Episode four of Loki from Marvel is here, streaming now on Disney Plus. How does it compare to the other recent MCU series? Here’s our review.

SPOILERS: If you’re reading this then you’ve probably seen the show, but if not there are spoilers ahead.

Back on Lamentis-1

We pick up with Loki and Sylvie still on the moon Lamentis-1. Both seemingly resigned to their impending deaths. Just as Lamentis-1 is in full planetary breakdown and about to consume its moon where they are stranded. The two share a moment of almost love as they prepare to meet their ends before a time door opens for each of them. The TVA has been hunting for them, and thanks to a severe detour from The Sacred Timeline, their location is established. They take their escape route and find themselves back at TVA HQ. Where Renslayer and Mobius are ready to interrogate them. Renslayer has informed The Timekeepers that they’ve been captured. Then insists on interviewing Sylvie herself to try and cover for her own duplicity.

We learn more about Renslayer as we see her as a Hunter earlier in her career. Discovering Sylvie as a child, abducting her and then resetting The Sacred Timeline. All in the hope that she has found and avoided a Nexus Event – the title of this episode.

The return of Lady Sif

Loki is sent into a time loop where he meets fellow Asgardian Sif. Whom he’d severely upset during Thor: The Dark World. She’s determined to get revenge on him, so we are treated to several amusing minutes of her taking out her frustrations on him with her fist and knees. Once he is suitably ‘softened up’, Mobius interviews him and tries to convince him that Sylvie is dead. This enrages Loki who drops the bombshell on Mobius that everyone in the TVA is a variant themselves. Although he’s reluctant to believe him, he realises that Loki is confirming suspicions that Mobius himself had had for a while, that all was not well at the TVA.

An angry Sylvie is being interviewed by Renslayer and Hunter B-15. The latter of which is even more convinced that something is very wrong at the TVA. Sylvie shows her how she enchants people and takes B-15 back to the supermarket in Alabama where she was initially discovered where she reveals the TVA’s big secret to B-15.

Loki and Sylvie are then taken to meet The Timekeepers by Renslayer, after she apparently kills Mobius with her wand, much to the upset of Loki. Mobius had surreptitiously swapped his TemPed for hers. This is in order to discover that she had covered up the testimony of Hunter C-20, where she revealed the TVA’s big secret. I loved that the TemPed looked like a cross between the original handheld Donkey Kong game and an early electronic personal organiser.

Muffled

It was at this point that I had to put the subtitles on, because The Timekeepers dialogue was completely indecipherable. It was like trying to listen to Christian Bale in The Dark Knight Rises with your head completely submerged in a bucket of water. Whoever produced the dialogue must have used Cannibal Corpse as a vocal coach.

Loki and Sylvie attempt to get physical with them, but are prevented by the collars placed on them by the TVA. Help arrives from B-15 who unexpectedly sides with them. Then removes their collars and allows them to battle with Renslayer and her hunters. After Loki and Sylvie beat them, The Timekeepers attempt to negotiate with them. Sylvie, perhaps unsurprisingly, is in no mood to do so and decapitates the main Timekeeper revealing it to be nothing other than an Android. The other two Timekeepers immediately shut down and Loki resumes the moment he had with Sylvie on Lamentis-1. This is unceremoniously ruined by Renslayer who erases him.

An enraged Sylvie gets the better of her in the ensuing fight, and Renslayer tries to call her bluff by getting Sylvie to kill her in an emotional frenzy after Loki’s apparent death. Instead, Sylvie demands that the great secrets of the TVA and The Timekeepers are revealed to her.

Mid-credits

In a surprising mid-credit scene, Loki then wakes in an apocalyptic post-war world to be confronted by four other Loki’s from various points in time and space. This collection of gods of mischief included Richard E. Grant dressed as the comic book version of Loki…and a reptile Loki.

At least we know being erased with a wand doesn’t necessarily kill people. So we can be fairly sure that Mobius will make a dramatic reappearance at some point in the climactic two episodes.

So far, so good

After four episodes and being two-thirds of the way through this series, I feel Loki is the most complete of the three Marvel series released this year.

WandaVision had issues with whether it was trying to be funny or was just set in a sitcom, which resulted in a peculiar clash of tones at times. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier suffered from a dull plot and poor pacing. Loki however, seems to have got the balance right. It has great production design, strong performances and a solid, well-paced plot. We’ve had genuine cliffhangers at the end of each episode, and a mid-credit scene already!

It’s no surprise that Marvel has ordered another series.

CULTURE CROSSING SCORE 9/10

Thank you for reading our review of Loki episode four. Do you agree or disagree with our points or have anything to add? If so, leave us a comment below.

Read our Loki episode three review HERE.

Read IMDB information about Loki HERE.