Loki: Glorious Purpose

 "The last thing I want is a throne."

SPOILERS, obviously. I mean, this is not only the season finale but surely ends the show for good, two seasons to tell one complete stiry and then stop.

Loki begins and ends with an episode called Glorious Purpose; the snake eats its own tail. But look how far Loki has come, a triumph of character development from the writers and from Tom Hiddleston. In the end, Loki is truly a god from a myth, sacrificing everything so that a whole multiverse of infinite timelines may live and countless people may live. Last episode he confessed to Sylvie that he was motivated not only by altruism but by fear of losing his friends, of loneliness. So we know that his sacrifice, meaning perpetual loneliness, is meaningful and a final redemption.

And this is all beatifully mythical- Loki, for all eternity, alone on his throne, sacrificing everything. There are obvious echoes of Christian mythology, of course, but far more of the old myths. It's a different pantheon, but this evokes such things as Apollo driving the Sun across the sky in his chariot every day. It's appropriate, then, that the new loom should reveal itself as Yggsdrasil, the World Tree. The ultimate Ragnarok has been averted.

So yes, much of the episode is timey-winey fun evoking such things as Back to the Future, and it's brilliant. But there's real depth here, and character. Not only Loki; Mobius accepts he needs to leave the TVA and discover who he really is. We even get to see He Who Remains being sincere with Loki and, while we can't accept what he stands for, we can understand his motives. He's not evil, but genuinely focused on what he sees as the greater good. Jonathan Majors is extraordinary as ever here, with HWR and Victor Timely being crucially different performances.

There's so much subtext here, too. I'm barely scratching the surface. There's a lot about free will vs. determinism which is at once timey-wimey and philosophical. There's lots of great comedy in the timey-wimey scenes ("I'm not questioning your surprisingly advanced engineering skills..."), beautifully performed. There's an ambiguous end for Renslayer. And, in the end, there's what appears to be a stable multiverse. This, I'm sure, is at the heart of this phase of the MCU. More than that, though- episode, season and series- this is utterly magnificent.

Loki: Heart of the TVA

 "I promise you this will make sense!"

Wow. This is some extraordinary, important, timey-wimey storytelling with revelation after revelation. Yet it's all about the characters, the performances, the humour.

So yes, Renslayer and Miss Minutes (does she die for good?) are the baddies. But they have their reasons. We learn at the very start that this version of Renslayer was the partner of He Who Remains, commander of his armies... yet he sent her back in time to run the TVA, and erased her and everyone's memories. Wow. How very Kang and Ravonna. No wonder she and Miss Minutes are now plotting on their own. Yet no one wants to join them, and- except Brad- endure a tortuous death rather than join them. But what's their plan? And are they being manipulated by You-Know-Who?

I love the ideological debate between Loki and Sylvie: the TVA may now mean well, but can they or anyone be trusted with that much power. Loki at this point has come so far from his "glorious purpose" beginning, yet his growth, and his friendship with Mobius, has been believable. And Sophie's bollocking of Mobius is a nice touch too. Is she implying that she may know who he is on the timeline?

But Victor's reaction to the TVA is a joy, as is the mutual fandom- and time paradox!- between him and OB. Yet it all ends in, well, darkness and doom, surely the ultimate cliffhanger. This is truly extraordinary stuff, far above any other Marvel TV show.

Loki: 1893

 "And why'd they include Balder? No one's heard of him."

Oh Boy. This isa bloody brilliant, hugely exciting bit of television, with tension and excitements all the way, and so many twists and turns.

Yes, there's far too much CGI in the Chicago of 1868 and then 1893, but the historical setting is perfectly realised- the sets, the costumes, the social attitudes (sadly having to include some degree of racism directed at Victor Timely without which, unfortunately, the setting would not have been plausible) all perfect, and it being wisely decided that there's no need to include H.H. Holmes, unless one of Timeley's bidders was subtly meant to be him.

So many ideas here, though. Victor Timely is a Kang variant born in the mid-Nineteenth Century, not the Thirty-First. He has the genius of Kang but exists in an age where the necessary technology does not exist, so he is forced to be a con man, set up by Renslayer and Miss Minutes, acting at the behest of the late He Who Remains, who obviously planned all this, and much else, before his surely expected demise at the hands of Sylvie.

