 minute ago, Featherhat said:

still have society in place anyway with an uninterrupted first class journey before Loki made an ass of himself. 

Now that you mention it, good point! People were remarkably chill, with all the eating, drinking and being merry hours from total annihilation.

There were lots of great effects in this episode, but by far my favourite was a long shot where off in the far distance you could see a massive triangular chunk of planet very slowly crashing into the surface of the moon. I doubt if it would actually do that, with so little immediate effect, but it was beautiful. 

Here's a question I'm hesitant to ask because I feel like I should know the answer after watching almost every Marvel movie, but at some point in some of the movies, don't we see Loki fly? Or has he lost his powers from being at the TVA? Is it possible I've watched too much and information is getting bumped out of my brain? (Or is it too much double-screening?) 

[silverstream]

2 hours ago, Wynterwolf said:

Sylvie is the wildcard here. Because Mobius never would have thought to use Loki to try to catch her otherwise, and that Loki would have just been purged like all the other Loki Variants. So this is the deviation that the TVA can't control. I will be very interested to see exactly how she escaped in the beginning. 

This is complete spitballing and might be out the window by the next episode, but since Sylvie and Loki seem to be bonding (of a sort) and Loki clearly seemed shocked about the TVA/employees reveal - what if the Sylvie variant comes about specifically because Loki kidnapps baby Sylvie to set the destruction of the TVA in motion?

Or even - what if Sylvie kidnaps herself as a child and she herself is the "mother" she barely remembers? (Though they would really have to condense that story to not have it take over the series... well, there's always fanfic :P) There's also that romantic interest, "the postman" she talked about. That could easily be a complete lie to mock or mess with Loki but what if there's a grain of truth somewhere in there and somewhere in time there is a person functioning as a touchstone for her (whether in a romantic way or not is a different question).

1 hour ago, Melina22 said:

One quibble. Why on earth were guards bothering to fight them on their way to the Ark? Were they hoping for extra pay for the 5 minutes before they died as the planet fell on them? I'm a little vague on their motivation. 

I figured they had a place on the arc - you can clearly see one of the guards fall to their knees in complete devastation when it explodes. Or possibly it was a kind of "you can't get onto the arc anymore, but we're going to give your kid/parent/loved one a spot (or even "wire your loved one on another planet lots of money") if you sacrifice yourself and guard it until the end". I also don't think this was the only ship out, only the last, because waiting for the last moment like that would really make little sense. Either that, or the planet bearing down on them happenend really suddenly, which seems unlikely.

Edited June 23, 2021 by silverstream

[futurechemist]

1 hour ago, Melina22 said:

One quibble. Why on earth were guards bothering to fight them on their way to the Ark? Were they hoping for extra pay for the 5 minutes before they died as the planet fell on them? I'm a little vague on their motivation. 

It could have also been patriotism. The guards know that this arc is the last chance their civilization has to survive. If the arc gets overrun with rioters and can't take off, their species is doomed. Kind of like a soldier sacrificing themselves to allow the rest of their troop to escape. When the arc is destroyed, they realize that it's all for nothing and their entire civilization is now doomed.

But yeah, the moon and planet colliding isn't really a sudden turn of events.  So why would you wait until the last minute to send the arc? Unless this is meant to be close to our present level of technology and they literally had to start building the arc from scratch when some calamity sent the moon and planet towards each other.

Just spitballing, but I suspect Loki and Sylvie need to save the planet somehow, in order to trigger a time anomaly and send the TVA to fix things (and rescue them). Because otherwise, they're effectively invisible to the TVA because they're hiding in an apocalypse.

It was cool to have Loki come out as bisexual and not have it be a big dramatic twist, just him talking about himself.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

30 minutes ago, Melina22 said:

Here's a question I'm hesitant to ask because I feel like I should know the answer after watching almost every Marvel movie, but at some point in some of the movies, don't we see Loki fly? Or has he lost his powers from being at the TVA? Is it possible I've watched too much and information is getting bumped out of my brain? (Or is it too much double-screening?) 

