This article contains spoilers for Loki episode 1
Tom Hiddleston fans had double reason to rejoice after the first episode of Loki dropped on Disney+, with the promise of even more Hiddleston to come.
After playing the God of Mischief, Loki, in six Marvel movies, he's now starring in a TV show. It's the third Marvel property to get the streaming treatment after Wandavision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier came out earlier this year.
Now as Loki finds himself at the hands of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), the rest of the season will see them team up to hunt down a formidable yet familiar foe.
What happened at the end of Loki Episode 1?
Once Loki is captured by the TVA, he has the concept of the multiverse and the Sacred Timeline explained to him. He stops resisting when he realizes that the time manipulation capabilities they have access to could be the greatest power in the universe.
The TVA appear to be even be more powerful than the Infinity Stones—a case made clear by the fact that the workers of the TVA use the Infinity Stones as paper weights.
Once Loki makes it back to the interrogation room, he watches everything his future self will do, from the events of The Avengers to his death at the start of Avengers: Infinity War. He repents and opens up to Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) before the big revelation of the episode.
Mobius informs Loki that a fugitive variant has been killing Minute Men and he needs the God of Mischief to help stop them. This is because the fugitive they need to catch is Loki.
Tom Hiddleston On Disney+ as Loki
The scene then cuts to a squad of TVA agents in Salina, Oklahoma, in 1858 who come face to face with a mysterious cloaked figure. The assailant sets fire to the agents before they can escape. We never see the cloaked person's face.
What will happen in the rest of the series?
"Glorious Purpose" was the first of six episodes set to drop on Disney+ for season 1.
Hiddleston admits he was unsure of the direction Loki would take this season, but he's incredibly happy with the plan laid out for his character.
He says he asked himself and the studio where do they go now and what's original?
Hiddleston reveals: "That was the most inspiring conversation. I remember leaving it thinking, this is going to be very, very new because the character has got so much breadth and so much depth.
"That's been the gift to me as an actor. Loki is almost this endlessly fascinating box of tricks where the moment you think you know him he reveals something else," he said.
Hiddleston also acts as an executive producer on the show, and admits that he knew Loki would change and grow during the season. He said: "It's just this endless cycle of trust and betrayal and resistance. He's trapped on a wheel of repetition, a compulsion to repeat the same damage, the same story. But we are breaking that record. We're releasing him from that trap."
Episode 1 of Loki is available to watch for free for Disney+ subscribers now. New episodes are released every Wednesday.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jamie Burton is a Newsweek Senior TV and Film Reporter (Interviews) based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more
