I am still trying to make up my mind on Loki season 2, as while it’s nice to see Mobius and Loki back, things are getting…a bit weird in episode 2 here. Weirder than usual, in any case, and not in a particularly good way.
This week was supposed to contain a “jaw-dropping” moment in which a rogue TVA general bombed a bunch of new timelines “killing” billions if not trillions of people in those branches. I’ve heard some superfans comparing it to Thanos’ snap in terms of the scale of destruction, but in reality, I think it shows just how little weight the multiverse carries.
In Loki, the multiverse was only spawned…two episodes ago. These branches did not exist before two episodes ago. Past that, we barely visited one or two branches after that, and in this mass branch bombing, I don’t think any character died we’d ever met, unless you’re counting infinite versions of the Avengers or everyone else in the MCU because that’s how the multiverse works.
But narratively, it just doesn’t work. Not in the way the MCU is presenting it in Loki. There are no stakes here. You’re telling me you killed trillions of people, but it’s hard for that to carry any weight at all when those branches appear to be a few hours old and full of no one we actually know (I am still unclear on how a single TVA agent could walk into a timeline and blow up an entire universe instantly, as that seems like a stretch, but whatever).
The Thanos snap worked because it affected character we’d known for years, or even over a decade. No, I don’t think anyone believed that Marvel just permanently killed half its characters, but the dramatic impact of the scene and the loss was still felt. It was a culmination of years of getting to know these characters and watching them evaporate before our eyes. The TVA, meanwhile, is expecting us to mourn trillions of people we’ve never seen or met.
Source: Forbes
