The Ringer-Verse - 'Loki' Ep. 1: Analysis, Themes, and Theories

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

Mallory Rubin is joined by Musa Okwonga to discuss the key ideas that shaped the exhilarating series premiere of 'Loki.' They also discuss what makes the God of Mischief such a consistently compelling character and how the multiverse might impact the MCU (04:28). Then, Mal and Jomi Adeniran dive into your mailbag questions! (75:29) Host: Mallory Rubin Guests: Musa Okwonga and Jomi Adeniran Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal and TD St. Matthew-Daniel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. So you're part of the TVA's courageous and dedicated workforce? Yes. You're created by the timekeepers. Yep. To protect the sacred timeline. Is that funny?

The idea that your little club decides the fate of trillions of people across all of existence at the behest of three space lizards. Yes, it's funny. It's absurd. I thought you didn't like to talk. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Mallory Rubin, co-hosts of Binge mode, head of editorial here at The Ringer. And it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to the TVA, But to join us on the ringer's nexus podcast feed for all things, nerd culture and fandom, and never has that term nexus felt so apt because, folks, Loki is here.

The god of mischief is back. And so are the ringer versus tricksters. And we are in a new timeline for the Loki season. Please do not tell Mobius or the TVA, I'm asking you nicely. The Midnight Boys, Van and Charles, Poo-Pew, We'll be with you every Wednesday during the Loki run with our instant reactions to the latest episode, and then I will be with you on Fridays to dive into the themes and the theories, your mailback questions, and more. Follow the ring ofverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us across our social channels.

And bear in mind, as always, our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. This podcast will contain plot points, details from the Loki season premiere, glorious purpose, as well as details from the entire MC you run to date. So proceed with more caution than the variant who refused to take a ticket at the TVA and paid accordingly. Joining me today. Now that he's finished asking whether a lot of people don't know if they're robots, it's favorite God King, you can hear him on the Stadio podcast.

You can read him on the ringer. Make sure you are listening and reading throughout the Euros. You can read his new book, one of them. It is the one and only. Musa Oquanga. Musa, welcome back into the Ringiverse. I feel like you should have the low-key entry music. Oh, it's a pleasure back.

Thank for having me, Mal. Much appreciated. Much appreciated. The pleasure is mine. The pleasure is mine. On intro, I'm blushing. My goodness. Okay.

The truth is, penciled this episode in long ago. Knew we had to be here together to start the Loki run. There is so much to talk about today. I want to talk about and we want to talk about the key themes at the heart of this premiere. And there are a lot of them, but I think we're particularly interested in talking about choice versus destiny as a central dynamic. We are going to talk about why Loki inside of the MCU and the God of Mischiff as a figure. across mythology and stories is so consistently compelling to us and so many viewers and readers. We're going to talk about Loki's positioning and function as a show at this point in phase four.

But we're going to start with first impressions because we just had the pleasure of watching the first episode. Again, the aptly named Glorious Purpose. I want to hear your thoughts on how you enjoyed Glorious Purpose as an hour of TV. And also how you thought that the premiere functioned as a stage setter for the rest of this season, the six-episode run, and what it might mean for everything else that it's setting the stage for, which I'm sure we'll talk about throughout the episode. What did you think? Wow. Wow, is what I thought. First impressions, wow, this blew me away.

This was incredible. Where do I even begin? The score is astonishing. Natalie Holt, I think, on the score. I've just watched Blade Runner 2049, which has its issues. It has issues and depictions of women. We know this much. But the score of Blade Runner 2049 and the score of Loki felt like they felt like siblings

in the best sense. The mood was perfect. The aesthetics are stunning. I looked at the offices of the TVA and I felt they were kind of like a 1970s New York law firm. And then Ryan Hunt, the genius on Stadio said, actually that's the TWA terminal. Like Ryan clocked, right, Ryan's a genius. He clocked that. The aesthetics are perfect.

The score is perfect. the casting of Owen Wilson is a revelation. It's unbelievable. That's exactly the word I would use. It is revelatory. And there is a moment in, there's a moment when they're talking face to face, Mobius and Loki, and it is like a two-hander in theatre. It's astonishing. It's like Greek, it's like the best traditions of like, of Greek theatre tragedy. It's unbelievable. There's a moment when it goes on and it's like that scene goes on for a really long time. They're just in that room, too. This is like, this has become, this is literally become theater. the weaponry and the and the Easter eggs.

It's just, it's so clever and it's so meditative and it's so offhand our conception of what power is and what power isn't. The fact that you have this amazing visual gag of a troll of Infinity Stones being blown up like it's nothing. Sorry, long answer to a short question is, wow. Not at all. It blew me away. We're going to come back to the Infinity Stones as paperweights later in the,

episode because that's definitely something that bears discussion. I couldn't agree more with everything that you said. It was genuinely and sincerely one of my favorite hours of TV in years. I loved it. And some of that is relief, I think, that it met the hype because there was so much anticipation across the MCU fan base. And then, you know, Loki is just one of my favorite characters inside of the MCU and everything from the time cop spy thriller genre approach to what this might mean for the multiverse to the fact that we were getting Tom Hidleston and Loki back in the MCU after the end game time heist branch offshoot after we had lost Loki after his death and Infinity War. All of that was so thrilling, the new casting. Michael Waldron,

entering the MCU, and we're going to talk about Waldron more as we go, because he's also penned the script for Dr. Strange, the next Dr. Strange movie in the multiverse of madness, which clearly these stories are going to be deeply connected in the way we see the multiverse unspooling across the MCU. I just thought this episode was almost perfect. And even the necessity to spend time on exposition, establishing what the TVA is, who the timekeepers are, how the rules of, of the sacred timeline and their maintenance of it, function. All of that, which in another show and another hour of TV, maybe might have felt heavy-handed or cumbersome or distracting,

was so expertly entwined here with the philosophical examinations and the character-centric ethical explorations in the episode. It was like harmony. Genius. The genius of using a cartoon for the two or three minutes of exposition, of the timekeeper, so it took out of its context. That was genius. Miss Minutes.

So clutch. Oh, oh. Just, and the accent. I mean, like, the granular level of detail, the observational detail, even down to the fact, can I just say quickly, I really love how there is like a trickster haircut. Like Heath Ledger's Joker and Loki have this kind of like, you know, white guys with straggly, shoulder-legged hair. That's the kind of trickster archetype, isn't it, for like the modern age?

But the detail of it, the fact that, like, that. Like, even Loki's outfit, the fact that he's completely shorn of all his... That fine-ass guardian leather that he likes to talk about. Right, right. Even down to the cat, I mean, the cat is the best supporting action that scene when the cat's looking at him and just the bureaucracy. I love to that cat. And I can't wait for more. And I'm wondering already if it's a flurkin. Because flirtids have pocket dimensions inside of them. And given the role dimensions and timelines in the multiverse, I am anticipating a return of...

of the beautiful cat, who I am assuming is a flurkin, loved the cat. Continue. Love the cat. No, no, I love all that. And what's interesting as well, we almost a trail of the banality of evil, the fact that anyone can be capable of evil, they're not exceptional, the fact that, like, you've got an office worker who's never seen a fish before. And these people are confined in this really horrifying way, in a subtly horrifying way,

which I think will be played out. And he realized that Loki is in many ways the kind of, he's the Swiss Army knives of the MCU. That's what he is, right? And this is why they couldn't kill him because, like, anyone that understands the role of any trickster, a trickster is someone that comes in and subverts the order. There's a great book, I think I mentioned the previous podcast, I'm not sure I did, called Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde. And Lewis Hyde wrote a brilliant study of the trickster in nature, essentially a character, a folk hero or an anti-hero, like the coyote, who gets into all kinds and whose job is to generate mischief of all kinds. And the funny thing about Loki is, like the coyote, the coyote gets caught and Loki gets caught, and then it escapes and escapes.

And there's no real consistency to what the trickster does except mischief. That's an extremely useful person to have or character have in a universe-spanning epic, which is why you can't afford not to have a trickster in a show. And if you take out Loki, who's your trickster? Because if you think about it, end game was, you could get away with an end game because endgame was like tying up the loose ends. But as you begin a new series, you need someone to reliably generate chaos. Not like someone like Scarlet Witch, who's basically going through trauma, not that kind of chaos, but someone who's raised on death is chaos. Right.

