Loki S02E05: 'Science/Fiction'

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Loki brings the show to new emotional heights in the season’s penultimate episode.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of Loki is called “Science/Fiction” and is heavily invested in viewing the series and its characters through the lenses of those ideas and how they both intersect and differentiate. We continue immediately where the last episode left off, with a white out transitioning to Loki alone in an eerily empty TVA while an automated alarm message repeats about a “Fail Safe Mode” as he starts to time slip again.

This is a concept that was introduced in this season and exactly why Loki started time slipping in the first place was never really explained even if guesses could be made about it. Similarly his ability to control is loosely implied, and the nature of the whole time travel stuff is still a little inconsistent -- although that sort of thing is quite difficult to really keep fully consistent in general.

What follows is a sort of “get the band back together” montage of sorts, as Loki runs into the original versions of his pals, including Casey who is an escapee (based on a real life person) from Alcatraz, B-15 who is a doctor in New York, and of course Mobius who is “Don”, a sports utility salesman and OB, who is “A. D. Doug”, a scientist and failed science fiction writer.

Naturally AD is immediately hilarious in his hapless but competent role, and naturally is able to lead Loki in the right direction for a while -- his discussion of science being about “how” versus fiction being about “why” is more about the story perspective since science is also concerned with why things work they way they do, but the real point of that is to examine the driver of Loki’s motivation in his redeemed perspective heroic role.

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Owen Wilson as this non-Mobius single dad is also easily relatable in a real way, and helps us connect again to the stakes of losing everything that the sometimes nebulous TVA “billions are dying” didn’t always manage to do. Loki reflects to him that he saw something in him he didn’t see in himself, a pretty significant realization, which is mirrored by his later conversation with Sylvie, who pushes him to reveal that it’s about selfishness in a way.

Loki does want to save his friends, but also to save himself and end his loneliness. But while Sylvie may be right about Loki’s motivations, she’s wrong about the logic of the situation, as we see a gorgeously realized scene of a record store “spaghetti-ing” away into nothingness before she manages to escape.

Hints of this instability happen throughout the episode as small things vanish that aren’t so obvious at first, but it’s all leading up to the point where Loki loses his friends again and hears the voice again -- that question whether a Loki is defined about losing, and he refuses to vanish himself.

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That is what lets him control the time slipping, and he explains as the beautiful score from Natalie Holt gets you in the rousing spirit that in fact it’s about the “who” as he looks at Mobius and Sylvie (and perhaps us), and that he can “rewrite the story” which is a pretty impactful statement.

So it leads into the finale of the too short season, which was messy at times but always compelling, and definitely having me wondering how it could possibly all end. It’s always possible they drop the ball, but this team has done a pretty great job so far so I’m optimistic about it -- as always Tom Hiddleston and the others are great, with an amazing musical score and impressive visuals. I hope it all gets paid off as it should.