This review contains spoilers for episode 6 of Loki.
“For All Time. Always.” is the third Marvel finale that fans have gotten to enjoy on Disney+ this year, after WandaVision’s “The Series Finale” and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s “One World, One People.” The key difference with the Loki finale is that it’s the first MCU show of the year to have a second season on the cards. While WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier were burdened with the glorious purpose of conclusively ending their shows’ story arcs, Loki had the freedom to set up season 2 – and that’s exactly where its problems lie.
WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s finales were much more action-packed and conclusive, because they weren’t being planned to lead into a potential second season. WandaVision’s finale saw Wanda confront Agatha, let go of Vision, and free Westview from her mind control. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s finale saw Sam truly become Captain America. Unfortunately, the Loki finale is mostly dedicated to setting up the premise for the next season.
While there is a solid explanation for how the TVA came to be (and one that incorporates one of the most iconic Marvel characters of all time), the explosive payoffs fans were hoping for will have to wait until next year. Mobius still hasn’t gotten to ride a jet ski! The episode puts Loki and Sylvie’s relationship and the conflict at the TVA in the backseat to focus on Jonathan Majors’ debut as iconic Marvel baddie Kang the Conqueror, also known as “He Who Remains.”
The episode never explicitly states, “Hey, look, it’s Kang the Conqueror!,” but it’s pretty easy to put the pieces together. Majors has been cast to play Kang in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, his costume in Loki is very similar to Kang’s, and he even jokingly refers to himself as a “conqueror” at one point. Introducing Kang as the cosmic overlord in charge of the universe living at the end of time in Loki makes a lot more sense than introducing him as the villain of an Ant-Man movie. In the comics, Kang’s prowess as an enemy of superheroes and a threat to the cosmos rivals that of Thanos. He could still be terrorizing the Avengers when the MCU is in Phase Six. So, a lot was riding on his surprise introduction.
Just like Josh Brolin’s brooding take on the Mad Titan, Majors’ delightfully eccentric turn as Kang didn’t disappoint after all the build-up. He brilliantly captured the character’s unnerving holier-than-thou-ness from the comics, he’s shrouded the character in an intriguing sense of mystery, and the episode’s chilling final moments tease him as the next season’s big bad. But that’s one of the biggest problems with this episode. Majors is so compelling that he steals the show, effectively sidelining Loki, Sylvie, Renslayer, Mobius, and all the other characters fans have become invested in over the past month and a half.
Marvel fans were hoping to see Mephisto or the Fantastic Four or some other equally revered icon make an appearance in WandaVision, then in TFATWS, and Loki has finally given those fans what they want: an entire episode dedicated to introducing the MCU’s next Thanos-sized supervillain. And it just goes to show that Marvel fans don’t really know what they want. Kang’s introduction has been highly anticipated since the MCU started taking off – and Majors’s performance certainly didn’t disappoint – but committing the whole finale to Kang’s pseudo-Shakespearean ramblings felt like a distraction from what made Loki’s first five episodes so much fun: the trickster god’s repartee with other versions of himself, his endearing dynamic with Mobius, wacky adventures across the spacetime continuum.
The opening sequence taking audiences through the whole course of human history before introducing the Citadel at the End of Time was as surreal and mind-bending as Marvel fans hoped a Loki show from a Rick and Morty writer would be, but that was the peak of the episode’s trippiness. After that, it essentially becomes a long, drawn-out lecture that establishes the worldbuilding for what promises to be a much wilder, trippier second season. Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Judge Renslayer has emerged as one of the show’s most morally complex characters over the past few weeks, but she’s practically relegated to a cameo in the finale. She’s likely being primed for a larger role next year, but still, it was kind of a let-down to see so little of her.
The finale is far from dissatisfying. It has significantly raised the stakes of Loki’s ongoing storylines and set up a bright future for the series, and it has a couple of shining moments. The Minutemen’s discovery of a schoolteacher on a random timeline that they recognize as a variant of Renslayer is a great example of the show’s roots in hard sci-fi. There’s also a poignant scene in which Sylvie finally fulfills her destiny, watches the timelines branch out, and breaks down as she realizes the gravity of what she’s done. After having to keep her involvement in the project a secret for months, Sophia Di Martino’s performance as Sylvie has stood out as one of Loki’s highlights throughout its first season. She’s a perfect foil for Tom Hiddleston, both comedically and dramatically, and the finale episode puts a spotlight on that by mostly focusing on Loki and Sylvie weighing up their options in a single room.
“For All Time. Always.” isn’t exactly a disappointing episode, but given the fact that Loki and Sylvie spend most of its runtime sitting in front of Kang’s desk, listening to endless exposition, it’s just not a very eventful one. Last week, the Loki-verse teamed up to slay a cloud dragon. This week, Kang said a bunch of stuff, Loki and Sylvie accused him of lying, then he said a bunch more stuff, then they accused him of lying again, over and over for about 20 minutes. But at least it was all building to a mind-blowing cliffhanger.
Loki’s season 1 finale might play more like a trailer for season 2 than a real climax, but as far as trailers for seasons of television go, this one’s pretty tantalizing: the Sacred Timeline is in shreds, branching off into countless Nexus events, and Loki is trapped in a different universe controlled by Kang where Mobius doesn’t recognize him.