Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Loki is a paradox. It at once feels like a show that is not wasting any time—we’re already halfway through, there isn’t much time to waste—and it is a show that has time for lengthy conversations and musings on the nature of love. Loki Episode 3, “Lamentis” (directed by Kate Herron and written by Bisha K. Ali), finds Loki and Lady Loki jumping through time together. After a cold open in which we see Lady Loki, hereafter referred to as “Sylvie,” enchant Hunter C-20 to discover the location of the Time-Keepers, the episode picks up right where we left off last week, with Loki hurtling into a portal after the variant. They both end up back at the TVA, where Loki does what Loki does best: create chaos. Only this time, he’s creating it on himself, sort of, wrecking Sylvie’s plans and diverting her away from the Time-Keepers. His diversion lands them in another apocalypse, on a planet called Lamentis-1, which is about to be destroyed by a crashing moon. Sci-fi visuals aside—though the production design remains superb—this episode embodies the Loki paradox. There is an imminent ticking clock, yet Loki and Sylvie spend a lot of time just chatting, getting to know one another. It’s like a little fun date for the Lokis.
Except one thing we learn about Sylvie is that she has rejected the name Loki and chosen “Sylvie” for herself. Now, we’re dealing with Loki(s) here, so nothing is permanent until it is. This could still be a bait-and-switch and Sylvie really IS Sylvie Lushton, the Enchantress. But the information presented so far is that she is a Loki who has rejected the mantle. And while she can do that mind-possession enchantment thing, she isn’t as skilled in sorcery as Loki, though she might be a better fighter. Loki has some slick moves, but Sylvie is obviously used to living her life fight-first, as it were, and she fights harder and more brutal than he does. Yet they end up pretty evenly matched, in no small part because she can’t enchant Loki. There is a lot of fun contained in Sylvie and Loki sparring, verbally and otherwise, but the revelations come when they get a moment to sit down and just talk, including confirmation that Loki(s) swing both ways. Loki said bi rights!
Lamentis-1 is in a Snowpiercer situation, where the wealthy citizens are boarding a posh train to try and outrun their fate on their doomed planet. Sylvie knows no one escapes the destruction of the planet, and the only hope she and Loki have is recharging their stolen “TemPad” from the TVA and jumping to another timeline. They con their way onto the train and sit down in the bar car to chat. It’s interesting to see which cards they each choose to play close to the vest. Loki, for instance, doesn’t hold much back, reminiscing about Frigga with apparent sincerity. Sylvie, on the other hand, remains more mysterious. What caused her to abandon her name? Why is she so hell bent on destroying the TVA? We don’t know! And Loki makes little effort to find out. What he does get, though, is a primer on how to do that enchantment thing. Again, it’s Loki, it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what is a gambit, but it seems like Sylvie honestly doesn’t realize how much Loki is actually prying out of her. He’s not interested in her backstory, he wants to know about that power. And she starts telling him about it, maybe because she thinks they’re both about to die and it doesn’t matter. Whatever her reasoning, explaining anything to Loki feels like the only real mistake Sylvie makes.
This episode also perfectly illustrates Loki’s remark to Mobius about people being neither fully good nor wholly bad. We don’t know much about Sylvie’s whole deal yet, but clearly something is fueling her, and there are glimpses of a not-terrible person in there. But the focus is mostly on Loki, as he gets two big character moments that feel like big setups for where this character can go next. The minor chord is struck when he realizes there is no attempt being made to save everyone on Lamentis-1—he doesn’t like the inequity of it. Everyone dying in a moon crash doesn’t bother him, but classism does. But the major moment is when Sylvie reveals a fact about the TVA: the workers, like Mobius, weren’t created by the Time-Keepers to serve the TVA. They’re all variants, and they don’t know it. We already know Loki doesn’t care for the predestiny bunk the TVA is selling, but now we have SERIOUS infringement on people’s will. Bad enough to be created as a kind of single-purpose automaton, worse still to be, essentially, enslaved to the Time-Keepers’ will. There’s no way Loki will let that go. He is GOING to tell Mobius, at least, the truth about the TVA. This is a BIG character door previously walked through by the likes of Prometheus and Lucifer.
This episode goes to lengths to show Loki as free-wheeling and borderline reckless, sabotaging Sylvie and getting drunk at the wrong moment and generally just being his chaotic self. But, well, we’ve established Loki is really good at illusions, and we know he’s highly manipulative. Do we really think the TemPad is broken? Sylvie seems plenty capable and she’s probably the better fighter, but manipulation isn’t her thing. She’s smart and cunning, but it’s so convenient, how Loki ends up gleaning all this relevant information from her. He’s buffoonish, which doesn’t fit with everything else we know about him, but also, coincidentally, he ends up in a situation where Sylvie HAS to rely on him, to trust him, and to show him trust, and that’s when she starts talking about enchantments and the TVA. It reminds me of the scene between Loki and Natasha in The Avengers. Natasha made herself seem emotional and Loki played right into her trap. Well, here Loki creates a situation that forces trust, and from that he gets critical intel. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, with the planet in its death throes and the Lokis still stuck. Either the TVA shows up and bails them out, or Loki has an ace up his sleeve. Would anyone be shocked if he’s got a trick left to play?
Sarah Marrs is a film critic and writer at LaineyGossip.com and co-host of The Hollywood Read podcast. She also has bylines at Pajiba, SYFY Fangrrls, and Consequence of Sound. She can be yelled at on Twitter @Cinesnark. Sometimes she goes places and does things, though not so much in 2020.