For the Scarlet Witch. Yeah. But someone who's raised on debt is chaos. I love that. And, you know, it's interesting to hear you say Swiss Army Knife because I had, I had jotted out in my notes, Loki equals skeleton key. And it's the same exact idea. I think this has been one of the throughlines of the early, the early, the early discussion of phase four of the MCU, Wanda Vision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, now Loki. We obviously have yet to have a movie.

Black Widow is coming soon. This balancing act between simultaneously looking back, looking backward, to forge a bridge for the viewers who have these deep and incredibly meaningful connections to those stories in those characters. We're talking about a decade plus of people's lives just inside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And then, of course, those relationships for many people date back.

Well, beyond that, if you're talking about the relationship to the comics and the wider canon, what I love about this use of Loki so much is that, and we saw this on full display in the first episode, these moments where you're revisiting the past through this character, through these characters' deeds, in a way feel like, and I don't want to make a full comparison

to the time heist in Endgame, though they do both involve time in notable respects. But in the sense that they felt like omages and scrapbooks, this is something that we talked about during the binge mode episodes on Endgame, how the time-heist function is a scrapbook,

this trip down memory lane through these meaningful milestones across our shared MCU journey, shared with each other as viewers, shared with the characters who lived through those on the screen. And yet we are not simply returning to those moments. We are not rehashing.

We are unlocking something new. And Loki, in this offshoot, is just the perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect character to allow us to do all of that in a way that feels in sync and purposeful. And, like, completely intentional. When are we looking back and when are we looking ahead? when are we going to unlock something completely new, either within this season of TV, or in terms of what it means for the multiverse and future installments? We know that the next Doctor Strange film is called in the multiverse of madness. It is not an accident that the Miss Minutes explanation of how the timekeeper and TVA preservation of the sacred timeline works included the line about a nexus event, which left unchecked, could branch off into madness leading to another. Multiversal War. I wonder if that's with Dr. Strange. Of course it will.

Plenty of rumors about the multiverse in the next Spider-Man film. One of the things that the internet and the fandom is buzzing about after this Loki premiere is whether we might be getting Kang the Conqueror a lot sooner than we thought. Jonathan Majors has been announced as Kang for the next Ant-Man movie, Quantum Mania, which of course is also about dimensions, how we perceive time. I feel it is very likely that we get Kang in this season of TV. based on what we saw in this episode. And to me, that just feels like,

when you think of Loki, you think of Asgard, you think of the Bifrost Bridge. Shouts to my dude Heimdahl. Never saw any of the threats actually coming. Never. But this is a Bifrost Bridge of sorts. This show, it can take us anywhere. And I think that that is a challenge

because it can be overwhelming and it can be hard for people to track and follow. But so far, one hour in, it feels like Waldron, director Kate Haram, and Fagie and the entire team are more than equal to that challenge. They are clearly approaching this from a position of real fandom and genuine excitement

and appreciation for what Loki as a character can do. I am so excited about this show. Here's my galaxy brain. Let's hear it. My galaxy brain is that the universe, as we know it, is Asgard. Walk me through it. Well, Asgard is not a place.

It's a people. The Timekeepers brought peace to... So Odin brought peace to the Nine Realms, right? And he rolled over Asgard, and you had the nice frescoes on the top of the Rufus. This is like nice little palace, right? But we all knew, we found out in the end, that Odin basically had a fake facade. He had a facade, and if you crack the facade, you saw what Asgard really was. Murals of War and Destruction.

Yeah, to quote Thanos, they'd bathe the Starways and blood, right? we get sold this story about how the timekeepers brought order to chaos and they created the sacred timeline. But I can help but think how much blood did they spill to unify and build this universe? And when you walk into the kind of the courtroom where he has his trial, you see this fascist ideology, these three heads, the fascist iconography. But on the way, on the walk there, you see all these kind of frescoes of the great timekeepers bring order to chaos.

And I couldn't help but think those are just like the frescoes on the real. roof of Odin's court. And what happens if we crack through those and see the blood that it cost to build the timekeeper's perfect universe? So for me, I'm looking at this whole timekeeper realm. I'm like, this universe is basically Asgard. We start this episode, we start this program, this series, looking at the timekeepers as people maintaining a sacred order. But I'm just thinking what that order is actually terrible. And Loki and his guys, the Swiss Army knife, is to come in the skeleton key, is to come and unlock the terror. of the timekeepers and how awful they actually are.

And so he's gone, and the reason I think that's going to happen is because he's being set up as the hero. You see the kind of, you understand the cruelty of Loki's fate, that segment where they go, your role is to basically produce pain, suffering and death. Devastating moment. Quietly, one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the MCU to date. Devastating. So devastating.

So devastating. The MCU does not allow someone merely, if we've learned from experience, it doesn't allow someone to be terrible in the absolute. It doesn't allow that. So what is doing is setting Loki up as someone who's capable of redemption, and he can only achieve redemption in a universe or multiverse way he has choice. He doesn't have choice in the other one. So he's come to this one to make good.

Interesting. So that's my galaxy brain take. Oh, my God. I already have 40 things I want to say. I don't even know which of those amazing points and ideas to run with next. We'll just go where we go. We're just going to have a chat. Once again, outline out the door.

Let's just roll with it. I love it. Sorry. This is great. You've gone off the sacred timeline. The TVA is coming for us. But until we red line, we will make a podcast. We are burdened with glorious purpose.

Verit Reuben, variant or quunker. I love it. Oh, my God. There's so much I want to say in response to that. Okay. One of the most brilliant structural things about the premiere and presumably about the rest of the season based on the reveal at the end of the premiere that the reason Mobius wants to bring Loki into the fold

is because the variant they are hunting, the variant who is killing the Minutemen steps ahead of them is a variant Loki. Amazing end to the episode, incredible cliffhanger, phenomenal plotting and pacing. But naturally, the thing I loved most about it was the thematic implications. And even there now, there are just like the branches of time, 50 other places I want to take just that. Because I quickly make the point about the structure and then I want to circle back to something about Waldron and his influences that he cited. Loki and however many other Loki variants we want to.

meet. So our Loki, who we should remember and note, is 2012 Loki, not the Loki who died in Infinity War. This is Loki from the Battle of New York. That's the Loki from the Avengers movie who picked up the Testract, of course, during the endgame time heist, but in that point in the canon timeline and poured it off. Okay. So this Loki, as we see, he's watching his life's events in sequence, is very reminiscent to devs, if anyone watch devs. And there's fascinating stuff to discuss there in terms of the idea of your life is tramlock. determineism, how does free will factor in. He's watching the events that make up our Infinity saga, MCU, Phase 1 through 3 experience.

Why is that Loki character? And this was one of the other things you and I were excited to talk about today, so compelling to us because of that redemption arc, actually, and the way it has already played out. But the fact that Loki was never, ever a strictly good or strictly evil, purely heroic or purely villainous character. Loki, like the multiverse, contains multitudes, and that's why Loki is so consistently magnetic and engaging. Even in the moments of heinous actions and choices,

there is this vulnerability and this desire and desperation, really, for love and acceptance inside of his family that is so human and relatable. Much like even in the moments of sacrifice and good intention, you can never let yourself fully trust. Loki ever, right? Because then you're Thor, then you're just like, shit, he got me again. So to position Loki, our Loki, 2012 Loki, recruited by Mobius, help us in this way, because this variant is another Loki. And then to have that other variant be the villain, Loki can be the hero and the villain inside of the same show.

That is incredibly, incredibly smart structurally. They can explore it all with any change. variant and across the variance. And also, like, he can learn because he's no longer 2012 Loki, because he's seen his fate. He's already changed him. Mobius is very smart. If he just brought him in and was like, okay, this is your job, otherwise you get vaporized. But now he's seen what he's capable of, what he's capable of becoming. He knows that his path isn't necessarily, I mean, go and conquer everything.

And the funny thing about this is, Mobius is saying, you know, you produce pain, suffering, and death. but as bleak as that was, as brutal as that was, I actually reminded more of Agent Coulson when Cawson said your problem is you lacked conviction. Who came up, of course, in this episode. Right, and the funny thing, when Coulson said you lacked conviction, what he meant was the mischief is the end in itself.

