Introduction
This is definitely low-key the best original Marvel Disney+ series…. Though that’s never been a high bar of praise to clear. Anyway, Loki once again proves that Marvel are going to keep milking Tom Hiddleston for as long as possible considering how good he is as the God of Mischief. For people who love time and messing around with it, Loki has this in abundance as there’s so many alternate timelines and possibilities you’ll swear you’re one of the three people who actually watched What If? Anyway, with a third series impossibly unlikely, it seems timely to look back at one of the only truly great Marvel Disney+ shows and its greatest highlights. So before I get into the list properly here is some history about the show.
History
Loki as a show spun out of the (let’s be real) convoluted mess that was Avengers: Endgame, in 2021 and ran until 2023, as a 2012 version of Loki steals the Tesseract only to end up being captured by the Time Variance Authority (TVA). Here, Loki is forced to work for them to capture a rogue Loki variant who is murdering TVA officers. This all eventually leads to Loki meeting his variant and then confronting He Who Remains, in the finale.
The second series follows Loki and Mobius, a TVA Officer who is close to Loki, as they attempt to piece the TVA back together after Loki was splintered across the multiverse and time itself. The show has had some major people attached, including Kate Herron who was Series 1 showrunner, and a stacked supporting cast featuring the likes of Owen Wilson, Richard E Grant and Ke Huy Quan. Now with the history out of the way, here are the best episodes of Loki ranked.
10. Lamentis (S1, E3)
Who doesn’t love a good buddy cop storyline? Well, here’s a treat for you as Loki and the Variant, Sylvie, are on a planet, called Lamentis-1, about to experience moonfall. And their only way out is to charge a Tem-Pad to transport them to a different timeline or to escape on a ship transporting people offworld. I’m sure you can’t see where this is leading.. Anyway, despite both technically being the same person, we start to see the bond being formed between Sylvie and Loki There’s also plenty of other revelations about the TVA as well as some great performances from both Lokis, Hiddleston and Di Martino.
9. Ouroboros (S2, E1)
Warning even if you loved the first series of Loki this will probably hurt your head a bit as Loki is time slipping all over the place. Now while that may sound like a dirty analogy, it refers to the fact Loki is currently not in one specific timeline always and is slipping across multiple ones. This means Mobius has to quickly find a solution in order to anchor Loki in one timeline in order to help the search for both Sylvie and any new variants of He Who Remains who may have sprung up after the events of the Series 1 finale. A decent opening episode massively elevated by the fact Ke Huy Quan is in it who just makes everything so much better with his presence.
8. For All Time, Always (S1, E6)
Remember when He Who Must Not Be Named in the history section? Well, unfortunately he plays a rather large role in this episode as Sylvie and Loki find out that He Who Remains, a Kang Variant, created the TVA and Alioth to keep the Timeline in order after generations of multiversal civil war. He’s even kind enough to offer Loki and Sylvie a choice of killing him but restarting multiverse chaos and leaving him alive but allowing the TVA to continue its enforcement policies.
Ultimately, Sylvie makes a choice but sends Loki back to what he assumes to be his timeline only to see a massive statue of He Who Remains in the TVA headquarters as he slowly realises the dire nature of the situation. A fantastic series finale which is unfortunately neutered by real world events and a certain He Who Must Not Be Named spectacularly canning his career.
7. Glorious Purpose (S1, E1)
The opening episode of Loki did a fantastic job at bringing the audience who forgot about that one scene in Endgame where he escapes with the Tesseract up to speed. Here, we see Loki taken by the TVA who charge him with crimes against the Sacred Timeline, where he is then sentenced to see all the pain he causes and is caused by others. One of the things that this episode did which so many of MCU shows missed was to ground the characters and dive into their emotions as Loki slowly realises he has no choice to cooperate with the TVA lest he continuously suffer at their hands. A great introduction to the series with plenty for returning and new fans to enjoy.
