“He Who Abides” is back. Well, sort of.
The main villain of Loki is still dead, his body rotting in the same chair where Sylvie stabbed him at the end of the first season. And yet the Master of Time has returned in another life, on another timeline, just as he predicted. “Reincarnation, baby.”
“1893” centers on the introduction of Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), a genius 19th-century inventor who is on his way to becoming the man thanks to the TVA guidebook, a gift from Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha). who creates the Time Variance Authority -Raw) and Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong) who push him in the right direction. The arrival of this trio is a significant narrative development as Season 2 reaches its midpoint, but otherwise Loki takes a step back in the third installment after a strong start.
Directed by Kasra Farahani, “1893” is more uneven than its predecessors as Loki begins to wrestle with the many moving parts of a fast-paced six-episode season. With the arrival of Timely, Ravonna, and Miss Minutes, it has become more of a challenge for the series to balance airtime between advancing the story – which uses a lot of exposition to describe the confusing technology crisis facing the TVA – and the possibility of being able to afford both, to balance character enough space to develop meaningfully. While the limited focus on Loki and Mobius in last week’s “Breaking Brad” was one of the strongest features of the episode, Sylvie, for example, has quickly become an unlikable character whose perspective has been almost completely lost. Meanwhile, poor Ke Huy Quan remains trapped in constant science fiction language for the second episode in a row: OB only appears briefly to explain the TVA’s technical difficulties, as the team now needs a throughput multiplier to help deal with the Temporal Loom of the excess of branching timelines. Ironically, Loki could really use more time.
Issues with pacing and character development aside, the third episode represents a somewhat awkward departure from the series in terms of its tone, which vacillates between Loki’s typical dramatic sincerity and a campy sensibility that pays homage to the episode’s central time period . There’s a one-off iris shot when transitioning between locations that looks out of place, and a few crazy chase sequences that reminded me of Scooby-Doo! (minus the doors to nowhere), set to a playful, old-fashioned score. (Marvel Studios’ opening song does sound kind of on the harpsichord, though, I have to admit.) Still, “1893” has its moments, and Loki continues to stand out from the rest of the MCU, not least thanks to its excellent cinematography and the unique look and feel of each location .
(Side note: “1893” director Farahani also serves as the series’ production designer and is largely responsible for crafting TVA’s wonderful, retro-futuristic world that is at the heart of the series.)
Following General Dox’s attack on the branching timelines in “Breaking Brad”, an event that has been largely put aside for now, Loki and Mobius trace Ravonna’s TempPad to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The duo arrives in a branching timeline that diverges from the Sacred Timeline after Ravonna and Miss Minutes give young Victor Timely a glimpse into his future. But what begins as a search for Miss Minutes, who offers the TVA the best chance of gaining the access they need to repair the Temporal Loom, soon turns into a mad scramble to reach Timely first. With each party having their own reasons for wanting to reach Timely, Loki and Mobius face off against Ravonna and Miss Minutes, a random businessman that Timely defrauded, and Sylvie.
Thanks to an ill-timed standoff between Loki and Sylvie that parallels their fateful duel at the end of time, as well as a ghostly distraction from Miss Minutes, Team Ravonna manages to snap Timely out of all the commotion and retreat to one of its discreet locations . There, Ravonna and Miss Minutes explain to Timely their history and their deep interest in him as he becomes the powerful man known as “He Who Remains.” (And when I say “interest,” there’s a lot to unpack here. We’ll delve deeper into their, er, desires later.) Together, the trio flees Chicago and takes a boat to visit Timely’s lab in Wisconsin, a reference to the character’s comic origins. But when Timely finds out that Ravonna is becoming something of a business partner for him, he dumps her in Lake Michigan and continues with Miss Minutes.
The final confrontation in Timely’s lab is pure chaos. As with Sylvie’s sudden, barely explained appearance at the start of “1893,” the episode’s conclusion features a series of events in which each character arrives at just the right moment to try to take control of Timely. After Miss Minutes Timely is attacked (?) and shut down (literally), Ravonna emerges from the shadows with an early prototype of the Time Stick to tell Timely that he now works for her. Then Loki and Mobius burst in and beg Ravonna to let Timely go so they can take him back to the TVA to help repair the loom. And then Sylvie breaks everything up with her magic, just as Ravonna finishes a dramatic speech.
