After a confusing string of disjointed episodes there was a LOT riding on the season finale to cement the show Loki into some form of coherence. We have seen a good deal of potentially world changing events and rolled out a new, super powerful faction in the form of the Time Variance Authority. As always the show failed to dispense key info and depends on you to do a lot of homework and leaving on the subtitles- or you wont know anyone's name and miss a lot of motivations. They're simply absent from the show.
Last week we left the "void at the end of time" via Super-Powerful Sylvie effortlessly enchanting a strange Smoke Dragon and opening some kind of portal in an unexplained way - it was a weird, weak ending. So you'd expect this week to start strong. No such luck. In fact we just plain blow off everything that's happened so far in the open. The first thing they do is remind you that the MCU was once good with some nostalgia.
The 1940's music and some dialogue from 'Captain America the First Avenger' plays as we see the Marvel Logo, reminding us of just how far we've come. Then we see..... at least 2 parallel Universes ...? side by side? So there's more than one universe. The implication here is that we're 'rebooting' everything we knew. So we've got a bunch of copies of everyone just like the DC people in this universe now? By the end of this mess the answer seems to be - yes we do!
1- The Terrible StoryLoki and Sylvie are where ever the unexplained portal leads and with knives out we get a conversation between Loki, Sylvie and "Miss Minutes"- the animated character we sort of met at Time Court back in episode one. This character represents and speaks for the TVA's computer as an AI projection. So theyre brandishing weapons at a hologram. Ok, we're out of the gate in the usual confusing manner!
Miss Minutes fronts for Kang/ He Who Remains. She talks in stupid riddles and her southern drawl 'confirms' we are supposed to see her as shifty and dishonest. How do ya like that southerners?
After double-talking Loki and Sylvie Miss Minutes pops back to the TVA to give Ravonna some Home-Work from "Him" aka "He Who Remains" - though she does not reveal this to Renslayer - so maybe Ravonna Renslayer is just a tool? So with about 33 minutes left in episode 6 we STILL have NO VILLAIN as we see Ravonna is just a blind follower who has no idea who "He" is.
For a while the show reverts to its established method of mocking anyone who asks questions about how any of this is possible when the Man behind it all- 'He Who Remains' - shows up.
He Who Remains is a 40-ish black guy in robes and a cape with a glib outlook. He's on mushrooms or something. Like most of the people "In the know" about anything in this series he just scoffs at details and says its Un-explainable- at least for now. He verifies - at least to him -Loki and Sylvie are the same person and we get another recycled line from a better movie - "its Unnatural"
He Who Remains couldn't be more bored facing down the Loki's. This is a bad beginning for a character who apparently controls the entire flow of time through a bunch of realities. He enters via a crappy freight elevator distractedly eating an apple. He talks total bullshit as he guides Sylvie and Loki through his cheap Carnival Fun House.
Is 'He Who Remains' the Bad Guy? The show can't seem to decide. He is - but he isn't. Like most everyone else he's a good guy who made some real mistakes doing what he thought was best.
He sure is insufferable. He's semi ingratiating but high and snobbish. Think Lando as shown in the Solo movie here. He's loopy.
He says he's a flesh and blood human. Like everyone else he's amused by the questions (and brief attack) from Loki and Sylvie. Of COURSE he can't be bothered to really explain anything-yet. Questions are just laughed off. He Who Remains can teleport around fast enough to avoid attacks, even in a tiny elevator. His set and castle more or less suck. They've got a fully CGI Gothic aesthetic.
He Who Remains comes off mentally deficient. He has a condescending tea party with Loki and Sylvie- and they are ok with it. Before we explain a thing we go back to TVA HQ for a confrontation between Renslayer and Mobias - who isnt taking her shit anymore. He's freed B-15 and now Judge Ravonna Renslayer- finally correctly addressed in dialogue as Judge Renslayer - five and a half hours into our story.
