Loki Season 2: Episode 3 Review – Going Back Further In Time

As Loki continues to release episodes every Thursday. Today, we land on episode 3 of season 2: 1893. With a bunch of running around so far these first 3 episodes, we jump off the train with going back in time to the year 1893. Loki and Mobius run and chase through the past after they received a hit on a tempad. This hit was somewhere on the sacred timeline as well, and this time, this led them to the woman they’ve been running after. Well, her and a former, little TVA AI worker. 

Loki engages its audience with this old timey episode. We join them on the run as they go on the search for Ravonna and Miss Minutes, whilst running into another intriguing character. We continue to review this season and its episodes pacing, content and more. 

Loki Streaming now on DisneyPlus. Spoilers Ahead.

To keep up with my reviews, please take a gander at my Episode 2 review for Loki, Season 2 here.

Story: Traveling Through Time. Again.

Loki’s Episode 3 was a fun episode to watch, although we jump back into the current time, we find Loki and Mobius running back further in time on the Sacred Timeline. With the help of B-15, O.B, and Casey in the control room, they help Mobius and Loki figure out where Ravonna and Miss Minutes had run off to. But like the title says, they’ve escaped somewhere to the 1800’s. The episode first starts out with Ravonna stepping foot into 1868.

Once she met up with Miss Minutes and spoke about plans from He Who Remains, Ravonna ends up kickstarting a new path to help get the TVA its rightful owner. Miss Minutes had told her to give the package she ordered Ravonna to grab and throw it into a nearby window- not until He Who Remains tells her to. And since, well, since he died in the finale of season 1, we all know that the end was coming, for him, as Sylvie stabbed him. And since his end had came, his plan can come to life. Therefore, for it to happen, he had to tell Miss Minutes to have Ravonna set the package into a window to start this plan.

Loki and Mobius enter 1893

The New Variant

What we find out is that the package is the TVA Guidebook – giving the confirmation of what Loki had found out in Episode 1 as he time slipped into the conference room. Soon enough, Loki and Mobius enters the scene to try and find Ravonna in 1868 since thats where her tempad had set off. Eventually they follow her trail ahead about a couple decades. 1893.

Now, here is when we find out who this mystery man is. Even though it was already established throughout the series and MCU who this man is. According to episode 3: 1893, Ravonna had given the guidebook to a man called Victor Timely. A Kang variant. But, what he himself doesn’t know is that…he doesn’t know he is one. He is solely innocent, just one that was given ideas on how to make the temporal loom from a different time. 

This entire episode revolved around a goose chase for this man. Considering he is one of Kangs variants, Loki and Mobius didn’t want him to become the ruler of the TVA. Ravonna wanted to pursue it because of Miss Minutes’ plan. And Sylvie, well, she went after them because she told Loki that she would kill every last one of his variants. Innocent or not, even if they didn’t know whom they were supposed to represent. In this case, innocent.

Fighting For The Variant

In this part of the episode, Victor Timely had made a prototype of the Temporal Loom, and since it was the 1893, everyone was interested in his concoction. It was something everyone was oogling over. Electricity to fuel the whole world. Of course, it would get many’s attention, even for Ravonna. It gave her an opportunity to talk to him, to continue the plan, but it made things more difficult per se. Loki and Mobius needed to get to Victor, Ravonna needed to get to him, and then local individuals who want it for their own gain.

Like I said before, he made them go on a wild goose chase. It was one that felt dragged, one that felt fast in some places and way too dragged out. While Timely ran, he ran from the locals, ran from Loki but ended up becoming defensive over him, but for good reason. He doesn’t like Kang at all, not by a long shot, but Loki and Mobius needed Victor for the TVA. Thankfully, Sylvie let them take him instead of ruining the plan and killing him off.

Victor Timely revealed

Characters And Performances: Getting To Know Old And New Characters 

Loki Episode 3 resurfaced characters that we haven’t seen since the first season. We get to know a little bit more about these characters too, letting this new event express to the audience their true intentions. As we all know, the main characters, Loki and Mobius, have done amazing work like always. Tom always does a marvelous job at expressing his icon, and Owen Wilson plays Mobius like a champ. He is the perfect sidekick and partner to Loki’s adventures with the TVA. Their personalities merge together perfectly, comedic and snarky, reliable and 

Now, taking a look at the surfacing characters, Ravonna and Miss Minutes, we as the audience get to learn more about these two individuals. They revealed a bit more information in episode 1: Ouroborius about Ravonna, but Miss Minutes was a new case. Sorta. We learned that Ravonna was seated beside He Who Remains, the sole purpose of the plan.

