Loki is here and off to the races with new characters, a completely new organization to learn about, and a journey for Loki to go on, learning about the life he would have led had he not broken from the Sacred Timeline. And this is all in an episode that is less than an hour long. So there are some characters we briefly meet (and others we know are coming but haven’t seen yet). Getting into Loki though, there are plenty of Time Variance Authority agents in this first episode to talk about!
Our Kaila Hale-Stern has gone through and talked about the women of Loki already, and there are still some on her list we haven’t met. But we did get our first look at Hunter B-15 and Ravonna Renslayer this week! Two strong women who aren’t here to take any of Loki’s crap, but there is still plenty to learn about them all.
So let’s go through the people of the TVA in order of when we meet them!
**Spoilers for the first episode of Loki.**
Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku)
As we learn through the end credits on the show, there are plenty of agents with the rank of Hunter at the TVA, but it seems as if Hunter B-15 is in charge. Whenever they are on a mission or searching for Loki, she’s usually right there and ready to send him back to his timeline, something that Owen Wilson’s Mobius clearly doesn’t like. But she’s not here for any of Loki’s nonsense. Whenever he does manage to “escape” as much as one can from the TVA, he torments Hunter B-15 because she has made it clear from their first meeting that she does not trust him.
The first we see of her is when Loki crash lands after taking the Tesseract. And from there, she is not his fan and isn’t going to coddle him through his time at the TVA, even if Mobius thinks that Loki is necessary. Hunter B-15 is amazing because she’s just trying to be the best at her job, and she’s clearly good at it. Getting to see how that adjusts with working with Loki is going to be fun!
Casey (Eugene Cordero)
The Good Place‘s own Pillboi showed up at the TVA as Casey! Eugene Cordero is a hilarious actor, and he brought that humor to Casey. Working at what seems to be the front desk, he’s sitting and waiting to sign Loki in when Hunter B-15 brings him back and collects the Tesseract as if it is nothing. Only for us to discover later, when Loki is trying to tell Casey he’ll kill him like a fish even though Casey has no idea what a fish is, that the Infinity Stones are basically nothing at the TVA. In fact, Casey tells Loki that the agents of the TVA use them as paper weights.
Casey is fun because he’s clearly just there to do his job, and when Hunter B-15 almost KILLS HIM trying to get to Loki, he instantly goes to his bosses to complain about his cart being destroyed because of her. He’s just a secretary trying to do his job and wants to know what a fish is.
The robot who undresses Loki
Loki shows up in his Asgardian leather, and apparently, that won’t stand for the TVA. So they have a robot take off Loki’s clothes. In one quick swoop, this little robot said “naked,” and Loki is standing without clothing on and his little animatronic face just remains impassive as he’s looking at a naked Loki before sending him into the next room. Loki drops INTO the room in his TVA jumpsuit he wears for the rest of the episode, but did he start the drop-down naked? Or did this robot already have the jumpsuit at the ready? Like did the next being to see Loki see him naked first?
Important TVA kitten
I asked those questions because this little kitty saw Loki first! Did this little kitty get a falling view of a naked Loki while he was just trying to eat his little food? Someone protect the TVA kitty just trying to relax. I think of my own kitty and what would happen if he suddenly saw a falling, naked Tom Hiddleston. He’d probably just run and hide under a chair, but this brave boy said, “Sir, your pants!”
The man who tracks everything Loki ever said
We saw him in the trailer as well, but there is a man at the TVA whose job is just to track everything we ever said. Loki’s file looks … shockingly light for the amount of things that Loki says, especially since sometimes a full page is one sentence? But still, this man just sits in an office and pulls out all the things you’ve ever said and shows that to you, and you have to agree or disagree over whether or not you said it all. If I had to look back at the embarrassing things I said, I would just let the time cops put me back in my timeline. But at least this guy has his cat to keep him company.
Man who asks Loki if he’s a robotÂ
Loki is then confronted with the information that he might be a robot and not know it. Dropping into the next room, a man asks Loki if he has a soul. When Loki is confused by the question, the man assumes that means that Loki is, in fact, not a robot and tells him to walk through this strange metal detector. The man is constantly frustrated by Loki’s questions, even though Loki is rightfully concerned when he’s told he could combust if the machine detects that he’s a robot. Luckily, Loki succeeds, the man sees Loki’s temporal aura and still refuses to answer his questions and tells him to move along.
Miss Minutes (Tara Strong)
Miss Minutes is a perfect tool for exposition at the TVA. She’s a little clock who gives us the information we need about the Time-Keepers and the Sacred Timeline in a short and fun fashion. And of course, Loki has some snarky thing to say about the video because he doesn’t believe that any of it is real.
Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson)
Easily my new favorite character, Mobius M. Mobius is the only one in the TVA who is willing to try to listen to Loki and gain his trust (Mobius, come on) because he knows that Loki can help him. We first meet him when he’s in France trying to figure out a Variant who is killing the Minute Men, and when he sees Loki’s file, he goes back to try to stop the TVA from putting him back in his timeline.
Throughout the episode, he’s talking to Loki about his past and what it means that he’s out of the Sacred Timeline. He shows Loki his future, talks to him about why he wants to kill, and basically becomes all of us on Tumblr in 2012 and is talking about how he doesn’t see Loki as a villain. No, for real, Loki calls himself a villain, and Mobius responds with something along the lines of “I don’t see it that way.” So, basically everyone who loved Loki after The Avengers. Finally, we are seen.
Mobius continues to want to use Loki for his knowledge and help and is upfront and honest with him, telling him at the end of the episode that he’s hunting variants of Loki and that’s why he needs his help. And it’s nice to see. Mobius isn’t lying to Loki, he’s not hiding secrets, he’s honest and forthcoming and I love him very much.
Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw)
Ravonna Renslayer has a lot of history in the world of Marvel Comics—something that our Kaila Hale-Stern brought up in her piece about the women of Loki—but what we saw in this episode was a judge who knew her job and was ready to protect the Sacred Timeline at whatever cost. We meet her as Loki is on trial for breaking from the timeline, even though he was able to do it because the Avengers interfered with time. Renslayer tells Loki that the Avengers were always supposed to do that and he just wasn’t supposed to break the timeline (which brings up more questions than answers), but Loki isn’t about to just accept that.
He keeps asking questions of the Time-Keepers and Renslayer’s position. He fights back when she sentences him to go back to his timeline, and yet we see her falter when Mobius shows up with information and asks that he can work with Loki. She’s not a push-over, she isn’t trusting of Loki, and she’s powerful. But Ravonna Renslayer is also reasonable, at least in this first episode, and it’s a fun dynamic to watch unfold between her and Mobius.
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There are still plenty more coming our way on Loki, and getting to meet the rest of the TVA is going to be exciting—especially since we don’t know much about this part of the Marvel world.
(image: Marvel Entertainment)
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Published: Jun 9, 2021 12:32 pm