The problem of being the god of mischief is, if it's a bonfire, you need to maintain some aspect of the, you can't let it just reduce itself to ash. You've got to keep some aspect of the fire in play. And that's why Loka keeps switching to good and evil because he's like, if I go full out evil and conquer everything, I'll just be bored. So what I find so fascinating about this new art he's in,

this new art he's in is like, I've got a chance to break things down. He's going to burn it to the ground. You already get the impression, even before the end of the first episode, that burning to the ground might really be a good thing. If you consider it. Yes.

And I definitely want to come back to the point you made earlier about the timekeepers. and what they might really be up to. Steve, don't let us forget to come back to the timekeepers and what they might really be up to. What you just said about the intention, the means and the ends dynamic of the mischief. I loved, loved, loved.

Sometimes I don't like when subtext becomes overt text, but I loved the way the subtext, what is often subtext with Loki became overt text in this episode, and Mobius and Loki discussed with perceived, with precision and detail why Loki does the things that Loki does. And to the point about Loki seeing the events of the rest of his life,

as they did in fact transpire across the MC was we watched it, right? And as they would have for that Loki, had he not shot off into this timeline and become a variant, I think that one of the fan responses, I think the response to the show has broadly been incredibly positive,

like effusive praise almost across the board. One of the very few questions that people seem to be raising is, do we buy that 2012 Loki, Avengers Loki, holding the scepter, containing the minestone,

working with the Chitari Army to invade New York, hanging out on sanctuary with Thanos, would be this ready. And of course he asked questions, he pushes back. But by the end of the episode, after seeing the paperweight infinity stones in the desk drawer to say,

basically, is this the greatest power in the universe? I'm starting to believe that this might be true. I'm starting to opt into this. Seeing the things that he saw achieved a few things very quickly. But then they also raise really interesting existential questions. He saw Frigga's death. His relationship with Frigga is really, actually one of like the heartbeats of his arc and the Thor franchise.

The fact that he has to learn, not only that Frigga died, but that it was his fault, that he was responsible. And especially in an episode so largely focused on thinking about causality and choice and consequence, what an incredible thing to be able to distill to one moment like that. Even the, I thought it was incredible, I mean, Tom Hilsson is always phenomenal, but like the facial expressions and the tears as he was. watching these sequences, watching his life play out. And part of this is the function of needing to make an hour of TV.

But how must it feel to be Loki with all of this ambition, these grand schemes and designs, and you get to a point where a screen says end of file. And that's your, as he says it, with this like almost derision and dismay, glorious purpose. That's what it boiled down to, a few seconds that you got to watch on someone else's screen. And the emotion of his response to seeing Frigga, to seeing Odin turn into dust, golden dust, to see that moment with Thor, the elevator scene in Ragnarok, one of my favorite scenes between the two of them, to see his own death. I can buy, actually, that accelerated emotional response, because again, I think it's important to always remember with Loki that he

was never purely a villain and never purely, purely, purely redeemed. He's always a mix of the push and pull of his own desire. Yes, absolutely. And the film was masterfully crowded. They played him because they juxtaposed the moment where his mother said, you know, you're so smart when he said, you're not a mother like, and you lack self-awareness. Right. And so the tragedy about moving. So perceptive about everyone but yourself, yeah. Oh, that was, that was incredible. And you see that. I think the two key moments with loki's self-awareness were, well, the three, the woman he tries to summon his powers in the courtroom, but can't. And that is a true, by the way, in addition to the paperweights, oh, the TVA is legit. This is a formidable foe. His powers actually don't work here.

And when, that's mind-blowing and that's like, almost a forerunner, that that's the trailer for what he sees in the office. It's incredible. And when he's in the office and he sees the Infinity Stones, these things that he craved. he craved and he crossed the stars for these things and they're just in a sock drawer they're in a sock drawer and he looks at them and there's loads of them and he's like whoa there's like there's multiple time stones for example

he's just like this is horrifying especially what the soulstone cost it's just sitting there so someone's died for that multiple souls have died for that or are contained within the soul stone and you've really realised that he's had almost his to use the matrix thing the Red Pill moment.

Actually, he's, he has understood maybe that matrix that he was in and he's like, no, this is the real world and the TVA is running things. The things that I aspire to are ridiculous, but I still have the power of mischief. And this is the thing. Him stealing that weapon and those time weapons are incredible and terrifying. You have a time taser. This is a thing. We haven't seen time enhanced weapons yet, right?

So Loki now is in a new era who is playing with time-enhanced weapons. You've got a god of chaos working across multiverses. Watching Loki in this initial thing is like watching an elite surfer or a surfer you know is going to be going out and crashing the first few times in the waves.

But the first, but every now and again, you're like, whoa, when this person starts riding the wave, they're going to be astonishing. When Loki harnesses his new surroundings, he's going to eat everything in sight. And you can see, rather like when you watch Spock in Star Trek, you can always see there are characters that writers enjoy writing in particular. It is an absolute joy to write Loki at this point.

Absolutely. What an incredible thrill and treat that must be. And you can feel that really in every moment. And that's a good moment to talk about Waldron for a minute, the headwriter and the creator of this show, again, also penning the Dr. Strange. in the multiverse of madness script, wrote for Rick and Morty, another time-hopping show.

And one of the really fun things in the days and weeks leading up to Loki, and since the premiere, it's been reading and hearing Waldron talk about his influences. And some of them,

you're like, okay, yeah, that makes complete sense how that would manifest in this show, right? Blade Runner, for example, when Loki is about to go through the metal detector,

you might as well be reading a Philip K. Dick novel in that sequence, right? Talking about how... Some don't know the robots. What would it mean to know or not know if you're a robot? Like, what does that tell us about the nature of humanity and consciousness? Very Battlestar galactica as well. One of my all-time favorite shows. Let me know when you want a pod about Battlestar.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yes, yes. Carve out. Conservatively 250 hours for me. What do you hear in Starbucks? Nothing but the rain. Oh, love it. Oh, what a great show. No, absolutely never apologize

for mentioning Battlestar Galactica on this podcast. But he loves Mad Men, which you can feel in so many respects in the episode. The D.B. Cooper sequence, the production design, the 60s and 70s vibe of the aesthetic, so much of it. Lost.

The, I, I'm a huge loss fan, and I loved that we got to see Loki spit out into what we learn is the Mongolian desert, but into the desert. You can't help if you're a lost fan, but think of Ben after turning the time wheel on the island popping out into the desert in Tunisia. It's just like the parallels are really clear. But then, a friend of the pod of Joanna Robinson wrote an excellent profile of Waldron and had him on her podcast still watching, which everyone should check out. And one of the things she mentioned when she was running through all of these influences of his that he has cited was before sunrise. Whoa, I love those movies. And it's the third one I haven't seen.

I haven't seen the final one. So I love those movies so much. They're so beautiful. And I was like levitating after reading that in Joanna's article because it's not just about, and this would hold true for Madman, of course, Madman. Men's not a sci-fi or fantasy story, but the influences are really, some of them are about, you know, back to the future and time travel logistics and how something like that manifests inside of a story where you need to establish the rules of the universe and then adhere to them. But before sunrise is a story about the human connection and learning something about yourself.

Yes, the choices that you make and the choices that you don't make and how that regret or that fulfillment then defines the rest of your life. And this is a story about the multiverse and timelines and gods and mischief and infinity stones relegated to paperweight status and, as they say, space lizards who are keep a dime. But it is more than anything about choice and change and the desire and capacity for change. And that is the thing I love most about fantasy stories. And I'm so excited that we're getting to see this play out over six hours. What a treat. Blade Runner 2049 is about choice.

Can a replica have a soul? He thinks he's the chosen one. When he realizes he's not, what choice does he make? He makes the most human choice of all. You look at a rival, another great sci-fi movie. What it's about? It's about choice. And connection.

How to build connection and communicate with... Right. Choice connection sacrifice. Those three elements. Choice connection sacrifice. those characterize the greatest sci-by movies. It's what I call Major Minor.

Major is the kind of space lizards and timekeepers and Odin and like false gods. And minor is the minutiae, the heart, the soul, right? It's the soul. And I love that the soul stone is the biggest stone in the drawer, bigger than the time stone, because I'm like, that's the thing that's going to matter most. You can travel to as many dimensions as you like,

but the soul stone is the characteristic that defines the same. because it's like, what is within Loki? What's he capable of for good? The TVA agent at the metal detector specifically asks about, you have a soul? Right, yeah, absolutely, yes. And it keeps up, oh, he needs to be reset.

