ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - LOKI Finale REVIEW - Did Loki Season 2 Episode 6 SAVE MARVEL?

Episode Date: November 13, 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 p...anel 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Thanks Ipsos Isay for sponsoring this video. I might just wait here for a little bit. Let time pass. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. And let's talk about the finale of Loki. Heck, let's talk about the whole show. I think it stands up as one of the greatest things that Marvel has ever made.
Starting point is 00:00:18 But it wasn't perfect. I've got a few gripes I'm going to talk about a little bit later. And I'm also going to talk to Matt Singer and Colton Ogburn for their thoughts. And before we get started, everybody, I got a few reminders for you. We have lots of Loki-inspired merch at our merch store where we design the shirts ourselves. We have our very first screen crush live show next February in Brooklyn, New York, and you can buy tickets below. And now you can become a channel member to get fun new perks. Links for all of that are below, but now here is my take on this show. So I thought
Starting point is 00:00:43 that season two was a really great MCU story, like not as good as season one, but the overall story is like probably my second favorite Marvel television show after Wanda Vision. I loved all the time travel and weird sci-fi stuff, but the show worked because of its focus on Loki's character. I mean, Loki has been an endless well for Marvel Studios. He stood out as by far the best villain of Phase 1, Marvel rewrote Thor 2 to give him a larger role, and then, like, slowly, he began to actually evolve. Ragnarok showed Loki finally changing and fighting with his brother. Maybe you're not so bad after all, brother. Maybe not. But this show is the first truly in-depth character study that we've ever had in the MCU.
Starting point is 00:01:21 We really got to know Loki. We saw his worst memories. We broke down his psychology. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. Most superhero movies don't really get into this level of psychology with their heroes, and their villains are almost always reduced to one-note bad guys with skybeams. But that scene in episode 5, where Sylvie truly sees Loki, I mean, she makes him slowly admit his real reason for wanting to save the TVA. I want my friends back. I don't want to be alone. The strength of this show was always the buddy cop interplay between Mobius and Loki.
Starting point is 00:01:53 And that's what Loki, the character, loved about it too. He finally, after all these centuries, made a friend. Yeah, but is he really the most in-depth character study in the MCU? Well, Doug, like with Tony Stark, right, we got a touch of his backstory, his father issues, etc. But a lot of that was just background information. We never really saw how his past motivated his life in the present. But with Loki, we get this complete portrait of a boy who was raised on the outside, who always wanted to be let in, a boy who always wanted to be accepted and loved.
Starting point is 00:02:19 And on that level, as a character study, the finale was an incredible success. There was a reason the first and last episodes had the same title. this was the beginning of the journey that he started when he snatched away the Tesseract. And the way the show twisted his expression. Burdened with glorious purpose. Like we thought this was a series about Kang and the Multiversal War, but this was actually a series about Loki, learning that people don't serve a king, the king serves his people.
Starting point is 00:02:43 And even beyond all the character range that we see, this was a clever show working at the height of its intelligence. It had these governing themes about free will versus determinism and using those themes to tell stories with retrocausality and an auriborous loop. What is this monstrosity? Or what is it now? I come to rent, Angley's the Hawk, and I find that you are only carrying the full-screen DVD! This is an insult to cinema!
Starting point is 00:03:04 How is one to appreciate the bold split-screen transitions without access to the entirety of the screen? Yeah, I'm not sure all those split-screens worked. I mean, you could argue that... Hulk editor Tim Squires is a genius, sir! Why, one could argue that the film itself has many problems, transforming the absorbing man into Bruce's father, and how Angley made the decision to have every character confront their inner hawk... Okay, Doug, so I looked it up,
Starting point is 00:03:23 And the Angley Hulk widescreen DVD is $19 on Amazon. $19. I know, I don't have that kind of money. I don't even have pockets. Whatever can we do? Everybody panic! Actually, wait, I got us covered. I just got a $25 Amazon gift certificate from Ipsiosei, the sponsor of this video.
