“Loki” Episode 5 Recap and Review: The Island of Misfit Lokis
By Rob LoAlbo
Photos courtesy Marvel Studios
You get a Loki! And you get a Loki!
Our Lokis are at large right from the get go as the viewers hit the ground running in the most homework-inducing episode so far.
Who likes treasure hunts? You do?!? Then get ready for the most Easter-Eggish hunt of them all in this week’s Loki! Gob-smacked with dozens of urban myths and comic book lore, it’s stuffed to the gator gills with references that you’ll have to look up on your own. (I’ll point a few out here, but I encourage you to research things like the arcade game Polybius, the history behind Thanos’s helicopter, the USS Eldridge and the Philadelphia Experiment, and the role of the Living Tribunal, just to name a few.)
With more geektastic moments than actual answers, we follow our Lokis down the Lost hatch as the smoke monster chases them throughout the mysterious island.
Spoilers on the way, kids (and Kid Lokis)
Our episode doesn’t miss a beat with a setup that puts us immediately on the chase:
Loki: What is this place? Where are we? Who are you?
Classic Loki: This is The Void. That’s Alioth. And we’re his lunch. Come on!
Apparently pruned people and items aren’t so much eliminated as transferred to a void at the end of time, along with several thousand ersatz and banned timeline items (including TVA lunch trays - soooo many lunch trays). Again leaning into Dr. Who territory, it's a jumble of sci-fi lunacy that oddly makes sense despite none of it doing so. Headless peacocks(?) UFOs, broken statues, abandoned Helicarriers, and so many variant Lokis - it works with the storyline, with our Loki playing the straight man to the sidekick lunacy. Watching Hiddleston fumble about trying to make sense is worth the price of admission alone. (As he’s initially questioning the group, observe his comic timing and shifting of tone every few seconds, and you’ll glimpse pure genius.)
Where is everyone else and why all the Lokis? “Because Lokis survive. That’s just what they do.” And into their pruned bowling alley they go to catch up with the many faces of Eve. (Where we see that FROG THOR IS NOW CANON!!! OMG!!!) We then hear the story of each Loki’s life, and I’m not sure which is more entertaining: Richard E. Grant’s Classic Loki and every DAMN word he utters or the comical cuts to Gator Loki. Both become instant classics, and that seemingly only one of them survives breaks our heart. They are all misfits here, the God of Outcasts, thrown onto an island where somewhere lurks a Charlie-in-the-Box.
Loki tries rallying the troops to take down Alioth (who itself has a deep backstory intertwined with Kang the Conqueror and Renslayer), but is laughed out of the hatch because these Lokis have already tried everything. New Loki on the Block is taking it step by step, until even more variants show up (this one from the comic line “Vote Loki”). That all of these Lokis are so different from our Loki helps us to truly understand just how far ours has come during this series, evolving from a murderous trickster dick to an empathetic frustrated pseudo-romantic who has enough room under his cloak for two.
And SPEAKING of Sylvie, while all of these Lokis are in the house, she’s duking it out with Renslayer, trying to figure out who’s behind the TVA, but she and Miss Minutes are playing it too close to the vest to reveal much. Where I thought this week was going to reveal Renslayer’s backstory, I suppose the writers are saving it for next week’s wrap up. Regardless, while cornered by the TVA, Sylvie self-prunes to reach The Void and is given chase until a rogue pizza truck tears in to save her, and we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief when we see that OWEN WILSON’S MOBIUS ISN’T DEAD!!! (Oh thank God - IMDB was right!) Perhaps a Jet Ski is in the cards after all.
But a coup clearly is in the cards for President Loki, betraying other Lokis, but then his Lokis turn on him, only to have Gator Loki bite his hand off, and the other Lokis fight out for supreme Loki, and Loki, Loki, Loki. Classic Loki gets the good ones out of there, lamenting that a Loki can never change its stripes. (I wonder: is there a Zebra Loki, and can it?) The scorpion will always sting the frog in the back because it’s in its nature. Kid Loki (the apparent leader whose Nexus event was that he killed Thor) lets us know that Lokis are forever doomed, that when they try to change, they get sent to The Void. Or when they eat the neighbor's cat. Or something. As Loki says, “It’s best not to question it.”