He needs to be reset because there's no hope for him. And the creeping, well, it's not creepy, it's blatant, the blatant fascist tendencies of the timekeepers are foreshadowed when you see, they're explaining in the video, the introductory video. Oh, you might have started an uprising. Well, you could see why I might want to stop someone starting an uprising, or you might have arrived late to work. So in theory, you could arrive late to work, end up as a variant, go and wait in the line, and you could be

tired that day. Like, all I did to be here was like, arrive late, get a ticket. I'm not getting a ticket. This is ridiculous. And then you're like, remove existence. You could be executed without trial. and then even the block capitals on the ticket office saying zero tolerance, it's like it's absolutely horrifying. Completely. I mean, the, I will say that is maybe the one area where Loki is actually a, maybe a hindrance as a central figure instead of a help, as in all these other respects, because will Loki have the moments?

I think probably the answer is yes, maybe out of just a sense. of self-preservation to stop and say, wait a minute, this is, you're eliminating life. Like, the variant or not, what is humanity? What is existence? Not to go all like Dolores and Westworld on us, but this is one of the hearts of not only this story, but so many, so many fantasy stories, right? What does it mean to be alive? And all of these variants are conscious.

They don't know that their variance until someone comes to tell them. They are living their lives. They are existing in environments. And so the Minutemen, Hunter B-15 and every other hunter with the reset charges, is eliminating a potential reality. The scene in France with Mobius is our introduction to Mobius. Incredible scene. Shouts to Mephisto on the stained glass. shouts to the internet for all the Mephisto theories.

Love it. Keep it coming. Jomey was dismayed. I was delighted. The scene with the little boy, the cabloy gum. Now, I shouted at my TV when I first saw that. Is it Kid Loki, right? Because I'm in theory mode.

I'm in Easter egg mode. But the absolute heartbreak at the end of that sequence, especially after the really touching exchange between Mobius and the kid, you know, don't worry, that devil's scared of us and trying to calm and comfort. Why? Just to say, go outside because we need to wipe you off the map. That is dark, dark, dark shit. And it's kind of incredible that we're getting that inside of the MCU because the implications of that as the multiverse widens and unspoles are, supreme, we're thinking about that already meeting strangers. How are we going to feel when we

meet people we know? Well, the aim of this series is for us to end up thinking that the multiverse is a glorious, wonderful, messy thing, despite the chaos, despite the horror within it. I think we're going to end up thinking it's the sacred diversity of the multiverse. That's where this is taking us. I felt that from the very beginning. I was like, because just looking at it logically, what Loki's there to do, what he's there to play with. Even, you know, the deaths of these agents and how authoritarian they are, well, what if that person is like a time-travelling assassin doing a righteous thing? Like killing people, then bouncing.

This person popped out of nowhere, killed all these agents and then bounced. Who did this? Well, the devil did it. Well, is that even the devil? Has that been caricatures? Has that person or has that evanging angel been demonized? I wonder about that. And it was weird because I was like, I'm kind of, if this is like a civil war, I'm kind of team Loki here.

I'm not team timekeeper. Well, and that's the other interesting dynamic even within that when you're thinking about the hunters, the Minutemen. Like, I don't think you can leave the episode without being totally enraptured by Owen Wilson and Mobius. So you almost, you don't want to assign blame to Mobius for the function that he is enacting inside of the TVA. and then you think about the fact that they are, at least based on the rules established in this episode and what we understand so far,

created for this purpose bred by the timekeepers, by the TVA to maintain order. So what level of accountability and agency, what level of culpability do they hold for the things that they are doing? And that I have to assume will be one of the developments over the course of the season that they will have to ask themselves those questions. I actually do have agency. Yes, Mobius believes in growth. That's why he doesn't want him reset. You can't just ask that about other people and never ask it about yourself.

Exactly. Mobius believes in growth and so does Loki. And there's a bit when Loki gives a speech where he sounds like a timekeeper, where he goes, oh, you know. Loki would love to be a timekeeper. Yeah, the Song of Freedom. He talks, but would he really?

Would he really? Because he detests what Loki hasn't done. He talks about the hatred of the Song of Freedom. But he hasn't thought through. the logical implications of what he's doing, which is to be, which is that he would be a timekeeper. He hasn't thought that through yet. Okay. Let me amend the prior statement because you're completely right.

Loki would think that he would love to be a timekeeper. Absolutely. And then in the, and then would find out ultimately to his satisfaction and enlightenment that he despised it. Absolutely. Because that is, again, the crux of who Loki is. And, you know, the episode we got, we got some time with Judge Renslayer. We met Hunter B-15. We met some of the other characters.

And very intriguing, and I'm excited to see what the roles are throughout the rest of the season. The bulk of the episode was, Willis and Loki, was Owen Wilson and Tom Hiddleston. And what it allowed for, as you mentioned earlier, was this almost like theater-like setting of assessing the path to self-actualization and awareness. And so a moment like Loki says, midway through the episode, when he's trying to crack the riddle, because that's the one thing he can't abide, right? Anybody besting him, anybody outsmarting him, anybody knowing something that he doesn't. That's not something he can tolerate or allow. And so he says, I know what this place is. It's an illusion. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear, a desperate attempt at control.

And then we hear that echoed at the end of the episode when he reveals in a moment of pretty meaningful introspection and rapidly developing, yes, but still notable growth and progress, that that was full projection. He is describing his own behavior and the way that he approaches all of the choices that he has made. throughout his life. All of these pursuits of power are not actually, and Mobius keeps pushing him on this point. Why would you want to rule? You're so smart. You can do all these things. Why are you interested in this actually? And he says at the end, in this moment of real vulnerability, I don't enjoy hurting people. I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to, because I've had to. Explain that to me. Because it's part of the illusion.

It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. The desperate play for control. And he points at himself when he says the week. What an amazing moment to inspire fear. Right. A new dimension of, look, there's a moment.

It's funny because I've been watching Netflix, Ragnarok. Me too. Oh my God. I was going to ask if you've been watching this. I watched it all last week. I love it. And you see the penultimate episode of season two is called Know Yourself.

And it's about Thor basically stepping into his power. And he goes through that whole episode, like asking himself who he is. And until he's accepted who he is, he can't step into his true form, his true power, his true possibility. Not his destiny, because destiny is predetermined, but his true possibility. And at the end of that, Thor embraces possibility. And at the end of this episode, it's funny how there's a kind of, there's a strange. I mean, it's Loki and Thoris, there's this interrelation anyway, but it's so funny how

in Netflix Ragnarok, the Loki and that and the Loki and this, they're not a thousand. I mean, I love, I love Ragnarok on Netflix. I think it's incredible. It's really good. I think it's very underrated, in my opinion. I think it, yeah. It's really good. Teenage Norwegian telling, modern day telling of the Norse myths and unsurprisingly, the Loki figure, the Loki character I think at least is the most compelling in the show. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, this podcast, we're jumping across genres, series.

But that was actually one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today. I'm so glad you mentioned that. I was actually going to ask if you've seen Ragnarach, but more broadly, why Loki and why the god of mischief is so consistently compelling, no matter what the exact rendering is. Because we can relate to more than anything. Humans can relate to a god of mischief, far more they can relate to a god of thunder.

Or, you know, because we at any time as humans have the ability to cause immense harm and do immense good. And Loki speaks to us. He speaks to our spirit because we're like, we could, we are merely an algorithm. But this one, I'm 41 years old now. I'm basically that I am the composite of my choices. So if I'm now living in Berlin, in East Berlin on a podcast, this is because that's exactly where I want to be because every choice I've made, every major choice has led me to this moment.

and there's something very compelling about Loki because he's the architecture of choices in a way that so many others are not. You know, you look at like Black Widow and the rest of them, like that Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers is one big choice really. He's one big choice. He takes the serum and he goes with it. Like he's not, and he's amazing. I love Steve Rogers.