Starting point is 00:03:41 What's Ipsor's Isay? Oh, dude, Ipsi say is great. So you take part in research and answer some simple questions to earn some extra cash through gift cards and rewards. That's how I got the money to buy that Hulk movie. The surveys are fast and easy to complete, and they're tailored to my interest, so they never get boring. You know, like when you're watching TV and you're on your phone, you just fill out these surveys and you make money. So, click our link below and start earning your rewards from Ipsi i say. So back to Loki.
Starting point is 00:04:06 At this point, I feel like I know Loki way better than I ever knew Thor. In fact, it's ironic because Thor is supposed to be the dynamic character who grows in the first movie, but in the MCU, he keeps reverting back to his old ways, the self-obsessed cocky bro. Whereas, Loki, who was supposed to be locked in a perpetual loop of failure, turned out to be the dynamic character. And I think that's because Loki truly desired change. He wanted to be accepted, to be a better person. And once he's escaped his brother's shadow, he was able to succeed. The show is about a man freeing himself from his expectations and discovering a new found family.
Starting point is 00:04:40 And in some ways, Loki achieved what he always wanted. He has power. But the irony is that the power means he will always be alone. And it just brilliantly called back to his worst memory that we saw. in season one. You are alone and you always will be. But I also appreciated how this was able to be a part of the multiverse saga without being weighed down by it.
Starting point is 00:04:59 We had all sorts of fun fan theories about this show, how I'd bring in Kang, et cetera, and none of them mattered because the show was about Loki. I think that overconnecting to the multiverse saga can hurt a lot of projects like Quantum Mania because the movie is like so burdened with our expectations. Like at the end, Mobius has that throwaway line about Kang. I guess one of them caused a little bit of a ruckus on 616 adjacent realm, but they handled it, so we're all good for now. But you know what? That could still mean the Kang is going to come back, and he's just off
Starting point is 00:05:26 their radar. The TVA can now exist in future Marvel stories, existing more as a Temporo police like they do in the comics. And I appreciated that. I appreciated that the show did not exist just to set up the next Marvel thing. This is a show that serves its characters first, in the universe second, and that is a good thing. So that's all the nice things I have to say about the finale. I got some negative things I'll say later on, but first, I want to hear from Screencrush Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer and our very own Colton Ogburn. So Matt is the author of the just-released opposable thumbs, how Siskel and Ebert changed movies forever, and it's great.
Starting point is 00:05:56 I'm loving the book so far. And Colton, of course, is the guy who lives inside our television. He's trapped there forever, but he doesn't know it, so please don't tell him. Matt, I want to start with you because we have not been able to talk to you about Loki all season long. I have no idea apart from like you've not seemed to enjoy it from your reviews, but we haven't actually had a chance to speak about it. What were your thoughts on the finale and of this season of Loki so far? I feel like you bring me on these videos to be the person who draws attention away from you guys.
Starting point is 00:06:29 You get to be nice, and I'm the one who everyone hates because I'm the nays there. Not true. It might be true. Yeah, I saw a quote. Not true at all. Now, look, I usually co-host with a dog, so I'm usually cast as like the bad guy. Nobody can hate Doug, so... Here's what I would say about, like, Loki...
Starting point is 00:06:48 Like, now that it's over, and I'm looking at the whole thing this season. From a Marvel reader fan perspective, as a kid who grew up reading Marvel Comics, what this season reminded me of is when you would buy... When there was a big crossover storyline going on, and they would say, to get the full story, read this book and this book and this book, And there would be side mini-series, and they'd be like three issues, and they'd each be $4. And then you've spent, you know, to all of your money that week on these side issues, and you need to read them to understand what's happening. But then you go back and look at it as a story, and you're like, but so, okay, fine, now I know what's going.
