TV Review: ‘Loki’ Season 2, Episode 5 — Hijinks Over Sense
by Frank Martin
Time travel stories are notoriously hard to pin down with logic. Between paradoxes and multiple timelines, there are many ways things can go wrong in a logistical narrative. In terms of Loki, the show has blown past all of the safety guards in order to become a complete mess of a plot with ridiculous characterization. What’s strange is that even despite these issues in writing, the show is still a lot of fun. It has enough time travel hijinks and talented performances to make it entertaining, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
After the loom erupted in the closing moments of last week’s episode, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was left all alone in the TVA. As it fell apart, Loki began jumping through the time stream, encountering all of his friends along the way. His first stop is Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan), who is a science fiction writer and immediately believes Loki. He starts working on a solution while Loki tries to recruit Mobius (Owen Wilson), who seems unwilling to leave his place in the timeline. Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) similarly doesn’t want to get involved, but she has no choice when her branched reality starts falling apart. She joins Loki and the others, but it’s too late. Fortunately, Loki learns how to control his time slipping at the last moment to undo the past.
The problem with this season is that there is no central figurehead to turn to as the villain or the one pulling the strings. The season tried many different ways to accomplish this. There were the TVA agents trying to prune branched timelines, Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), Sylvie as she tried to kill Victor (Jonathan Majors), and even He Who Remains (also Majors) as he acted as some sort of ghost from beyond the grave. But all in all, the main threat since the beginning of the season has always been the time simply falling apart on its own. This doesn’t really make sense because time is a natural phenomenon. It exists regardless of who’s in control. So while the show might be entertaining science fiction and have colorful characters embodied by talented actors, it really is a directionless disaster.
Loki streams Thursdays on Disney+.