I love Captain America. I love him so much. But he doesn't wrestle with himself because his bedrock is secure. Steve Rogers is a good man. Steve Rogers had known about the black super serum superhero program, that thing would have been smashed in like 10 minutes. But we don't know if Loki would have sanctioned that program. And I think that Loki speaks to our subconsciously because so many of us,

more than we'd like to admit, are not rooted in something firm, ethical and moral like Steve Rogers. I think we see ourselves in him, the duality. I think that is very profound. And, you know, again, that was at the four in this episode, the questions of choice. Are you, are you by any chance? Have you watched Star Wars Rebels, the animated show Star Wars Rebels? Oh, I'm not that far into. I've been watching the Clone Wars, but not Rebels.

Oh, I can't wait to talk to you about Clone Wars. Okay, I'm going to, this won't spoil anything from Rebels, but I will share with you one of my favorite quotes from Rebels because what you just said made me think of it. There's a moment where character called Bendu says to Canaan the following. An object cannot make you good or evil. The temptation of power, forbidden knowledge. Even the desire to do good can lead some down that path. But only you can change yourself.

That feels like the essence of what this season of TV is setting out to explore. Is that true? Is Loki, this version of Loki, the only one who can change this version of Loki? How do we reconcile believing in that, wanting to believe in that, that our choices matter? That the characters that we just spent a decade plus watching make incredibly meaningful decisions. Nat's sacrifice on Vormier, Tony snapping his fingers. Steve at the end going to be with Peggy at last.

TVA coming for Steve Rogers? I don't know. I mean, Judge Renslayer says that the Avengers were allowed to do the time heist because it was part of the sacred timeline, but what about Steve's little offshoot? Who knows? Waiting to find out more about that.

How do we reconcile that with the idea that the timekeepers are determining reality? I will just, I'm going to say this. I want to hear everything that you have to say. I cannot accept that the character's choices don't matter. And I do not believe that that will ultimately be what the MCU deems to be true. I think that the timekeepers, I agree with you.

They are clearly the villains. I believe that we will see that Kang, the Conqueror, is one of the timekeepers. That will be certainly an update of a distinction from comics canon where a mortis and or related to and interacting with, but competing with and combating the timekeepers, it is not right for anybody to set the course of existence. And the character's choices have to matter. Because otherwise, how can we invest in their stories? Now, for all like my David Hume heads out there, maybe there, maybe they're. there's a, you know,

compatibleistic philosophy coming to the MCU where we can say that choice and destiny are in fact compatible, that free will is in fact something that can exist in parallel alongside the idea of destiny. I'm, I find it thrilling and, like, really intellectually stimulating

that the MCU is asking these questions and that the characters inside of the show are asking these questions, questions, it is a little bit risky. It is a little bit risky to put out there the idea that the infinity stones are paperweights inside of the TVA, that you could have a moment. You see it even just scrolling through, you know, the trending topics on Twitter. How will all of those factors of what matters and what doesn't reconcile? I think that part of Loki's journey has to be proving that the timekeepers do not get to make those decisions. And maybe in fact that they are not actually doing that, that this is a lie, that this is a fiction that is being spun for us,

and that they are seeking control and to maintain a timeline that suits their ambition and suits their ends, whether that's Kang or the collective, who knows. But not that that's something that Loki or any other character that we ultimately invest in can abide. That can't be the case. Absolutely. And the genius of what they did, I was watching all these movies and thinking, how the hell they're going to manage the problem of scale, the power scale? Captain Marvel enters end game

and destroys Thanos' ship in a couple of seconds. And I was thinking, how can the MCU contain Captain Marvel? How can they harness that power? And the TVA is the perfect buffer because you've created an alternate reality or a kind of superstructure. And you've almost basically said, like, what was happening in the MCU really was the MCU as more like the Marvel cinematic solar system. And the timekeeper's realm, that's a galaxy. And beyond the timekeeper's realm, we're one of many, many, the timekeepers are just one actor in this holes, because there's a whole load of other super-powerful beings

that will come into this. But now they fit. If a super-powerful being now enters the MCU, it'll be totally normal because the genius of the TVA is they've normalized vast, unthinkable scale in 50 minutes, 50 minutes. It's incredible what they've achieved. Totally right. And they're worse than Thanos, by the way. They're worse than Thanos because they allowed Thanos to wipe out all those people

and all those creatures because it fitted their sacred timeline and they intervened at no point. That bit when he's like, you allowed all this to happen when I was meddling in the affairs of men. Like, you allowed me to, like, hijack them. Yeah, that was fine. That was your journey. That's incredibly bleak if you think about it. But Mobius has that sort of cryptic response to that about how it's not really a matter of approval or disapproval.

But then he says back to this. He skips over it. Yeah, that felt like a very intentional. Like you're actually, they're drawing attention to the handwave, right? Like put a pin in it. We'll come back to that. We know that's an important thing. It was too real.

So I mentioned devs earlier and how I thought of devs often throughout this, this episode of TV. I don't know if you watched devs, the Alex Carlin. I auditioned for devs. What? Tell us everything. Oh my God. I was asked to audition for devs.

I'd never acted. I hadn't acted at one movie before called Common Ground 2012. And I got an email out of nowhere going, we'd like to audition. I didn't get the role. But I was like, we thought you'd be right for one of the technicians. Incredible.

So yeah, that's a bit of trivia. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Well, did you end up watching? I didn't. Mr. Garland, it's a shame we didn't get to work together, but the script looked incredible.

So, yeah. Oh, my God. A bit privy for you. That is absolutely amazing. Maybe you'll be in the next Garland project. X Machina, one of my favorite movies. I love that. Oh, my goodness.

You do Annihilation as well. Yes. I had a weird experience with Annihilation, which I think I might have mentioned before on the pod, that I read the book in the same day I saw the movie. Like, I read it. I was literally finishing the book in my seat at the movie theater and then watched the movie.

Incredibly disorienting. I would not recommend that specific sequence. sequencing. It's like a lot of negative interference. But yeah, another wonderful movie. Devs is, I won't spoil devs for the listeners, but it is a fascinating, fascinating philosophical exercise about free will. And many of the characters on the show believe that we are on, that our lives are tram lines. We are on tram lines. We are moving forward through a deterministic existence. And of course, the conflict,

the tension in the show comes from the characters who cannot accept that. It won't spoil the outcome, but it was really riveting and thought-provoking to watch. The other thing that I found myself thinking about, though, in addition to devs,

and that's right down to the screen on which the characters watch events from their life play out, and you think, well, how could you make any decisions? How could you take another step and move forward another moment in your life if you knew what was going to happen to you. Would you want to know? I used to think about this all the time with Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven in Game of Thrones and what it means for somebody to have that level of awareness about events to come. Who can be trusted

with that information and with that power? But the other show that I found myself thinking about a lot watching this, and specifically in terms of how the timekeepers and the TVA were being presented, but also in terms of Loki, the protagonist, confronting this new circumstance, the good place. And I got strong, strong, strong, strong good place vibes from this episode in a way that I loved. Because I think the good place is brilliant. And it is something that I enjoyed so much, in part because of the plot mechanics and the twists and the surprises, which is like genuinely exhilarating. The concept of the good place which I've not seen is that someone ends up in heaven by accident, right? I'm reluctant to, I'm reluctant to say anything in response other than to encourage you to watch it.

But yes, that is the premise initially. The premise, the initial premise, yeah. What it ultimately is, is an exercise and understanding growth. and it is a jewel box and a theater stage to present in a pop culture rapper to an audience philosophical and ethical debates and conundrums and to watch the characters learn and grow and to watch how they come to understand their own lives

and the decisions that they have made and how that has impacted other people then shape not only their own reality, but reality at large is like pretty magnificent. And it's really good. And a lot of different philosophers and philosophical texts are brought into that show. And there's a really incredible moment in season two that I won't spoil with the particulars, but where one character says to another, what do we owe to each other?

and of course citing the philosophical text. And that is at the heart of it, trying to figure that out. What do we owe to ourselves and what do we owe to each other? And Loki is going to do a lot of that. And I find that thrilling. Because he's like, I can't go back. You know, there's nothing for him in that other place. There's nothing for him in that other world.