Starting point is 00:07:32 Like, we've changed, you've moved pieces around the board, you've set things up for whatever comes next. but as like a separate story to me it like it didn't really live on its own it totally to me the whole season felt like they wrote themselves into a corner at the end of the last season
Starting point is 00:07:52 and then spent all of this season going okay well now we're going to undo that and put all the pieces in this way like it was it was all plot plot plot plot plot plot plot plot it was all we got to do this we got to fix this we got to go here we got to do this and what I loved about the first
Starting point is 00:08:08 season of Loki was, yeah, it had some of those things, but like, I don't know, it felt like much more of a showcase for these people, these characters, um, the relationships between them, between Loki and Sylvie and Mobius and this season, it just felt like, like, like one of these side miniseries, you know, where, you know, World War Hulk colon, frontline or something like that, you know, one of those books, where it's all about maintaining continuity or, you know, there's something in the continuity that doesn't work and we got to fix it and put things in the right place for the next part of the big story. After enjoying the first season, which really felt like its own thing and had all these great characters and was interesting, this one to me
Starting point is 00:08:55 felt like, yeah, it was just like kind of, no pun intended, like marking time and pushing pieces around and sort of playing with kind of high-minded questions about free will and the nature of time and choice, but kind of stripped from, like, the characters for the most part. I guess in this last episode, yeah, you do see Loki kind of thinking about that. But I, but by and large, the whole season, like, I'm just looking at this, the TVA and going, why does it still exist? What do these people think about what they're doing? Is what they are doing good?
Starting point is 00:09:29 Is it bad? Do they not even know if it's good or bad? Where, like, it just, again, it just, it felt like all of that stuff was kind of, of missing or just not focused on to the extent that I wanted. And what was left was kind of this, it was just, it felt very short, very abrupt. You know, when you look back on like what actually happened, it's six episodes. And we could probably describe the important things that happen in a couple of sentences, really. Well, one thing I agree with completely, and I think it's a really astute observation, is as a comic book reader, this is like a spin-off side story,
Starting point is 00:10:05 right? Sometimes those side stories could be really good. Sometimes they fit in really well with the characters. Like there was original sin is probably my least favorite recent Marvel crossover, but they tied it in with Thor and Jason Aaron, basically an original sin. Thor gets told basically that he's unworthy, then he can't pick up the hammer. It leads to this great storyline. That is the exception to this rule, though. I think normally those stories are terrible because they're too focused on connecting to the overall story and they're not focused on the character. I thought this series, like I agree with you that it was too short, but I loved how it serviced Loki first, like I was talking about earlier. I think that it did a great job of saying, well,
Starting point is 00:10:43 what is it that makes a Loki tick? And I think the finale kind of brought that to a logical conclusion. He's afraid of being alone. His glorious purpose is to be alone to save everybody. Colton, what about you? Did you think that the series was too short? Did it service the character? How did they wrap it all up? I genuinely adore this show like I know in our review for the marvels
Starting point is 00:11:07 I said it was generic Marvel which is better than bad so I'll give it a thumbs up I genuinely like Loki the first season the second season and I think that what is great about the story like you guys are talking about how
Starting point is 00:11:22 you know the spinoff and its connection to like the greater Marvel universe I think that is definitely what hurts this show I think on its own, season one, season two of Loki, just, hell, it doesn't even, I think this story, exactly how it is, disconnected from Marvel, just a story not connected to the Marvel comics or anything, the Marvel universe would work. I feel like it is a fun, time travel, sci-fi show that really works, and it's when you do try to, oh, well, how does it connect to Kang Dynasty and
Starting point is 00:11:56 Secret Wars, you know, where's that quantumania Kang guy and how does all that tie in? I think that's where the show starts to get confusing, like where we might start to ask questions. Well, how does this connect and all that? But on its own, I think it works. And I do want to brag a little bit on my behalf and your behalf as well, Ryan. I feel like we called a lot of stuff that ended up happening in this movie late. Well, to be fair, yeah, you throw enough at the wall, something's going to stick. Yeah, the best baseball players fail seven out of ten times.
