ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - LOKI Episode 4 REVIEW - How That Ending Creates AVENGERS: SECRET WARS!

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

ScreenCrush Rewind tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie, and let's talk about that huge cliffhanger of Loki Season 4 and where the show is at right now. I have a theory on that ending that's going to directly set up Secret Wars that you don't want to miss. And a little later, I'm going to hear from our friends Adam and Colton to get their thoughts. But first, here's my take on what's going on here. This season, Loki is fighting a real uphill battle. What do you mean by that? Well, first of all, it debuted the day after Assoca ended during Thursday night football. So there was a lot of people who didn't realize the show was even on. And the actors can't promote the show because they're all on strike,

which, by the way, how the hell is that strike still going on? Studios pay these actors what they're worth and get them back to work. But apart from the lack of promotion, fan enthusiasm for the MCU is at a bit of a low tide. Fans feel burned by the sloppiness of secret invasion, and there's so much Marvel out there that it's starting to be devalued in the eyes of fans. There used to be this feeling that everything that was Marvel matters. mattered. You had to watch every chapter to understand the full story. And now, well, it's kind of hard to know what's important and what's not. But shouldn't art simply exist as art that is enjoyable and fun to watch? And not because consumers are pressure to consume as much content as possible?

Yes, but look, this show, Loki, is both good and important for the MCU. This is not only setting the stage for the Multiverse saga in a kick-ass Avenger Secret Wars movie, but this is some of the best character work we've ever seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it has been an absolutely. joy covering this show, making breakdown videos, and theorizing with all of you. Shows like this are really special for all of us because it's a moment when we can be excited or disappointed about something together. And I'm saying all this because it's true. We are only here because of you. And without your support, this channel would not exist. This is not my channel. This is our channel. I want to thank all of you so much for shopping at our new merch store at Screencrushmerch.com. Now, we designed all of these shirts ourselves

with Loki-inspired merch like Doug is Loki, the Miss Minutes Dolly Clock, and the way more creepy miss minutes I'll be your girl pet up shirt now my two favorite collections from this line though are the variant pull over and zip up hoodies and notice that colton did this really cool parody of the tva logo to make it look like a VHS screencrush tape and it reads be kind rewind always and my personal favorite is the usual variant shirt made to mimic the usual suspects movie poster but it parodies time travelers from all of film and tv including marty and doc terminator dr who and ash from the evil dead again thank all of you for shopping at our merch store and if you don't shop our merch store, thanks for listening to me talk about it in every video. You guys rock. Now, this season of

Loki has also seen the writers really challenge themselves. Now, the first season had a pretty basic premise. A couple of outcasts elude a fascist organization that wants to kill them. It's like you cross time bandits with Brazil, a Terry Gillian bouillia by ass. But this season is a lot more complex and nuanced. After the death of He Who Remains, the TVA is searching for its purpose. Do they prune or not to prune? And if they're not there to prune, why even maintain the TVA? Now, on a more meta level, this is like Loki, the show, is going through an identity crisis. The characters aren't sure of their goals, so it may feel like the show is aimless. But for me, this makes the story feel more human.

I feel like we're getting to see a lot of characters work through their emotions and question what they want out of life. Loki is still doubting whether or not he can be a hero. You're a villain. And Brad is a TVA worker who goes AWOL and wants a real life. I burned my life. Ravone has discovered that personal power means way more to her than her mission for the TVA, and Sylvie is forced to question her life's purpose, and poor Mobius can't even bring himself to stop seeing the shadows in Plato's cave.

You never wanted to visit your place on the timeline? Look, that's the last thing I should be thinking about. And who would have thought that the person with the greatest compassion for variance would be Hunter B-15, the toughest screw whoever did a turn in the TVA? So this season does have a more nuanced story that also tends to grind the show to a halt. This season, as great as it is, features a lot of gone somewhere, and then returning to the TVA, as opposed to season one, where we were always on the move somewhere. There was always a destination, a place for us to go.

