Loki season 1 episode 3 review: love is a dagger

This post contains spoilers for Loki.
Check out our review of Loki season 1 episode 2. 

Dueling Lokis sounds like a fun enough idea on paper. But it turns out it’s a bit of a chore when it comes to execution. At least at first. Whether she’s Enchantress, a Loki — and her name being Sylvie basically confirms the former — or something else entirely, there’s no saving the beginning of “Lamentis” from being a bit of a slog. Thankfully, the wicked banter between the two tricksters gets cut short by some mortal peril and the discussion of their respective mothers and you forget all about the rockier early moments.

Once the “mightier than thou” banter shifts into laughter at each others’ pain and emotional shortcomings, the chemistry between Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) becomes palpable. This is good, because the story portion of this episode isn’t much more than thirty minutes.

In its brief runtime, “Lamentis” features a surprising number of very well-choreographed fights — particularly on Sylvie’s part. She’s more of a flippy fighter than Loki, making her overtaking of the TVA a much more thrilling watch than had it simply been Loki daggering his way through the Minute Men. Admittedly, it’s also quite fun watching both of them get blasted to hell by a doomed space widow who doesn’t appreciate visitors on her property. It’s like a well-earned slap on the wrist after the two spent the earlier minutes being insufferable.

Sylvie’s name reveal isn’t the only surprise the episode has in store. As they trudge across the doomed Lamentis-1, the variant reveals to Loki that all of the Minute Men were regular humans before the Time-Keepers brought them on to defend the sacred timeline. Loki, knowing enough about his TVA bestie that he would never lie, immediately insists that the Minute Men have no idea that they were once people. Could this be what Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) appears to be hiding? Poor little Mobius (Owen Wilson) will be heartbroken.

Speaking of Agent Mobius, his absence is very noticeable in this week’s chapter of Loki. His earnestness brings another level to the series, and when you’re dealing with embittered Tricksters and Enchantresses, that earnestness goes a long way. Something tells me we’ll be seeing him shortly though. Aside from the obvious billing as series regular, “Lamentis” ends with Loki and Sylvie realizing they truly are doomed to perish on the dying planet. With their last chance at departure destroyed in front of their eyes, the only real chance they have to get off of the rock they currently inhabit is an extraction from the TVA.

Despite its rockier early moments, this week’s episode does everything a mid-season chapter should. We get a couple of small answers, but the world of possibilities explodes with more questions. What’s Sylvie’s past? Is she tied to New Asgard like her comics counterpart? Are the Time-Keepers real, or is it just Kang messing with things before he makes his film debut later in Phase 4? We could spend all night going over the endless questions, and we’re still at a point in the series where that’s an exciting notion. Hopefully, this mid-season episode is the shortest of the season, though. There’s a lot of ground for Loki to cover in just 3 more episodes.