Starting point is 00:12:28 But I will say I do feel vindicated on our theory that we did before season two came out talking about how the Loki being the new Tony Stark and how he's going to make this ultimate sacrifice and that that is how he will discover his glorious purpose. We talked about how he does belong on a throne. And to give the writers credit, that's exactly what they've been setting up since season one episode one. I was very happy to see that fulfilled. I think that this could have worked probably as a 12-episode single season, like just one, you know, a one-and-done show. It could have worked. But, yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Starting point is 00:13:09 I love the season finale. I love the Groundhog Day stuff. It felt like we missed the second act. Like, you know, when Loki goes back to the TVA and, like, he's finishing Mobius' lines and stuff. Like, he's been there before. Meaning the second act of Groundhog Day? like they just kind of like sped speed run through that. Well, no, I feel like we missed that, you know, because they say centuries later.
Starting point is 00:13:31 So we missed all like the part of like him doing it again and again and again, but it still worked. Like I still laughed and thought it was funny when he, when Mobius started to say something and Loki's like, oh, I'm coming for your job. You better watch out. It still worked and it showed just how long he had been going at this. So I thought that worked well and just overall. I think the season was handled really well. Even right down to little things, like, it's going to roll off the catwalk if you put it down. Yes.
Starting point is 00:14:00 Remember, to me, it's like, what does it remind me of? Like the ambulance missions in Grand Theft Auto Vice City, or any kind of video game where you're like, like especially on the Nintendo before you could save games and you just had to remember every small detail of what could possibly happen and which like little flappy bird was going to hit you in the face and make you die. That's what it reminded me of, but I love to his patience. his like just tenderness and care and patience with it like loki's a guy who i think always enjoyed a project and i think that did come through in the finale um matt did you what do you think that was it a good character study at least for this main character do you feel like you know more about
Starting point is 00:14:36 loki at the end of the journey than you did at the beginning um yeah to some extent i suppose i guess but um you know what saying like what colton is saying about you know that he liked it as a stand-alone thing and maybe less when it's connecting to other stuff. But isn't the whole movie about connecting to other stuff? I mean, the whole show, rather. I mean, I felt like a lot of it was about He Who Remains and Kang and the Multiversal War and this. And like, to me, it was so wrapped up in all of that stuff. And, you know, like, again, with the first season, the stuff that I liked that I felt was kind of missing was not just Loki, but like, the relationships between the characters, between the people in the TVA, and what they're doing there
Starting point is 00:15:26 and why and what's been taken from them and how they approach their jobs and what they think about their jobs. You know, this season, it felt like there was a lot less time for those sorts of things, and I often found myself wondering, like, what do any of these people think about anything that's going on? They're just constantly running around trying to fix the loom, the temper loom. The thing that I wrote about this show that I still stand by is that, like, the most interesting thing about it was how the show as a whole really felt to me like it worked as like this long metaphor for Marvel right now, where it's like... Where it's like you see, like you read these stories like we saw and I think it was the Hollywood reporter about how all these projects are going through endless rewrites and there's all this chaos behind the scenes allegedly.
Starting point is 00:16:18 that's what these articles say and then you have the show where it's like all these people running around trying to prevent the multiverse from being destroyed and they're constantly like trying to stay one step ahead of total entropy and it just like that's the vibe of the marvels that's the vibe
Starting point is 00:16:36 of a lot of what they make lately where it's like are they pulling it off they're like yeah they're just they're like this close to disaster at every moment and you're just hoping that they can keep kind of keep the balls up in the air the whole time. And so that was really my favorite part of this season of the show,
Starting point is 00:16:57 was that it felt like a very self-referential text, probably not intentionally, but I enjoyed looking at it on that level and seeing it as this kind of elaborate metaphor for the creative process at Marvel right now. Yeah, and that is, like I said, a fantastic piece on the site. You should really check it out. Matt does a great job of summarizing these variety pieces and the Hollywood Reporter piece.