Everything depends on Sylvie’s choice – and she is familiar. With a machete in hand, Sylvie can kill Timely – which would prevent him from becoming “He Stays” – or she can let him live and trust that Loki and Mobius can make the TVA a better place. As Sylvie prepares to deliver a verdict based on crimes Timely has not yet committed, he helps her see how she is preventing him from having the free will she has been fighting for all along.
“You don’t know me,” he pleads. “You don’t know the heart that beats in my chest. I can make my own decisions. I’m not the man you think I am.”
Sylvie finally concedes, allowing Loki and Mobius to return Timely to the TVA using the throughput multiplier he conveniently had ready. With only Ravonna left in the room with her, Sylvie takes revenge on the former TVA agent who kidnapped her from Asgard as a child by kicking her through a time door into the crumbling citadel at the end of time.
“1893” does a lot to move the second season forward, but that move comes at the expense of what made Loki the series that Marvel Studios wants to emulate in future TV shows. For all the praise I gave “Breaking Brad” and its focus on Loki’s development as a character, he’s more of a bystander in this episode. The same goes for Sylvie, who quickly finds herself falling behind in a season that hasn’t yet given her the space to move beyond her blinding hatred of the TVA.
(The one moment that really focuses on Loki, aside from how it serves the plot, is him reflecting on his lost Asgardian family when he and Mobius see statues of Thor, Odin, and Balder the Brave at the World’s Fair. While Balder’s presence in the Easter egg seems more like an opportunity for Loki to bond with Thor’s lesser-known half-brother than anything else, it does confirm the character’s existence in the MCU. Maybe we’ll see more than just a wooden representation of him soon.)
Introducing Victor Timely
The introduction of “Timely” marks Majors’ first appearance in the MCU since news broke of his arrest in March for assault and harassment of his then-girlfriend, as well as a Rolling Stone investigation in June that detailed a history of abusive behavior became. While Majors returns to the big screen in Loki, the actor will appear in court next week for another hearing in his case.
As uncomfortable as it is to watch Majors under these circumstances, his performance as Timely is admittedly one of the most compelling aspects of “1893.” There is a certain eccentricity in Timely, who pronounces words seemingly at random, with an unexpected pace in his diction. Glimpses of his irregular speech pattern can be seen in He Who Remains, which dates back to the first season, as shades of Timely still appear in him, even after living at the end of time for eons.
Timely and He Who Remains are different yet the same. In addition to their shared genius, Timely conveys a similar sense of greed and desire for solitary power. As he tells a potential buyer after his presentation on the Temporal Loom, “I don’t do partners.” His resistance to handing over control and his lack of trust in others are even more evident when Ravonna and Miss Minutes emerge as joint leaders of the Position TVA. Timely shows a romantic interest in Ravonna, hinting at a relationship that existed between his variant Kang the Conqueror and Ravonna in the comics. But when he realizes she has ulterior motives, Victor doesn’t hesitate to banish her from the boat and his life.
Whether Timely is truly destined to become “He Who Remains” is another question, and it could be crucial in the coming episodes. Sylvie spared Timely’s life because she believes everyone deserves the freedom of choice; She was once robbed of her life in Asgard because she was born Loki, and she decided not to stop Timely from getting the chance she lost. Timely’s time aura and throughput multiplier will make him a godsend for OB as he tries to save the Loom. But the kind of person Timely ends up being can have serious consequences.
Reintroduction: Ravonna Renslayer
When we last saw Ravonna in Season 1, she was walking through a time door “in search of free will.” In “1893,” she steps across to the Other Side to meet with Miss Minutes and, under orders from He Who Remains, sets Timely on the path to eventually stripping the multiverse of its… free will. I think that’s one way to find it.