Meanwhile, beaming around through time shows us B-15 is starting some kind of rebellion within the TVA and reveals the actual Renslayer to another Time Cop. Shes an Ohio school teacher who's not yet a variant in 2018. Then we cut back to Loki and Sylvie talking to He Who Remains in this episode filled with long-winded names.
The Rule of this series has been 'Show Dont Tell' and it is in full effect for all the nonsense 'He Who Remains/ HWR/ Kang' blabs out to our heroes in this sequence. When Loki and Sylvie figure out as much as they need to know and confront He Who Remains with the fact they've 'won' because 'they found him.' He confirms this by saying "Duh!" Sylvie flips out and misses another attack.
He Who Remains (HWR) is kind of high and very bored (of life?). He simply says he knows everything about everything. Thats it, he just says that. With that out of the way the most useful information is dispensed by trying to take things on a dark turn - from jaunty and strange to ominous. This fails horribly. Maybe Maudlin is the right word for what we end up with. With everyone acting like what we're hearing is very important the scene doesn't pull off the switch to ominous. It remains bizarre and jaunty in a strange, tone deaf way.
He Who Remains takes a disniterested stabe t beig villainous and makes a veiled threat - HWR says they can't kill him. If they do there's a bunch of really evil copies of him who are all really horrible. He drops some more un-knowable info to prove he's been watching them and then gloats that he's the ultimate Puppet Master who designed this very confrontation.
He's got some hard to follow stuff to say. It's a lot like the stuff Palpatine says in The Rise of Skywalker to be honest. "I've gamed this out. Kill me I win, dont kill me I win, if i kill you I win" It's hard to figure out what he means. He Who Remains is so indifferent delivering these lines there's an almost Zack Snyder feel. Specifically He Who Remains is a lot like Lex Luthor in Batman vs Superman and has just delivered some awful dialogue in a heavily CGI environment.
He Who Remains says he's using foreknowledge and TVA tech to keep an edge over them. He tells them there's only one path to the end of their journey. Then he speaks in dialogue from Creative Writing 101 and talks about how they can't change til they are changed by the Journey. He seriously says that. Was this some direction that someone thought was dialogue in the script? Its pretty weird to blurt that out.
Back at TVA HQ Renslayer is revealed as just a TVA Supreme-ist following orders from unknown people delivered by Miss Minutes. Shes back to talking to Mobias like he's a piece of shit. He makes a menacing move and she throws Mobias around - More on that later. Then she just beams away with a quip about looking for free will. Like us, Mobias is confused and a bit bored.
Then we get the Info Dump.
The show drops the pretense and we get some 'actual information." This is our pay off - HWR relates in his glib, stoned manner, that theres several universes and he's the smartest person in all of them. That much is he clearly believes and makes sense.
He apparently exists in the same form in all universes- or makes sure all realities that could interfere with his ultimately being born and doing what he does are 'Pruned.' Its hard to say. There was more interest in making him sound cryptic and edgey than clarity. So our explanation for all this is seriously hobbled in many ways. Imagine Jar Jar Binks relating the events of the Star Wars Prequels. Its about that dumb.
Here's the deal - He claims he's a 30th or 31st century super genius/ Mad Scientist who makes contact with all the various timelines different versions of himself. After a while conflict broke out among the Timelimes because most versions of He Who Remains are total malevolent dicks - rather then boring mentally challenged assholes like the one in this episode. He comes off like a total idiot and too incompetent to be pulling all these strings.
The variants got along for a while but then went to war. Each had the same goal- wipe out all other timelines. HWR learned to control time and harness the power of the Monster at the End of Time that Eats Time- Alioth The Smoke Cloud from last week. So thats it. The show doesnt specifically say this, but seems mastering Alioth more or less won the war for him and he now feeds it pruned timelimes.
He smart cause hes a genius and hes powerful because he controls Alioth- who Sylvie can neutralize easily. He repeatedly claims omnipotence and says he ended "The Multiversal War." He created the TVA to impose Peace and Harmony. He says he keeps them safe, he's not the devil and that he has the WORST Variants of all running around -because theyre a smart as him. That's what he claims happened anyway. Both Loki's buy it out of hand.