As far as has been established by movie canon, Loki doesn't have the power of flight. Thor does after a fashion, because of Mjolnir, but the closest Loki has been to being airborne is on one of the Chitauri air-cycles in The Avengers.

[SeanC]

Loki's powers are fairly vague, which was my only quibble with this episode, because it often feels arbitrary what he can or can't do (for instance, he can fake that man's voice based only on having seen a picture of him, but he cannot fake a ticket for some reason).

[Wynterwolf]

5 minutes ago, futurechemist said:

It was cool to have Loki come out as bisexual and not have it be a big dramatic twist, just him talking about himself.

And likely Sylvie as well, given the dialog. But I agree, I liked how it was handled. And maybe the fact that the director is bisexual had something to do with that. For once, Disney/Marvel didn't embarrass themselves. 

 

[minamurray78]

Another thing I forgot: Loki telling Sylvie he "can´t go backwards on a train"...

Uh, when did he ever travel on a train? also, he has traveled through time and space, but backwards he can´t hande?lol

 

[paigow]

The lady had a corded pulse rifle. That power source would have been inadequate? If Loki and Sylvie killed her it would not affect the timeline.

[Melina22]

9 minutes ago, SeanC said:

Loki's powers are fairly vague, which was my only quibble with this episode, because it often feels arbitrary what he can or can't do (

I totally agree with this. Or Sylvie could have pulled her first trick and convinced the guards, one at a time, that they should let Loki stay. 

That said, there's a randomness to all the superheroes' strength and powers that nags at my mind through every fight and battle scene in every single movie and series. I've reached the point where I try to deactivate that particular part of my brain during these scenes because it just spoils them for me. 

Never mind. I'm really enjoying this series so far, maybe because the casting is so good. 

[Wynterwolf]

One thing that had occurred to me as I was watching, during the part when Sylvie woke up and Loki wasn't in the uniform anymore, that Loki could have found some sort of energy source on the train and recharged the timepad without her knowledge. And that the rest of the ep was Loki creating a scenario to see how she would react to different situations. I'm still not entirely convinced he didn't do that. 

[johntfs]

29 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

As far as has been established by movie canon, Loki doesn't have the power of flight. Thor does after a fashion, because of Mjolnir, but the closest Loki has been to being airborne is on one of the Chitauri air-cycles in The Avengers.

Well, he came a little closer to flying in Thor: Ragnorak with the "falling for 30 minutes" but that was Dr. Strange and not him.

20 minutes ago, minamurray78 said:

Another thing I forgot: Loki telling Sylvie he "can´t go backwards on a train"...

Uh, when did he ever travel on a train? also, he has traveled through time and space, but backwards he can´t hande?lol

 

We've learned that he was on an airplane in 1971.  Passenger trains have been a thing since 1825.  He could easily have been on quite a lot of trains.  Maybe another Thor/Loki bet involved re-creating (or inspiring) Around the World in 80 Days.

 

[Melina22]

4 minutes ago, johntfs said:

Well, he came a little closer to flying in Thor: Ragnorak with the "falling for 30 minutes" but that was Dr. Strange and not him.

True. One of my all-time favourite Loki moments. 

[Sakura12]

So she is a Loki that goes by Sylvie. Did she teach herself magic when she was younger, how has she managed to live a whole life without being reset? She's not a variant, she's from an alternate reality. One where Loki found out they were adopted when they were young, lost their mother when they were young and wasn't an Asgardian I presume since she never said she was. So she grew up with the Ice Giants or adopted by someone else? 

I do like the chemistry between Hiddleston and Di Martino. Then we also got confirmation that Loki is bi or pan. And we got confirmation the TVA workers are actual people that had their minds wiped to work their. Does that mean Mobius was a jet ski champion from the 90's or something. Lol

[Featherhat]

54 minutes ago, Wynterwolf said:

And likely Sylvie as well, given the dialog. But I agree, I liked how it was handled. And maybe the fact that the director is bisexual had something to do with that. For once, Disney/Marvel didn't embarrass themselves. 

