‘Loki’ Episode 5: An Abundance of Lokis — And a Terrifying Monster (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[WARNING: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Loki Season 1 Episode, 5, “Journey into Mystery.”]
How many Loki (Tom Hiddleston) variants can exist in one episode? The limit does not exist!
In “Journey Into Mystery,” Loki discovers just how many different versions of himself the TVA has pruned throughout time… and there are quite a few of ‘em. Meanwhile, Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) tries to get the truth out of Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who claims to be just as in the dark as she is about who’s behind it all. And thankfully, Mobius (Owen Wilson) makes a triumphant reappearance just when someone needs him most…
Several Thousand Questions
Back at the TVA, Sylvie interrogates Renslayer and discovers that pruning a branch doesn’t destroy it. Instead, it transfers it to a “Void at the end of time,” where the branch won’t keep growing.
In that Void, Loki has “several thousand questions” for the other Lokis, but they don’t have time to go over them, as a monster called Alioth has been hunting them. How are there so many Lokis? Well, as Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant) puts it (and Loki himself put it one episode ago), they always survive. While the Lokis in the Void travel to an underground bunker, Ravonna betrays Sylvie with the intent of putting her in a time loop. Thankfully, Sylvie escapes — she prunes herself to find Loki, determined to make it past the Void and discover who’s behind the TVA. Later, Renslayer chats with an imprisoned Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku), who says Sylvie is going after whoever created the TVA and that Renslayer’s quest to find them before she does is doomed to fail.
Disney+/Marvel Studios
What Makes a Loki a Loki?
Loki learns about the other Lokis backstories — Boastful Loki (DeObia Oparei) says he defeated Iron Man and Captain America, then took all the Infinity Stones; Classic Loki faked his death at the hands of Thanos, hid out on a remote planet, and was pruned when he decided to go find Thor; Kid Loki (Jack Veal) was pruned for killing his brother (yikes!). But when Loki gives an inspirational speech about how they can all work together to kill the monster, the others aren’t having it. Annoyed, he heads off by himself… only to run into President Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and an army of what appears to be other Loki variants.
Apparently, President Loki and Boastful Loki had a deal to dethrone Kid Loki and make Boastful Loki the new leader. Except, predictably, President Loki betrays him — and a fight breaks out. Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki, and Loki make it out, and Loki then manages to convince them to help him take down the TVA. They agree to take Loki to the monster, but that’s as far as they’ll go.
Mobius Returns!
Meanwhile, Sylvie awakes and is nearly killed by Alioth, but Mobius (hooray!) saves her. As they drive away, she says they need to turn around because she thinks the creature is the key to their escape. And she might be right; while Loki’s plan to kill the creature seems doomed (he and the others watch as the thing consumes the USS Eldridge), Sylvie believes she can enchant it.
And after she reunites with Loki (and meets the other Lokis), and they have a sweet conversation about what they’ll do after the TVA is defeated that probably means one of them doesn’t make it out of the finale, they put that plan in motion. The other Lokis opt to stay in the void while Mobius goes back to the TVA to, as he puts it, “burn it to the ground.” Then it’s just Sylvie, Loki, and Alioth.
Disney+/Marvel Studios
Glorious Purpose
The plan gets off to a bad start, as a branch doesn’t appear to distract the monster, meaning that Sylvie and Loki have to distract it themselves. That doesn’t work, either, but Classic Loki creates a full-scale replica of Asgard to turn it away from them. He pays for that with his life — “glorious purpose!” he shouts as Alioth consumes him — but it gives Sylvie and Loki the time they need to enchant the monster.
They open their eyes and see the smoke parting to reveal a city… seemingly, the world beyond time itself and the home of whoever’s behind the TVA. Hand in hand, they walk toward the truth about who’s behind it all.
Loki, Wednesdays, Disney+
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