6. Heart of the TVA (S2, E4)
Wait just a (miss) minute, because this episode blows open the Loki canon and really starts messing with your head. So, Miss Minutes (the talking clock voiced by Tara Strong) reveals that in the past Renslayer (a TVA employee) used to command He Who Remains army but he had her memory erased. Knowing this, Renslayer and Miss Minutes try to take control of the TVA together and crush anyone who stands against them. All this leads to a mad rescue mission where Sylvie and Loki attempt to rescue Victor Timely (another variant of He Who Remains and thus a Kang Variant) in order to try and stabilise time. However, through convoluted events this only causes the problem to absolutely multiply and spaghettify out of control. A wonderfully silly and confusing lore episode.
5. The Variant (S1, E2)
If the first episode scratched the itch, then this second episode scratched deep and hard into the show. Bit of a weird analogy I know but we move…. Anyway, this episode sees Loki joining the TVA on a mission to find the Variant who’s been terrorising TVA agents. And somehow only Loki draws the conclusion about how the Variant has been evading detection for so long. It’s also in this episode that we find out the identity of the Variant, aka Sylvie, and see the chaos that she has put on the TVA when she sends reset charges across the Sacred Timeline. Basically, she’s trying to cause alternate timelines to cause chaos. Honestly, she puts Hiddleston to absolute shame with the grandeur right now…
4. Science/Fiction (S2, E5)
Surprisingly in the midst of everyone being across multiple timelines, this episode does have a very nice emotional core. Here, Loki has to try and reunite everyone after they were sent back to their original lives pre-TVA. However, as Sylvie later works out whilst helping Loki, he isn’t just doing this to restore order he’s doing it because he’s afraid of being alone and having no friends. Oh and the series waits until the penultimate episode to decide that Loki can now control his time slipping ability which is both nice to see and utterly contrived in the grand scheme of things. Besides any personal gripes I have with this episode, it is very fun to see Loki having to try and explain the concept of the TVA to people who haven’t gone through it yet.
3. Journey Into Mystery (S1, E5)
This episode clearly went down the route of what’s better than one Loki? Two Lokis. What’s better than two Lokis? Three Lokis and why should we stop there…. Here, we see The Void basically where anyone who has pruned ends up, an inescapable place at the end of time. Here Loki meets quite a few other variants like Classic Loki, Alligator Loki, President Loki and Kid Loki. Together with Mobius, they plan to escape the void by enchanting Alioth, the being which kills all it touches. While they do achieve this, it’s at the cost of Classic Loki as he creates an illusion of Asgard to distract the beast. The ending sets up the series finale well as both Loki and Sylvie see a way into a world beyond time through Alioth. A very solid and funny episode to boot.
2. The Nexus Event (S1, E4)
Remember that bond between Sylvie and Loki? Well, it comes in rather handy here as they start to fall in love despite technically being the same person. This, through convoluted timeline nonsense, allows the TVA to track the pair down. Unfortunately, this means Loki is in a time loop with a painful memory of Lady Sif (Remember her?) Personally, this was a missed opprtiunity to use the Hulk battering Loki scene from Avengers: Assemble but I digress. All this culminates with a lot of people out of time literally, including Mobius and Loki, the latter of whom ends up being with a lot of Loki variants. Overall, a very solid episode with plenty of revelations about the TVA and its mysterious Timekeepers.
1. Glorious Purpose (S2, E6)
And the best episode of Loki is…. Glorious Purpose. Hold on, because amidst all the deja vu the showrunners clearly wanted to be cyclical and name the last episode the same as the first episode. That’s a fitting choice as it really ties up a lot of the loose threads from the show. Case in point, Loki jumps back to before he and Sylvie met He Who Remains and asks him about the problem which caused all this: The Temporal Loom. Eventually, Loki replaces Victor Timely in walking to the Loom and rearranges all the branches himself. This allows everyone, well except Renslayer, to get a happy ending as Loki and Sylvie watch over Mobius in retirement as he spends time with his kids which the TVA cruelly stole from him. A wonderfully poignant and poetic finale fitting of the best Marvel Disney+ show.
