It makes a lot of sense that the creator of the Disney+ "Loki" series, Michael Waldron, has also worked on the Adult Swim show "Rick and Morty." Same multiverse stuff, but treated with more quasi-religious reverence instead of mockery. The Citadel of Lokis. Indeed, I suppose one must have an underlying love for tired fantasy and sci-fi tropes to continually parody them. If one isn't and is even less aroused by whatever this or that nonsense thing means for phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and doesn't care for climaxing by shot/reverse shot expositional vomit, there may be considerable eye rolling to be had. There was for me, at least. Quite disappointing, too--especially since the show does a good job for a while of demonstrating it--because Loki was originally one of the best characters in the MCU. In a way, the most important one in the initial phase culminating in "The Avengers" (2012).

Some of the reason for that remains here just as it floated about and lifted some rather listless early "Thor" franchise installments. Indeed, he's funny and well played--in a "Shakespeare in the park" sort of way, as Tony Stark once quipped--by the Shakespearean Tom Hiddleston. Most fundamentally promising about the character, though, is his reflexivity. Theoretically, he should be a natural for the multiverse. He is a reflection of the ultimate universe, or omniverse, if you must. As advertised, it's a cinematic universe. One based on trickery, scheming, transmogrification, enchantment, projection, and Loki is its god of mischief. Strange, then, that this potential of Loki has never been as fully realized as it was for, what is a minor character in the grand scheme of the MCU, Mysterio in "Spider-Man: Far From Home" (2019), perhaps the most underrated entry in the entire cosmology of Marvel burgers. Mysterio was what the MCU is: action scenes choreographed to projected computerized visual effects. Likewise, this is what I adored about the first Marvel Disney+ series, "WandaVision" (2021)--that it, including through the embodiment of its principle character, the Scarlet Witch, revealed what's really the "greatest power in the universe," television, or what nowadays is called "streaming."

Particularly in the first episode, as well as some stagecraft reveals later in the series that I shan't spoil, it seemed as though the makers of the show grasped all of this and might do some interesting or at least amusing things with it. And the interdimensional time travel is fun for a while, but then it becomes as a dull as riding a train... because they are riding a train. Before getting bogged down in narcissistic romance, convoluted mystery plotting and more and more talking, we have Loki being forced to watch events from his life. Indeed, these are scenes from prior entries in the MCU. Films-within-films, or prior episodes replayed in what is essentially been the most financially-successful serial in the history of the movie business. From there, it's intimated that this Loki will be introduced to an expanded universe of other Lokis. That's where the reflexive magic ultimately gets itself into a pickle (Rick) consumed by its own bureaucracy. Each time a new adventure might hold out some amusement, there's that TV talkfest filler to ruin it all by trying to explain the larger meaning of the universe as if the corporate grunt work going on behind the scenes were more compelling than the cinematics themselves. Recruiting-the-criminal trope, Loki becomes just another worker bee drowned out by a cultish office culture, written standard so-called "character development" as encouraged by the usual romantic co-lead and funny best pal. MCU as TVA.