There's just the end of the file. So what's he going to make in this place? What's he going to unleash in this place? Right. And, you know, what does that mean for how this version of Loki or other variants re-enter the MCU, I think will be a really interesting thing to track throughout this season and potentially beyond. But in terms of how those questions manifested inside of the episode, I just think we can't say enough about the chemistry between Owen Wilson

and Tom Hiddleston. Stunning. Stunning. It really was revelatory. And throughout the entire episode, I mean, the elevator sequence, strolling through the halls, all of it, but specifically the sequence at the table in the time theater, when they are talking about, these ideas, choice and destiny, and free will. I was, I am on the verge of acquiring everything I am owed. And when I do, it'll be because I did it. Not because it was supposed to happen. Or because you, or the time variance authority

or whatever it is you call yourselves allowed me to. Honestly, you're pathetic. You know, relevance, a detour, a footnote to my assent. I've got a hot take I reckon when he was writing those scenes he extended them because he was like we can do more

I felt like almost because the scene when I was watching I was like this feels extended this feels unusually long to have two people head to head like this talk like this

yeah it's very rare it's long and I'm like I almost feel like he looked at that and was like no I'm adding some more dialogue there this is too good

this is too rich this is too I'd love to see his first draft of that scene and then like his final one where they're like, do you know what I mean? Because it felt extended. It was like when you're watching 12 years a slave and, you know, he lingers, McQueen lingers on a shot because he wants you to really sit with it and sit with the discomfort. And in this same way,

he wants us to sit with the chemistry and really sit with these two characters exploring themselves. And they're both going to have moments of self-actualization. They're both going to be in situations where they're like, we were wrong about our initial premises. And they will probably encounter that when each other are around. They will hopefully have that realization. Maybe they are the mirror.

Maybe they're each other's mirror. And that's where they're sort of looking into each other so often. I think that's right. And one of the things that I was thinking about watching this is like it's actually, we've spent a lot of time with Loki, but very rarely actually, where Loki is not positioned with or against Thor. You know, Thor is so, so, so often Loki's partner in a scene.

Obviously, we get moments between Loki and Friga, Loki and Odin, etc, et cetera, et cetera. But the relationship and the dynamic between Loki and Thor is the through line of Loki's arc. So to see Loki just spending that much time with anybody else felt really fresh and exciting, and then for that person to be able to go toe to with Loki was exhilarating. And some of it was the humor and the energy, you know, it was really like crackling and zippy and vibrant.

If looks could kill, if looks could kill, that amazing moment. I like it. Slap it on a T-shirt. So good. So, so good. But then when it got to the moments of talking about both why Loki does the things that Loki does, and then also these broader sweeping thematic questions, it was really a gift to just be able to linger in that scene and in that conversation. It felt like, kind of like,

you know, hits, like, bong once freshman dorm room stuff in a way that I personally love and can't get enough of, right? Like, let's talk about the meaning of life. Okay, let's. I love it. But the genus of the MCU is that it hides literature within pop culture. Yes, absolutely. Like the scenes between wonder and vision, when they're talking about the nature of love and all the rest of it. Or Vision and Vision talking about the ship of Theseus. Oh, but Vision has the greatest lines in the MCU, in my opinion.

Just in terms of there aren't, you know, not those NBA teams that have won fewer championships than others, but the ones, you know, he's like, Vision's like the Spurs. He's like the San Antonio Spurs of the MCU. He has one of those many titles. as Boston, but his titles are the purest titles. Vision to me is like the 2014 San Antonio Antonio Spurs because that was the perfect title. It was all about the team. That means Vision has a little dynasty run coming. Yeah. Boats well. Well, the thing I worry about with Vision is there are some characters in the MCU that are too interesting to kill. I mean, I think

Loki was too interesting commercial among them. Yeah. Loki was too interesting commercially to kill. Kevin Fige at some point there was an anxious call from these X going and that man's mind is extraordinary I mean that man's mind is a multiverse Kevin Fagy at this point is I think there's I think he has multiple variants

Waldron is writing a Star Wars movie for Faggy That is unbelievable I'm thrilled about that after seeing this inject it inject it in my veins I know I can't even For me for me it's almost like Loki was too interesting to get rid of

there are MCU characters. I won't name them because I respect them too much, but they aren't too interesting to remain around. But I saw this series. I was kind of like, you know, because the MC doesn't like killing people off, but I was like, you had to come back. You had to come back.

You know what moment I had just adored between Mobius and Loki? It was when they're talking about forks in the road, again, Choice, and Loki saying it, the wrong path always taken. And again, the through line of the episode, we can assume that he is in that moment describing other people, but really in a way, speaking about the choices that he is made. And when Mobius replies to that and says,

good, yeah, you said nearly every path, so I'm guessing you don't fall into that category. And Loki chuckles and said the timekeepers have built quite the circus, and I've seen the clowns are playing their parts to perfection. The next sequence from this was just absolute like chef's kiss perfection in terms of the acting and the rapport between the characters and the actors. Big metaphor guy.

Mobyos says, I love it. Makes you sound super smart. And then Loki, defensive. And of course, Mobius has said in this episode, oh, no, like, I specialize in really dangerous variants. You're a pussycat, which would mortify and deeply wound Loki to be considered in that fashion.

And Loki says here in this moment, I am smart. And again, needs that affirmation, but also needs to believe it. to be true. Yes. And the way that Owen Wilson delivered the next line,

which was simply, I know. I found so gripping and moving, it makes you think about what Mobius and what the people inside of the TVA do actually know about the other variants and characters who come into their orbit,

but also the real respect and understanding despite the push and the, at times, certainly horror about the things that Loki has done, the path to admiration that is going to unfold between these characters. It's incredible. I love that you picked up on that. Well, of course, you did because, you know, that was the whole bit, the whole joust was

like peak Owen Wilson for me. It was almost like a kind of revival. It feels like Owen Wilson having his, like his John Travolta. It's like his John Provolta thing. It's like his Pulp Fiction moment, isn't it? Where he's been quiet for a few years, but now he's back and like somehow. You know, when Travolta came back in Pop Fiction, he'd been gone for a little bit, but he was back and somehow better.

And Owen Wilson is right back in our consciousness, and he's like, better than ever. It was like when DiAngelo recalled his second album 14 years later, and it was like, oh, my God, DiAngelo's like somehow enhanced. And the thing like, the moment I loved about, you know, you're really smart. It reminded me of Thor and Starlord when he's, when Thor was like, you're in charge, you. And Starlord is like very anxiously going like, that's an, actual God in the neighborhood. And it was funny, it was funny to see Loki as insecure as Starlord

was on the prow of his own ship, just for that moment. But you're right, the admiration, even like when he's watching like his greatest hits, when he's watching the DB Cooper like plane heist. And it's really clever because what it does, it foreshadows the admiration. But it also makes you wonder, see all the exposition we've had, all the exposition we've had. To me, that suggests there's going to be an incredibly fast-paced episode coming. Had to get it out of the way, set the table early. Absolutely, because this way is my favorite kind of, this is almost, I'm starting to watch this as an action movie, basically.

This is a time heist, time robbery, time-favling assassin, where we've almost, we've had the foreshadowing and everything set up and the exhibition of the five, or maybe I'm just projecting, and we're going to get some real high-speed episodes coming soon. I'm really excited about that. will, if that proves to be true, will we continue to get

these moments of deep introspection and protracted, prolonged conversation where we can just luxuriate in the characters reflecting? I think that's the key. That's probably the secret sauce. We have to maintain that while the action unfolds.

I don't have any doubt about that at all because the MCU has proven, listen, anyone, any universe that can write Infinity War and have moments of levity and humor. Like, in the middle of Infinity War, we had pop culture references.

On the edge of space. Infinity War is a devastating and incredibly funny and clever movie all at once. I think it may be a top five movie for me just because of the craft, the craft to get all of that, to get all of that.