And I feel like episode two and four of this season have had a lot of starting and stopping, where we're not always 100% sure what the characters want. But the characters are also still working out what they want for themselves. Makes for a more human story, but it can also kind of muddle a six-episode narrative. Like, look, the TVA is cool. It looks really cool, but it's not necessarily a place I want to spend a lot of time in, especially in a time-travel show where characters can go to any time and place

in the entire multiverse. And some of this show feels very rushed, like the TVA rebellion. Like that whole fight at the end of episode two, that could have been stretched out a lot more. We could have gotten to know docs a little bit better, maybe even sympathize with their views. Now, I do still think that we're going to see a younger docs because this season is going to show us the past TVA. She tells Brad the warnings were real, so I think we're actually going to see those warnings in the past. But regardless, I'm glad this episode ends with the apparent destruction of TVA because I'm getting kind of sick of the place. I just feel like this show and a lot of Marvel shows can just use a little bit more brief.

breathing room, but there is still so much to love in this show. Majors is a fantastic actor, and Episode 3 was the high point of the season so far, and I love the timey-wimy, twisty logic of the aura of Boris Loop. Your work is based on his work, and his work is based on your work. Exactly which came first. It's like a snake eating its own tail. Like, I know this show is not telling a straightforward narrative, and I don't think it has to.

I think we will look back on everything after Episode 6, and it's all going to make sense. And, back to what I was saying earlier, about how everything in the MCU used to feel like a must watch, I think that what they're setting up here is the origin of Kang and He Who Remains. But when the Avengers movies roll around, all this is going to be background information. So if you know the full story, great. And if not, we'll still be able to enjoy the big team-up movie where the Fantastic Four are going to meet Ben Afflex Daredevil. That's going to happen?

Dude, it's the multiverse. Everything is going to happen. So that's my thoughts on the episode. And I got a really big theory about where this is going in the last two episodes we're going to talk about later on. But first, I have to hear from our good friends, Adam Lloyd, and Colton Ogburn. Now, Colton, remember, is the guy who. lives in our television, he's trapped there eternally, but he does not know that, so please

don't tell him. Welcome, guys. Thanks for joining me. Adam, I want to start with you because you haven't been on here. I talk about Loki. You have been on in a while. Matter of fact, congratulations. You're a WGA worker who was on strike. You got a good settlement, Mazel tov. We did. Thank you. What are your thoughts on this episode and the show thus far? Oh, man. Well, I'll be honest. Like, if this is how we're going to start phase five, I am into it. I honestly think that this is probably the best thing I've seen out of Marvel in a very long time. And I just, like I said, I'm totally here for it. And it's not just like from a fan point of view.

Like I'm looking at it from like cinematic and directing and the performances. It's just all so good this Eaton. And I just honestly can't get enough of it, especially that last episode, which had me like freaking out actually. Yeah. And like you said, I feel like, if this would have come earlier in phase five, you know, the phase would have been off to an even better start, but I get that it had to come after quantum mania and things like that because it directly sets it up. But for you, what is it specifically about this that makes you like really

stoked for where the multiverse saga is going? Well, it's, I mean, well, everything about this show, every, every episode that we get, you're always asking new questions. And like, it's just great TV. I mean, there's comedy, there's mystery, there's horror, there's a love story. And there's just also so many questions that we can now like start asking like why. And I feel like in the whole big puzzle of Marvel, we're finally being able to put some pieces together to see where we're actually going forward. And I wouldn't be surprised, honestly, if this whole entire series ends right where it started at the end of quantum mania. And when we got that look into like Victor timely in the 20s and stuff like that, I feel like we're going to end up somewhere back

that's going to explain maybe why Quantummania did what it did at the end of that movie or what it's setting up for down the road. Sorry, so when you see the end of Quantumania, I know you're not talking about the post-credit scene that we saw on this. Do you mean the Council of Kang scene or the end is like when Kang was sucked on the problem? Okay. So what do you mean? Like we may end with that council of Kang's? I think so. Like it would be very interesting for me to You were weird. I know.

