‘Loki’ season finale review: Sylvie ruins everything but not really
It’s always bittersweet when a good show ends and you know you’ll have to wait years for the next season. The good news is, Loki is getting renewed and we might also see him in other projects of the MCU, like “Doctor Strange 2.” Overall, “Loki” was a great show that let Marvel explore some of the weirder and unconventional sides of the multiverse through the lens of one of its best characters. This series was just as bold as “WandaVision” and, in my humble opinion, was almost as good, and also better than “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” The season finale was confusing at first and had a doubtful resolution to the season’s main conflict, but it delivered a satisfying character arc for Loki more than it did for Sylvie.
The exciting aspect about these Marvel shows is how they succeed at developing individual characters at length in a way that wouldn’t be possible in a traditional movie. Loki’s journey in the TVA served as an opportunity for inner reflection and changing the course of his life, with new goals and new motivations that were no longer influenced by rage or greed. He remains the god of mischief, but a little wiser and nobler. Although Sylvie and the love he developed for her had something to do with that, most of the change came from himself and his genuine desire to be a better person.
We see the culmination of this change when Miss Minutes offers him everything that past Loki wanted and the present Loki rejects it. This maturity lets him walk past his old desires as he’s looking at the bigger picture. In this case, confronting He Who Remains, the bigger picture means saving the multiverse and the sacred timeline. It’s ironic for a variant to be interested in that, but now Loki has something, or someone, to do it for. He doesn’t want Sylvie to live in a chaotic world that will hurt her.
Before diving into the conflict with Sylvie, it’s necessary to dissect everything revealed by He Who Remains, AKA Kang the Conqueror, played by the fantastic Jonathan Majors. His personality in the show was the complete opposite of what I expected from Kang, but it worked in a disturbing way and made him more interesting to watch than the average menacing villain. Omnipotent and all-knowing, Kang is the mastermind behind the Sacred Timeline and all the events that happened in it served the purpose of leading Loki and Sylvie to the end of time where they could finally meet. He explains that every misfortune and triumph was necessary no matter how many people got hurt in the way, like Sylvie, who thinks he is a cruel man playing an immoral game with the lives of real people. Isn’t this the same concept of God’s Plan? Just something to think about.
Kang is like a more powerful version of Willy Wonka who designs a contest (the sacred timeline and its variants) knowing who will fail and who will come close at succeeding and earn the greatest job offer of all time. Having lived for millions of years, Kang is exhausted and wants to pass the mantle onto someone worthy and who understands what’s at stake.
Protecting the Sacred Timeline is vital as it avoids another Multiverse War juts like the one Miss Minutes explained on the first episode. When Kang was just a regular man living in the future as Nathaniel Richards, he discovered a way to travel in the multiverse, through space-time, and so did the other versions of him who made that same discovery and used its knowledge to collaborate and expand their grasp over time travel. Eventually, some of these versions of Richards went rogue and tried to conquer different multiverses, triggering a devastating war that was ended by the OG Richards, He Who Remains. He succeeded by weaponizing Alioth and then had to mend his own broken timeline, isolate it from the others, and create the TVA to protect it and keep the other versions of Kang at bay.
When Sylvie killed the original Nathaniel Richards, the sacred timeline was disrupted and this created an infinite amount of branches, each one being an alternate reality. This also means a countless amount of Kangs who will become desperate to take over and start another Multiverse War. It’s a loop, like the Sacred Timeline. That’s why He Who Remains told Sylvie they would meet again at exactly the same place. His dying performance was masterful, by the way. I can’t wait to see Majors acting in all the different versions of Kang to show his full range as an actor.
Another big (and weird) part of the episode was Loki’s kiss with Sylvie. Is it an extreme level of narcissism or twincest? I have no clue. It’s clear they have feelings for each other, but unlike Loki, Sylvie wasn’t able to see the bigger picture and prioritized her initial mission. She wanted revenge above all else.
Besides screwing up and starting the multiverse war, she also sent Loki to an alternate timeline where nobody knows who he is and Kang the Conqueror is very much in charge. Well done, Sylvie. But her actions have also opened a world of possibility for the MCU to experiment with the alternate timelines and that’s what the franchise needed in the upcoming phases. This means incorporating the X-Men, Fantastic Four, different versions of the Avengers and more iconic characters into future projects.