I suppose my answer to you is, can you get all that in those moments of, yeah, look at Infinity War. You're an Avenger kid. That moment when he makes him an adventure, all of that. So good. It makes me think of the, you're mentioning it,

just makes me think then of Dr. Strange, too. And, you know, Tony, like the Tony's office space, what would you say you do here moment with Dr. Strange? Protecting your reality, douchebag, one of my favorite lines in the MCU. But, again, you kind of can't help but think of it here because of the role of the ancient one, the similarities between the descriptions of the sacred timeline here

and how the ancient one describes, the proper flow of time to banner in endgame during the time heist. When we think of the multiverse to this point in the MCU, Charles and Van had a really interesting discussion about this on The Midnight Boys, about the distinctions between universes, you know, Earth 616 and other Earth's dimensions and timelines and how we think about the multiverse. And the MCU multiverse is this vast thing that contains all of the above. So we're focused here on timelines, but we can't lose sight of the fact that Dr. Strange

is established MCU canon where the multiverse inside of that is dimensions. Here's the dark dimension. Here's the astral dimension. And it's not an accident to me that there was a moment in this episode where Loki mentions nightmares

and Mobius says, that's another department. Well, what's that? The dream dimension, nightmare, the presumed villain of the next Doctor Strange movie. All of this is going to be connected. And it's connected even to something

like Tony saying in that beautiful moment with Howard in the end game time heist back to then Camp Lehigh when they had to go get the PIM particles in the Testeract, he quotes his father to himself, no amount of money ever bought a second of time. The MCU, in a way, has been priming us from the jump to understand that time. Time in existence, that is really the greatest power and the greatest question. And they can do it in a way that maintains the sanctity of everything that we've seen so far

and all the choices the characters have made so far while still opening up, all of these new possibilities. Is this how we eventually get the Fantastic Four? There are plenty of connections there to Kang and all the other things we're talking about. Maybe. You know, Loki says in this episode, you ridiculous bureaucrats will not dictate how my story ends.

And the response is it's not your story, Mr. Laughison. It never was. And my response to that response is, of course it's Loki's story, and it's all of the character's stories, and that's the magic of it. What's interesting to me is how characters scale up in the MCU. So Captain Marvel entered and was like this dominant figure, but what's fascinating, you see the way that almost, maybe I'm just being, I'm hot taking here, but what the hell was spitballing.

The way that Dr. Strangers's character has been written, there's a greater nobility and texture as each movie has gone on as if he's being prepped for something bigger. And what's fascinating is like how he is going to straddle the multiverse and engage with the timekeepers. So he's going to be in this intergalactic thing, being going to be like, oh my God, the same Dr. Strath. Strange that fought in Infinity War and endgame was also where what the timekeepers were doing. So how much he had to keep secret. And in many ways, Dr. Strange is the loneliest person in the MCU because he couldn't say the burden of that knowledge, all 14 million scenarios. But that's what it is. Dr. Strange saw so much, Tony, it was the only way. But he wasn't just, he saw 14 million outcomes. How many do we win in one? I'm glad you mentioned this,

because this is actually a microcosm of the discussion that we've had today in the themes of part of this premiere, the choice versus destiny dynamic. That's that, that, that, that was at the four of that too. Well, if Stephen Strange has seen and knows what Tony will do, then does it matter that Tony chose to do it? And the answer is, of course it does. It has to. Because if Tony knows that that is the future, if Tony knows, whether it's because Dr. Schroen's, whether it's because Dr. Strange saw it while he was looking through every eventuality, or because the timekeepers are dictating the sequencing of events on the sacred timeline or anything else, then he won't do it. And this is also at the heart of so many compelling fantasy stories. It's one of the things

I love about how prophecies can be presented in a story and how you hear the word prophecy, you think of a prophecy, and you think destiny, determined. But why most often are so often at least, do the events of a prophecy end up unfolding? Because the character set that sequence of events into motion when they seek to avoid the very faith that they're going to bring about. You can think of Circe in Game of Thrones, hearing what she heard from Maggie the Frog. Of course, one of my favorite examples is Harry and Voldemort in the prophecy. And, you know, I love the sequence in one of my favorite passages in Half Blood Prince when Dumbledore and Harry are discussing this very idea,

do I have to do this? Because the prophecy says I do and the passage at the end of that chapter is, but he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him it was he thought the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and

walking into the arena with your head held high. Right? And that's the distinction. And that can be a subtle thing, but like the meaning of life for these characters exists in that nuance. And I I'm so excited that we're getting to explore that here. I'm so excited.

And what I want to do before I spin off at a thousand different times is that I'm so intrigued by that 14 million outcomes that Dr. Strange saw. We have to mention quickly, too. Hold that thought for two seconds. Wanda, because we know that Wanda is going to be in the next Dr. Strange movie. And the idea of nexus events was presented in this episode. Wanda is a nexus being. We got the nexus commercial inside of Wanda vision, the nexus of all realities, this gateway,

the path of existence, a nexus. this being as someone who can manipulate time, all of this is connected. Carry on. Well, they love a flashback in the MCU phase four. They love a flashback. My question is, here's a hot take. Are we going to see, not in fan service, are we going to see a Tony Stark flashback at any point? At any point, I doubt we, I doubt we do. You mean of a different variety than what we got in this episode where we see Tony and Cap and everyone in the time place? Yeah, I don't know if they'll use him again. I wonder if the temptation would be too great. maybe it's done, maybe it's done with him,

but I wonder the temptation is too great because they're suddenly so interesting about going back and even if they don't film new stuff, because I'm not saying they'll do that because of the contract, but like going back and looking at like choices Tony made and it becoming clear that actually he was maybe aware that that was the way it was going to shake out.

He was aware because if you consider the fact, because when I saw Tony Stark do that and click his fingers, I think to myself, actually I can imagine Tony Stark knowing that he might have to kill himself to save everyone, considering the nightmare he had. Yes, but I was going to say it back in Ultron that right there. Do we revisit that nightmare? Do we revisit in the nightmare, the dream department,

going about galaxy brain, will we revisit that scene of all the dead bodies? Or Thor's vision, and Thor's, you know, for me, the most fascinating moment of Thor's arc is when he goes looking for infinity stones through all of space and doesn't find a single one. do we return to that journey? And now that we've got Loki as a variant,

he allows us to basically go back through all those unexplored MCU moments at no cost, at no cost to the narrative we already have. It's an absolute, it's a playground. It is. And how this show and Phase 4 in general will strike that balance between granting us those moments of return to the past

and establishing new character. new timelines, new rules of existence, what the balance is. I don't know, but I believe that they will find it. They like Loki are burdened with glorious purpose. They are indeed. Musa, this was a delight. It's a joy. This is always a joy.

You know what I like? There were so many things I had to say and felt about this. And I just feel delighted I've got to say them all. Like, let's load on a podcast. Like, you know, it's so great having a place to unload, download all of this. But I'm only this enthusiastic because the writing and the acting and the craft is just utterly stunning and compelling. So thank you. Thank you to the greatest of the show.

It is a pleasure. It's a pleasure to absorb it and digest it and deconstruct it. I couldn't agree more. It really is sublime. Everybody, remember to please listen to Stadio. Read Musa on the ringer.com throughout the Euros and throughout the rest of our sacred timeline. Don't stop after the Euros. Keep it going.

Which team is Loki rooting for? We'll end on that. Oh, goodness. Loki is rooting, I would say, for Turkey. Yeah, I think he's reading for Turkey. Because Turkey's had an interesting political years politically. It's got an interesting team. A team people are picking for a dark horse, and it's got the antagonist to cause real trouble.

Loki is a very, I think Turkey's got very Loki energy. I love it. trade in the TVA jumpsuit for a Turkish kit. Let's go. Yeah, do it. Go do it. Thank you, Musa. My pleasure.

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Like the rest of these here is chock full. So let's dive right in. So much content. And so many mailbag questions. Yes. Sweet, sweet content. Sweet, sweet mailback questions. Let's go.

The first question comes from Lira Ladybug. How is Cap staying with Peggy not conduct worthy of TVA intervention? So we got a lot of versions of this question. question. We got this question on Instagram. We got this question on Facebook. We got this question on Twitter. And you had mentioned this a few times in our prep sessions, Jomey. And so I think what's helpful is that now I, you know, the whole ringer, ringer versus crew knows all of your burner accounts. I'm outside. I'm outside. Lira ladybug indeed. You know, we, we mentioned this very briefly earlier. But this is definitely one of the big talking points that has emerged

among the fandom since the episode dropped. Because we get the moment in the episode where Judge Rensselaer says that what the Avengers did, quote, was supposed to happen, U. Escaping was not. That's the explanation that we get inside of the episode for why the time heist is basically okay. We don't get an explanation for anything pertaining to Steve Rogers and the life lived dancing and fucking with Peggy Carter.

