'Loki' web series episode 1 review: A glorious purpose, indeed

Loki has always been one of the most interesting villains the Avengers had to face. He is charismatic, strong and forges ahead with reckless abandon on a misplaced sense of purpose, making him a uniquely dangerous foe.

But he is more than that. As evidenced in the Thor sequels and Avengers: Infinity War, there is a side of him that feels more human than nearly any other antagonist in the franchise, barring the likes of Thanos or Killmonger. It's a mix of these, with Tom Hiddleston's masterful portrayal, that Loki has become a massive fan-favourite.

So, it's not much of a surprise that the Loki web series would expand on all of these little facets of the character, and it does. For the first time, the show presents a side of Loki that has been remarkably suppressed -- emotional. There is a point in the first episode where he gets to see the deaths of his adoptive parents, Frigga and Odin, and you can see the character just... break. He goes from haughty God of Mischief who stole the Tesseract, only to get arrested for it, to someone whose entire world slipped away from his fingers, and it hurts.

But other than that, the first episode serves as a solid introduction to a facet of the MCU that has yet remained unanswered: Just who the heck goes in to fix the chaos caused by everyone's near-constant messing of the timeline? The answer is: The TVA.

The TVA appears to be a mysterious organisation/body/command centre of sorts to manage what is called the "Sacred Timeline", the violation of which gets Loki captured by its operators. It has an oddly well-defined chain of command and operating structure, which is glimpsed in the first episode (with more likely to come later on), and has a very alien feel to it, even more than the actual aliens in the MCU.

Commanded by three "space lizards", as Loki puts it, the TVA's apparent purpose is to ensure no one goes beyond their "intended path", lest a war on the scale of the multiverse break out. With the MCU going heads-on into the more fantastic elements of the comics, it only makes sense to bring in a more concrete concept early on.

There is a lot to unpack in the functioning of the TVA and its workers, but the star of the show is Mobius, played by the enigmatic Owen Wilson, who -- for all intents and purposes -- is the tour guide of this fantastical new world that Marvel is stepping into, after the mind-bending experience that was WandaVision.

And although there is a 'villain' to fight, as teased by the episode's final minutes, Loki feels like it's gonna be a buddy cop comedy with a hint of drama throughout. One can only look forward to what this new show will bring to the MCU mythos, and how it will tie into Loki's ultimate death at the hands of Thanos.