Sylvie, Loki, and Mobius finally catch up with one another, and they go with Sylvie’s theory that answers lie beyond The Void, that Alioth is just the 2nd to last video game boss at the end, which for a series that is bursting with creativity, is a little disappointing as a 2nd to last act structure. One major complaint about Marvel is that so many of their story structures are the same. (It’s Iron Man, but with magic! We’ll call it Dr. Strange!) By allowing various creative directors like Taika Waititi, James Gunn, and Ryan Coogler to play in the Marvel sandbox allows for some shakeup with the formula, but Fiege and company sometimes like to play it a little safe for the fans’ sake. Hence, defeat Alioth before we reach the final boss.
Renslayer continues to dig and serve the TVA despite not knowing who is in charge of it. She refuses to betray the ideals that she’s clung to her whole life despite finding out that they were all based on lies. She interviews B-15, digs through files, and stumps her way up to the top, but not because she wants the truth - she wants to be a good and faithful soldier. Unless something new gets revealed next week regarding her motivation and backstory, the mindless, blind following of political ideologies echoes many of the thematic elements our country has been facing over the last year, especially with the change in administration. Is it better to fight for what you’ve stood for all along? And at what cost? Or is it better to alter one's belief and ideals to better shape them around the reality that exists, not the one we hope and strive for? It’s a complex issue that many are facing today, especially post-insurrection, with no easily identifiable answers. Classic Loki posits Mobius: “So just like that, you’re turning on the very thing you devoted your life to?” And where Mobius is open to change, Renslayer is devoted to the system. Which is the nobler pursuit? Each part of our country seems to have a different answer.
And the answer seems to come down to who you are going to put your faith into. While Loki and Sylvie awkwardly meet cute under a blanket on a hillside, they discuss the faith, or lack thereof, they have in one another. Neither is sure what to expect, but isn’t trust a part of love? (And since we’re on the topic, some have found Loki and Sylvie’s romance a bit icky and incestuous. While I understand the argument, my takeaway isn’t the relationship they have but in the characteristics they bring out in one another, helping with their perspective character arcs, each being a unique foil for the other one. My advice: focus on that.)
Which brings us to our big finale: the Loki tag team special! What starts out as divided ends up united with Sylvie and Loki holding hands and working together to enchant Alioth (which echoes the fantastic Guardians of the Galaxy climax). BUT the best part comes from Grant’s layered acting in the face of unspeakable special effects as he summons the entirety of Asgard to distract Alioth from the duo while cackling madly and screaming about his “glorious purpose.” Just, wow. Chills
Loki and Sylvie effectively enchant, revealing a castle-like, lair-ish, fortress that houses the final villain. Now, we could all jump to conclusions in thinking that Marvel is going to take the opportunity to introduce some new bad guy like Dr. Doom or Kang the Conqueror (God knows so much evidence has been thrown the way of the latter), BUT remember how we’ve been here before? WandaVision - we thought Mephisto, but it was Agatha all along. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - Power Broker was Peggy Carter all this time. Given Marvel’s track record, the person behind the TVA is most likely someone we already know. Maybe another Loki variant. So don’t hang your hopes on someone huge - keep them grounded and maybe we’ll all be pleasantly surprised.
My last prediction of the series: the ending will have serious consequences in the MCU with regard to multiverses and variants. My reasoning: we’ve been expecting a trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home for weeks. The hold-up? That trailer would spoil our Loki finale. With rumors of multiple Spider-Men, we’re going to see major water ripples in the next few movies.
We gotta give it to the showrunners that Loki has given us more creativity than any of the previous shows. Sure WandaVision was bonkers, but it was still an homage to the various ages of television. Loki is such an amalgam of tones and influences that it’s produced something totally unique. Despite this episode having its moments of structural simplicity and the injections of forced conversations throughout (why are they just sitting around and talking instead of enacting their plan exactly?), there’s still nothing on TV like it. It’s effectively created memorable characters we truly connected with, and Gator Loki rules.
Next week: Fingers crossed for that big Jet Ski finale!
Star City Rating: 4 out of 5