 

Coming out is not completely uncommon on TV/movies these days and you sometimes get a "Bi The Way" casual come out but that can still be very awkward or feel tacked on and unearned. (Teddy on Grey's I'm looking at you). 

I think they did this just right. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Featherhat

[johntfs]

8 minutes ago, Wynterwolf said:

One thing that had occurred to me as I was watching, during the part when Sylvie woke up and Loki wasn't in the uniform anymore, that Loki could have found some sort of energy source on the train and recharged the timepad without her knowledge. And that the rest of the ep was Loki creating a scenario to see how she would react to different situations. I'm still not entirely convinced he didn't do that. 

I see a few problems with that idea.  First, Loki isn't Tony Stark - or even Peter Parker.  He's not really used to (or skilled at) modifying unfamiliar technology.  There's a reason (other than "It'll piss off Thor") that he used Erik Selvig to set up the Tesseract gate for the Chitauri invasion force.  He didn't know how.  Hell, in this episode when Loki used the time gate he sent himself and Sylvie to super moon death world.

Second, one major problem with "Loki is using illusions to gaslight Sylvie" is that his illusions wouldn't be believable.  Because he's never been to Lamentis and is less familiar with it than Sylvie is.  It's why he got blasted by that old woman - because his illusion of her husband acted out of character.  It's also a reason Loki didn't produce illusory train tickets - because he didn't know what they looked like.

Now, I think he did use an illusion when he showed her the destroyed time door device.  I think he wanted to see what she'd do.  Maybe she had a second device and had been trying to get hold of his because hers would take both of them somewhere she didn't want him to go.  Another possibility is that Loki did want to try to save some of the people with the Ark (perhaps he wanted his own version of the bit where original Loki arrived in the spaceship to evacuate Asgard) but he knew he couldn't pull it off without her help/tech expertise.

Still, one thing to consider is that it looked like only the top portion of the Ark had been destroyed.  Maybe the engines/main power source was close to the bottom and they can still potentially tap into it and recharge the time door that way.

 

[arc]

20 minutes ago, johntfs said:

Another possibility is that Loki did want to try to save some of the people with the Ark

I can’t imagine why. Not only would that put an even bigger target on his back with the TVA, but also we just saw him last episode not giving a shit about the fate of the Pompeiians. 

1 hour ago, SeanC said:

Loki's powers are fairly vague, which was my only quibble with this episode, because it often feels arbitrary what he can or can't do (for instance, he can fake that man's voice based only on having seen a picture of him, but he cannot fake a ticket for some reason).

He magically levitated a falling building!!!! (Side note, the best part about that was how he paused, as if admiring his own work.) Still, if he’s that powerful, fighting guards one by one with daggers is absurdly silly when he could probably have just grabbed a boulder or something and steamrolled a clear path to the ark.

[IWantCandy71]

9 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Marvel has made me fall in love with a song I didn't know existed. Dark Moon was originally recorded by Gale Storm in 1957. Watching the meteors fall just at the end there, after the destruction of the ark, was really creepy.

And apparently rendered immortal. Sylvie said she had to recover a memory that was a few hundred years old, from before that hunter worked for the TVA. "She was just a normal person. Loved margaritas."

Dueling Lokis was really interesting. Even if Sylvie doesn't think of herself as one, she's got his chaotic determination in spades, though she hasn't yet said why she wants to destroy the TVA. Somehow I doubt it's just because she wants to free the people who work there, since even if they're variants, they all came from other times and places.

Is it that they are immortal, or is it that the TVA is so many years into the future ? 

If the TVA Lady was kidnapped in 2000, then technically in 2300, she would be hundreds of years old. But not immortal once outside the protection of the TVA.

If she found her way to modern Earth, wouldn't she crumble to dust as soon as she hit the surface ?

[magdalene]

1 hour ago, Wynterwolf said:

One thing that had occurred to me as I was watching, during the part when Sylvie woke up and Loki wasn't in the uniform anymore, that Loki could have found some sort of energy source on the train and recharged the timepad without her knowledge. And that the rest of the ep was Loki creating a scenario to see how she would react to different situations. I'm still not entirely convinced he didn't do that. 

