Escaping an Apocalypse – Loki Episode 3 Review
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In order to provide a contextual review within the season, this review will contain spoilers from Loki Episode 1 and Episode 2, but not the end of Episode 3.
This week’s episode of Loki, “Lamentis”, starts moving much faster, feeling more like a film installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than the previous 2 episodes. We lose a bit of the quirky, fun tone in this episode, but director Kate Herron does a great job incorporating more action while maintaining the intrigue that comes from the focus on character interactions.
This episode opens with the bad variant Loki, who goes by Sylvie (played excellently by Sophia Di Martino), having a girls’ night out with the TVA agent that she had taken hostage after an ambush. We quickly learn that this is a flashback to how Sylvie gained information about the Time Keepers, by trapping the agent in an illusion based on her real memories.
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Following the flashback, Sylvie steps out of the portal that she opened, arriving in the TVA headquarters ready to find and confront the Time Keepers, with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki not far behind. The two take turns fighting guards and then each other before Loki resorts to teleporting the two of them to a different space time with Sylvie’s TemPad to escape.
They land on Lamentis-1 in 2077, just before an upcoming apocalypse caused by a moon crashing into the planet. After a fight on a train, Loki and Sylvie realize the TemPad has broken, so they are left to begrudgingly work together to find a way out of an apocalypse that wipes out everyone.
This episode reveals a bit more about Loki, how he learned magic from his mother and that he is bisexual or pansexual, which is canon in the comics. This is a big step for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to have a queer lead. Happy Pride Month! We also learn about Sylvie and the TVA, most importantly that all TVA agents are unaware that they were once variants.
Lamentis also steps up the action and is very exciting while only sacrificing a bit of the charm. Part of that loss comes from the lack of Owen Wilson’s Mobius, who we just learned will not be saying “Wow” in the series. It’s still fun, especially seeing Loki being a bit more mischievous with the return of his powers now that he’s outside of the TVA’s control.
While we get to know Loki a bit better and get more of an introduction to Sylvie, we still don’t really know what their goals are, outside of escaping the apocalypse. We know Sylvie wants to find the Time Keepers, but we don’t know her objective, just that she’s spent years planning whatever it is she’s planning. Loki claims that he is working his way closer to the Time Keepers, but that is unreliable as he can’t be trusted.
Lamentis picks up the pace while keeping true to the appeal of the first two episodes. The close of this episode brings us to the halfway point in the season, and while we still don’t know where we’re going, I’m happy to be along for the ride.
7/10