Because you have to remember at the end of that quantum man post-credit scene, you know, all of them together at that huge, cool-looking place

that looked like they were outside of all the different timelines. And you looked like it was the palace at the end of time. Yeah, yeah. Correct. Yeah.

And then you had a mortis saying like, they're beginning to touch the multiverse and we're in it right now, I think. I mean, especially at the end of episode four, this is just one of my theories.

Like, I think, that he who remains must have set some kind of fail safe. Like if his temporal aura was ever used to reboot or to like fix a problem in a TVA, something would then trigger this huge like reboot that we just saw at the end, where every when they went to white. So I wouldn't be surprised. It's funny.

Yeah, go for it. And funny you should mention that because just yesterday or a day before, I can't remember, Colton wrote a video for us here at ScreenCrow. that had a very similar thought about how he who remains temporal aura and he who remains failsafe. Colton, do you want to like run us through the gist of that theory about what happened at the end? Yeah, sure. I theorized that the moment we see Victor timely walk into the temporal loom room and he has turned to spaghetti. I think it's important that we look back to quantum mania Because like you were just saying, Adam, I think that Loki and Quantummania are very closely connected.

So, you know, in Quantummania, we saw what did we see when Scott got close to the multiversal core? He went into a probability storm, creating variants of himself with various different, like, you know, decisions he could have made. So I think that's the same thing we're seeing happening here with Victor Timely. I think that moment that he spaghetified, he may have simultaneously entered a probability store. storm creating every version of King that there could possibly be and at the same time we see the loom explode so that could have

spread every possible variant across all of time and space. Because it basically disperses his temporal aura and I think it's you know I mentioned this after episode three but the most important thing I think that happened in episode three was there was a distinction in Chicago between the

sacred timeline when they arrive with the book and the branch timeline which so when the event happened so for whatever reason that timeline had to branch, the TVA had to be destroyed or had to not be operating to allow that timeline to branch where he remains to come back around again. There's tons of other things. There's tons of other like little tiny mysteries that like I personally as a fan like would just love to see. Like I think, you know, Ryan, I was talking with you the other day about the idea of variance and how I think the MCU going down the line is going

to have to explain how a bunch of variants can look the same and how a bunch of other variants can look totally different, like Sylvie and... They're never going to explain that. That's the kind of thing that like in Star Wars would be in a comic book

or a novel. No one's ever going to... They're not thinking it out. They would have to figure it out for themselves. Yeah, they don't know. There's no plan. I mean, there's a plan. But I don't think that they go through and they specifically will plan out things like that

and reasons for that. True. I could be wrong about that. But that just brings me to my, like, wildest theories of, like, man, I'm watching Robona Renslayer in this last episode, and she has me freaked out. Like, I haven't seen someone be so sadistic and angry and mad other than I've seen He Who Remains or Kang.

So that got me thinking, is, are they going to make Renslayer? variant of Kang like the way Sylvie is to Loki. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. Yeah. I think there could still, there's still a love story there because Loki and Sylvie, you know, they got their thing going on. And we all know in the comics that Ravona and Kang got it going on as well. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of that line, the Royal Tennebombs, whenever Richie falls in love with his adopted sister, Margo, and Gene Hackman. And he's like, well, I don't think it's illegal. We're not related by And Gene Hackman says,

Still frowned upon. But then what isn't these days right? Yeah, it's like that clip. So, Colton, what do you think? What were your thoughts on this episode? I loved it. I, you know, I've said in previous talkbacks, I love season one.

I'm loving season two. I think this was probably my favorite episode of season two. I loved seeing all the characters together. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I loved seeing timely and OB meet. When he reacts to Obie, when he goes, he meets O.B., I thought that was so cool. You know, drama aside with Jonathan Majors, I don't know what's going on. So, you know, putting that aside, he is brilliant at playing these different versions of the character.

