Loki: The Nexus Event

SPOILER ALERT

As promised, the fourth episode, The Nexus Event was nothing short of a bombastic experience, with no dearth of shocking plot twists and fun cameos, all topped with a full disclosure of the Time Keepers. Yes, we get to see the space lizards!

A young Sylvie role-plays with her figurines when a relatively young Renslayer apprehends her for crimes against the Sacred Timeline. Wait, what? What is her crime? Is it her mere presence that triggered a Nexus event? Please don't tell me that the TVA was biting the proverbial bullet to snuff her.

Mobius converses with a visibly rattled Renslayer, who is seemingly uptight about the fracas incited by the obstreperous Lokis. He coaxes her to allow him access to Hunter C-20 to glean more intel, only to be met with the distressing news that she perished.

Meanwhile, Loki and Sylvie share an intimate moment at Lamentis, where they're trapped with no means of escape, as Sylvie tearfully confides in him that she has eluded the TVA her entire life by hiding in apocalypses.

Unbeknownst to them, this bond creates a branch in the timeline that enables Mobius to successfully track down the duo.

Finally, Mobius and Loki back together. ♪Oh, what fun it is to watch them jibe at each other♪

"Oh, here it comes a folksy, dopey insult from the folksy dope," Loki snaps.

Seems like someone has given the God of Mischief a lesson on anaphora.

Despite coolly trading venomous barbs, Loki is hurt when Mobius rightfully labels him as a bad friend. I can't help but feel bad for Loki. All his life, he was unloved, cowering in the shadows of kings and warriors, desperate for a genuine relationship, desperate to be loved—the confession that Mobius acknowledged him as a friend pulled at his heartstrings, but he was devastated when he realized that he betrayed not just Mobius, but a chance at friendship.

Shoved into a Time Cell, Loki meets Sif, who vehemently expresses her displeasure with Loki for cutting off a lock of her hair by kicking him in the balls. Satisfactory enough. But, alas, he is stuck in a time loop, with Sif, kneeing him in the groin over and over again, taunting him each time with an alternate version of 'I hope you know you deserve to be alone and you always will be.' Ouch.

Mobius intervenes, pulling him out of the Cell to interrogate him on the whereabouts of the catalyst of The Nexus Event which led to their discovery.

"It's a means to an end, Mobius. Welcome to the real world. Down there, we're awful to one another to get what we want," Loki very matter-of-factly responds to Mobius' slighting of his impulsive duplicity.

Welcome to the real world indeed. Gut-wrenchingly true.

Though initially dismissive about Sylvie, his demeanor takes a turn when Mobius falsely claims that Sylvie has already been pruned for stepping out of the line. Though Loki desperately tries to conceal his emotions, the hurt in his eyes, well… betrayed him.

Mobius confirms their twisted romantic relationship as the spur of the Nexus Event and mocks Loki's unrelenting narcissism, sending him into a fit.

"You're all variants," he blurts out, silencing Mobius.

Loki relays what he has learned from Sylvie (about the whole of the TVA task force being variants) to Mobius—this revelation in conjunction with the mysterious circumstances of Hunter C-20's death was enough to shake Mobius' faith.

Celebrating the completion of the case with Renslayer, he decides to clarify his skepticism, only to be met with more unsatisfactory truthful lies. Distracting her, he swaps her TemPad with his own.

Sylvie meanwhile, has managed to convince Hunter B-15 of the fabrication of the TVA and brings her to the apocalypse at Roxxcart (Alabama, 2050). At her bidding, Sylvie offers Hunter B-15 a glimpse of her pre-TVA life.

Mobius fiddles with the TemPad and finds the footage of Hunter C-20's debrief, and to his horror, she corroborates Loki's allegation.

Appalled at the revelation, he approaches Loki in his cell and makes amends with him. Together, they set out to rescue Sylvie.

As they exit the Time Cell, however, they are ambushed by Renslayer and the Minutemen. Retrieving the TemPad, which Mobius readily unhands, she commands a Hunter to prune him, as Loki helplessly stands by, aghast.

Renslayer brings Loki and Sylvie to the Time Keepers chamber, where the three 'space lizards' are seated on thrones atop a plinth—regal enough, I must admit. But aren't they supposed to be 'untangling the epilogue from its infinite branches', as is believed by Mobius and the rest of the TVA?

In the spur of the moment, Hunter B-15 arrives and unlocks both Loki and Sylvie's Time Collars, setting them free. A brawl ensues with machetes and Time Sticks slashing through the air, while the omniscient but apparently not-so-omnipotent Time Keepers take in the scene.

With the Minutemen and Renslayer knocked down, Sylvie advances to the Time Keepers, deftly decapitating one of them. But before she could proceed, the rest of the Time Keepers shake with mirth and eventually go limp, their heads dangling from their figures.

Examining the beheaded head, they realize that the Time Keepers were mere androids. Loki tries to comfort a dejected Sylvie and decides to bring up what happened on Lamentis (about the duo's bond having sparked the Nexus Event) but mid-sentence he is pruned by Renslayer. The episode closes with Sylvie browbeating Renslayer for an explanation.

But, oh wait, is that a post-credits scene?

Yes, the age-old Marvel tradition. In what was a shrug in the face of the viewers who believed Loki was dead (again), the scene features Loki waking up in a dilapidated city surrounded by three Loki variants—Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant), Kid Loki (Jack Veal), and Boastful Loki (DeObia Oparei).

The Nexus Event is by far, the best episode of the series, making up for everything the second episode lacked—plot development, suspense, twists, and tension. In the grand scheme of things, however, Lamentis was integral in establishing the developing bond between Loki and Sylvie.

In a nutshell, it was a humdinger of an episode. If you haven't started watching the show yet, I'm telling you, now is the time to binge it. It's totally worth the watch, never once failing to live up to the hype.

Rating: 5/5

The first four episodes of Loki are now streaming on Disney+.