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S02.E04: Heart of the TVA

formerlyfreedom

By formerlyfreedom
in Loki

formerlyfreedom
Message added by formerlyfreedom,

Posts in this topic should be about the episode. If your post is not primarily about the episode, please rethink where to post it; the topic Marvel Movies and Comics: Loki+ is a good spot. Posts that are primarily or only about the Marvel movies (or that quote such posts) will be removed without notice, and warnings may be issued. Thank you.

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phalange

phalange

(edited)

So Renslayer and HWR were working together until he decided he didn't like having to share power and had her memory wiped.

Even without seeing Dox and the others get squished, the sounds made it clear how gruesome it was. Miss Minutes was looking all gleeful as it happened. That clock is a psychopath. Nicely contrasted with B-15's look of horror when she saw the room.

I love the scene with Loki and Sylvie in the pie room, talking about how hard it is to have hope.

"We have a good plan. We have a pretty good plan. We have a plan." Lol O.B.

Yep, it was Loki who pruned past Loki. And Brad being a coward didn't pay off since Miss Minutes got reset and Ravonna got pruned. Sucks for you, Brad.

Timely got spaghetti-fied, yikes. And the Temporal Loom went supernova. It feels almost like a season finale-level cliffhanger.

Edited by phalange
  • Like 9
Cthulhudrew

Cthulhudrew

(edited)

This was the most coherent, best paced episode of S2 so far.

From a technical standpoint, I thought the extreme long shot of Loki's "we are gods" line was an odd choice. Should have at least been a mid-shot or medium closeup. That's the sort of line delivery Tom Hiddleston excels at, and we completely missed any visual take.

I wish they'd give us more character-driven stories again, though. Its hard to care much when the plotline is all this cosmic loom mumbo-jumbo rather than personal stakes.

 

Edited by Cthulhudrew
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thuganomics85

thuganomics85

Despite not actually seeing it on camera, Dox and the rest of the rogue hunters deaths was surprisingly brutal.  I guess just knowing about the device and how it operates two episodes ago helps paint a picture of what likely happened and... yeah, that's a bad, bad way to go.  Certainly amped up by Miss Minutes psychotic glee over what was transpiring (while "Brad" freaked out and Renslayer at least had the awareness to put on a disturbed face more or less.)  Miss Minutes really is becoming one of the scarier villains in the MCU.  Just a pure sadist in animated clock form.

Still not really digging Jonathan Majors' acting choices, but Timely and OB fanboying over one another was a nice touch.  Talk about a time paradox: both were influenced by the other in their own way.  Time travel!!

Poor Mobius suggested a mere pie break and it leads to Sylvie just going off and basically belittling his entire existence.  Poor guy.  At least Loki has his back!

So, it really was a Loki from a different timeline that prunes the Loki from the premiere.

Miss Minutes has been shut down and Renslayer gets pruned, but I have to imagine this isn't the last we see of either of them.

Wasn't expecting Timely to get spaghetti-fied!  I'm guessing the strands are going to branch off and this how we get all of the Kang variants.

Obviously doubt the TVA gets completely destroyed and everyone died at the end, but I have to imagine some kind of reset just transpired.  I guess we will find out more next week!

  • Like 7
Spartan Girl

Spartan Girl

(edited)

Well, damn. That escalated quickly.

Sorry I still don’t care about Timely. Not event OB can make me like him, though him get spaghetti’s is brutal.

While Ravonna and Miss Minutes are better villains than Kang, I’m really fed up that the MCU lately has the tendency to villify women characters that have been done dirty. I still haven’t forgiven them for Sharon and Wanda.

Edited by Spartan Girl
  • Like 9
Lassus

Lassus

(edited)
15 hours ago, HDJulie said:

I don’t understand what her plan or intent was. 

I actually don't understand what anyone's plan or intent was.  I've been reading comics since 1974 and have watched every MCU property they've put out.  This episode had me more baffled as to the purpose as anything prior.  

Who is even fighting who, and why?  They keep talking about this fight and I'm not even sure why they're fighting.  I'm lost.

11 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

Poor Mobius suggested a mere pie break and it leads to Sylvie just going off and basically belittling his entire existence.  Poor guy.  At least Loki has his back!

Gotta say I was with Sylvie on this one, both within the story and also in a more meta way than intended.  I would prefer less Wes Anderson style - and running around showing off the style - and more narrative movement.

Edited by Lassus
  • Like 11
Athena

Athena

15 hours ago, HDJulie said:

What was Renslayer going to do to “fix” the TVA?  Did she not believe that the loom was going to be destroyed?  I don’t understand what her plan or intent was.