And I love that they're exploring that. I think he's doing great as Victor. Like you said, Adam, this series has so many different genres within it. It's so funny. The scene between Loki and Mobius, when they're arguing over whose turn it is, and Mobius is like, they all have a helmet on it. Yeah. Yeah, but Mobius goes, because this is clearly not me. That had me laughing.

It was hilarious. But like you also said, dark, Miss Minutes. Oh, my God. That smile on her face when they were crushing all those people together. It was sick. It was sedent. I do got to call out Marvel and Disney Plus, though, for just not

having the... Show us the bodies, you cowards. Show us the goo. Show us the disgusting pile of goo on the ground. Star Wars, right? New Hope, totally a kid's movie. We saw the burned husse of Owen and Aunt Brew. So I wanted to see in detail, blood, brains.

I wanted the road kill of all those TV agents. But credit. I guess they just would have been condensed into a little cube, though, right? Like, isn't that kind of... But I do want to give credit to the actress who plays B-15, the reaction on her page when she walked into that room. Yeah, and Raphael Casal. Yeah, it told me what I was looking at.

I mean, do you get... And she did the same thing. The scene with the timelines being pruned, right? She was so excellent at that. Like, we're looking at an Atari screen, right? And she totally sold it. Sorry, I was going to say a couple things I was going to wonder. Like, do you guys think that that was probably the darkest

moment so far in the MCU of the crushing of those innocent people right before our faces and I well it also kind of brings me back to like the actress who plays B-15 she's the only one

who is giving us the performance of we need to feel bad for these other people that we're not seeing die like she's the one looking at the Atari screen going those are people when they're pruning all those timelines Yeah, like the TVA is committing mass genocide right in front of us, you know, and then just what Colton said, when she's looking at the goo on the floor of that compression scene, it's heartbreaking.

And it's like, oh, thank you for your performance. The, the darkest moment in the MCU is Lila Teeson-Fillard. That's the darkest moment of the MCU. I can't even really talk about it still. As far as the actor's performance, it's, you know, what I was talking about earlier before you guys came on, with the TVA kind of having this identity crisis and trying to figure out, like, who are we now? You know, last season was such a straightforward message, and this season, I feel like, has been a little bit more nuanced, and the TVA and the characters trying to decide who they want to be, you know, like, why are we worthy of survival is the central question. I think in our Easter egg video, I compared that to Battlestar Galatka, which makes for less exciting television. I think that, like, especially in episode two and maybe in this episode, I felt like a little bit of sputter, a little bit of start-stop, and a little bit of, like, the show itself is having an identity crisis.

But, like you guys have both said, there is so much fun theorizing to do. Colton, do you have any fun theories for, like, where you think this is going to go that we haven't talked about yet? Check out that King video. Really happy with that. It's a really good one. Yeah, it turned out pretty great. I do have another one. I, that scene where, okay, so the whole episode, Sylvie seems uncomfortable.

She doesn't really feel comfortable with what's going on. She doesn't know if she should have killed Victor. She just seems uneasy. And the look on her face when Obi and Victor shake hands is just like this look of disgust that I actually didn't catch until the second time I watched it. She seems scared. And then you have that conversation between her and Loki, where she says something to the extent of, wouldn't it just be easier to burn this place to the ground and start over? And that, to me, sounded exactly like Kang or He Who Remains, who did exactly that.