Starting point is 00:17:21 Just about, you know, all the behind-the-scenes trouble at Marvel right now. And I do agree, like we talked about the Marvels yesterday, about how that movie could have used a little more time. I think this season, like I'll talk about in a little bit, could have used a couple more episodes. But I found it really refreshing that so many of our fan theories were proven wrong and that it didn't, that the other Kangs in the Multiversal War are looming, but they are not key to this ending, right? I agree with Colton and that you could watch these 12 episodes and the show would make sense self-contained. I think the fact that they went for a character-based ending
Starting point is 00:17:55 that services this character is actually, for Marvel, a pretty brave move because we would expect them to end with Kang coming out of the temporal loom and saying thank you and taking control of the TVA or something like that. And instead, I think we got this really nice status quo of the TVA is now policing timelines. They're going to be around.
Starting point is 00:18:14 They're more like the TVA. in the comics, so they're available for creatives to use without, like, shutting that door. And I love that the ending seemed to come around in service character. Well, and my point about it working on its own is, yes,
Starting point is 00:18:29 when you have multiversal war and this man at the end of time and all of that, I think that works as an interesting lore for a show on its own. Like, take a show like Silo. I don't know if you guys have seen Silo, but it's about these people... It's like an apocalyptic
Starting point is 00:18:45 sci-fi show and it works and the whole thing is we have no idea what went on we know that it's lies but that's not what the show is about the show is about the characters within the silo and them living their life so i my point about how it being connected to an overall universe hurts it is because we can't just take oh there's this man at the end of time oh there was a multiversal war as this type of lore that sets up this sci-fi show we know because it's connected to marvel and just you know as the audience we know, oh, well, this guy is King the Conqueror. So how is that going to connect to this? That's what I meant by it, I feel like it really works on its own, but then by it being
Starting point is 00:19:25 connected to Marvel, it makes us expect more from it that I don't think was necessary to just tell that story. It's because it's connected to a larger universe that makes you go, oh, well, even though you've done a good job at explaining enough for this story to make sense, I have 10 other questions about how it's going to connect to this next thing. Matt, do you think that, you know, you and I are like longtime Marvel comic book readers, and Marvel is unusual among, you know, the Marvel DC and Image because they've kept their continuity.
Starting point is 00:19:56 You know, they've done like Secret Wars, which was kind of a very soft reboot, but it's been the same universe throughout. And as a result, I think a lot of readers, maybe newer readers especially, were turned off from the comics, it was too much, why Spider-Man got a wife, he's not married on the TV show, that kind of thing. Do you feel like the MCU is kind of getting to that point where their strength of the MCU was always their shared continuity, but now is it becoming their weakness? Yeah, kind of. I mean, maybe not so much on Loki, but it's something that I, I mean, we talked about a lot in our Marvel's video when we're talking about, there's a movie and a TV show this year starring Nick Fury, and they seem like two totally different guys, and it's kind of hard to reconcile the two of them as being the same person. And that's something that I feel like in earlier eras of Marvel Studios, that never happened.