 

8 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

While Ravonna and Miss Minutes are better villains than Kang, I’m really fed up that the MCU lately has the tendency to villify women characters that have been done dirty. I still haven’t forgiven them for Sharon and Wanda.

 

1 hour ago, Lassus said:

I actually don't understand what anyone's plan or intent was.  I've been reading comics since 1974 and have watched every MCU property they've put out.  This episode had me more baffled as to the purpose as anything prior.  

Who is even fighting who, and why?  They keep talking about this fight and I'm not even sure why they're fighting.  I'm lost.

There really is an issue with character development and motivations in the MCU. The female characters do have it worse since there are so few of them so it gets glaring when they become villains or have less than heroic motivations for reasons the audience's don't relate to. It's easier to understand Miss Minutes being evil because she's an AI made by an evil genius but the others were human. Still don't care about Sylvie but a bit better this episode.

The continued weak character and plot writing aside, I think this episode was one of the better ones. I really like OB and he brings such a nice energy to this show lightening it up. Majors was more bearable here than the last ep. I also like that they closed the loop on Loki being pruned.

They keep hinting that we will see Mobius's life on the timeline at some point. They are really building it up which is good for the character but hopefully it won't be a let down.

  • Like 7
cdnalor

cdnalor

Seems really stupid to send a mortal human to repair the Loom when you've got two Asgardian gods standing right there.  Loki took a beating from the Hulk way back when, so we know he's pretty resistant.  Of course, Victor getting shredded will serve to explain the many variants that will be seeded throughout the multiverse when the Loom resets or coalesces or whatever it'll do after the blow-up.

Hot chocolate from a machine is no way as good as they made it look.  Bleh...

  • Like 5
tennisgurl

tennisgurl

(edited)

Shit certainly got real, they were not kidding about possibly become spaghettis. Things are not looking great for our heroes, even more so than in the rest of the season, how will they get out of this one? Time travel? Magic? K.E.V.I.N.? 

Dox and her people getting crushed to death was nasty, between that and Timely turning into intradimentional pasta, this was a surprisingly brutal episode. Miss Minutes really is scary as fuck, I would be good with her being the shows Big Bad by the time all of this is over. I am still not sure what exactly Renslayer's endgame has been, other than trying to work against what remains of the TVA, who are basically just putting out time fires. 

Sylvie can take several seats, there was no need for her to go off on Morbius when he is clearly trying to do the right thing and who she already knows had his memory wiped by the TVA. I get that Sylvie hates the TVA, for understandable reasons, but its pretty clear that the TVA employees are also victims in all of this, even if they didn't know it. At least his bestie Loki has his back.

I still think that Jonathan Majors was trying too hard with Timely but I liked him more in this episode, like when he and OB were mutually geeking out over each other, so of course he dies. Time travel really is something else. I love OB, he really adds so much fun quirky energy to the show without being all quirk and no character. I was also amused by OB saying that their mutual appreciate of each other was like a snake eating his tail...which is literally what an ouroboros is. 

Edited by tennisgurl
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ItCouldBeWorse

ItCouldBeWorse

2 hours ago, Ariah said:

Neither is McDonalds, yet they went there past episode…

On the other hand, hot cocoa from a machine would be a novelty to Timely, a person from the past. I can see how something average to us would be groundbreaking to them.

He didn't even care about how it tasted as he immediately gave it away; he just wanted to see how the machine operated.

  • Like 4
HDJulie

HDJulie

There are 2 episodes left this season?  Has it been stated anywhere whether there will be a season 3, or could the last 2 episodes be the last 2 episodes ever.  As mentioned above, there have been several references to Morbius & his real timeline.  It might be cliche but it wouldn't surprise me (who obviously has no creativity) if all of the TVA people were back in their real timelines at the end of this season.

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paigow

paigow

2 hours ago, HDJulie said:

It might be cliche but it wouldn't surprise me (who obviously has no creativity) if all of the TVA people were back in their real timelines at the end of this season.

That would be worse than The Blip... those people had memories but were 5 years behind. TVA people have no idea where they belong...  does their native timeline still exist??? 

  • Like 1
magdalene

magdalene

What a psycho Miss Minutes is!  The joy in her eyes while the rogue hunters were brutally killed was deeply disturbing.  The actor who plays "Bradley" is terrific, you can read every emotion in his face but he never over-acts or chews the scenery.