Didn't try to repair the broken multiverse, burn the thing to the ground and start it over with his own thing. So to hear Sylvie say, wouldn't it be easier instead of fixing it to just burn it to the ground and start over? And she seemingly didn't even realize that she was sounding like him. And then you have Loki come in and say, well, you know, it's the harder thing to do, but it's the right thing to do is to try to fix what's broken. So I think this is, and then you have the great line where he says, we are gods and they have that conversation. I think that was all foreshadowing something we've talked about before, which is I think that these two Loki's are destined to find their glorious purpose, which is overseeing whatever the multiverse looks like. come the end of Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. I do think that that is their purpose and the journey that they're going down. I think that is one of the key reasons that they were chosen as the

characters to showcase so much about the multiverse and Kang and all of that. I think that's all going to pay off. And then eventually whenever we do see the MCU reboot or whatever, I think that we could see Tom Hiddleston stick around and become like this kind of like omnipotent being that maybe cameos every once in a while as the guy that kind of sees over time. I think that'd be really fun. Well, first of all, you know what you said about Sylvie being the one who says tear it all down. The reason she's like that, and this is so great, it goes back to the question the show has over free will versus determinism. The reason she is like that is because that is the path he who remains wanted her to fulfill. He wanted her to burn it all down, stab him in the chest,

the whole thing starts again. Yeah. That is her reason for existing, whether she acknowledges that's the reason she's like that or not, right? Adam, what do you think? What is your, like, end game for Secret Wars, or where do you think? Well, I kind of agree with Colton. I do. There are some, like, little tiny hints as to, like, Loki and Sylvie maybe becoming the ones to rule over all of time in the multiverse.

And that's in, like, the cinematography of what we've already been seeing through episodes one through four. And something I'm going to shout out to, like, I'm going to scream it from the top of my lungs, is there is, like, visual representation of the TVA to me representing a new kind of Asgard for Loki. And I say that with the whole loom area looking like the rainbow bridge to the bifrost, it shoots something out towards, like, all of time and space. And when I first saw that shot, you know, Tom Hilton is, like, lined up right in the center of that frame. He's also, throughout a lot of the show, is always dead center in all of these shots. And he has those crown horns over him in Obie's lab.

Excuse me. So that just kind of like tells me that maybe this is going to finally be the kingdom that Loki gets to rule. And he kind of has to come to that decision himself, I think, because this is a Loki that has gone through a whole entire character arc. Like, and it's not our Loki that we have to remember. like this isn't the loki from the originals that we got to watch and see die in endgame or infinity war excuse me this is a new loki who we're all coming to know and love who's going through the motions he has friends now he has things to fight for so i do honestly believe that he would take up that mantle of well if something needs to be protected i'm the only one that's going to be able to do it

because he can have finally that empathy towards other people uh wanting to protect them And it seems like his character growth is that he doesn't want a throne, but he's still going to take it, like, reluctantly accept the mantle of leadership, unless the villain Loki's still in there, and this has been, and he's still doing exactly what he said all along when he arrives at TVA, his plan was to overthrow the timekeepers and rule. Might still be like that. Well, I think either way, Odin said it when Loki was a kid. He was destined to be a king, and I think that's in him. True. And I do think, and I just wanted to add one thing to what you said, Ryan, when you mentioned that Kang is the problem, I think you're exactly right. I recently rewatched Quantumania. Kang says, when Janet asks, like, why is all this? Because he says, oh, the multiverse is dying. There's all this going on. And she goes, yeah, but why? And he goes, whose fault is it? And he's like, mine. Yeah. And I think that with your point about leaving the book in the window and all of that, all of this could be avoided if Kang, the original variant would go down the original path he was meant to, which is probably just to be a brilliant 19th century scientist who, you know, goes down a different path than time travel and, you know, make some great discoveries and then dies. It never has a variant of himself, but he who remains is

unable to accept that. And that is why, so he can't take the simple path of just letting time flow the way it's supposed to. He has to be something more, but then that opens the game. of having to fight himself. And I think that's what's so brilliant about Victor timely is we see that ambition. You know, O.B. says to him, he could have been as good as Einstein. He was so limited by the challenge of his time.

