Critic Reviews

Clever, bold and flat out fascinating, “Loki” sets a new bar for Disney+ shows.

Loki is a surrealist, kafkaesque mashup of True Detective and The Office—and it is a sight to behold. ... The show should not work, but it does. Loki (the series) was burdened with glorious purpose from the start and, unlike Loki (the character), you can consider that purpose fulfilled.

Of all the surprises and twists introduced by this show, perhaps the most exciting is its deep investment in understanding its central character at his best and worst, asking some truly tough questions against the backdrop of a time travel lark. Loki was always one of the MCU's greatest villains. But he's just as compelling as the hero of his own story.

There’s a lot of great stuff set up here: helter-skelter multiverse play, time travel shenanigans, an interdimensional bromance between Hiddleston and Wilson, both of whom are clearly having a blast. Right now, the rest of the supporting cast struggles to keep up with them, and there are a million ways its time-travel whodunit plot can go south. But based on what we’ve seen so far, Loki has the chance to be the best Marvel series yet.

Frequently I had to pause and rewind so I could reassemble the first season puzzle with the second's new pieces changing everything. Devouring two more episodes left me no closer to knowing what was happening or where the season would land. Fantastic.

What's good about "Loki'' is what was so good about the other Disney Plus "Endgame" spinoffs, "WandaVision'' and "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier." You don't need to be a Marvel expert, or know that Frigga was his mother, or that he had (has?) mother issues. ... This Loki, and those worlds, those mothers, look intriguing indeed. Loki fans will be much pleased.

As Loki, the aptly-named god of mischief, Tom Hiddleston returns in the role he was born to play. He and Owen Wilson, a deadpan delight as Agent Mobius, are Marvel's new dream team in a series that has it all. In a word, wow!

It’s not as groundbreakingly bonkers as WandaVision, but it’s also not as dourly macho as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Once the premise for the series is in place, things get very fun, as Loki channels his mischievous brilliance into splendid detective work and he and Mobius engage in some timey-wimey theory testing, all building to a tantalizing, two-pronged reveal — one capping each hour — that opens up all kinds of possibilities for the rest of the six-episode season.

Loki zigs and zags without sacrificing coherence—a not-inconsiderable feat considering the wealth of explanatory time-travel exposition required by the plot. Suffice it to say, watching these six episodes will likely be necessary for anyone wanting to make heads or tails of where the MCU is headed. Still, the series never feels as if it’s drowning in educational mumbo-jumbo.