Loki – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

Lamentis

Episode 3 of Loki begins with our female trickster asking about the time-keepers and how many people are guarding them. All of this takes place in a restaurant, which of course is a projection.

Back at the TVA, Sylvie heads in and starts taking out the guards. Loki meanwhile, transports back inside too from his foray outside. He sports a knife and remains hot on Sylvie’s heels as she leaves devastation in her wake. When he catches up with her, he suggests a truce. This, predictably, falls on deaf ears.

She refuses to be called a Loki though, but the pair are forced to team up when they’re teleported across to a planet called Lamentis 1. It’s 2077 and the planet is being pelted with asteroids. We’ve got a ticking clock here though, as the moon is due to crash into the planet at any time. They seem to be safe inside though as they continue to argue over the TemPad to bring them back.

At a stalemate, the pair head out to visit a nearby town. On the way, they talk exposition about Lokis and name aliases before eventually making it to this shanty town, bathed in neon purple light. They need a massive power source to charge the TemPad up though and this neon light won’t do. One lady remains, and she’s not best pleased to see them. Still, she confirms that everyone on this planet has left on the evacuation vessel. The only way to get there is to jump aboard a train.

Loki and Sylvie decide to sneak aboard, donning disguises as they make their way on the carriages. They continue to talk though, with Loki and Sylvie discussing their motivations during this quiet patch. And by quiet I mean literally just sitting around with drinks talking about love. Well to spice things up Loki gets drunk and decides to start dancing and singing on the carriage.

Eventually the guards arrive to arrest him though, given he doesn’t have his ticket. This inevitably results in a fight breaking out between the guards as they square off against Loki and Sylvie. Eventually the pair thrown out which subsequently destroys the TemPad.

While sat together, the pair decide to hijack the arc and in doing so that means – yep you guessed it – more walking. Anyway, on the way we learn that the variants at the TVA are just normal people, they weren’t actually created by the time keepers after all.

The pair make it into town and prepare for the worst as this moon looks set to crash into the planet. Loki is knocked down, and with everything looking hopeless, Loki uses his telekinesis power to stop a falling piece of building hitting them. It’s no good though, they run out of time and watch helplessly as the ark crashes down.

The Episode Review

Loki has been a solid watch so far but this episode is a complete misfire. It’s been a problem with these Marvel shows that for some reason they can’t fill a six episode show. Falcon and the Winer Soldier had some filler too but this episode felt more like a throwaway SG1 episode.

There’s so much walking and talking but the episode suffers from contrivance and lazy tropes that betray some of the good work done in the first couple of episodes. The “countdown” trope has been done numerous times and suddenly seeing Loki and Sylvie teleport across from being in the middle of nowhere to the town doesn’t help matters.

That’s to say nothing of the chemistry between the pair (or lack thereof). The dialogue doesn’t have much panache and ultimately feels like filler. Hopefully the next episode can be an improvement because this was pretty disappointing.