We see that inner Kang that just can't have a partner, can't share power, and is desperate to prove himself. And episode three, which is my favorite episode of the season so far, did something else really subtly. It acknowledged racism within the Marvel Star. cinematic universe which doesn't happen often but there's a couple points where he's on stage there is a shocked gasp when the audience sees a black man on stage there's a part where he almost says to the white man in the audience um i know more than you think and he adds that in so

there's this element too i don't think he would have been a scientist i think that victor timely and that's probably not even his real name i think victor timely would have been a poor candle maker that went to the world's fair and saw these machines and could never even hope to achieve that. You know, how they got off this cycle is what's interesting. How they, how a-kang variant like initially, I know that when you're dealing with time travel, it was always supposed to happen, time travel, it always happened,

but there is something that the adventures are going to do that's going to take he who remains off of this path. Adam and Colton, thanks for talking to me. Everybody can find links to their socials right here or in the description below. You should follow both of them on all the things. They are great. Like all of this, the whole saga is leading up to Avengers Secret Wars.

Like in the comics, this will be an epic team up where probably every reality has converged into one patchwork planet where all these variants like are existing together. So Toby McGuire Spider-Man fighting beside Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, we will all feel young again and meet in peace at the end of time, yay nostalgia. And after that movie, the multiverse will never be a problem again, just like how the Infinity Stones will never be a problem again after endgame. Because the problem with the multiverse is Kang. If it weren't for all these Kang's vying for control, then the multiverse would be stable.

There would be the occasional character like America Chavez who can travel to other realities, but there would be no universe-destroying incursions if Kang hadn't gotten involved. But this show is showing us that the MCU is on a huge time loop, like He Who Remains said. You plunge your blade in my chest and an infinite amount would start another multiverse of war, and I just end up right back here anyways. Now remember, the key part of He Who Remain's plan was for Revenue. to get the TVA manual too young Victor Timely. Somehow, this is the event that leads to the creation of He Who Remains. If not for this event, Victor Timely never becomes an inventor and he dies a poor

candlemaker. Now, we have theorized that Timely is going to return as Kang and become He Who Remains, or maybe, like Coltson said, Timely is scattered across the timeline, creating all the different Kang variants. Either way, one thing is clear. If that book doesn't go through the window, then there is no Kang. So the Avengers are going to have to find a way to break this time loop, and the only way to break the loop is to, as DeNaris says, Break the wheel. I think that in the Kang Dynasty, the Avengers will find a way to basically stop the handbook

from going through that window. But the book going through the window has become a canon event, like they call it in Spider-Verse, or an absolute point in time, like they call it in what-if. Stopping this event will create a paradox that causes the multiverse to collapse in on itself. Then, just like in the comics, the heroes, or Kang, form battle world out of the remains of the multiverse.

So then the Avengers will be on this past, hatchwork planet with the one remaining variant, Victor Timely, aka Kang, aka He Who Remains. Right, they're the same guy? Yes, I do think they're going to end up being the same person. I think that all of this started because of Timely's desire to be hailed as the greatest scientist of his age. So, I mean, He Who Remains could have just not given his younger self the journal and saved everybody a lot of time and bloodshed. He Who Remains could have let his past self die a young candlemaker, but that is the one thing he could never do because he has to feed his ego. Yeah, but then what's all this leading to?

Well, I think the end game here is going to be that they're on battle world, they defeat Kang, and, just like in the 2015 Secret Wars comic, the heroes are going to, like, restart the multiverse, but this new multiverse is going to take elements from several different universes. Basically, it's going to be a soft reboot of the MCU. And in this new universe, there's going to be Deadpool, there's going to be X-Men, the Fantastic Four Spider-Man. Basically, all the heroes they've kind of put here and there in different places will now just exist in this reality. This would also give us a chance to maybe see Dr. Octopus for the first time,

not the Alfred Molina version, but a new version that would be like native to the MCU. At least that's what I hope's going to happen. What do you think is going to happen? What did you think of episode 4? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below or at me on Twitter. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Thank you.