[Trigger warning: Mild Loki TV series spoilers, ahead]
When I was younger I possessed a very strong mischievous streak. Like the time I dug a man-trap in the garden and ended up breaking my father’s ankle when he fell through the homemade camo cover. Or creating a bath filled with perfume from dozens of very expensive French bottles – then wondering why my mother went wiggy. Or convincing the kids in the street that it would be a fine idea to hide chuckling in the coal cellar for the best part of a day until all of our parents called the police and started a man-hunt.
But life, particularly the poker-faced greyness of corporate work, rather knocked that particular stuffing out of me. It wasn’t long until I discovered that out-there humour and practical jokes in the 9-to-6 existence is digging up more snakes than you can kill, as far as the future shine of your career is concerned.
Thus it was when Disney Plus launched their new Loki TV series, I was quite interested to see how the god of mischief made out in his first MCU television spectacular – a small touch of self-identification. Although I like to think my murderous, psychopathic tendencies are fairly well-held in check (although it has to be said, for those with my Viking heritage, you can never be too sure).
The new TV series with Thomas Hiddleston is obviously seeking to temper the God of Bad Boys, as well. The version of Loki ripped out of the multiverse is the early one prior to the vague redemptive arc of having to fight alongside Thor against Thanos, etc. And to raise the stakes still further, it looks like there’s a full-out Dark Side version of Loki at loose in the multiverse, doing some real evil – and there’s some Stainless Steel Rat-style set-a-thief-to-catch-a-thief action coming up.
I expect a fresh redemptive arc in this season, as we ask what it means to be good, bad, or in-between, and how we choose to arrive there.
Poor Loki. I expect his mischievous streak will be well-tamed by the end of this journey.
He’ll never again know the joy of using a lost key to get into a particularly toxic company director boss’s office, then shifting a few folders and books around the shelves, to convince the paranoid %$%%^&er that their corporate rivals really are spying on them.
Like I said, for those with Viking heritage, you can never be too sure.