My guess is the TVA did not get destroyed, it got reset to factory settings.

Excellent episode, two left to go, lets hope they can stick the ending.

  • Like 5
KerleyQ

KerleyQ

I'm predicting Brad is going to have a Skurge-like ending at some point, sacrificing himself to save others, as he feels too much guilt over everything he's taken part in. 

I've thought for pretty much this whole season so far that Miss Minutes is the real villain. I don't think anything she says about HWR or her own creation is true. I think she created TVA and she recruited him to be her figurehead. I kind of go back and forth on how I think she existed to start with, but my most recent thought is that there is actually a real person behind her, like someone's consciousness that got trapped in the cloud (this may be heavily influenced by the fact that I've been watching the new season of Upload), or something similar. I don't think HWR wanted Ravonna's memory wiped, I think that was all Miss Minutes. She obviously sees Ravonna and HWR (or any of his variants) teaming up as a threat, as evidenced by her turning on Ravonna in Chicago and getting Timely to cut her loose. So, she likely saw how close they were and went and wiped her memory to split them. 

I give the show credit, Timely turning into spaghetti was definitely a shocking moment. 

On 10/27/2023 at 1:58 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Obviously doubt the TVA gets completely destroyed and everyone died at the end, but I have to imagine some kind of reset just transpired.  I guess we will find out more next week!

I'm wondering if maybe the TVA imploding will dump everyone back to wherever they were picked up from, leaving them all trying to figure out how to get back to each other. That would serve the dual purpose of being the conflict for the 5th episode along with showing us Mobius in his timeline existence. When I suggested that was what will happen to all of them, right after we watched this episode, my son said "so Mobius will be zapped right onto a jet ski?" 

On 10/27/2023 at 11:21 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Seriously. I mean, she is responsible for most of this mess, so she has zero right to talk down to anyone.

Yeah, she can stop whining any time now. They're all running around desperately trying to save who knows how many people from her fuck-up, and she's just being super shitty to everyone about it. Like they're all supposed to bend over and kiss her ass because she didn't compound her fuck-up by also killing Timely, and because she finally deigned to come help them, after refusing before. 

I know a lot of people saw that scene where Loki talked about how caring about someone didn't make Thor weak as some grand declaration of love about Sylvie, but I think he was just talking about caring about people in general. Because he cares about Sylvie, sure, but he also cares about Mobius, OB, and the rest of the people at the TVA. And, hell, humanity in general. 

And, I may be in the minority among most viewers, but I see zero romantic tension/chemistry between the two of them this season. They seem far more like siblings now. I'll fully admit that I was never on the Loki/Sylvie ship, but I an acknowledge that the romantic tension and chemistry were there in season 1. But I really don't see any of it this season. He cares about her, absolutely, but, like I said, it seems more like a sibling kind of thing. And, from her end, I don't think she's into him at all. I think she just wants this all to be over so she can go live some quiet life somewhere away from all of it. He's the person she trusts most there, but I don't think it goes beyond that. Hell, at some points in time, I think she resents him. And I don't think she'll ever understand how he got so on board with the TVA. They had something in common in season 1. They have nothing in common now. (Other than, you know, both being Loki's). 

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Spartan Girl

Spartan Girl

20 hours ago, magdalene said:

What a psycho Miss Minutes is!  The joy in her eyes while the rogue hunters were brutally killed was deeply disturbing. 

Say what you want about Dox, she and the rogues went out like a boss, telling Ravonna to go fuck herself.

Brad can miss me with his horror about what they did to all his friends. All that and he STILL helped them.

Okay, even though I didn’t like Timely, he still didn’t deserve that fate.

  • Like 4
SnarkShark

SnarkShark

I guess you could consider that a cliffhanger.  😄

14 hours ago, paigow said:

Team Loki killed this Renslayer variant before the Loom exploded... if a new / rebooted TVA emerges... will there be a Renslayer in it?

Pruning via the timesticks doesn't kill.  It sends you to the End of Time.

On 10/27/2023 at 2:27 AM, tkc said:

Did we all just witness the Creation of the Kangs?

All those strands of Timely swirling in the temporal chaos…

Don't think it works that way.  The ingredients for the Kangs didn't need a source.  It's already part of there being Variants.

ApathyMonger

ApathyMonger

(edited)
7 hours ago, HelloooKitty said:

Does anyone know the timing of the filming schedule and how it lines up with Majors’s arrest? Is it possible his death in this episode was a way to off a problematic actor and either rid themselves of the character or open a new way to reintroduce the character with a different actor?