Loki and Mobius seeing Victor Timely for the first time

The “Main” Characters In This Episode

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Ravonna Renslayer and she did an amazing job playing the growing villain. Even though she had always been planned to help Kang, she didn’t know how to get to her rightful seat. With the help of manipulation and with Miss Minutes help, Ravonna pushes and fights her way to get what she wants. She was just as harsh and twisty as she was in Loki Season 1.

Miss Minutes on the other hand was an interesting revelation. Tara strong voiced her magnificently, giving an animated character much character just by using her voice. Throughout the episode, we had noticed that Miss Minutes had this grand plan all along from the head hancho, and Ravonna was merely just a puppet to put everything in place. She knew that without Renslayers help, the plan will not work.

But, we noticed as well how close Renslayer was getting to Timely and how much it irked Miss Minutes. Miss Minutes tried to hide her feelings from them two, but not enough from the audience. In the background, Miss Minutes seemed to become jealous, through her facial expression, anger, and attempt to strand Ravonna out in sea. Miss Minutes, as expected, worked with Kang, but it was revealed that she wanted him for herself. So, she took Timely for herself. She served the scene of her and Victor alone so spectacularly, especially using her voice as leverage for her underlying feelings for the variant.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Tara Strong both performed this episode with high expectations, doing so well to portray their characters for who they were supposed to be.

Ravonna and Miss Minutes talking to Victor about his lab

Cinematography and Sound: Things Getting Slightly More Intense

Like always. the cinematography and sounds are usually on par. The camera positions, the revelations. The sounds and music all helped with making the scenes more impactful. Especially the revelations of the surfacing characters. What I really enjoy was the change in the theme song. It adheres to the time episode 3 was set. 

Talking About Specific Scenes

One scene that had good camera angles and good sound effects (plus music) was the scene Timely ran away from the local. Just as he almost got away, he goes back into a free cart only because Sylvie arrived to kill him. Loki wanted to get him out of there to take him back, but Sylvie popping up made things more difficult. The sounds of the cart swinging, as well as the wheel itself was almost nostalgic. Their magic that both expressed was always music to our ears. I always loved when the producers express Lokis magic, considering we have not seen it in so long. The music surrounding this whole ordeal grew louder and more intense at each forward thrust. 

Another aspect of that particular scene was the camera angles. Throughout the fight, the camera paneled through the characters, showing their expressions. Then, going above the three characters to show us an epic fight scene between the two Loki variants.

Then, in the scene where Miss Minutes poured out her acquaintance to Victor was an emotional scene, per se. Emotional in the sense that she expressed the plans to a man who doesn’t know he is a variant, and expressing her feelings for someone she barely met. Understandably, she knows that he isn’t him, but the idea of him being similar just reminds her of him. This scene was intense, providing the audience insight on her true feelings. The cameras panning around Victor and following Miss Minutes as she walked with sultry in her step. The music was light, violins playing in the background as she expressed herself as Victor felt helpless. 

Miss Minutes expressing her feelings to Victor

Editing and Pacing: Wasn’t As Timely As We Would Like

Usually, the pacing of these episodes are well done. But, in Episode 3: 1893, the pacing could have been better. The editing was more so the best out of the two, considering it pairs with cinematography. Like I said before, the cinematography was on par this time around. The various camera angles, different sounds used in each scene gave impact to the already impactful scenes.

What could be better in this episode, would be the pacing. I felt like this episode dragged on, there was a lot of chasing and running around. I have noticed that these last three episodes were all about chasing. We ran along Loki and Ravonna to get to Victor, we were with Victor himself to get away. The fight scenes were fast, Sylvie had just popped up out of no where, and I felt like Ravonnas character catching feelings for Timely was way too quick as well. Hadn’t she just met him? Miss Minutes, well, I can understand her situation.

Final Thoughts

 All in all, this episode wasn’t bad. There were a lot of aspects I liked, for example, getting to know a new Kang Variant. He wasn’t evil and ready to take over the universe, but was innocent. It was refreshing I could say, but he has potential to help the high Kang Variants we saw in Ant Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. He just doesn’t know it yet.

Miss Minutes and Ravonna were good “protagonists” in this episode, helping and getting Victor out of a sticky situation with the others. Even though Loki and Mobius are the good guys, Miss Minutes and Ravonna were the star of the episode alongside Victor. 

Loki’s Episode 3: 1893 was a fun run around. It gave heed to what it would be like to be a Kang variant, but not entirely know what was going on. 

Again, if you haven’t already, please check out my Loki Season 2 Episode 2 review here!