So this is more or less what we're told - a flaky, crazy 30th century science man masters Stark's 21st century innovation of Time Travel. He ends up traveling between dimensions or meeting people from the other universes. Mostly he runs into himself over and over. Then he eventually takes control of everything. This is a pretty wild thing to just roll out but more than anything we've gotten til now. They never even teased this character or make him menacing. This idea had potential but its done all it once in a subdued, prolonged shock reveal. They chose to have it explained by a mentally unstable character. So of course it feels jumbled.
Somewhere in this mess we find out that Crazy Science Man is Kang the Conqueror - or maybe we don't. I had to google this information. Kang does exist in the comic books. He is more or less Kang but not the primary, super tough bad guy version. This is the "Benevolent" version,
This payoff is really sucking. The Man Behind the Man who Controls all is a cut and paste, tranq-d down copy of Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod from the Fifth Element?
Science Man/ He Who Remains / HWR/ Kang the Conqueror says He's Death Proof because if you do kill him there's innumerable other versions of him that are much worse that will be set free.
Head Time Lord who has to explain the consequences of about 18 movies and now dozens of hours of TV is a heavy lift for any actor- but Jonathon Majors who plays Kang-gets stranded in the role with some of the worst dialogue ever. He has to un-spool the huge implications of the last 5 hours. The scene was not handled well by the writers or director.
I think it was done as the show-runners wanted it though. This was what they were going for. I felt bad for this actor, he did a great imitation of Forest Whitaker's Last King of Scotland performance with his delivery- despite the Lex Luthor speech spasms. He TRIED to be menacing - but the character is way too far gone mentally for us to respect. The explanation he gives Loki is BS. He claims he was justified creating the TVA. The truth seems to be all he did was win a conflict among other versions of himself. But he claims he controls the tech that contains some really bad variants and monsters- SO THEY SHOULDN'T KILL HIM. Then; in in a moment evocative of Willie Wonka; he adds a clause -they can't kill him - unless they take up his work. If they do that killing him is fine. Crazy.
Then HWR remarks that they've just passed the point where he knows everything about everything. So he just signaled his advantage is gone. He's apparently glad to be free of the boring predictability. HOWEVER- He tells them that no matter what they do the timeline is Circular and this is the end, so events will just repeat themselves. This is pretty weird stuff to just move on from, but we do.
He then warns for the third time that killing him would unleash multiple versions of him and things will suck everywhere for everyone. So now we KNOW he's as good as dead. Sylvie lunges at HWR only for Loki to stop her. He's switched Teams, or at least changed his agenda. He's down for keeping this all in place.
Then Loki and Sylvie "Fight-Talk" for a while as HWR tells them to hurry up and do whatever they're gonna do because the Timeline is already branching. So we wont be explaining anything more. Then they try for a 'wistful' feeling I guess and Loki is very rational. He believes HWR and the TVA are necessary evils and this is bigger than them. Fighting resumes and HWR is finally interested in whats going on.
The fight scene sort of sucks and ends with Loki using Pop Psychology on Sylvie to calm her down. He's now got deep empathy and strong shrink skills. He unironnically says "I just wants you to be ok' and with that they kiss passionately. Sylvie drops a cryptic hint "I'm not you" Its useless as information and could mean anything. She then beams Loki Prime to TVA HQ and seemingly strands him there.
Sylvie then just kills He Who Remains, she just jumps at him and stabs him in the chest. He puns "see ya soon" as he dies. Lots of people are saying this is because he's in the next Spider Man movie. Anyway, we see the actual timeline out the window of 'He Who's Now Just Remains' office and its branching like crazy.
