Loki is over 2 years old now. It’s strange that I’m discussing a series that ended so long ago. I’m currently re-watching the Avengers movies, and I got Infinity War. I noticed (again) that Loki and Thor never truly got to share a moment together. This is because Ragnarok ended, and then Thanos showed up quickly after. This is exactly why I’m still frustrated that Thor never appeared in Loki’s own series.
In Loki’s show, we see him go full circle. We know it’s not the Loki that Thanos killed. It’s the Loki from the Battle of New York as he’s in cuffs awaiting to be transported to Asgard. He manages to intercept the Tesseract and dip out of the chaos that’s being caused. The Time Variance Authority (TVA) sweeps in to arrest him as he’s broken the Sacred Timeline by escaping.
This entire arc allows Loki to go from someone so misunderstood but hungry for power to realizing there’s more to everything than power. He becomes a hero. It’s something Thor never got to witness, either. We see Loki’s reaction as he watches his final moments and sees how much it broke Thor.
The thing is, Loki doesn’t just save the day. He saves the universe as it’s known by sacrificing himself to keep it together. The Loki we used to know was selfish, cunning, mischievous, and didn’t care about anybody but power (and the Tesseract).
He becomes bound to keeping the timeline together manually. He has to sit there and hold it together. It’s bravery at its finest. It’s the moment he finally becomes the God of Stories. It’s a role defined by growth, pain, and evolution, and the one person who deserved to witness that transformation sadly wasn’t there.
He does this so everyone else can live. How the directors never managed to get Chris Hemsworth in to reprise his role as Thor for this, I’ll never know. Some argue that Marvel avoided using Thor so the show stayed focused on Loki, but honestly, Thor’s presence would’ve strengthened that focus, not taken anything away.
After all, we’ve seen this dysfunctional relationship between Thor and Loki go through one of the biggest rollercoasters ever, which began from the first Thor movie in 2011 to Infinity War in 2018. That’s 7 years. With no closure at all. Their entire arc has been about conflict, forgiveness, loss, and brotherhood. Ending it without a final emotional moment feels like an unfinished sentence.
The last Thor knew was that his brother was truly dead at the hand of Thanos. Technically, he’s right, but for me personally, this would have been one of those moments where Thor got to see what his brother turned out to be. This variant of Loki was right after the Battle of New York, where he was defeated. He was STILL angry.
I know Avengers: Doomsday has both of the actors cast, so we’ll likely (or we should) see a reunion between the pair. However, given the size of the cast list, I’m concerned that they may not be given sufficient depth or timing to make it feel emotional, which it definitely needs to be.
I’m being pedantic a touch, but I feel like the Loki show made much more sense. To be fair, though, I would not mind them using “get help” on Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom…
