This week’s Loki was unquestionably the biggest yet in terms of pushing the narrative forward, but there’s also the lingering feeling that with just two installments left, it could fall into exactly the same traps as WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier by overstuffing the finale and rushing through too many plot points, and it’s no coincidence that the last episodes of the previous Disney Plus shows were the lowest-rated on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some fans are feeling a little queasy over the potential romance between Tom Hiddleston’s title hero and Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie, too, but if the narcissistic God of Mischief were to fall in love with anyone then another version of his own personality is entirely plausible, and should the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally embrace the mandated PG-13 f-bomb, then surely somebody has to tell Loki to literally go f*ck himself.
Almost as much conversation was generated by the mid-credits scene, which looked to have opened the doors to the multiverse and introduced an entire team of tricksters to lend an assist to the main MCU version. Not only that, but it could have also nodded towards a major comic book villain and a storyline that’s long been rumored as the franchise’s next Avengers-level event.
Hiddleston’s Loki awakens in a decimated reality, and there’s a theory gaining some online traction that it might be revealed as Battleworld, which could set the stage for the introduction of the Beyonder and the build towards Secret Wars. Admittedly, it’s a little bit of a stretch, but the animated TVA infomercial earlier in the series did hint at a multiversal war that forced the Timekeepers to step in, and the ultimate crossover has been repeatedly named as a potential avenue for the MCU to head down, with Joe and Anthony Russo admitting it would be the only thing capable of drawing them back into the fold.