In the “Loki” recap for episode 3, Loki teams up with his Variant in order to find out what she’s really trying to accomplish…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
It’s rare that Marvel wastes much time at all but the latest installment of “Loki” felt like a story that could have been condensed and compacted into a much more fulfilling episode.
Now that’s not to say the new episode of “Loki” wasn’t fun at moments, it certainly was, but in terms of truly moving the story forward — outside of a few nuggets of information revealed, not much really happened except putting Loki and the Variant in a dire situation together that really had nothing to do with the rest of what’s happening this season.
That said, the revelations that came this week did tie back into suspicions previously held about the Time Variance Authority and the Time-Keepers, who supposedly guard the “sacred timeline.” The supposedly omnipotent group has been a carefully guarded secret all season long but one particular bit of information confirmed in this episode makes them seem far less like benevolent guardians over a singular timeline and more like vengeful bullies playing god.
More on that later … for now let’s recap the latest episode of “Loki” titled “Lamentis”…
Love Is An Imaginary Dagger
The episode doesn’t begin exactly where last week left off but instead to the moment when the Variant Loki captured Hunter C-20 and took her hostage back to Earth in 2050 in the hurricane that was about to wipe an Alabama town off the face of the Earth. It seems as part of her enchantment powers, the Variant is able to transport C-20 to a different time and place in order to manipulate her mine to get the information needed.
After sipping on some margaritas, C-20 finally gives up the details the Variant needed in order to reach the Time-Keepers via the golden elevators inside the TVA.
That’s when we arrive back to the moment when the Variant slips away from the apocalypse situation in Alabama through a time portal and Loki decides to follow.
It turns out, the Variant was traveling to the TVA in order to exact her planned vengeance against the Time-Keepers, which leads her to a fight against some of the Minutemen guarding the facility. Loki follows her back, retrieves the daggers Hunter B-15 took away from him and he goes after the Variant.
When he finally catches up, the two of them engage in a fight that ends when Ravonna Renslayer shows up with her own Minutemen to put a stop to the Variant’s planned invasion. The Variant attempts to threaten Loki’s life but Ravonna doesn’t care so the God of Mischief saves them both by stealing the TemPad — the device the TVA uses to travel between times and worlds — and they slip through a portal together.
Unfortunately, Loki didn’t exactly punch in coordinates for a destination so he just selected something already pre-programmed into the TemPad. Of course, the Variant has been hiding out in apocalypse situations so she could do whatever was necessary without ever alerting the TVA so needless to say Loki brought them to a world called Lamentis-1 that is about to be destroyed.
With a planet and a moon about to crash into each other, Loki and the Variant have to find a way to escape but after some trickery and another fight, they realize that the TemPad has run out of power. That means they are going to be forced to team up in order to recharge the device or both of them will die a fiery death on this doomed little planet.
As Loki continues to question the Variant’s motives, she bristles against the notion that she’s some alternate world version of Loki. Instead she calls herself Sylvie.
Now that name might not mean much to the Marvel Cinematic Universe just yet but in the comic books that likely references a character named Sylvie Lushton, who received her powers after Asgard relocated to Earth and occupied a space in Oklahoma. One day, Sylvie woke up with incredible powers and she eventually adopted the name Amora the Enchantress.
Her powers were granted by Loki but for what purpose has never truly been discovered but as time passes, Sylvie gains more and more control over her abilities and she becomes quite a powerful magician and sorceress as The Enchantress.
It seems entirely possible that Sylvie isn’t Lady Loki but instead the Enchantress, who received her powers from an alt-world Loki.
Regardless, Loki and Sylvie make their way to an abandoned town where both are blasted by a home owner defending what’s left of her property as everyone attempts to flee the planet. She does offer them some friendly advice that the train leaving town is the only chance to escape the planet before everything goes boom.
Loki and Sylvie then used their combined powers to board the train while getting past some hapless guards as they attempt to make it to the Ark — a ship that will presumably take them off the planet.