At TVA HQ Mobias and B-15 stare blankly at a screen and comment "there's no going back" and other edge-y shit that tells us nothing.We can see theres hundreds of branches off the timeline. Alone somewhere else in TVA HQ Loki Prime reflects and sulks. Then he's purposeful and running around. He has freedom of movement at the TVA. He finds Mobias and has a slight breakdown.
Loki Prime knows things he can't know- like that the weird Science Guy was telling the truth and that since he left the room Sylvie's killed him. "We made a mistake" he says.
Then Loki hyper-babbles the very stupidest dialogue to ever be spoken in the MCU to Mobias - thats right we bottom out twice in dialogue in one episode just minutes apart,
"We Freed the Time Line." a near hysterical Loki jabbers to Mobias,"We found him, Beyond the storm. A Citadel at the end of time. He's terrifying. he's knows everything, he's seen everything. He planned everything! Its complicated, ok?" Wow.
Mobias just tells him to calm down and....asks his name? He's said earlier he's hunted many Loki's. Hows seeing one not immediately alarming to Mobias? He now apparently doesn't know about Loki's? She's he's been switched back to Team TVA?
SERIOUSLY? This is our payoff? Throw in Loki relates that they're all doomed because now many many variations of Evil Timekeeping Future Science-Man 'all bent on war' will be coming their way to kick their asses. This is the only thing that makes sense, OF COURSE Mobias tells him to calm down. When he asks his name is when things make no sense. We don't know if he's orienting Loki or if he now no longer knows who he is because we have no context for how any of this works- with just seconds left in the season. While it seems that the TVA has had some sort of reset Loki Prime stares at the place where there was once a statue of the Time Keeping Lizards- its now a statue of a Human Male- possibly a variant of He Who Remains? This begs a lot of questions!
Like- What's this say about the Team Flipping and emergence of a Fifth Column at the TVA? Is Ravonna back and if so whats she even know? She just went Free Agent, is this Team Switch 2 in this episode?
With this shot we go to credits- and there's an Easter Egg of sorts. They say they will return in season 2. Is this a threat?
2-Nothing Made Sense
Other than great jokes the show has the worst of everything. The jokes come first and no thought is given to the problems that build up. The Citadel at the End of Time is yet ANOTHER Consequence Free Sandbox where we let the characters interact in a place "beyond time and space that cant be explained." We got this every week in slightly different forms.
There's so many issues. The biggest is it just wrecks the MCU as we knew it. Among the others were there was No Real Villain and the show's Title is Deceptive. It should have been called SYLVIE.
This show was some BULLSHIT. Wandavision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier had terrible problems and messed up some characters, but this show broke the MCU's til now well planned, well crafted world. Fast. They jam that home and we move on quick!
We have so many shortcuts and future writing issues due to this show. We have infinite resets of events because there's very easy Time Travel with total, precise control. This is now part of every Marvel story both retroactively and, seemingly going forward.
We just blew off a lot of things hyped as MAJOR EVENTS. For instance -In Episode Two Sylvie "Bombed the Timeline" by sending Time-Bomb Time Reset Bombs into the Timeline via the TemPad Transporter. EVERYONE at the TVA was freaked out about this. It seemed like it was a really big deal - but it was just a ruse to initiate a fight scene. We've heard nothing more of this since. That's pretty much how this series has gone. Things just happen. When they stop happening we move on.
Lokis power levels come and go as the plot needs. He's beaten up by normies then pushes a falling building out of the way with telekinesis minutes later. He was able to take on Thor at one point- days ago. Now randos kick his ass. Also - is he stupid now?
3-NO VILLAINWe NEVER have a consistent bad guy. Episode 4 and 5 are just non-stop team switching. We killed He Who Remains- but he's said in so many words he'll be back. This was UnFulfilling even before that line. He shows up, rambles his backstory and gets killed. Even worse Loki Prime has adopted his agenda. So the bad guy is sort of redeemed. So why was he bad and why kill him? This attempt at moral ambiguity fails badly.
