A most wretched hive of scum and villainy, the Chicago World's Fair.
Last time on Loki, the hunt
was on for the Missing TVA agents lead by General Dox. … Yea, the time skip was
weird here. Loki and Mobius found Hunter X-5 living life in the 70s under the alias
Brad Wolfe, a movie star. Using some… intense interrogation tactics, they were
finally able to get X-5 to show them where Sylvie was hiding out. She’d taken
up residence in a Branch Timeline working at a McDonalds in the 80s. Loki tries
to talk to her but she’s adamant about being out of all of this. X-5’s fidgeting
makes Mobius suspicious, and they get Sylvie to enchant him to figure out why
he’s so insistent they leave the Branch. Turns out, Dox plans on using the
metric tons of bombs she stole to blow up all the Branch Timelines. The trio go
to their base and try to stop Dox, but she ends up destroying most of the Branch
Timelines. This might be a good news/bad news thing, as OB is trying to fix the
Time Loom to accommodate more timelines but hit a snag where he can’t actually
access the facility because it’s locked. Only He Who Remains could open it, or
Miss Minutes, so they need to find that clock lady now. Thankfully, they get a
hit on Renslayer’s TemPad, so they’ll be off to find her. Enough recap. Let’s
get to it.
Ep 9: 1893
We begin in Chicago in 1868. Renslayer
steps out of Time Door and is looking for someone, revealed to be Miss Minutes.
Renslayer pulls out document that Miss Minutes needed. She tells Renslayer to
put the package in a window, as part of He Who Remains contingency plan to “save
time.” Miss Minutes promises Renslayer that when this is finished, they’ll be
beside a restored He Who Remains at the top of the TVA. Renslayer leaves the
package, a young Black boy finding it. He opens it to find the TVA guidebook.
Back at the TVA, Loki and the gang
are trying to get into the Loom. OB tells them that Dox’s actions slowed things
down a little, but the Branches are growing back already, so it didn’t buy them
much time. They need to get in there and make the Loom bigger to accommodate the
new timelines. Mobius suggests they hack into the system, but no one has the
skills for that. They suggests finding Miss Minutes, she has administrative access
to open the blast doors. They have two hits from the TemPad to look for, so
Loki and Mobius head out.
They arrive in 1868, Renslayer’s
TemPad having told them she visited this year and the same spot in 1893. Loki
wonders why she’d go to the same place twice. They wonder if any pivotal person
in history was here, but Mobius can only think of the Chicago Fire, but that
was in 1871. They pop right back out again to 1893 to check that year. They
arrive in 1893 and only then does Mobius remember this is the location of the
World’s Fair. He rather excitedly lists off Hot Air Balloons, the White City, Edison
and HH Holms. I get three of these but that last guy is a serial killer. They
start searching the Fair, almost immediately running into a paper boy touting a
“ghost clock” haunting the midway. They open the paper and see Miss Minutes
clearly on it. They start searching. After getting concessions. Mobius is
having a good time. They come across a Norse exhibit and Loki is snippy about
it. He says it’s about boiling down his culture into nothing, but Mobius thinks
it’s because he isn’t one of the three statuses, Odin, Thor, and Baldur are.
Side note, I’ve been making cracks about how odd it is that Loki and Thor have
never mentioned their other brother Baldur, and friend and sometimes other-other
Brother Tyr this whole time, so it’s good to see someone decide to address it even
in a gag line. Loki says that Thor isn’t that tall before leaving. Loki spots
an advert for “Victor Timely’s Astounding Temporal Marvels.”
We cut over to the exhibit,
Renslayer and Miss Minutes are there in disguise, and Loki and Mobius arrive a
minute later. Mobisu spots her but Loki keeps him from rushing and spooking
her. The opening act ends, and the curtain opens. Victor Timely comes out and
presents his device, a prototype of the Temporal Loom. Loki is clearly shaken
by seeing Timely, whom will be He Who Remains. Timely suggests that Time will
be the future of energy. He explains that his loom converts time into energy
and weaves into an elegant line. He claims that his device will be able to
light the whole of Chicago. A heckler keeps asking condescending questions, and
it clearly starts frustrating Timely. He claims that his device will power the
whole planet. He claims all science is fiction until it’s fact, his machine
overloading slightly and throwing off sparks. Mobius wants to take him back to
the TVA to get access to the Lom. Loki isn’t sure that’s a good idea, but
Mobius points out they’re on a clock. They lose track of Renslayer, whom
approaches Timely. One of the hecklers comes up to Timely and tries to strong
arm him into giving him the patent rights for his machine. Timely says no and
walks off, another man cuts him off and a bidding war starts for Timely’s
machine. The first man offers him a thousand dollars and Timely agrees to it.
Loki runs into a giant man. Renslayer is doubtful that Timely will be He Who
Remains, but Miss Minutes assures her that this was He Who Remains’ plan, so it
should work. Loki banishes the big dude getting in his face and they chase
after Renslayer and Timely.
Outside, they all try to get Timely
to come with them for just a second, but a city councilman comes up and demands
a refund for prototype pants Timely sold him. Loki realizes that He Who Remains
is a con artist that sells junk to suckers with fake contraptions. Just in time
for the guy that bought his device to come in and demand his money back. Timely
runs off, leading him on a chase until he and his goons get stuck in a Ferris
wheel gondola, Timely slipping out. B-15 calls Mobius, who reports on the He
Who Remains Variant. She tells him that Casey detected a weird TemPad reading.
Turns out, the reading is Sylvie portaling in to kill Timely. Loki and her
start fighting as she tries to kill Timely.
Sylvie wants to kill Timely, and
isn’t willing to listen about how they need him to save the TVA. While they
fight, Mobius tries to get Renslayer to work with them but she refuses. Sylvie
accuses the TVA of giving Timely the book, of “Weaponizing” him. She says that
Renslayer set him on a path he wasn’t meant to walk, and that Loki is going to
make him dangerous. Loki tries to convince her that Timely might be their best
hope to save all of time, but Sylvie isn’t listening. They blast each other,
Renslayer using Miss Minutes to cause a riot and escape with him. Sylvie tells
Loki this is on him.
Timely and Renslayer return to his house.
He shows her one of his inventions, a self-cooling refrigerator chair. Timely
is impressed with Miss Minutes. Renslayer tells Timely the broad strokes, that
a version of him made the TVA and was killed by the Loki’s. They promise to
keep him safe and Miss Minutes makes it clear that she’s looking to turn him
into He Who Remains. He asks why they’re not working with the “Gentleman Wizard”
or his butler. Renslayer says they can’t be trusted and that Loki murdered him
and often changes side. The Robber Baron shows up to get Timely, they slip out
and head for Timely’s lab across the lake. He claims that he sells things in
Chicago but works in Wisconsin, lower taxes. That’s how those filthy Cheese
Bros get you. (Joke, I’m from Minnesota). They lose Timely and Renslayer. Timely
and Renslayer head out on a boat to his lab.
On the boat, Timely tells her that
his latest invention is a device that will let him understand and manipulate
time. He reveals that he was indeed the boy that Renslayer gave the book to, he
figures this out and thanks them for it. He shows her the biggest idea he’d
discovered in the book, a device to increase the throughput of the Loom. He
says that he was always waiting for technology to catch up with his vision. He
makes her an origami flower and they have a moment. She says she has high hopes
for their partnership. Renslayer falls asleep, but then wakes up as she’s
dropped in a lifeboat into the lake. Turns out, Miss Minutes convinced him to
ditch Renslayer, as she was talking about a partnership and he doesn’t do those.
Renslayer gets the oars ready and tries to follow them.
At his Lab, Timely summons Miss
Minutes and starts gathering his devices and notes. One of the machines is the
Loom throughput enhancer. Timely prepares to leave, but Miss Minutes suggests maybe
they lay low for a while instead. There’s a real creepy vibe as Miss Minutes
gushes about how important he is and what he did for her. She talks about the eons
they spent together, how she was originally a chess playing AI that he enhanced
and kept with him through the multiverse war and the TVA. She asks him why he,
meaning He Who Remains, never made her a body. She suggest making her a real
body and making her his girl. This scares Timely enough that he shuts off her
display despite her pleas. Renslayer arrives and holds a Prototype pruner on
him. She tells him that from now on she’s in charge now, just as Loki and
Mobius arrive. Mobius tries to convince her to work with them, but she’s not
listening. Renslayer has a rant, saying how she was the only one that kept the
TVA together, that all that matters is order vs chaos. They all get knocked back
by Sylvie’s magic. Timely begs for his life, saying that he hasn’t done
anything and that he isn’t He Who Remains. He says he’s not the man she thinks
he is. His pleas reach her and she tells them to get him out of here. They open
a Time Door for Timely and he and Loki and Mobius head out. Alone, Sylvie
starts beating on Renslayer, working out some aggression on her. She claims to
have killed Renslayer thousands of times and that kind of obsession is
crippling in it’s own way. She realizes that Renslayer wants, a seat at the end
of time, and she decides to give it to her. She opens a Time Door behind Renslayer
and shoves her through. She arrives at the End of Time and He Who Remains’
corpse. She reactivates Miss Minutes. She’s feeling miffed at being scorned and
that Timely made a mistake out of making an enemy of someone who knows all the
secrets. She says she knows a big one about Renslayer and that finding out
about it will make her real angry. And the credit’s roll.
Once again, I find myself annoyed
at how good of an actor Jonathan Majors is. With the revelations of his abusive
and violent nature, I really can’t praise his acting without a bad taste in my
mouth. So, yeah, I guess he’s better in this than he has any right to be. I
think I am slightly confused at how Variants work at this point. So, all of He
Who Remains wiki entries refer to him as Nathaniel Richards from the 30th
Century, a time traveling scientist that made the TVA and did space/sci-fi
stuff. But I guess with the mechanics of the multiverse, alternate timelines
throw him out at alternate periods of history? I really just need a sciency type
to sit us down and explain how Variants work to the best of their ability.
Whatever, Renslayer found a Variant of Nathaniel and gave him the means to
develop his tech. Neat. The fact that he uses that tech to be a con man as the
technology over all is too advanced for him to do anything with is a nice twist.
Miss Minutes’ new… dimension was interesting. Having a sufficiently intelligent
creation fall in love/obsession with their creator is an old story, like Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein old. But up to this point, while Miss Minutes was
shown to be intelligent and autonomous, I don’t think we got any hints of her
being capable of emotions. So, her sudden declaration of love and a desire for
a body for them to rule together just kind of comes out of left field. It
works, it’s a very creepy scene, I just would have liked to see more of this obsessed
with my boss angle sooner. I feel like the secret Miss Minutes knows about Renslayer
will probably lead back into that recording Loki heard in the past, but we’ll
see. I liked that Timely himself is what convinced Sylvie to not kill him, that
defending himself and saying that he has free will to not be He Who Remains was
a good way to go about that. Not sure what Sylvie is going to do now or how the
situation gets worse, but we’ll see about that next time. Have a good night.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/93593075
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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