Fans didn't learn nearly as much from the latest episode of Loki, "Lamentis," which slowed down the pacing considerably to flesh out the dynamic between Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie. However, the episode did manage to drop one bombshell: that everyone that works at the TVA is actually a Variant like Sylvie and Loki.
Not only does this recontextualize multiple scenes from previous episodes, but it paints a saddening picture of the people who work for the TVA and an even grimmer picture of the people in charge, whether it's the Time-Keepers or Kang the Conqueror.
"WHAT'S A FISH?"
A funny joke delivered by Eugene Cordero's Casey in the episode "Glorious Purpose" can now be seen as an example of the degree to which these people have had their minds altered. Casey told Loki that he lived his "entire life behind a desk," which could be quite literal but acceptable if told you were "created" by the TVA.
It possibly means that whenever the TVA gets new agents and office workers, they completely wipe the minds of these Variants and put them to work immediately. Essentially, slavery on an enormous scale, which also strips them of their very identity.
SUPPRESSING THE TRUTH
Another scene that's far more morbid in retrospective is Sasha Lane's Hunter C-20 repetitious "It's real," likely due to Sylvie causing her to remember her life before working for the TVA. It's even sadder when she tells Mobius, "I want to go home," to a timeline that no longer exists and a life she can no longer have again.
In the latest episode, Sylvie mentioned to Loki how, "That young soldier from the TVA, her mind was messed up. Everything clouded." Even implying that people who work at the TVA have worked there for hundreds of years since Sylvie "had to pull a memory from hundreds of years prior, before she even fought for them." Meaning that people who work for the TVA become ageless and end up working for them forever.
Endless servitude, only barely scratching the surface of whom they used to be, like Owen Wilson's Mobius.
MOBIUS THE JET SKIER
The one agent and analyst of the TVA that audiences have gotten to know the best is Owen Wilson's Mobius, who has constantly been in Loki's corner. Defending him against people like Judge Renslayer and various other agents that would want nothing more than to prune him.
Before Loki and Mobius have their philosophical discussion, they talk about jet skis. The one thing that Mobius seems to enjoy most about humanity as if it was a cherished memory. Loki asked Mobius if he had ever ridden one, but he sadly denies that he has, saying that he would cause a branch in the Sacred Timeline if he did.
Loki retorted, "It'd be fun though," with Mobius dejectedly agreeing with him as he cast his eyes downward, "Yeah, it'd be really fun." As was the case with Hunter C-20 and every other agent working for the TVA, Mobius had a life of his own on Earth as a jet skier in the 1990s.
Even sadder is his total devotion to the TVA and the Time-Keepers, which he defends, almost religiously, against Loki's assertions that it's all propaganda. Now that Loki knows the truth, how will Mobius take it when Loki eventually tells him? Will Owen Wilson's character see it as another one of his tricks, or will he reconsider his entire existence at that TVA?
Loki is released weekly on Wednesdays on Disney+.
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