Loki S02E04: 'Heart of the TVA'

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Loki delivers an epic cliffhanger that completely opens up the future.
by Jeremy Fogelman

After last week’s okay but not great episode of Loki, we continue with where we left off -- Miss Minutes showing that the TVA, including Ravonna, were actually He Who Remains’ army and followers, but he erased all of their memories. Including Ravonna herself, who is revealed (quite logically) to have been the general of his entire military force.

So now we have the great theoretical team-up of Miss Minutes and Ravonna working together to take over instead of worrying about the other dude, which is a compelling enough team-up that it’s frustrating it’s over in only one episode (and after all, that the season is only six episodes long).

We also continue with the Dox storyline from the end of episode two, which was essentially ignored in episode three (again confusingly) and the team has the idea to convince her to help by showing her that the new TVA needs to be protected too. B-15 is able to plant some real seeds there with Dox by appealing to their mutual care about the place and the people, even if it’s a new paradigm.

Then finally OB and Victor meet, the Ouroboros metaphor come to left as a closed time loop of sorts, and they even mention a snake eating its own tail explicitly which I thought was an amusing touch. There seems to be a new plan brewing, with the two geniuses working together to solve the Temporal Loom instability problem, and this intersects when Ravonna and Miss Minutes show up to mess around with things.

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Victor immediately saying “thank goodness you’re both okay” also made me laugh, because it fits with his characterization thus far. We also get a pretty gruesome situation where they use the boxing torture device on Dox and her people, with only Brad agreeing to defect due to his desire to be free on the timeline -- we only hear the horrific sounds and see B-15’s horrified reaction, and that’s more than enough, thank you very much. Unusual level of horror even for this show, but I guess I do appreciate it.

The production design continues to be great, like the hot chocolate maker and its cinematic spillage -- but I also adored the design of Victor being spaghettified into nothingness. Another great horror moment for the episode. Otherwise it gets resolved quickly enough, with Miss Minutes getting rebooted and blocked, Ravonna getting pruned (finally -- although at least she got to show some more badass moments here), and Sylvie easily enchants her way to victory.

A lot of nice touches, like the false hope, the way Victor keeps calling Loki “wizard”, and the Loki/Sylvie dynamic continued. We also get the resolution of the little trick in the first episode, where indeed it was Loki that pruned his past self, which does beg the question: What in the world might come next?

With only two episodes left, this was a jam packed, fast-paced episode that threatened to resolve everything but actually resolved nothing -- a great and grim cliffhanger for the final two episodes of this too short season. The dynamics of the characters continue to be great, and I do wonder how they’re going to end this whole mess. I’m more than invested now.

Note: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. We support the strike and emphasize the importance of actors and writers, and ensuring they and fellow creatives are compensated and treated fairly for their work. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn't exist.