So, as MCU fans know, even within the MCU creative hive mind, there's always been a lot of back and forth and different versions of what exactly happened. Was Cap Peggy's husband all along? That's the longstanding Marcus and McPhile preferred reading. That's from the screenwriting team. Russo brothers have said that in their mind, Cap is often a different reality, a different dimension. So that would lend itself to, we would think, TVA oversight. The only takeaways, I think,

are the following. Let me know if I'm missing anything, Jomey. One, by the rules sketched out in this episode, Cap and Peggy are allowed to exist in that offshoot because that's part of the timekeeper's plan. But the problem with that is pretty clear, which is how can an offshoot reality, how can a branch should be a part of the sacred timeline. The branch is not the trunk, definitionally, right? Unless it is. I guess we have more to learn about it, but that would seem to be like thinking face emoji stuff pretty quickly there.

So then you get to, did the TVA bring Steve and Peggy in for violating the timeline? Two things worth noting here. I mean, there are a million things. We could talk about this for a long time. We're only going to spend another minute on it here today. I'm sure we'll bring this up again over the course of the season. Frankly, maybe Loki, the show will bring it up.

over the course of the season. Hugely popular fan theory emerging since the episode dropped is that Peggy Carter is visible entering the TVA at the 34-minute and 15-second mark, I believe, of the episode when Loki is attempting to escape. You see a Minuteman, a Hunter, bring in

someone who, for a fleeting second, could bear passing resemblance to Margaret Carter. So maybe this has actually happened. I think it's logical to deduce that if the explanations that we get in this episode about the TVA are accurate, which again, I'm not ready to believe. But if they are, if this is actually how it totally works, probably everybody at some point has been brought into the TVA. I think the thing that would be really hard to accept about this is that Steve didn't get his happy ending. You can't prune the Steve Rogers Peggy Carter. It's been a long, long time and we're dancing at last ending off of the sacred timeline.

I will not allow it. You can't. Well, I hope not. I mean, it's two things. Firstly, the Marcus and McPhilly theory, that holds. From everything you know from the first episode,

that holds, which means, you know, Steve was just out there laying low, being chill, minding his business, right? If that's how the TVA,

if that's how the TVA rolls, you know? Enjoying life and letting Arnhem Zola do his thing. Right? Just, you know, just, just vibing. No,

fighting just vibes. And two, if that is Peggy, I'm with you. I don't really think that's actually Peggy Carter. But if it is, who knows, why is she getting, why is she getting caught up? She didn't go back in time. Steve did. I would have some serious notes on that. Number one, the patriarchy is real, you know? Right. You hate to see it. It'd to see it. Protect Peggy. Protect Peggy. Protect Peggy at all costs. This is an interesting one, though. People are going to keep talking about this stuff where I'm curious to see if we get official answers at any point. It's fun to talk about. I would love to, I would love to see it. All right. Question two from Eric's sign. Are all variants, including the one who wouldn't take a ticket and got fried, Loki?

Interesting question. So I will say, I will concede that Delhi ticket guy who ended up in a Star Wars-esque, no disintegrations only yes, disintegrations scenario very quickly there. did have like a haircut that was conspicuously like Loki's. It felt intentional. Slipside is. In the opening TVA sequence, we're walking around where we're seeing different beings,

we're picking up little snippets of dialogue. We see a scroll variant. Now, could that scroll variant be there because that scroll is impersonating or had been impersonating Loki? Previously, maybe it's possible. I'd also say you could theorize that Loki could have been projecting a different form, projecting a scroll form maybe given Loki's propensity for shape-shifting.

But we know that Loki's magic doesn't work inside the TVA, so that unwinds as quickly as you throw it out there as a possibility. I do not think ultimately that all variants are Loki. That would be kind of fun. It'd be a great twist, right? It'd be a great twist where it's just like, It would be fun. You are the only one in the history of time that consistently messes everything up.

Like, it's just you. We created this whole thing because you're a problem in the space time continuum. There's something about Loki's grandiose sense of self that I think would really appreciate. Hopefully we get answers to that. It would be fun. It'd be great. All right. Our third question comes from Noah Reed.

What hair products does Loki use? Great question. I don't know the answer, but I'd love to know the answer. I'm going to go with, you know, Loki is a fixture in Norse mythology. Loki is an Asgardian god. Also, of course, a son of Yotenheim. So I'm going to say that Loki bathes in mead, you know, uses either a fully rendered mead. I don't know what that would actually do to one's hair.

Probably nothing good. But maybe the ingredients. Maybe Loki just bathes in honey before it. mixed with water and then fermented to create the nectar of the gods. But yeah, bathing in the nectar of the gods feels like something Loki would do. So I'm going with that. Maybe chilled, maybe chilled nectar, chilled mead to tap into the Jodenheim roots. What do you think?

I think the first couple times we see Loki and Thor and Avengers, he's got like the slick back, you know, real gelled up, you know, type thing. But I think after his experience with Tony Stark and just like, at the boy is like, you know what, I don't need that much gel. And you see, especially in Ragnarok and Infinity War, just letting it flow, you know, it's not stuck, it's moving, it's grooving. So I think our boy, you know, he's just like, you know, not too much gel from the beginning, but just a little bit, you know, shape up the top, you know, so it's not going

too crazy. But he likes the flow. He likes the flow. Our last question comes from Kenan Lamb. Does this look like the most consequential event movie series? of the entire MCU explains and reveres the past while setting up the future,

dare I say, multi-archs. Interesting. Well, you know, I think as we talked about a lot today, the connections between this show and future installments seem abundant and elemental, whether that's Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness, whether it's the multiverse coming to Spider-Man, whether that's quantum man,

and a King connection, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's a really interesting Kevin Feigy quote from a recent interview that he did with Empire, which reads as follows, quote, it's tremendously important. It meaning Loki and everything they're doing inside of Loki. Quote continues, it perhaps will have more impact on the MCU

than any of the shows thus far. What everybody thought about Wanda Vision and was sort of true, and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was sort of true, is even more sort of true for Loki. So on the one hand, that feels like a pretty monumental quote.

On the other hand, the sort of language choice is doing a lot of work there that feels like a very deliberate intentional phrasing. I think, though, more broadly, we can say two things. One, clearly Loki will set into sequence a series of events that have massive implications for the rest of Phase 4. I think we can also say that part of the fun and part of the real joy of the MCU on Disney Plus is that each of these shows is consequential in its own way. There's not only one way to measure or grade what it means to be a consequential event series, installment character. The impact and the way that these shows can touch different people and spark conversation and reshape or clarify something that we understand about the past or set up a new character

or a new multiverse for the future, that's the real thrill of it. Big time. When Ms. Minnis is doing her spiel, in this episode. There's a point. She says madness and multiverse real, real quick, like. And we know that the writer for this series, the head writer is the writer for multiverse of madness.

Right. And so there's a lot of threads that could be connected. And this is something that we talked about in our meetings, where the show itself is coming out when Black Widow is coming out for, you know, it doesn't have to be like that. You know what I'm saying? Like they could have dropped this whenever. You know?

So there's possibly connection there. They weren't supposed to come out that way, originally, of course, which we should mention. But they are coming out in that order now. So does something happen in the penultant episode of Loki that influences Black Widow? Does something happen in Black Widow that connects to the finale of Loki, given the overlapping timing, definitely? You know, I'm just speaking from my age as a sealed experience. And when there was a movie coming out and while the show was airing, they would tie it in together. Well, this happened with Mando and Rise of Skywalker, too, with force healing.

So it's worth thinking about for sure. You know, keep that in the back of our head, you know, for a few weeks down the line. But like I said, this show is exciting and I can't wait to see where it goes, you know. We're going to have a lot of fun. We are. We're going to have a lot of fun mailbag questions this season. I can't wait. Jomey, the delight is always.

Glad to be here. Well, friends, our Infinity Stone paperweets are starting to crowd our desks. So that's a wrap on today's episode. Thank you, as always, to our timekeeper, our intrepid producer, Steve Allman, as well as to our Juno Ramgapal, T.D. St. Matthew Daniel, and the entire production team for all of their help with this episode. Thank you to the Lord of the Memes, Jomi and Denneran,

for his help with the mailbag and his work on the social for this episode. And of course, thank you to our own Prince of Asgard, Musa Kwanga for joining me today. Remember to listen to Musa, and Ryan on Stadio throughout the Euros, read their work. On the ringer.com, it's the best. What a great website. And remember as well to follow us on Spotify,

wherever you get your podcasts, follow us on social, and head back into the Ringervverse on Wednesday for the Midnight Boys' instant reaction to Loki, episode two. I'll be back next Friday. Until then, past the cablooey.