During the events of Avengers: Endgame, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in 2012 seizes an opportunity to escape using the Tesseract, but shortly thereafter is arrested by temporal beings from the Time Variance Authority (TVA) tasked with eliminating branches of the timeline that weren't supposed to exist. While initially sentenced to erasure from the time stream, TVA analyst Mobius (Owen Wilson) stays Loki's erasure to use his help in tracking another variant of Loki who is running amok throughout the time stream.
While the character of Loki was killed in Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel had announced plans to do a shortform series following the character which went a few revisions. While Hiddleston's cameo in Endgame had not initially been planned as part of the setup to the Loki series, it turned out to be a fortunate opportunity for both the writers and Hiddleston himself to take the character on a different avenue from the one presented in the mainline Loki. The series continued the strong trend of Disney+ Marvel shows earning both critical acclaim and strong viewership and is not only a strong series in its own right, but also a standout entry in the MCU.
Much like with Wandavision, Loki understands what makes a compelling mystery as the show uses the bureaucratic labyrinth of the TVA as both a source of humor as well as mystery with Loki's dives through the corridors of time and seemingly endless records of the TVA make for some engaging setpieces throughout the show. Owen Wilson is in top form as Mobius and plays off nicely against Hiddleston and the series does a deep dive into Loki's character that gives some solid insights into what makes him tick as well as his more human and vulnerable sides. Much like Wandavision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier the series does foreshadow developments in the MCU timeline, but unlike The Falcon and the Winter Soldier which felt like it was stretched in too many directions, Loki feels like it has a more solid centralized focus so the series still feels like a satisfying watch in spite of that point.
Loki is a really entertaining series and gives us a unique take on Loki that takes the character to some unique places both literally and figuratively. Highly recommended.
