Marvel aired its third season finale of the year on Disney Plus recently. The distinction with Loki’s finale is that it actively set up a second season, whereas WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier were conceived as limited series and set out to tie up every loose end in the final episode. But the fact that the majority of Loki’s finale episode “For All Time. Always.” is dedicated to setting up season 2 is precisely what makes it so disappointing.
Instead of providing all the explosive payoffs fans were waiting for, the Loki finale simply promised that those explosive payoffs are on the way next year. Loki and Sylvie spent the lion’s share of the episode sitting in front of He Who Remains’ desk as he explained the multiversal threat that he and his variants will go on to pose in future episodes. Arguably, the previous episode, “Journey Into Mystery,” would’ve made for a more satisfying season finale.
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For all intents and purposes, “For All Time. Always.” isn’t a disappointing episode. It provided plenty of thought-provoking answers to the mysteries of the TVA and it’s set up a very alarming and uncertain future for Loki. But since it’s dedicated to providing answers and setting up Kang as the new big bad, it arguably would’ve been more effective as the season 2 premiere than the season 1 finale.
The introduction of Kang the Conqueror – or at least a variant of him – was certainly exciting, and Jonathan Majors’ performance as the time-traveling baddie who will torment the Avengers for the next decade or so managed to live up to the hype. But whenever Majors was on-screen, stealing the spotlight, it didn’t feel like an episode of Loki anymore. It felt more like the first episode of The Kang Show than the last episode of The Loki Show.
The finale episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier might not have wrapped up all the show’s storylines and John Walker’s sudden change of heart felt disingenuous, but it provided more than enough action to satisfy as the climax of the series. Seeing Sam in action as Captain America for the first time forgave the script’s other missteps. Loki’s finale, on the other hand, featured barely any action. Loki and Sylvie briefly fight with no real danger of actually hurting each other and that’s about it.
“Journey Into Mystery” was easily Loki’s most action-packed episode. It ends with all the Lokis teaming up to slay Alioth, which might be the largest-scale action sequence featured in any of the Disney Plus series to date. It has the heartbreaking death of Richard E. Grant’s “Classic Loki,” one of the most spectacular displays of the God of Mischief’s magical abilities in the MCU, and a crucial team-up between Loki and Sylvie that solidifies their bond. This would’ve made a much more exciting ending for the season.
The actual finale ends the season on a pretty haunting cliffhanger, as the trickster god has found himself in a timeline where Kang runs the TVA and Mobius has no idea who he is. But the final scene of “Journey Into Mystery” would’ve left the first season on a tantalizing cliffhanger, too. The episode ended with Alioth’s death clearing the portal to the citadel at the end of time. Loki and Sylvie boldly venture through the portal with no idea of what to expect on the other side. Then, next week, within minutes, we find out what’s on the other side. As long as the MCU’s next Thanos-sized big bad was waiting on the other side of that portal, Marvel could’ve made fans wait a year to ponder and discuss and theorize.
Maybe with shareholders and everything, Marvel couldn’t just bump the sixth episode into next year’s season and release Loki with five episodes. But in that case, the writers should’ve dedicated more time to the Void. Loki went to a dangerous dimension full of pruned Lokis and then left that dimension in the same episode. The brief glimpses of President Loki in the trailer were basically all we got to see of him in the actual series. The writers could’ve at least stretched Loki’s antics surrounded by versions of himself at the end of time across two episodes.
While the second season of Loki has a fascinating setup either way, the penultimate episode of season 1 would’ve made a more satisfying finale. All the Lokis teaming up to slay Alioth would’ve been a more action-packed climax and Loki and Sylvie venturing through the portal to the citadel at the end of time would’ve been just as tantalizing a cliffhanger to end the season on as the Kang statue. But, for all we know, the writers have an even more effective season 2 premiere planned than if they’d just bumped “For All Time. Always.” into the next production cycle.
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