But we quickly learn that Ravonna actually seeks more than the abstraction of free will: she wants power. As Sylvie realizes, former Judge Renslayer wants a seat at the end of time to give her true control of the TVA. First, Ravonna attempts to seize power by flirting with Timely and seeking shared rule with a variant of the man who brought order to the multiverse. It’s something of a reversal of Ravonna and Kang’s relationship in the comics, which the Conqueror initiated in a characteristically aggressive manner. (While Ravonna isn’t exactly outspoken towards Victor, Kang, in contrast, tried to woo Princess Ravonna by invading her father’s kingdom on a 40th century alternate reality Earth. I’d say Ravonna’s tactics are in comparison pretty useful at that.)
However, when the romantic path fails, Ravonna tries to take control by force. And as she threatens Timely’s life from Loki and Mobius, Ravonna argues why she should be the one to lead the TVA into a new era. “I’m the only one who can bring stability to the TVA because I’ve been doing it thanklessly for eons,” she says. “When will you learn that none of your words mean anything? All that matters is order versus chaos. I’m alright.”
It’s less clear what Ravonna actually wants to do with all this power, unless bringing order to the multiverse is truly enough for her. Much like Loki neglected Sylvie in Season 2, there’s still a lot of time to be devoted to Ravonna, but she’s now well on her way to being a major antagonist again, even if she’s banished to the Citadel at the end of time. If Sylvie really wanted to punish Ravonna, she probably should have checked to see if Ravonna still had a TempPad on her.
Instead of leaving her enemy to rot at the end of time next to the last corpse she left behind, Sylvie has given Ravonna a chance to take a closer look at the goal she’s been working toward while leaving her with a device that that this allows her to leave at any time. And Ravonna has already seized the opportunity to realign herself with the second most powerful character in the TVA: Miss Minutes.
Reintroduction: Miss Minutes
Miss Minutes, voiced by legendary voice actress Tara Strong, was introduced in Season 1 as a sort of mascot for the TVA. She was portrayed as the friendly face who greets new variants as they await trial for time violations and guides new employees like Loki through the inner workings of the TVA. But as the series progressed and the TVA’s deceptions were exposed, it became clear that there was much more to the anthropomorphic clock. She had a clearance level that almost exceeded anyone else at the TVA and a direct line to the man behind the curtain, the one who remains.
“1893” repositions Miss Minutes as a key figure and changes our understanding of what she is capable of. Since she had left the TVA and was unavailable in the first two episodes, we already knew she had some degree of autonomy. But what the renegade artificial intelligence actually wanted remained a mystery.
Towards the end of “1893”, when Miss Minutes is ready to put all her cards on the table for “Timely”, she blushes and changes her body back to her original color, having worn a black and white aesthetic that contributes to the Era fits. At any moment she feels like she could ask Victor to draw her like one of his French girls. (“Is there a sketch of me in your diary?” she asks playfully.) Miss Minutes tells him how “He Who Abides” gave her the choice to write her own programs and forge her own desires, and how She was his companion at the end of time for eons. But he didn’t give her what she really wanted. “If I had a body, we could really lead together,” Miss Minutes tells Victor.
“Yeah, that’s… that’s something I don’t know how to do,” he replies.
“You’ve never tried it before,” says Miss Minutes. “With all your strength, with all your abilities, you just kept me as your thing. Your computer. Your toy. Instead of what I could have been… your girl.”
The sudden emergence of Miss Minutes’ unrequited love for He Who Remains is simultaneously the strangest and funniest development Loki could have brought about. Despite being rejected by Timely, her motives – to gain power and a body to call her own – have never been clearer. And after being spurned by her potential lover, she is presented with a glimmer of hope for a possible alliance with Ravonna.
As the episode comes to a close, the lovestruck Miss Minutes leaves Ravonna – and the audience – with a little teaser to linger over as the clock of “Timely” quickly ticks on: “Well, it was stupid of him to make an enemy of someone who knows all his secrets. I know something really big about you. I can tell you, but… it’ll really make you angry.”
As the second half of the season begins, Loki and the TVA have managed to find an unlikely possible solution to their Temporal Loom crisis after finding the man who invented the device. But when Miss Minutes and Ravonna rally after being rejected by the same variant, their problems are far from over.