Before going into the review of this third episode, lets have a small recap:Loki, the villain who debuted as a negative character in Thor(2011) and played the main antagonist in Marvel's Avengers(2012), got his own web series now, thanks to the Disney+ platform. In the previous 2 episodes, Loki is shown to be captured by the TVA(Time Variance Authority) as he tried to escape from the shackles of Avengers using the space stone(tesseract), and he was made to work as a kind of detective to guide the TVA in locating and capturing another variant, which turns out to be Loki himself in a different time line and reality. In the second episode, that variant is shown to be a lady called "Sylvie" and she set off multiple branches of time using TVA's reset charges. As Sylvie teleports to TVA, Loki follows her.
Episode 3:
If you have watched any of the previous episodes, this one feels a little slow in terms of action or the screenplay. That is because it kind of drags on to reveal Lady Loki(Sylvie) with many open ends to her yet-to-be-revealed origin story. That might be revealed completely in future episodes or during the finale as a surprise, but right now what we know about her is this:
She was tracked by TVA continuously, leading to disruption of her normal life. There isnt much known about her relationship with Thor or Odin or Frigga, but it would be safe to assume that she did know them, based on her conversation with Loki in this latest episode.
There isnt much to comment about the proceedings, since there were lesser number of twists here and the story moves around mostly Loki and Sylvie and almost completely ignores other characters.
This episode gives us ample clues about the back story of Sylvie, like the below dialogues between Loki and Sylvie:
LOKI: “You're not the only tech-savvy Loki.”
SYLVIE: “Don't ever call me that.”
LOKI: “Tech-savvy?”
SYLVIE: “No, a Loki.”
After having spent a lifetime running from capture by the TVA, “Lamentis” revealed Sylvie's distaste for the term "variant" as she says in an outburst of rage “don't call me variant.” Additionally, while Sylvie no longer goes by her Asgardian name, it's made clear that she did at one point as she tells Loki “that's not who [she is] anymore:”
LOKI: “Slow down...variant!”
SYLVIE: “What part of imminent death confuses you? And don't call me variant.”
LOKI: “I'm sorry, but I'm not calling some faded photocopy of me Loki.”
SYLVIE: “Good, because that's not who I am anymore. I'm Sylvie now”
Not only the above dialogues, but even the way Sylvie keeps her past from Loki leads us to believe that she has way more secrets to be revealed in the later episodes.
For now though they are stuck in Lamentis metropolis as the arc that could have saved the people is destroyed before it could take off.
PRODUCTION VALUES
Lamentis metropolis has been created very well and so beautifully that we will get lost by looking at it. The shot where the arc collapses is one of the top shots we have seen in the series and stands out even for its sound design.
CONCLUSION
This Episode 3 of Loki is pretty much the weakest of the trio thus far, despite being still a good one at character development. The dynamics between Sylvie and Loki are top-class.
Loki and Sylvie are set to be a unique pairing through the series' second half, especially as more details come pertaining to which side of the fight Sylvie finds herself on. With the two now stranded in the late 21st century on a planet completely foreign to both of them, the two will need to muster their best efforts to survive, flourish, and find their way into more favorable conditions.
With love..
Anil