The TVA were the Bad Guys for a while- but the show tells us their existence is Justifiable. Then we get Judge Renslayer set up as bad guy. She then Team Switched about four times in 10 minutes of story before we find out shes maybe another victim and started out a school teacher? Is there any malevolent force at work here or just a string of mistakes?
Ravonna has declared herself a Free Agent and split. Mobias and the TVA Agents are all victims-and we don't know if they're aware of this anymore. They're now working for a new unknown Time Keeper. We just don't know what she or the TVA knows or what their intentions are in the new timeline.
They just never committed to a Villain in this show. They broke the MCU as well as the rules of their own show for jokes and they rehabilitated pretty much ALL so called Villains. The one we killed- "He Who Remains" - will be back, presumably as a rando Bad Kang. So we why did we do all this? To resurrect all the characters we want at any given time is my guess.
So we had No Bad Guy or True Villain- for 6 hours. Worse than that we blew off a lot of villainous deeds committed by supposedly "Good Characters" by cuing music or giving people pithy lines.
The way Renslayer talks to Mobias gets anyone fired and should never have been portrayed as ok or a friendship. This was workplace abuse for LOL's at Mobias' expense. Sylvie kills a dozen TVA Agents - who she knows to be brainwashed kidnapping victims. Loki is kicked in the balls over and over like thats a funny acceptable thing. These jokes would NOT work the other way around and these characters are cruel despite bloodless kills and swelling, approving music when they do evil stuff. Loki alone is conspicuously, infuriatingly moral.
4-Ridiculous Fight ScenesThis show features some of the WORST fight scenes ever. We covered how we routinely see 100 pound five foot five normal human women get the better of Loki and other men without any effort. Loki could lose to anyone at any time and will tolerate being kicked in the balls hundreds of times in a row in one 'Comic" moment. Loki is no match for Sylvie and almost never uses magic when he fights or attacks. He's given up trickery and using illusion or doubles to achieve his agenda. He's the most mild mannered reformed mass murderer ever. He would have been an ideal prisoner at Spandau.
"Mid-Season" Villain Renslayer blows out of the TVA in an almost Mary Poppins-like way. It was weird and trite. She sent people to the void to die for at least as long as it took Sylvie to age from 10 to about 30. She was an Unforgiving Follower who kept on mission even after she found out the Time Keepers were animated puppets. Shes either lying or stupid because she got her instructions from them for years. Was Kang controlling the responses? She's pretty evil and shes now (maybe) out there as a time travelling wild card.
They make a real concerted point to show us Renslayer is merely a human variant- she's NOT a supersoldier or anything -because if she is we already needed to know that. They seem to have to slammed the door on this pretty hard by showing shes another variant moments before though. So its beyond dumb she can beat up any man very very easily or fight to Loki or Sylvie - who are Asgardian and presumably BOTH Ice Giant changelings who can survive in space! There's no justification for her toughness and she weighs 100 pounds and seems pretty short. There's no use of interesting fighting styles to make her believable.
On top of being badly cast as an ass kicking villain who prevails through physical force, the Renslayer character makes no sense. She tricks Loki easily and "Vaporizes" him. Her traits as a fighter are plot armor, strength completely out of all proportion to her size and being underhanded. Later she just tosses Mobias to the floor effortlessly, reversing his momentum despite his size and his already being moving towards her.
5- A Badly Paced Show in a Broken World
We found out there is no Freewill! The we find out that The Avenger's have a Pass on time travel while everyone else gets tossed into the Void at the End of Time to be killed by the Smoke Dragon? These are the answers? We're told one crazy science man from the 30th century set this up. That's our explanation. I'm not so much scoffing at this so much as asking why it wasn't told to me in a way that wasnt jarring and jammed in. We had three movies worth of time here but we rushed the ending of every episode. Kang's not patently ridiculous, he's just thrown at us though.
