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Loki's success is due to it feeling so little like a Marvel show -- but it's still hampered by the MCU

  • "It has more in common with Dr. Who and The Wizard of Oz and even The Matrix: Reloaded—the big He Who Remains scene in the finale is essentially the Architect scene but less pretentious—than it does the MCU," says Luis Paez-Pumar of Marvel's Loki. "Unfortunately, it is still part of that pop culture-consuming behemoth, and that’s where the show’s biggest failure comes in. Despite telling a pretty self-contained story, starring a titular character who has been dead in the main MCU chronology since Infinity War, Loki is still part and parcel to the franchise, and so must set up future mysteries. The Kang the Conqueror reveal in the last moments landed like a wallop to the head for me, because it’s exactly the type of MCU franchise-building that reminds viewers that nothing matters more than the mothership. It’s a similar problem to the one WandaVision had at the end, though, at the very least, Loki avoided having (Tom) Hiddleston and (Sophia) Di Martino fly around while shooting CGI blasts at each other. Their quick battle was more of a character moment than an action scene, but that fit the show’s modus operandi well. The questions raised by the show—about free will, about what we owe ourselves, and about the contrast between crushing order or, as (Jonathan) Majors puts it, 'cataclysmic chaos'—are all shelved, for now, in favor of giving Marvel fans something to obsess over as we move into Phase Four. Yes, there will be a second season of Loki that will likely further the show’s internal narrative, and yes, Kang the Conqueror is a very big and potentially cool addition to the MCU, so he had to be set up somewhere. It’s just disappointing that this is always how it goes. Loki had a chance to be something different, something that didn’t need the entire weight of a franchise on its shoulders, and for five-sixths of its run, it did just that."

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    TOPICS: Loki, Disney+, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jonathan Majors, Kate Herron, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe