TV shows are awesome

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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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Richard Grant as "classic Loki", complete with that Silver Age costume, is just awesome. Best part of a great episode. Depending on how this series ends next week, this may pass Wandavision as my favorite of the MCU tv shows so far. We'll see... I tend to think, given how the show has gone so far, that there must be a Loki behind the TVA. I don't see how we can get a satisfying ending any other way.

"Glorious purpose!!!!" :mrgreen:
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Sparky Prime
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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Finally got caught up on Loki.

So....
Spoiler
Everything about the TVA is lie. The people that operate it aren't actually born there. Turns out they are all variants themselves and used to live normal lives in the "Sacred Timeline". The Time Keepers aren't real, they're just robots. Even the pruning of timelines they is a lie, they just get sent to the end of time for a creature to eat. It's strange, despite (some of) these revelations, Ravonna Renslayer decides to betray Sylvie rather than work with her to figure out who is really behind creating the TVA together. Apparently she thinks it's better to maintain the status quo while she gets to the bottom of things secretly and on her own. Really interesting to find out who is really behind the TVA then, and why they created it... I loved all the Easter Eggs in this weeks episode. I couldn't believe they had the Thanos copter of all things just sitting there. And all the variants of Loki was fun as well.
andersonh1 wrote: Thu Jul 01, 2021 4:21 amAnd how about that mid-credits scene. I recognize 60s comic book Loki, but not the others.
Pretty sure Alligator Loki and Boastful Loki are original creations of this series.

Kid Loki was in the comics. While defending Asgard from Norman's "Dark Avengers" (Asgard being on Earth at the time, following the events of Ragnarok), Loki was killed by Sentry's Void persona, and was subsequently resurrected as a child with no memories of his former life. Eventually, adult Loki was restored, but a copy of Kid Loki continued to exist for a little while longer.
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andersonh1
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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Sparky Prime wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 1:15 amPretty sure Alligator Loki and Boastful Loki are original creations of this series.

Kid Loki was in the comics. While defending Asgard from Norman's "Dark Avengers" (Asgard being on Earth at the time, following the events of Ragnarok), Loki was killed by Sentry's Void persona, and was subsequently resurrected as a child with no memories of his former life. Eventually, adult Loki was restored, but a copy of Kid Loki continued to exist for a little while longer.
I figured some of them had to be from the comics, but having read so little Marvel, I wouldn't know about them. But I do own The Mighty Thor omnibus vol. 3 from the late 60s, so I appreciate that version of Loki (albeit a far more noble version) showing up.

So was frog Thor was a real thing in the comics?
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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andersonh1 wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:17 pmSo was frog Thor was a real thing in the comics?
Yup. Thor #364-366. That was also a great Easter egg. Apparently it was even voiced by Chris Hemsworth.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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The lastest Bad Batch episode was essentially a "Rebels" prequel, with Hera as a child and Chopper as the main characters. The Bad Batch get a scene in the middle of the episode and that's it, unless we count Crosshairs as one of them still, despite his estrangement. Interesting to see a clone Commander who still acts like the pre-Order 66 clones.
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JediTricks
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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Loki has been fantastic aside from a saggy 3rd episode. That 5th episode was so rich in character and in fun details. It's already my favorite MCU show by a lot, same for my gal. I'm a little sad that tomorrow's the last episode. Richard E. Grant continues to be the absolute best, but every cut to Alligator Loki was a scene-stealer.


The Bad Batch hasn't really tickled my fancy much yet, Omega continues to be too important despite not really doing much of anything, while there's a missing sense of direction. The Rebels tie-in last week was pretty good, I am looking forward to seeing where that's going.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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JediTricks wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 2:15 pm Loki has been fantastic aside from a saggy 3rd episode. That 5th episode was so rich in character and in fun details. It's already my favorite MCU show by a lot, same for my gal. I'm a little sad that tomorrow's the last episode. Richard E. Grant continues to be the absolute best, but every cut to Alligator Loki was a scene-stealer.
Agreed.
The Bad Batch hasn't really tickled my fancy much yet, Omega continues to be too important despite not really doing much of anything, while there's a missing sense of direction. The Rebels tie-in last week was pretty good, I am looking forward to seeing where that's going.
I agree that it probably needs a more overt direction and sense of forward momentum. It's very episodic, and as I noted before, very much a "Clone Wars guest star of the week" show. But I enjoy revisiting these characters and this universe, and it gives us something different than Clone Wars with a non-wartime, non-Jedi show while still allowing us to keep up with many of the characters and situations from that show.

And if Omega wasn't part of the cast, it would be an all-male, all military main cast. She adds a female presence and a touch of innocence to contrast with the others.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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Loki episode 6:
Spoiler
so that guy was who we waited six episodes to see? What a terrible, ridiculous villain. Very underwhelming, very disappointing. At least the destruction of the singular timeline promises some interesting stories, hopefully. This has been a great series, but "he who remains" was a real misfire.

The ultimate villain in the castle at the end of time needed to be another Loki. If the show is about forcing Loki to examine his life, and it largely has been, then the most satisfying ending would have been to have him confront himself and still walk away. This crazy guy who came out of nowhere who babbled and made a very poor impression as a supposed "greatest power in existence" made for a very lackluster ending to the series.... if you can even say it ended, since we're left with a very open-ended cliffhanger.
I thought we got five great episodes, but the finale really fell flat in just about every way.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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Agreed on Loki.
Spoiler
My girlfriend basically had finally found something she liked in these MCU shows and that 6th episode ripped it away from her. What a disaster of an ending, what a terrible choice. Just have a guy we've not met yammer on and on while eating an apple, monologuing was such a bad choice. When I checked in with my gal after, turns out we both spent a lot of that time studying the marble background and that crazy window, not a good sign when your character is literally saying the most important thing possible about this show. But that's what you get when you take one episode to set up 3 upcoming movies instead of making that the primary focus. Just infodump with a new character, try to make it a dynamic performance from a talented actor, hope for the best. But the actor couldn't save this, the script had to do that work, and it failed. Miserably. What a let-down. If this had been episode 6 of 8? Sure, no problem, ep 3 was a bit of a snooze. But when you have this be the culmination of everything that's been so great and it lets down the 2 characters you're building up while giving almost no screentime to anyone else? You're basically whiffing on a bunt that would have won the pennant.

As it had been previously announced that this was a one-season series, and now it's not, it looks like that could be the reason why the director said she's not returning to season 2. I may not be either.
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Re: TV shows are awesome

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I had a different take on episode 6....
Spoiler
Maybe it didn't make for the most exciting of season finale's, but I think I see where they're going with it. This episode is obviously only an introduction to "He Who Remains" as a character, with out actually revealing his true identity (unless you know the comics to pick up on the clues they gave us). And as a time traveler, it's interesting to me that they started with a(n) ending rather than the beginning. From the sounds of future plans thus far, they may be setting him up to be the next big bad Thanos level villain for the next phase of the MCU (Jonathan Majors who plays "He Who Remains" is already confirmed to be appearing in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania).

It's important to remember, Loki is getting a season 2. This is not where this story ends.

Causing the "Sacred Timeline" to once again diverge into a multiverse (and I guess seems to have also reset time to some degree, given no one at the TVA recognized Loki), somewhat reconciles some of the conflicts I had with the beginning of the series... Although there still needed to be multiple universes for the Avengers to time travel as it was explained in Endgame, or any of the variants in this series to exist, so I'm not sure how exactly that's supposed to work with how this series explains things...
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