Yes, I did keep wondering whether he bamboozled her with the timey-whimy thingie to draw her out and find out as much as possible while she believes they are doomed - and then voila! at the last minute pulls them off Lamentis.  Because they are certainly not going to die on Lamentis and unless some contrived deux ex machina shows up....

[Cobalt Stargazer]

4 minutes ago, IWantCandy71 said:

Is it that they are immortal, or is it that the TVA is so many years into the future ?

Both? Maybe? We still don't know if the TVA exists on the physical plane. If the TVA lady was taken from earth in the year 2000, she could have stopped aging altogether. Another possibility is that the Minutemen have some kind of technology in their armor to protect them from crumbling to dust in the earth's atmosphere. They're so far advanced that they use Infinity Stones as paperweights, and even if Ravonna doesn't care about variants, she might care a little about the 'soldiers' who are helping to protect the timeline. Because some of them have to have been to modern earth, since the Ren Faire in the last episode took place in 1985.

[silverstream]

1 hour ago, johntfs said:

He didn't know how.  Hell, in this episode when Loki used the time gate he sent himself and Sylvie to super moon death world.

[...]

Now, I think he did use an illusion when he showed her the destroyed time door device.  I think he wanted to see what she'd do.  Maybe she had a second device and had been trying to get hold of his because hers would take both of them somewhere she didn't want him to go.

I'm pretty sure the device Loki is using is Sylvie's - you can see him swipe it during their fight at the TVA (at least I think that was what was going on). She also says that the reason they landed on a moon that's about to explode is because that was one of the "apocalypse" destinations she'd expressly programmed into it. Though I like the idea of him lying about the device being broken, I'm just not sure he'd take it that far - they both seem to be in real danger at the moment (Loki might be able to magically catch a falling building, but I'm not sure that extends to catching falling pieces of planet); that's also why I don't think she's got another way out that she's not using.

[SnoGirl]

I have a really hard time trusting this show, I feel like we have some really unreliable narrators.

Like, I don’t believe that the time travel pager is really broken. Did Loki say it was broken to get Sylvie to stop trying to kill him every few minutes? Or Loki has all these random powers we’ve never seen before, the green fireballs, pushing the building back. Is he using a Time Stone-moving the building almost looked like he stopped and rewinded it back up. Even the them running around trying to get to the Arc was strange.

I did like that Loki’s inner reluctant hero was showing. First his concern that the TVA people had no idea that they too were Variants. And then him concerned about all the people not on the Arc. That’s the Loki I love.

[silverstream]

25 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Both? Maybe? We still don't know if the TVA exists on the physical plane. If the TVA lady was taken from earth in the year 2000, she could have stopped aging altogether. Another possibility is that the Minutemen have some kind of technology in their armor to protect them from crumbling to dust in the earth's atmosphere. They're so far advanced that they use Infinity Stones as paperweights, and even if Ravonna doesn't care about variants, she might care a little about the 'soldiers' who are helping to protect the timeline. Because some of them have to have been to modern earth, since the Ren Faire in the last episode took place in 1985.

But didn't Sylvie say she had to sift through hundreds of years of memories? So the agent must have been alive/conscious for all of that time, not just displaced. And sending your underlings into situations where inexplicably (for them) , their colleague will disintegrate if they take off their helmet/armour/etc. doesn't seem very ideal.

I'm not sure the Inifinity Stones being powerless has to do with technical advancement, so far I've taken it to be part of the "magic isn't possible at the TVA" thing. Which was something I found interesting about Sylvie - that she didn't know magic doesn't work at the TVA. Maybe that's not caused by technology or magic (e.g., not a spell or machine doing that) but the TVA is in some sort of pocket universe where magic simply doesn't exist.

As as I was typing the last paragraph I rememberd that Loki picked up one of the TVA's infinity stones (I think it was a time stone?) in episode one, and I'm pretty sure he kept it - maybe he'll remember he still has it and they'll get off Lamentis that way? (If the TVA hasn't rendered it permanently unusable, that is.)