Loki – Lamentis review S1 E3

June 23, 2021 Jeffrey Lyles Loki, Sasha Lane, Sophia Di Martino, Tom Hiddleston

With only six episodes of Loki, each installment has to cover a lot to avoid feeling like it didn’t progress far enough. Lamentis didn’t feel like anything else we’ve seen from Loki or any other Disney+ series. It wasn’t the most eventful and probably the one episode so far that would probably be best viewed when you can immediately watch episode 4.

Still, there were some fascinating elements at play. Loki spent most of the episode in a familiar bickering banter with another variant, Sylvie. There’s been a lot of speculation that Sylvie was going to be the Asgardian villain The Enchantress. Lamentis didn’t exactly back off that idea as Sylvie constantly mentioned enchanting people.

I’m wondering if a character so bent on seducing Thor wouldn’t fly with Marvel Studios’ approach to characters. Maybe the Sylvie variant is an Iron Man 3 Mandarin take on The Enchantress?

Either way, Sophia Di Martino had terrific chemistry with Tom Hiddleston. I’ve been so spoiled with him since Thor, but I’m coming around to the notion that Hiddleston is one of those MCU actors that can’t have a bad scene with anyone. While Sylvie proved a fun partner for Loki this episode, but I did miss Owen Wilson’s Agent Mobius.

We got a quickie flashback showing Sylvie’s powers in action as she enchanted Hunter C-20 into giving up the location of the Time Keepers. The interesting tidbit Loki (and we) learned later on is all the Time Keepers are also variants and not created as Loki was informed. If the TVA is lying about that, what other secrets are they keeping?

Loki has a face off with Sylvie and they both escape from TVA clutches using the temp pad. But Loki’s directions are shaky and they end up on Lamentis-1, 2077. This is not the ideal spot as a moon is splintering off and crashing into the planet. And all of Loki’s time hopping has drained the Tempat, forcing Loki and Sylvie to put their daggers away and partner up.

This leads to some nice quiet moments with the two as they start to cautiously let their walls down. Loki talks about learning magic from his mother. Sylvie said her parents always told her she was adopted. And they talk about their love life. Loki mentions he’s had a bit of princesses and princes over the years. I’m sure some folks will work themselves in a tizzy of Loki’s in-cannon bisexual status.

I’m in more of the camp that these super villains don’t need a love life beyond what occurred before they became evil (see Dr. Doom. Darkseid, Sinestro, Magneto). It’s hard for me to imagine Dr. Doom getting chewed out by his wife/girlfriend because his armor is making too much noise. “Hey Victor, you mind getting some WD-40 in that???”

The set designs this episode were incredible. They featured a mesmerizing dark, neon-drenched color scheme that looked like Loki traveled to a Blade Runner world bathed in purple. The rollout of the Disney+ shows has been smart on this front as we go from decade jumping with WandaVision, a grounded, reality based The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to otherworldly backdrops in Loki.

Sylvie and Loki hope onto the ark that’s taking all the rich people to a sanctuary away from the planetary destruction, but Loki gets hammered and promptly gets thrown off. Sylvie jumps out too since Loki’s her (actual) ticket out of here. Too bad the Tempat broke so they’re both stuck.

They try one last gamble to catch up to the ark before it departs from the next station, but those plans blow up as the ark gets destroyed from the latest round of moon debris. Anyone got the warranty for this thing?

Lamentis didn’t advance the seasonas much as it probably should for the halfway point. Still, it was still a solid episode thanks to Hiddleston and Di Martino’s strong interaction and the enchanting production designs.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney+

Grab the Marvel Legends Disney+ Loki figure from Amazon.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Leave a Reply Cancel reply