Starting point is 00:20:43 The thing that they did so well was that that continuity of character, to say nothing about continuity of stories. Like the characters always felt so like kind of locked in and on point. And I don't know that I necessarily noticed it with Loki as much, but I certainly noticed it in the Marvels. And in general, yeah, I mean, it's, this is a thing that. that kind of faces any, you know, sort of big, large story on this scale, is that it eventually becomes so unwieldy that it has to be addressed in some way, whether that is, you know, like a crisis on infinite Earths or a secret wars or some kind of way to reconcile, you know, how all of these things can live together. It's kind of a double-edged sword. It's like,
Starting point is 00:21:33 on the one hand, one of the pleasures of these sorts of universes is that the, the pieces all fit together. And you kind of encourage your audience to think of them in that way, to juggle all the elements and to think about them as this huge tapestry of stories. But then the bigger they get, the harder they are to maintain. And the easier it is to lose track of different pieces or to drop things or to find, you know, to go down avenues where suddenly things aren't making sense or characters have to behave totally differently in different things. And then you have to, you've got to figure out a way out of that. So yeah, I mean, I do think that that's something that Marvel is starting to struggle with a little bit. And so, you know, we already know that
Starting point is 00:22:19 they're doing a movie version of Secret Wars. And it would not surprise me if the end of that is some sort of, I mean, certainly it's going to end in some way with kind of consolidating a lot of stuff, but whether it might even have some sort of reboot of some kind, like you said, the comic book version was more of like a soft reboot or just kind of a streamlining, let's say, which, I mean, that could be the ultimate goal of what they're going to do. Because, yeah, at a certain point,
Starting point is 00:22:47 I mean, this has been going on for like 15 years now. Long time. That's a lot of stuff. But Star Trek's been going on for even longer. You know, and Star Trek found a way to, you know, reinvent itself with each new show or movie. Yeah. And there's 30 movies and however many hours of TV shows. For a new entry-like, double fan. That's a lot of homework.
Starting point is 00:23:08 Yeah, I think that they are definitely heading toward like some kind of reboot. I think it was fun of them to say, you know what, there's already these Fox movies that people love. Let's give those movies a good send-off because like Kevin Feige's first Marvel project was the first X-Men movie where he was associate producer. So I think that they've
Starting point is 00:23:23 had a very clear idea of long game and maybe some along the way some of the short game has fallen to the sidelines. Colton, were you about to say? Yeah, I feel like we've known this was coming, that it was going to get too big. I remember at the end of Avengers 2, Age of Ultron, when they bring in, you know, War Machine and Vision and Scarlet Witch and
Starting point is 00:23:48 they're setting up this new team of Avengers. I remember having the thought of, is this a little much? How are they going to, you know, handle all these characters? And I mean, then compare that to now, it's very tame compared to what we had then. So, and while it worked after Ultron, we had Infinity War. I remember having concerns before Infinity War came out, that it was just going to be too much. It ended up working, but now it's grown even more. And so I do agree that they're definitely going to have to, at some point, reboot, like an end story reboot after Secret Wars. And they've got to go back to the tighter interconnected storytelling.
Starting point is 00:24:28 When you have interconnected storytelling this big, it does become messy, and it gets to a point where you have to start dividing it up. I remember a few years ago at Comic-Con, Fige gave this interview where he's like, we're going to have this section of the MCU, this section, this section, like street level, Spider-Man will be there,
Starting point is 00:24:45 then we have the cosmic, all that. I think when you get to that point where you're cutting up your connected universe into different things that maybe on their own don't work, that that becomes a problem. So I do think it's important that they just pick their key characters, their key stories,
Starting point is 00:25:03 just a few and kind of dial that back into one story and kind of do a, you know, like a renaissance and go back to that phase one of the MCU. I think that's their ticket out of this problem they've kind of found themselves in. You do hit a point where your stories start becoming content, and I think that's where, you know, you need to pump the brakes a little bit or at least be a little bit more careful about how you interconnect things. I will say that as a comic book fan, I would look forward to a reboot because I want to see Tony Stark and Steve Rogers interact with the X-Men. men and the Fantastic Four, like, we're not done with the potential of those characters on the big screen and a million other characters. Like, I'm really looking forward to Sam Wilson's Captain America, all that stuff. I'm not trying to stay replacing them, but I'm saying that like in the future, just like you can recash James Bond, you could, I mean, they recast Spock and Kirk. If they can