Kang the Crazy Science Man is the most powerful, smartest person in every timeline. He's the guy who discovers how to observe all timelines and supposedly invented all the TVA Super-tech? He also learns how to cross timelines and unify them. It seems by right of Conquest and Trial by Combat THIS Particular Science Man won and that means he's the benevolent one? OK!
This show was a bad idea. You'd think the COVID production slow-down would have given people more time to write better stories, but NO! This was low quality bullshit. If Star Trek Discovery were funny it would be like this. We end more or less at the same place we were in the beginning of Episode 2 with Loki. He's a TVA Agent of dubious loyalty and a his own agenda. He knows no one there now though it would seem.
Whats the best thing you can say? It was fun here and there. Episode Five was fun. Alligator Loki will surely return- but wow was this show insultingly dumb.
With a basis formed on appropriating other shows the title LOKI is a dishonest Bait & Swtich. This show is about Sylvie, not Loki. Loki is not the Loki we knew. He's a dimwitted Fox Mulder. The whole thing is by definition a waste of time according to Science Man because the timelines are circular.
Loki has adopted the Agenda of Kang as we saw him in his He Who Remains guise. So if he was the bad guy they've vindicated him! Not having a Bad Guy was just weird.
We spent 6 hours having NO VILLAIN! We have misguided benevolent people and a benevolent version of the smartest but worst person in any reality. We swapped out villains every episode. Moral Ambiguity disintegrated into Incoherence and Outright Confusion. Its ANYONES guess who is right or wrong.
The scattered moments of WIN we're too brief and too far between. The battle of Loki's in the void was as good as it got, and that was mostly comedic.
We now have a way to bring back any character from any point at any time and apparently this pisses on expectations for the next Spider Man Movie.
This show was beyond contrived. It got out of its depth here and there and doesnt deliver much in the way of fight scenes.
The "Have It Both Ways" Plot really undercuts all stakes. We blew up about 12 years of well planned movies to fly by the Seat of Our Pants and thats that. When there was time to plan a better story no one bothered to go and re-think this. How they do anything from here is hard to auger. We have the All Powerful TVA overseeing everything. They could grab Stark or Black Widow and just bring them to the present or get them from another timeline. This is a Deus Ex Machina justification more than a show.
I seem to be in the minority but by no means alone questioning the show and its implications. The idea you could Hard Re-Boot this universe- which was well conceived and based on the best Marvel stories - with some Pavolvian Triggers is not sitting well with everyone. The fans of the comics may look down their noses and claim superiority because they have a clue as to whats going on- but in fact they know less then anyone if they still think they have Fore-Knowledge or any edge understanding this. We depart from the comics regularly. At this point following the comic exactly might even be considered Subversion! Mysterio was chamged, The Mandarin was changed, on and on. Now we have a remade and De-Constructed Loki who acts completely unlike himself in a more or less unplanned ad hoc universe where we can more or less tell whats going to happen.
6-The MARVEL TV FORMULAThis show is derivative and so poorly explained its insulting. Its Re-Purposed other shows and rolled them into this project which just happens to be their current Marvel Phase. Unlike the PLANNED chain of stories inherited from Paramount, the Disney MCU has been chaotic with diminishing quality. It took longer from the point of purchase than Star Wars to fall apart- but its mess a now.
Here's the LOKI formula - Make an Amalgam of other successful properties mostly owned by Disney. Re-use plot devices, tech and story elements from these shows and thread it together with musical cues, virtual signaling and really predictable fight scenes.
Loki is a wholesale appropriation of Star Trek TOS & The Next Generation, Doctor Who, The X-Files and Men In Black where we jammed a square into a round hole by concentrating on Loki - the formidable bad guy who steals every Thor movie and to a lesser extent Avengers 1 - into a likeable good guy.
