After two seasons, Loki just really isn't that good. The initial premise of the first season was ok, and I think they did a really good job of it. They set up the villain well, but unfortunately season 2 I assume was at least partially derailed by Jonathan's Majors and disclosures of his behavior. Regardless, season 2 takes the inertia of season 1 and dissolves into a slow and incomprehensible pile of gobbledigook.
My title reflects how I feel about this. Marvel has, at its heart, always been a series of stories for children. That's comic books, and as a result, there has always been an element of comic book logic. You can see this in how each of the new superheroes introduced is more powerful than the last, which sets up uncomfortable questions about why they weren't around to help when event X happens, or why their powers are suddenly downgraded for no explicable reason. Most marvel works got away with this because they otherwise were fun and usually made some degree of sense.
But here, we've truly devolved into two kids playing with toys and bickering over who shot first... or maybe I shot first, but then your shield blocked it, but then my magic powers dissolved your shield, and on and on it goes. That's what this show felt like, anyway. By episode 2 the stakes felt like they were meaningless. By episode 6 it became clear that of course Loki wouldn't pick either of the two options that were presented, but would somehow inexplicably use his god powers to find a third option. I guess this is again what comic stories always do... but here it felt pretty cheap.
In a way, it solves Marvel's Loki problem because now Loki is stuck keeping time together for eternity. On the other hand, it would have been a much braver choice to kill Sylvie (but yeah, Disney). Either way, the place we've found ourselves here just isn't really that fun or satisfying. The MCU has been in quite a spiral lately, and I am really hoping they are brave enough to pull the plug soon. There's really no need to keep this going, and the only reason they do is to make more money. How about investing in smaller, less bombastic projects that actually tell a good story again?
My title reflects how I feel about this. Marvel has, at its heart, always been a series of stories for children. That's comic books, and as a result, there has always been an element of comic book logic. You can see this in how each of the new superheroes introduced is more powerful than the last, which sets up uncomfortable questions about why they weren't around to help when event X happens, or why their powers are suddenly downgraded for no explicable reason. Most marvel works got away with this because they otherwise were fun and usually made some degree of sense.
But here, we've truly devolved into two kids playing with toys and bickering over who shot first... or maybe I shot first, but then your shield blocked it, but then my magic powers dissolved your shield, and on and on it goes. That's what this show felt like, anyway. By episode 2 the stakes felt like they were meaningless. By episode 6 it became clear that of course Loki wouldn't pick either of the two options that were presented, but would somehow inexplicably use his god powers to find a third option. I guess this is again what comic stories always do... but here it felt pretty cheap.
In a way, it solves Marvel's Loki problem because now Loki is stuck keeping time together for eternity. On the other hand, it would have been a much braver choice to kill Sylvie (but yeah, Disney). Either way, the place we've found ourselves here just isn't really that fun or satisfying. The MCU has been in quite a spiral lately, and I am really hoping they are brave enough to pull the plug soon. There's really no need to keep this going, and the only reason they do is to make more money. How about investing in smaller, less bombastic projects that actually tell a good story again?