'Loki', Episode 3: "Lamentis" Recap and Review

After escaping the frying pan of one apocalypse, Loki and his variant, Sylvie, find themselves in the fryer of another.

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom. When Socrates said that, I’m not quite sure that this is what he had in mind. Loki and the newly dubbed Sylvie spend the duration of this episode learning about one another as they deal with the apocalyptic pickle they now find themselves in. But hidden in the dialogue of “Lamentis” is a wealth of information that opens up the show to some exciting possibilities. Although the episode meanders in its journey, Tom Hiddleston has proved yet again that might not matter as much with him around.

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The episode begins as we see the Loki variant, Sylvie (Sophie Di Martino), having dinner with her hostage, Hunter C-20 (Sasha Lane) in a beachside restaurant. They laugh and reminisce as if they have been friends for years. Nothing seems out of the ordinary until Sylvie asks about the Time Keepers, suddenly Hunter C-20 realizes something is off and before she could really react, the scene reset and all was normal, until it wasn’t. Suddenly we see what is really going on: Sylvie is in Hunter C-20’s mind, digging for information on the Time Keepers. She is alarmed by the arrival of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and the TVA.

Suddenly we jump forward to the present as Sylvie infiltrates the TVA, with Loki not far behind. He grabs his trusty daggers and follows the trail of bodies to Sylvie. In front of the Time Keepers’ elevators, they square off against each other until they are interrupted by Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) forcing Loki to open a time portal with Sylvie’s TemPad. They land in an abandoned camp and start fighting over the TemPad. Loki uses his superior mastery of magic to get the TemPad away from her until they realize that it is out of battery. Suddenly a meteor lands in between them and they each get curious to just exactly where they were transported to. They discover that they are on the moon Lamentis-1, 2077, just as it is about to collide with a nearby planet. They scramble for shelter, finding a small building. They squabble for a bit before calling a temporary truce to find something to power up the pad. They find a nearby town and discover a farmhouse with a lonely woman protecting it with an energy cannon. From her they learn of the Arc, a ship that is meant to take all the inhabitants off the planet to safety, and the nearby train taking people to it. Using a bit of magic, Loki disguises himself as a guard and they board the train. The two variants manage to make conversation, mostly about Freya, Loki’s mother, and their respective love lives, confirming that Loki is bisexual. Sometime during the journey, Sylvie falls asleep and Loki gets drunk. She wakes to Loki singing a jaunty and hauntingly beautiful Asgardian drinking song. This attracts the wrong attention and the variants are confronted by the train’s guards. A fight ensues and Loki is thrown off the train with Sylvie jumping after him.

Fed up with Loki, Sylvie demands the TemPad, and Loki reveals the TemPad as it crumbles in his hands, destroyed. Without the TemPad, all seems lost for Sylvie, and Loki attempts to console her which leads them contemplating whether to hijack the Arc and take it to safety. Without any other options, they trudge on. As they do, Sylvie explains how enchantment worked, explaining that she had to use a memory from before Hunter C-20 was a TVA Agent in order for it to work on her. But this makes no sense to Loki, as he thought that the Time Keepers created the entire TVA. Sylvie says no, they are all variants. Time becomes a factor and they rush through the city. Fighting off the chaos of the city as things go from bad to worse, they get close enough to the Arc to watch it get destroyed by a meteor. As Loki looks on in defeat, Sylvie walks away.

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Oh, what a tangled web we weave; but first, the facts. The more the series goes on, the more we learn about Tom Hiddleston’s mischievous demi-god. His connection to his mother is a well of depth, adding weight to various moments throughout the history of the MCU, most notably Thor: The Dark World. Loki is now a confirmed member of the LGBTQ+ community, ending years of speculation. We learned a lot less from Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie, as she plays everything pretty close to the chest. What we do learn is that she was told she was adopted early on, presumably by Freya and Odin, and her mother was killed very early in her life and she taught magic to herself. This little bit of information solidifies the theory that she is an amalgam of the Lady Loki and Enchantress comic book characters. This bit of information is more exciting than it seems, with no defined story arc for this version of the two characters, anything is possible for the character. She also dropped the juicy tidbit about the TVA actually being populated by variants, and not creations by the Time Keepers, which brings everything we learned about the TVA and Time Keepers into question.