Starting point is 00:25:52 pull that off, they can pull off a new Tony Stark. So I am hoping that in the reboot, we have people who are excited to come in and just tell new stories, depending on like, you know, how much of a reboot it is. So that's all the nice things that I had to say, Matt, Colton, thank you again for joining me. Now I want to tell you guys what I didn't like. Just a reminder, you can read Matt's stuff on screencrush.com, the new book opposable thumbs. Colton is on here on the channel, writing, being on camera all the time, subscribe and follow them on all the social media links we've listed below. Now, I thought season one was overall a lot stronger than season two. Like it benefited from a simpler story with very clear stakes. Two heroes are trying to stop the oppressive
Starting point is 00:26:28 bureaucratic agency that is built on lies. This season dealt with the aftermath of the the overthrow of fascism, which is never as exciting, but it can still be interesting. We had some big questions and discussions in this season, with the TVA leadership trying to define who they are in this new status quo. And I feel like the show just needed a bit more breathing room to make that happen. I mean, there were just not enough episodes. Episode one is this like straightforward, we're all going to die, Loki's going to time slip and die plot. And then episode two slammed on the brakes as they're looking for Sylvie, looking for Brad. While the story, the actual story, was about Doc's pruning timelines. And that didn't really become a problem
Starting point is 00:27:00 until the very end of the episode and it was wrapped up within five minutes. So I feel like that element of the story should have been like way more of a focus for a while. We should have seen more of Docs and Brad and had people we could identify with on the other side of that civil war. But instead, the show barely has time to revisit any of its subplots. I mean, okay, Mobius doesn't want to see himself in the timeline and Sylvie just wants to kill Jonathan Majors. And that's about it. I mean, even the conversation between Mobius and Sylvie is the only time we really get Mobius's desires explored. And it's just one conversation.
Starting point is 00:27:29 You would think the guy who loves jet skis would have leapt at the chance to, you know, just hop on a timeline somewhere and use one, but he does it, and I wanted a bit more of that. And that's a shame because a lot of these characters are really fun in the comics. In episode five, it's revealed that Hunter B-15 is actually named Verity, who becomes one of Loki's closest friends in the books. Like, she can always tell when somebody is lying, which makes her a fun foil for the god of lies. So that was kind of wasted here. We never got to see any of that interplay from the comics. Also, Ramona Rintzlayer was ultimately pointless and forgotten by the end of the season. And she was a dynamic villain that they benched in the finale.
Starting point is 00:28:02 I do think that we'll see this character again for sure. But if the season was about the battle for the soul of the TVA, I think that we could have seen her leading the rebellion more from the start, maybe instead of docs. But still, she did show that people in power often just want the power for themselves and not to serve a greater good. And you know, we got this crucial backstory between her and Mobius in the last episode when we learned that she had the courage to kill an eight-year-old kid and he didn't.
Starting point is 00:28:24 But we never really saw them resolve their relationship in the present day. And Brad also kind of went nowhere. Look, I guess I just wanted more episodes, like, to see these people do more. The slice and dice format of Marvel Disney Plus shows is not conducive to long-form television. Like, I'm glad they're finally correcting that, and I'm really excited for the shows to come. But really, I guess I'm complaining about what's not in the show. What is in the show is fantastic. Marvel can still make incredible engaging TV that leaves you wanting more, and the future looks bright.
Starting point is 00:28:51 Well, guys, that's just my thoughts on the Loki Season 2 finale and the season as a whole. Just a reminder, down below, we have links to our merch store. to our live show where you can buy tickets for next February, and you can become a channel member and get custom emojis and lots of other fun stuff. And another thing! The split screen's in the Hawk were an homage to the brilliant works of Brian De Palma and the Patty Duke Show, not to mention the life of the Mac... Dude, look, we bought an actual Blu-ray of Angles the Hawk with money that I made on Ipsos Isay.
Starting point is 00:29:17 So are we cool now? Oh, yeah, we're cool. So you're going to rent the movie? Eh, no thanks. I'm just going to watch it on my phone. Fine. Well, if any of you want to earn rewards on Ipsos Issa, click our link in the description. But let me know what you think of all this. Tell me your thoughts down in the comments below or at me on Twitter.
Starting point is 00:29:30 And if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.

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