Loki (1.2) Episode Recap: The Man in the Mirror

The gnawing question for me since the first episode of Loki ended and I made my way through this second episode is: what do we do when we are faced with who we really are? Rather, more specifically, how will Loki react? It’s a sentiment that has sort of been explored in the Marvel Universe before, as far back as the movie that kicked off the whole venture, Iron Man. Tony Stark is held captive and forced to reckon with how his life’s work is being used for destruction and how he has been complicit in these acts. It is also one of the strongest and most acute moral dilemmas that Marvel has put to the screen since this all started. The biggest difference in Loki is that his destruction is not as indirect. Loki cannot rationalize the consequences of his actions in the same way, because they are a direct result of actions. But he has also never had to face his actions for what they were like he has in these first two episodes. In the first episode, Mobius takes him through his life. In this episode, he reviews detailed files of his previous exploits. All of these moments come to life through a combination of slowly zooming camerawork and Hiddleston’s facial expressions. He has this way of slipping from the God of Mischief into someone who has truly understood the chaos they caused. It is those little notes that bring Loki to life beyond the fun character he has been through countless Marvel movies to this point.

Another one of the biggest differences between what Loki’s journey in Loki and Tony Stark’s journey in Iron Man is that this one is a lot harder to telegraph. Iron Man is arrogant, he makes mistakes, he insists that his way is always right, but he is a hero through all of it. For as tumultuous as the beginning of Iron Man was, we knew he had to come out of it a better person. Are we certain that Loki will react the same way? I am not. From moment to moment, we are not even certain what choices he will make. When Mobius, the Hunters, and Loki go to investigate the Variant’s crime, he spins a tale about how the Variant is waiting for them outside of the tent and they need to be careful. Eventually Mobius sees through this as a trick, but Loki’s monologue in this scene is indistinguishable from when he is being serious. Later, when he and Mobius are sitting in the cafeteria of the TVA, the conversation does start to take a serious turn. At one point, Loki tells Mobius, “No one bad is ever truly bad, and no one good is ever truly good.” While this certainly doubles as an explainer for how Loki moves through space and time, the line also contextualizes the show’s storytelling approach. The principle at the core of that sentiment is what makes it so hard to determine exactly what happens at the end of this past week’s episode. Does Loki follow the Variant into the portal because he wants to catch her? Or does he do it because he wants to join her? Or does he do to get away from Mobius?

Michael Waldron and Elissa Karasik (the writers of this episode – and Elissa’s first writing credit per IMDb!) know the answer to that question. They also know that, at the moment, we couldn’t possibly know the answer. With Loki, they have the freedom to let the character make good and bad choices. He is not just one of the few characters in Loki searching for free will, he is one of the few characters in the MCU who feels as though they are afforded it.