No, Majors' arrest happened weeks before the WGA strike started. There would have been no time for them to rewrite or reshoot anything, and obviously with the SAG strike ongoing they still can't have done anything.

4 hours ago, albinerhawk said:

I'm not sure if this is an ignorant question or one that hasn't been answered yet. Does anyone know what the temporal loom does anyway? Does it create a sacred timeline from many multiverses? What was the essence of time and the multiverses before the loom? What is so horrible about its destruction outside of those in the TVA?

The mythology of this season is just baffling to me. I have no idea why the characters are doing what they're doing or the consequences of them failing.

Ke Huy Quan's charm is the only thing keeping it even slightly afloat.

Edited by ApathyMonger
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arc

arc

On 10/29/2023 at 4:09 PM, paigow said:

Then Loki sent himself to the End Of Time??? And fight Renslayer again???

No, this was the other end of the bit from 2x01 where there was some convoluted plan in which Loki had to get pruned right when the little indicator flashed green in order to fix his time slipping. So yes, normally the pruning stick sends the target to the end of time, but this time it didn't.

  • Like 1
arc

arc

On 10/29/2023 at 4:13 PM, ApathyMonger said:

The mythology of this season is just baffling to me. I have no idea why the characters are doing what they're doing or the consequences of them failing.

Last season, the TVA was more or less just about keeping history going the way it was supposed to. So the Avengers were allowed to time travel in Endgame but the TVA would clean up variants and branches.

This season they’ve introduced the loom which processes “raw time” into a team stream or something and if it breaks then all chaos is unleashed, or possibly the multiverse dies. And it’s an urgent problem but with no ticking clock or any kind of  indication that things are getting worse. And this massive city-sized agency tasked with patrolling an entire universe for time shenanigans somehow has no one besides our handful of plucky heroes working on this existential looming disaster. And Renslayer opposes them with no plausible counter-plan of her own to not destroy her own timeline. This also kind of describes Sylvie. Then they’ve got this Kang variant who is both a genius and a small time con man so there’s never a sense that the show even knows who Timely should be.

also, I guess they want to make Sylvie a fully separate character from Loki but it jarred me when he talked about “his” brother rather than “our” brother.

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Enigma X

Enigma X

If Sylvie is a whole different character than Loki (which I agree it seems that way), I wish they would define what a variant actually means in this world but, at this point, it is a useless term. They could have just made a "Sylvie" that was adopted by Frigga and Odin in an alternate universe/timeline (another convoluted MCU or even Marvel Comics invention) then.

Captain Carrot

Captain Carrot

On 10/28/2023 at 8:13 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Say what you want about Dox, she and the rogues went out like a boss, telling Ravonna to go fuck herself.

I like that Dox never mentioned their conversation with B-15 to Ravonna, but that conversation did have an impact.

I have to think that Dox and the others might have sided with Ravonna if B-15 hadn't spoken to them first. And things would have gone very differently if Ravonna had a whole team instead of just Brad.

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jojozigs

jojozigs

This show is really starting to lose me.  First season was a tightly written character Driven drama.  This one seems like one wild goose chase after another.  They added a neat character in OB but everyone else seems to have become 1 dimensional.  What are we even doing with B-15 and Renslayer?  B-15 was a hardcore loyalist turned revolutionary.  Now she's a TVA loyalist again?  Because there's a McGuffin to fix?  S1 Mobius went from TVA loyalist to on team Sylvie/Loki, saying "I'm going to burn down the TVA" and to Renslayer "You know where I'd like to be?  Back on my timeline living my life" to "no I can't find out who I was or I'll be sad".  And Renslayer just casually murdering 35 people because they didn't say "ok" fast enough to her offer?   Because she's mad at Victor Timely/HWR?  What does she even want from them if she hadn't squished them?  They're just like... doing stuff because the plot demands it.  Instead of the events organically changing them.  

There were a couple good lol worthy moments this season but man the first season was just so so so much better.  I feel sad.  Maybe they can fix it in the last 2 but I'm not too hopeful.  

I am here for Miss minutes being revealed to be a total psychopath though, whereas in S1 she was just sus as hell.  

Quote

also, I guess they want to make Sylvie a fully separate character from Loki but it jarred me when he talked about “his” brother rather than “our” brother.

This has been a tension we've had to roll with since S1.  How much are they the same person vs not the same is always in the air.  Quotes like "you can do this, because we're the same..." vs. "Because I'm not you..."

