“Loki” Series Premiere Recap: Time Is a Tricky Thing

Yet another Marvel Studios Disney+ series has arrived, in this case, Loki, focusing on the God of Mischief’s misadventures after his disappearance in “Avengers: Endgame.” The series premiere, “Glorious Purpose,” is full of creative and trippy new elements and opens up a whole new world for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Variant | After recapping what happened to Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in 2012 in “Avengers: Endgame,” Loki and the Tesseract end up in the Gobi Desert, where he is almost immediately swarmed by agents who enter through a portal and slap a neck band on him that prevents him from using magic. They confiscate the Tesseract and send Loki to a strange waiting room along with a guy named Martin (Josh Fadem), who gets disintegrated into nothing when he disobeys the rules of the men working there.

Thanks to a nifty, “Jurassic Park” style animated video, voiced by Tara Strong, Loki learns that he is now in the Time Variance Authority, or the TVA for short. It was created by the Timekeepers to keep the timelines in order and prevent catastrophe. One such agent, Mobius (Owen Wilson) is investigating the murder of his men in the 1600s and witnesses a young girl with what looks like alien bubblegum.

The Trial of Loki | Loki is taken before a judge named Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who charges him with damaging the timeline. When Loki points out that the Avengers did the same thing, she says that their tampering was part of the plan. Mobius intervenes and takes Loki to a theater where he shows Loki’s exploits in “The Avengers” and asks why he hurt and murdered so many people, including Agent Coulson. When Loki refuses to answer, Mobius shows Loki his life from “Thor: The Dark World,” which this version of Loki hasn’t experienced yet, and shows him that when he gave directions to the invading Dark Elves, he unintentionally led them to kill his mother, which upsets Loki.

A Hunter (Wunmi Mosaku) tries to talk Mobius out of working with Loki, but while they are talking, Loki escapes. He runs into a worker named Casey (Eugene Cordero) and threatens him to give up the Tesseract, but when he does, he also unlocks a drawer that has ALL the Infinity Stones in it. This shakes Loki and to add insult to injury, the stones are useless in the TVA headquarters. To make things even rougher, he sneaks back into the theater and fast forwards through his future, seeing his death at the hands of Thanos in “Avengers: Infinity War.”

Mobius returns and a defeated Loki admits that he doesn’t enjoy hurting or killing; it’s just part of the act. Mobius offers Loki the chance to work with him and the TVA to track down a dangerous variant. When Loki asks why they need his help, Mobius responds that the variant is him. In 1600 era Oklahoma, a group of TVA agents are burned to death by a cloaked figure who steals their device they use to reset the timeline.

Loki is now streaming on Disney+.