On board the train, Loki and Sylvie share some history about each other and their experiences, which again is assumed that she’s actually a Loki Variant despite that still not being totally proven.
Loki explains how he was adopted but didn’t know it until later in life and how his mother Frigga taught him all about magic. Sylvie says she knew she was adopted from an early age but only has fragments of memory when it comes to her mother.
When it comes to love, Loki confesses his own bisexuality while mentioning that he’s had a “bit of both” with princes and princesses in his day while expects Sylvie is probably much the same.
The “getting to know you” portion also involves some champagne being handed out on the train, which causes Loki to get even more talkative (as if that’s possible) but Sylvie knows it’s time to rest because they’ve got a lot of work ahead of them to get the TemPad charged so they can escape this world before it’s destroyed.
When Sylvie wakes up for a brief nap, she finds Loki three sheets to the wind, singing Asgardian drinking songs along with the crew on the train. In his inebriated state, Loki attempts to then explain the real difficulty with finding true love but his metaphor comes up a little short.
Loki: “Love is a dagger. It’s a weapon to be wielded far away or up close. You can see yourself in it. It’s beautiful until it makes you bleed. But ultimately, when you reach for it…”
Sylvie: “It isn’t real. Love is an imaginary dagger? Terrible metaphor.”
While Loki is lamenting about love, Sylvie notices that the people on the train are really starting to take notice of them because it’s clear by the way they’re dressed that they don’t belong. Sure enough, security arrives shortly thereafter and another fight ensues except Loki can’t really get his magic working correctly while he’s all liquored up.
That results in the security team literally throwing him off the moving train, which then forces Sylvie to follow him because he has the TemPad with him.
After crash landing, Loki shares a bit of bad news with his counterpart — getting tossed out of a train might cause a few bumps or bruises or the TemPad hidden in his clothes to get smashed part. In other words, the only way they have to leave a doomed planet was just destroyed.
But all hope is not lost after Loki realizes that the Ark ship that’s destined to fail in saving people leaving the planet didn’t involve the two of them on board helping them to escape, which would alter the so called pre-determined destiny that the Time-Keepers have created.
On the road to find the Ark, Loki quizzes Sylvie about some of her powers including enchantment, which allows her to mind control anyone she touches. That’s not a power that Loki possesses — back in the original “Avengers” movie, he had to use the mind stone granted to him by Thanos in order to control Hawkeye and Dr. Erik Selvig.
Sylvie also talks about how she used her powers to create an illusion of sorts in Hunter C-20’s mind, which then allowed her to retrieve information about the Time-Keepers’ location. She tells Loki that she was forced to travel back to C-20’s former life in order to discover that she loved margaritas to use that as a set up to get the information she needed.
That’s when Loki realizes that C-20 isn’t some clone agent created by the Time-Keepers.
As Sylvie reveals — all of the people working for the TVA are actually time variants who have been mind-wiped and are now being used by the Time-Keepers to carry out orders and monitor the sacred timeline.
Obviously, the Time-Keepers are anything but altruistic when it comes to their intentions for the universe, especially if they are essentially enslaving variants to carry out their dirty work.
Finally, Loki and Sylvie arrive in the city where the Ark ship will take off as the rest of the planet is destroyed. The two of them team up to make their way through a violent mob, angry that the rich and privileged are the only ones escaping the planet (of course in reality nobody is getting out alive).
But just as they begin to make it through the people to get to the ship, a giant piece of the planet crashing into Lamentis breaks off and destroys the Ark ship.
That means Loki and Sylvie’s best chance for survival was just eliminated.
With three episodes remaining, it’s guaranteed these two will get rescued somehow but what that involves remains to be seen. Perhaps Mobius will find a way to track them down and that’s when he’ll find out the awful truth about the Time-Keepers? Is it possible that in his past life Mobius was a jet-ski riding wild man from the early 90s?
We’ll have to wait to find out when “Loki” returns for episode 4 next Wednesday on Disney+.