Now for rampant speculation. Sylvie as we know her is part Lady Loki and part Enchantress. Lady Loki, for the most part, is a standard gender-swapped Loki variant. Enchantress, however, was a woman from Oklahoma whom Loki gave powers as an experiment of sorts. On the surface it looks like they gave Sylvie the look and abilities of Enchantress, but may have given her more. Sophia Di Martino has played Sylvie with a hint of sympathy to her which I feel is no accident. If we really think about it, all she has done so far was create a large amount of branching timelines and kill a few TVA agents. Her focus seems to be the Time Keepers which may or may not exist, which I’ll get to later. I speculate that Sylvie is in fact a Loki Variant but may be acting on the behalf of another. What exactly set Sylvie on this path and how did she even learn about the TVA? I think another Loki, jealous that its time line wasn’t deemed sacred enough, enlisted the help of Sylvie by explaining that they were in the same boat. She hates being called a Loki for a reason and I think it is fueled by the interaction between Sylvie and this third variant. A lot of this speculation stems from Di Martino’s sympathetic portrayal of the character in this episode, and her falling asleep after saying she can’t sleep around untrustworthy people was a nice touch. But also, by the mystery of whom Richard E. Grant will be playing in the series. The Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey alum character is set to appear in episodes 4, 5, and 6 and Grant himself just feels like he could play a Loki. So I believe he is playing King Loki from the comics, a future variant of Loki who tried to manipulate his younger self before. Sylvie may only think she is a Loki as well, as her power level doesn’t seem to be on par with her variant counterpart. Sylvie tries to enchant Loki and it doesn’t work, the arrogant Loki says it’s because his mind is too strong but it could be because if a variant Loki gave her the powers, they might not be able to work on him. Also, giving someone powers and making them think they were a variant is a very mischievous thing to do. In either case, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected when it pertains to this series so we’ll have to wait and see.

Speaking of unexpected, Mobius is a Time Keeper. Ok, maybe not. In fact, it’s a long shot but it would be a nice twist. From the moment the Time Keepers were introduced, they have been both shrouded in mystery and speculated that Kang the Conquer was among them. But I think they hid another up there as well. Now, before I explain, I need you to know that I am aware of how this sounds, but bear with me. On the left of the Time Keeper speculated to be Kang is a Keeper with a glorious mustache. Who else do we know who has a glorious mustache? Mobius. Coincidence, maybe, but hiding that detail in plain sight is exactly what Marvel would do. But beyond the mustache, comic book Mobius is a pretty low-key character with not much to him, which leaves plenty of room for change. His name also references German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius and the Möbius Strip which can be used to represent the everlasting cyclical nature of time from the standpoint of the 5th dimension. But the main factor is the fact that everyone in the TVA is a variant. What if the Variants in the TVA are pulled from timelines that lost in the Multi-Verse War, and Mobius was a variant of that Time Keeper who lost? When Ravonna Renslayer mentioned to Mobius that his case has seen special interest by the Time Keepers, maybe she is referring to Mobius himself—or herself, for that matter, without him realizing it. The Actual Time Keepers may be among the TVA, masking their lack of power like the Great and Powerful Oz. I’m acutely aware that I am swinging for the fences with this one, but that is half the fun. Also, Phil Coulson is Ravonna’s other analyst. I’m going to leave that there.

Overall this episode suffers from lack of story progression, with their beginning and ending states being exactly the same, stuck on a planet on the verge of Apocalypse. But as I’ve said, that may not matter as much for Loki. The series is character-driven with the highlight being the titular character’s interaction and contrast with those surrounding him. Now with the added mysterious depth to the character Sylvie, the tension comes from the unpredictable nature of the characters themselves as opposed to the psychedelic mystery of Wandavision or the pulse-pounding action of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Not to say that the episode is lacking in the action department, ending in a glorious one-shot of Loki and Sylvie as they fight through the chaos of the colorful blacklight poster that is the planet of Lamentis-1. Like I said early on, this series is built on characters and thus far, the foundation has been solid.

GRADE: [A-]