Regarding their families they have a conversation about their respective (adoptive) mothers on the train.  In Sylvie's timeline, a goddess of mischief was born of Frost Giants and was adopted by the Asgardians instead of the more usual god of mischief.  She's the same person in terms of the role in the timeline ("temporal aura") but also not necessarily related in a genetic sense.  She likely has a sibling equivalent of Thor since they seem to have the same mom (Sylvie got nostalgic listening to Loki talk about Frigga).  But still not the exact same person, since different timelines...  

  • Like 2
johntfs

johntfs

7 hours ago, jojozigs said:

This show is really starting to lose me.  First season was a tightly written character Driven drama.  This one seems like one wild goose chase after another.  They added a neat character in OB but everyone else seems to have become 1 dimensional.  What are we even doing with B-15 and Renslayer?  B-15 was a hardcore loyalist turned revolutionary.  Now she's a TVA loyalist again?  Because there's a McGuffin to fix?  S1 Mobius went from TVA loyalist to on team Sylvie/Loki, saying "I'm going to burn down the TVA" and to Renslayer "You know where I'd like to be?  Back on my timeline living my life" to "no I can't find out who I was or I'll be sad".  And Renslayer just casually murdering 35 people because they didn't say "ok" fast enough to her offer?   Because she's mad at Victor Timely/HWR?  What does she even want from them if she hadn't squished them?  They're just like... doing stuff because the plot demands it.  Instead of the events organically changing them.  

There were a couple good lol worthy moments this season but man the first season was just so so so much better.  I feel sad.  Maybe they can fix it in the last 2 but I'm not too hopeful.  

I am here for Miss minutes being revealed to be a total psychopath though, whereas in S1 she was just sus as hell.  

 

The TVA that B-15 and Mobius wanted to overthrow and/or burn down, has been overthrown and "burned down."  It's mission and purpose has changed from one of destruction (prune the non-Sacred timelines) to one of preservation.  Mobius and B-15 are loyal to a TVA that deserves their loyalty - or is at least getting to that point.

Meanwhile Renslayer is still the same woman who regularly sentence people to be banished to the End of Time to get eaten by a Smoke Monster.  Miss Minutes being a psycho is not even a little bit of a surprise.

  • Like 1
Silver-hyren

Silver-hyren

Can we really say the Minutemen sided with Dox over Ravonna? In several shots a good chunk of them seemed oblivious to the fact Ravonna and Miss Minutes were even there and when the Crushing Box-O-Death surrounded them they didn't react.  In one of the shots of Dox in the Box (ha!) the people around her were looking away from the Ravonna at the side walls.  The scene read to me more that they were the unfortunate victims of Dox and Ravonna's pissing match (and a sadistic AI), crushed simply due to proximity.

Add me to the list of people who didn't understand Ravonna's plan.  The TVA is collapsing so they need Timely and his device to stop that from happening, but he's currently with OB figuring out how to . . . use his device to stop the TVA from collapsing.  Granted I don't have a good grasp of how the TVA and time/time travel in this series works on a good day.

Kel Varnsen

Kel Varnsen

On 10/26/2023 at 11:26 PM, Cthulhudrew said:

I wish they'd give us more character-driven stories again, though. Its hard to care much when the plotline is all this cosmic loom mumbo-jumbo rather than personal stakes.

 

I am feeling the same way. It is hard to care about the loom and the TVA since everything that OB says about it is such over the top crazy sci Fi that it starts to become meaningless. Just give me more Loki and Morbius. 

I did like OB's Back to the Future shout out though with him complaining about how crude his model was.

On 11/1/2023 at 10:05 AM, Enigma X said:

If Sylvie is a whole different character than Loki (which I agree it seems that way), I wish they would define what a variant actually means in this world but, at this point, it is a useless term. They could have just made a "Sylvie" that was adopted by Frigga and Odin in an alternate universe/timeline (another convoluted MCU or even Marvel Comics invention) then.

The variant thing doesn't make much sense to me either. Like Sylvie was a variant as soon as she was born, and the TVA exists outside of time, so why did they decide to wait to deal with her. 

Loki pruning himself was weird. And if you can time travel within the TVA why can't Loki and Morbius just do that to fix their problems?

formerlyfreedom
Message added by formerlyfreedom,

Posts in this topic should be about the episode. If your post is not primarily about the episode, please rethink where to post it; the topic Marvel Movies and Comics: Loki+ is a good spot. Posts that are primarily or only about the Marvel movies (or that quote such posts) will be removed without notice, and warnings may be issued. Thank you.

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