Speaking of whom... I love the debate/fight between her and Loki in the Ferris Wheel, but all the more I love her unexpected decision to spare Timely and allow him to be returned to the TVA. After all, who is Sylvie, of all people, to punish a variant for the crimes of another version of themselves?

Also cool is the love triangle, with both Renslayer and Miss Minutes(!) vying for Timely's affections. Miss Minutes is a delight here. But so does the whole damn thing. I've no idea where this is going, but it's clearly pivotal for the MCU. I'm so very here for the ride.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

 "How many holes do you have? I'm sorry, is that a personal question?"

I hear this film is not so well-liked as some Marvel films. I rather suspect that this may be connected to the fact that this film is utterly bonkers. I, for one, say that this is no bad thing.

Where to start? I'll briefly observe, with the MCU fifteen years in, that it offers a fascinating contrast with the comics in that there can be no equivalent of Marvel time: actors age. Even, at last, Paul Rudd. Even Michelle Pfeiffer, sixty-five and sexy. Even Michael Douglas, an action grandad living his best life as a Hank Pym in his late seventies. And, yes, Cassie is an adult xennial, part of that awesome generation that won't tolerate oppression and will save us all.

Then there's the wildness of the quantum realm. It's CGI, and obviously so, but it's perhaps the most out there science fantasy madness ever to be given to us by a mainstream Hollywood offering, full of trippy, utterly and deliciously insane visuals.

But... Kang. Wow. I'm aware of the... issues surrounding Jonathan Majors at the moment. And how, indeed, the Kang arc may be affected. With the post-credits sequences really leaning into Kang as a massive thing, too: Immortus, Rama-Tut, a proper Council of Kangs, all played by Jonathan Mayors. But damn, he's such a good actor- charismatic, believable as a villiain who is a cross between Einstein and Alexander the Great from a thousand years in the future. He comes across as psychopathic, yes; charismatic, yes; but a three dimensional person, with wit and a penetrating intelligence. Everything he says, one feels, contains a subtext that goes over one's head. He's quite the villiain, a triumph of both script and acting. He has both the eccentricity of a scientist and the believable threat of a man who can and will conquer for the intellectual challenge.

I haven't even mentioned the excellent humour, or the heartwarming daddy/daughter stuff between Scott and Cassie, something which this doting and denied daddy just gobbles up. Little Miss Llamastrangler will be just as brilliant. Then there's the love between Hope and Scott, Scott's insecurity as the man who talks to ants vs. his heroism, the glorious heroism of Janet and Hank, old people who kick arse. 

And, yeah, super-evolved, socialist ants. Although, you know, perhaps they should read a bit less Marx and a bit more Beveridge, and Lloyd George without the temperance. But I digress. The point is, the critics are wrong, This is one of the finest Marvel movies of this decade.

Loki: For All Time. Always

 "Only one person gets free will. The one in charge!"

Wow. This is huge. So suddenly there are branches everywhere, there's an array of Multiverses, and He Who Remains... no, that names a bit of a mouthful; let's give him a one syllable name such as, like, "Kang", because that's blatantly who he is, given his actions and backstory- is dead, but his variants will live on.

Kang is awesome, a deeply clever puppetmaster who is the man behind the curtain at a Citadel at the End of Time, so clever he can break the fourth wall and cheerfully show Loki and Sylvie the script of the scene they're in. He gets to say "We're all villains here". His Multiversal backstory is fascinating. He's eneormously charismatic. Yet his existence offers a horrible vision of free will. It cannot exist, or Multiversal War breaks out. Tyrannical, stutifying order vs. destructive anarchy. As Kang puts it, get rid of the dictator and... well, we all remember Iraq. Must it be either tyranny or Hobbesian chaos? Either way, the die is cast.

The debate, fight, kiss and betrayal between Loki and Sylvie is deeply moving in the end. So is the bitter parting between Mobius and Ravonna... and, indeed, the fact that Loki ends up back at the TVA, with no one knowing who he is.

Unsurprisingly, we get a second season. This is superb telly.