Loki Season 2 Episode 2, ‘Breaking Brad’ reminds everyone why they’re watching this show — for Loki (Tom Hiddleston, Thor) and all of his interactions, especially since he’s the God of Mischief.
From the very beginning of this episode, viewers are reminded of the old Loki in a way where he uses his powers to achieve the end result he wants. With this episode back on track with the overall plot revolving around He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino, Yesterday), and not having such an involved side plot as the previous episode, Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson, Haunted Mansion) are on the hunt for Sylvie.
The lengths Loki takes to get to her aren’t as extreme as some of the things he has done in the past, but it’s more extreme compared to his tamed actions in the previous season — at least, it feels that way. Viewers get to see him duplicate himself and create an imaginative group of men to trap Brad Wolfe, who is actually Hunter X-5 (Rafael Casal, Blindspotting), and bring him back to The Time Variance Authority.
And at the TVA, Mobius and Loki play the “good cop, bad cop” roles and stage Loki going off the rails to be completely villainous in the route taken to get answers — almost crushing Brad to death. Of course, it’s predictable that Mobius is in on the whole thing of Loki taking over the interrogation and doing it his way, but nonetheless, it’s exciting to see how it plays out and is one of the strongest aspects of the episode, even though the entire episode feels worthy. It’s a nice taste of the older Loki, who is more on the villainous side than the anti-hero side of things.
After the interrogation situation, Loki and Mobius eat some green pie and talk about how letting their emotions take control of them leads to both of them losing it. This is a good pause in the whole plot of the series as it lets the two breathe and calm down while reminiscing about the events that took place in The Avengers without taking away from the intense moments.
And what better way to have another lighthearted scene than with O.B. (Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once), which seems like a common trend with his scenes going forward. But that’s what adds to his personality and the show; a life-threatening event is taking place, and O.B. finds a way to distract those with something that doesn’t matter for a few seconds.
Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku, Lovecraft Country) and Casey (Eugene Cordero, Tacoma FD) go to see if they can help O.B., and Casey acts like a fan meeting his all-time favorite celebrity when he finds out O.B. wrote the TVA Handbook. The way O.B. gets distracted so easily from a very important mission is the kind of personality that brings this show some of the much-needed comic relief on the side to remind viewers that even amid the chaos, there’s always room for a touch of humor and humanity.
Yet the interaction between Casey and O.B. leads to questions about O.B.’s involvement with everything – considering the fact that, in the previous episode, it’s revealed that those who work in the TVA get their mind wiped of certain events that happen, and there is supposedly no past or future within the TVA. It’s clear that O.B. has good intentions and isn’t going against Loki and Mobius, but O.B. must know more than he’s letting on. After all, O.B. helped build the TVA, and all of this will most likely be answered later in the season; at least, there’s hope it will be.
The other question is what happened at the end of season 1 after Sylvie kills He Who Remains in the Citadel at the End of Time because she clearly doesn’t want anything to do with her life outside working at a McDonald’s now. This, too, will hopefully evolve more, allowing the audience to dive deeper into the reasoning behind it.
Overall, ‘Breaking Brad’ delivers on every aspect of a Disney+ show, if not more, and if each episode keeps getting better and better with how the latest one is, fans are in for a good time.
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