Episode three of Loki wasn’t as great as it’s predecessors, but it was a very important episode that provided some great dialogue, and some strong character development. Loki and, as we now officially know, Lady Loki, were basically the only characters in the episode who were mainstays from the series. Besides a brief cameo by the shady, to me at least, Renslayer. It’s also still pretty apparent, to me at least again, that Sylvie is NOT the villain of season one. It seems like she can be reasoned with, but at the end of the day, Loki and “Lady Loki” are both villains in their own-right. It seems like the duo is forming a friendship that might morph into a villainous partnership down the line. But who the true villain of the first season is, remains to be seen.
We didn’t learn much about Sylvie in episode three, but she apparently stepped off the Sacred Timeline quite early in her life, and clearly had a different experience than Loki. It also seems like she wasn't adopted by Odin at all, so she never had the same bond with Loki's adoptive mother Frigga. She also learned of her Frost Giant heritage in a much different way. She also seems like a combination of both Lady Loki and Enchantress from the comics. Enchantress, Sylvie Lushton, was gifted her powers by Loki, and is a villain Thor and Asgard in the comics. Even though she’s 100% human and is from Oklahoma. The first place we met Sylvie on the show.
Image: Inside the Magic
The episode begins right where we left off, and see the duo turn up at the TVA before being stopped by Renslayer who causes them to go to Lamentis-1 in the year 2077. Upon arriving to the new MCU location, which is not a world in Marvel Comics, the planet was mere hours away from being destroyed by an exploding moon. And don’t worry, Thanos wasn’t involved this time. Much of the episode was about the duo trying to fix the Tem-Pad to get off of Lamentis-1, but turned out to be the beginning of their combined “mission” to destroy the TVA. When the two Lokis, sorry I won’t call her Loki, SYLVIE, arrive on the train to get to the ark, Loki and Sylvie have a very fascinating conversation. The two reminisce about love, Loki comes out as bisexual, and Sylvie confirms that TVA agents are not, “made by the Time-Keepers,” but are in fact Variants themselves who don’t have a clue about their past lives.
It makes sense that the Time-Keepers would recruit people who've stepped off the Sacred Timeline, but they apparently wipe the Variants' memories to some degree. However, it seems like fragments of their past lives remain. When Sylvie enchanted Hunter C-20 (played by Sasha Lane), she used the TVA worker's love of margaritas to manipulate her into giving up the Time-Keepers' location. Mobius' passion for jet skis and reference to the early '90s is likely a remnant of his old self too.
How will the TVA people react to this? I suspect it'll vary, but hopefully Mobius at least will rebel against the Time-Keepers and help end their apparent tyranny… Which hopefully doesn’t lead to his death!
Image: Bustle
Let this be the official number one reason why the Time-Keepers, if they even exist, are evil. I’d like to use this as my way of saying that a “Council of Kangs” would be really neat to see. Kang the Conqueror, arguably a top five Marvel villain of all-time, seems like an obvious bet to be introduced to by season’s end. Jonathan Majors will be playing the titular villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and if Marvel Studios wants us to know about him before his big screen appearance, Loki makes too much sense. But, we’ve seen in the past with WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that “wild” fan theories don’t always come to fruition.
That being said it was revealed after the season finale of WandaVision that Benedict Cumberbatch was in fact set to appear… But Marvel Studios executives believed that Doctor Strange would, “take attention away from Wanda.” They’re not wrong, yet, they’re also wrong. Having Strange would’ve been huge fan service that would’ve made a whole lot of sense. Just why having Majors appear as Kang, or whichever name he goes by from his laundry list of aliases from the comics, would make complete sense as well.
Image: MCU Exchange
Kang is a time hopping villain whose sole purpose is to physically manipulate time to his own wellbeing. He’s been a Pharaoh, he’s been an ally to the Young Avengers, and he’s even been the Time-Keepers’ right hang man. Having the prime timeline version of Kang assemble a council of versions of himself from the Multiverse who oversee the flow of time and dictate what and what doesn’t need to be kept, would be a great way to establish himself as the next main villain of the MCU after Thanos.
The episode ends with Sylvie and Loki stuck in 2077. Lamentis-1 is about to be wiped out by a falling planet and the ark they'd planned to hijack and escape on has been destroyed. Their original plan was to recharge the Tem-Pad and jump to a different point in time, but the device was broken when Loki was thrown off the train. Or was it? Given his love for trickery, it's possible that the Tem-Pad is still functioning or at least fixable. Mobius could also track them down, he seems like a last-minute save kinda guy.
More details remain to be seen, and the teaser for episode four reveals that we’ll we seeing Sylvie when she was a child, and first crossed paths with the TVA. But at the end of day, I don’t believe that she is the main villain of the season, I really don’t. Renslayer, the Time-Keepers, or Kang seem like the most logical bet. Maybe it’s someone else, but Sylvie seems like she’s easy to be reasoned with as I said before, especially with Loki. They’ve grown a bond, and I believe Loki doesn’t want to kill anyone to take control of the TVA; maybe Sylvie’s divine plan of destroying the TVA could be done without countless deaths of TVA agents who at the end of day, are just being brainwashed.
You can see new episodes of Loki every Wednesday, only on Disney+.