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: Breaking Brad

 "We're all gonna die! Oh, hey, pleased to meet you."

This new season continues to be very good indeed. In fact, thus far it's the best Disney Plus Marvel show for some considerable time.

Ostensibly there's a lot of plot. Loki and Mobius need to find Sylvie, so they inyterrogate Brad, an agent working for Dox who may have found her, and said interrogation takes up much of the focus.

Except the interrogation is not the point: it's really aboiut the amazingly deep friendship and rapport that has built up between Loki, a god and a bureaucrat, who have really bonded to the point that Loki can relate... well, the plot of an episode of What If? (nice touch) while Mobius can express his fears aboiut finding out what his life would have been on the original timeline. I'm fairly sure jetskis would be involved.

Eventually we end with truly horrific scenes of Dox and her crew carrying outb their mission- not, as we'd thought, to find Sylvie, but to prune all the new timelinesband therreby slaughter untold quadrillions. We can sympathise with Sylvie- a goodess, albeit never having lived like one, who has found happiness in 1982 Oklahoma working a dead end job. A normal, humble life is heaven for her.

Last erpisode was about awesome concepts. This episode, while advancing the plot, reminds us that this show has such deep characters and such bloody good actors. Top telly.

Loki: Ouroboros

 "I need a Loki who remains!"

Yep, this is bloody brilliant, all right.

We ended last season on a big reveal and a big dilemma: to kill He Who Remains... let's justcall him Kang, ok? To kill Kang or not to kill Kang? Kill him, and his TVA will no longer prune the other timelines, meaning countless quadrillians will not be murdered. But does this mean inevitable multiversal way with multiple Kangs, and extinction? Yeak. Tough choice for Loki. So Sylvie makes it for him.

A lot happens here, not least with Loki slipping between what we learn is not different realities but the TVA in the past and present. It seems Kang has been changing things over the millennia and wiping everyone's minds, again and again. And the TVA, led by a general and a judge we haven't previously met, are having to face this new reality. It's going to tke a while to see how this all shakes down.

We end with an exciting action sequence which really shows us the genuine friendship and bond between a much-changed Loki and Mobius. Well, esxcept for the post-credits sequence with Sylvie in a 1982 Oklahoma McDonalds, which is a whole other thing, but the characterisation here is superb, as is the humour. This is a supremely well written, acted, directed and designed piece of television. I'm excited.

Inside Man: Episode 4

 "How does anyone ever get murdered? There's so much admin!"

There so much about this episode that's great. The above line and, indeed, most of Mary's dialogue, which straddles that line between humour and horror. The way a random woman gingerly steps over the trail of blood after Mary is run over. Mary's desperate and almost comical confrontation with Beth. Poor Ben, Harry becoming increasingly unhinged. Grieff's slow acceptance of his fate. That surprising coda with Janice asking Grieff to help her to murder her husband.

But, surprisingly, we aren't told why Grieff killed his wife. Sequel hunting, or a statement that some things are unknowable, as Grieff tells Harry his usual monologue about how all of us, given sufficient desperation, are potential murderers? Probably the latter., as Grieff is, by his own admission, somewhat pressed for time.

This is a satisfying, entertaining finale, with exquisite performances from, in particular, Lyndsey Marshal, Stanley Tucci and David Tennant. Most of all, it's satisfying, in this final episode, to see how Steven Moffat can write himself seemingly into a corner and then seamlessly out of it. Good stuff.

Inside Man: Episode 3

 "Much be so much easier."

"What must?"

"Not believing in Hell."

This is the hardest decision I've had to make for a quote for ages. That says a lot. 

There's a lot of quotable, philosophical dialogue here. But it all emerges from the characters. Harry's police interview is so very cringe. But it exposes Harry. He's a bad man, and a good man. He acted with dselfish desperation towards Edgar, and did not, as he tried to claim, protect him. Yet Edgar watched, and thus funds, child porn. And, let's face it, that suicide note wasa spiteful act of vindictiveness aimed, unknowingly yet culpably, at an innocent teenage boy.

Beth is interrogated, too, on the ethics of her trade as a voyeuristically morbid crime journalist by hardened criminal Morag- who adopts the moral high ground. And Grieff, faced with an actual execution date, reacts not with dignity but with an unexpected desperation. He wants to live, after all. And, despite the fact he mutilated his wife's corpse, apparently the retrieval of her head will explain things. Hmm.

This is building up for a huge finale, with Janice's very justifuable mind games and the horrifying cliffhanger, with Ben locked in the cellar with Janice as the carbon monoxide slowly kills them... and it was Harry who did this, so his wife would not. Because he loves hisfamily so much that he would take their place in Hell. That he would actually download child porn- an evl act in itself, funding more child abuse- to save his son.

This is deep, clever, fascinating. And memory sticks are indestructible, right?