“Loki” settles for decent instead of really going for it

Loki is one of the great characters of the MCU. A malevolent trickster with a nagging heart, he’s been a great foil to Thor, Iron Man and the Hulk. With his own TV show, the spotlight squarely on him, Loki is… not quite as interesting as when he’s an antagonist. A suspenseful show that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself, Loki manages a few bright moments interspersed with creative monotony.

Created by Michael Waldron, the show follows Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the one who escapes at the middle of Avengers: Endgame. He is abducted by the TVA (Time Variance Authority) a group that manages the universe’s timeline off the foresight of three divine beings, under the direction of head Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) recruits Loki to find another variant of himself, dubbed Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), who is targeting TVA agents. As more and more Lokis (Richard E. Grant, Jack Veal) emerge, a sinister plot unveils that threatens the very fabric of time itself.

Loki is a consistently interesting character. A shunned son angry at his older brother’s glory, manipulated by his father, a wickedly handsome trickster with a good heart, his constant negotiation between his malicious tendencies and heroic nature makes him eminently watchable. That persona just works so much better when he is a foil to a more stoic individual such as Thor. As the protagonist, he’s ill-suited to driving a narrative. It’s not necessarily his fault as it’s the nature of the trickster: Gollum, Anansi, Hermes and Jack Sparrow all have trouble being protagonists as well. But Loki’s buddy cop routine with Mobius could have really spewed some comedy their sci-fi misadventures escalating into pandamonium.

There are quite a few fun moments, especially as Lokis doublecross each other, the timelines get crazy and insane space drama escalates. But altogether, there’s not enough ingenuity to really separate Loki. It feels like an elongated Rick and Morty episode, the crazy twists and turns not quite crazy enough.

The direction of the new MCU is starting to emerge with WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and now Loki: the multiverse, duplicating selves, variant timelines and a general burgeoning of science fiction themes. It’s an interesting approach, one that feels a bit daring and not quite as audience friendly as the hoo-rah of the Iron Man and Captain America days. Will it be successful? Only time will tell.