Okay, I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the Loki final because of the kiss, but is nobody talking about how it was... kinda boring? Like, the majority of the episode was just some guy monologging to Loki and Sylvie... which, one, is just info dumping and a pretty lazy way to get info across, and two doesn’t leave a lot of room for the characters to actually... do stuff?
I mean, what is the plot of the last episode? Loki and Sylvie sit down and get talked to, have a very brief fight, and Loki ends up in a new timeline. Mobius goes back to the TVA, watches his boss leave. I’m simplifying things but that’s more or less it. That’s an entire 40 mins.
I’ve been re-reading my Journey into Mystery and Agent of Asgard omnibuses and it’s reminded me of how much more interesting the character or Loki can be. In the comics see a lot of him making deals with questionable people, deceiving people, agreeing to one thing then doing the opposite because he has his own ideas about how things should go. And often he does such things to achieve something good, it’s just that he’s Loki and this is how he does things. Thor saves the world with brute force, but Loki does it through bargaining, lies and manipulation...
We even see some growth in Young Avengers, where he starts with one of his more self-serving plans, but is clearly dealing with a lot of guilt (you know why if you’ve read it), and ends up changing his mind part way through and more or less doing the right thing? It’s a clear demonstration of him struggling with himself, and growing, something we see through actions rather than just words.
In the Loki TV show though he plays an incredibly passive role. He just kind of goes along with things, with no real set goal or plan, no cunning, very few lies (and those he does make are pretty easy to see through). They’re completely ignoring the fun part of his character.
Even look at episode 5. What does Loki do? Arrive in limbo, follow a bunch of Lokis cos they tell him to, leave after there’s a fight with the very stupid idea of ‘I’m just gonna kill the unkillable monster’ (like I thought he was supposed to be smart, really), and then has Sylvie show up to enchant it. Where’s the cunning in that?
Along with that they just kinda tell us he’s changed and have Loki admitting all his flaws out loud since they don’t trust the audience to read between the lines (his growth feels more forced than natural personally). If you enjoyed the show more power to you, but it was a disappointment for me.