The most pilfered show is clearly Star Trek.There's holodecks and transporters as well as Tri-corders. We use Transporters multiple times per episode and even used the old Star Trek trick of jumping into someone elses Transporter Beam to follow them. This is all rolled out unexplained. Most of the time we have to wait a week for any context on how the last episode ended. I guess its one way to keep us coming back
The X-Files and it's direct parody Men In Black are the next biggest victims of theft by Loki's writers. The TVA is a copy of The Men In Black and their HQ's are similar. Mobias is Mulder with Post Concussion Syndrome. The Dr Who rip off is more subtle- but Disny doesnt own that- yet! The transporter beams work just like a TARDIS and take you to any point in time or space. The Tech is super powerful and deeply complex. The tech is so incdredible that for a while its beyond Loki. Then after experiencing this we see a 10 year old child steps in someone foot, steals some tech and begins a 20 year game of cat and mouse - eventually best-ing the TVA again and again, always a step ahead flipping their agents. So a 10 year child can outwit these people- but NOT Loki.
Rather than going deep into Loki's mind or trying to have a well told story the writers kicked the can week to week with minimal information and an emphasis on fight scenes and jokes to distract from what amounts an Elephant in the room Then the wrap-up is bizarre and maybe played for laughs? Its dismissive and dishonest representation of the shows alleged intent.
The dishonesty of the approach is evident in it's fake title. LOKI isn't a fitting title. The show would more accurately be called "Sylvie." This is not about this new Loki or the Loki we knew. It's a little bit about the TVA. It seems like what the show Loki is really about though- at leats this season- is how Sylvie and Judge Ravonna Renslayer need to just accept that the Patriarchy has lied to them, become friends and Girl-Power away all the problems of the multiverse.
The male leads, Loki and Mobias are yelled at, beat and literally kicked in the balls. Its cool to treat men like shit in this show. Because some Men were mean at one time all men are fair game forever. This causes all fight scenes and scenarios to be really predictable.
Take the "fight" between Mobias and Ravonna- where she simply throws him around. Its a female Harvey Weinstein but with 'regular' violence instead of sexual attacks. So whats the message here? Ravonna uses no Martial Arts or tactics to level the field. She charges in and wins or ties no matter what. They needed to think on this more. She could have been a martial arts practioner- why not make her office a gym ? Shes too aggressive for any normal setting anyway. Then she could have been doubled with an acrobat for fighting. At least In Falcon and the Winter Soldier Karli was explained as a supersoldier to justify the strength. This was just sloppy or some sort of angry message.
This isn't Sex and the City either- in other words 'it wouldn't be funny the other way around' Its also really unfair and one sided. At least the chicks from Sex and the City were presented as shallow, unreasonable sex crazed loons a lot of the time. They were flawed and quirky and sometimes outright wrong. They dont dso this here. Sylvie is a total Mary Sue. The tone worked for light comedy - and thats what Loki mostly is. So the one-sidedness of the plot and personal nastiness or whatever term you want to use - mostly flies under the radar til there's a fight. Women just dominate most fights in this phase of the MCU. Thats established now.
Renslayer and Sylvie talk to men like their mentally deficient selfish assholes the entire time. Its like the way one would speak to a particularly slow child- but meaner. Backed up with heroic music and played for laughs its pretty stupid to be sure. When Judge Renslayer just beats people up despite being a tiny waif who seems to be 5 foot two its ridiculous. You could make her tactical or sneaky - but she simply beats up and overpowers people. She doesnt even have a fighting style. She trades punches til she needs to not lose - then flees offscreen to compose herself before coming back.
Theres nothing inherently wrong with women winning a fight against a physically superior male opponent - unless she just throws him around like a rag doll out of all proportion to her size and strength unexplained by something like being a super-soldier. Variant Ravonna has no known enhancements. It's just preposterous she beats people around. It's less stupid when Sylvie does it. She is an Asgardian demigod who may be stronger than she looks. That said even with Sylvie -this was absolutely not done well. The fight scenes were bad the whole series.
I rate Season 1 as a 2 out of 10 . That's mostly for being Funny most of the time. I hereby declare Phase 4 a Failure to this point. There is NO good story since Phase 3 ended.
