Loki season 2, episode 2, “Breaking Brad,” includes a scene that fans have been looking forward to for weeks: Loki and Mobius’ interrogation of Hunter X-5, a.k.a. Brad Wolfe. The scene is just as great as the trailer footage makes it out to be—but one moment tarnished it for me.
To recap: Brad has abandoned his post at the Time Variance Authority so that he can become a movie star. Loki and Mobius think he’s found Sylvie, though, so they capture him and try to get him to talk. Before their interrogation, Mobius warns everyone that Brad will try to get under their skin, pointedly addressing Loki.
And Brad succeeds … only with Mobius instead of Loki. Brad starts needling Mobius about the fact that he’s still working for the TVA instead of finding out who he was on the Sacred Timeline. Mobius snaps, slapping Brad before Loki pulls him away.
The scene gets especially tense when Brad mentions Loki’s mother, Frigga, whom future Loki accidentally gets killed in Thor: The Dark World. But Loki keeps calm, and after he and Mobius regroup over some key lime pie, they start hatching a new plan.
But does Loki take it too far?
Brad! Don’t bring up Loki’s mom!
Loki and Mobius head back into the holding cell, wheeling in a complicated-looking machine. But it turns out that Loki has a plan of his own: he locks Mobius out and proceeds to psychologically torture Brad by trapping him in a shrinking box.
There are so many great moments in this scene. First off, Loki is funny as hell. He delivers one great line after another, like “Sorry—that only made it smaller!” and “I want to believe you, but you’re so talented! You’re such a good actor!” If I tried to recount every great line, I’d end up reciting the whole scene. Loki is hilarious and charming, even as he’s being scary and sadistic. As Tom Hiddleston said in a season 1 interview, Loki plays all the keys, and as he interrogates Brad, he’s in full form.
What makes the scene even better is Mobius, stuck on the outside, desperately trying to get Loki to stop. “You’re not a villain!” is such a fraught line—Mobius has grown close to Loki, watched him make remarkable progress over the time they’ve spent together, and now he’s watching him unravel. The scene feels like seeing a loved one backslide into self-destructive habits, and it’s powerful.
Loki finally gets the information he needs out of Brad, and that’s when the scene fell apart for me.
Oh … none of it was real
Here’s where I have to put on my clown hat for a moment. I thought Loki really had gone rogue until the very end. Others who watched the scene knew from the start that it was all part of Loki and Mobius’ plan.
As soon as Brad admits he knows where Sylvie is, Loki releases him from the box and Mobius opens the door to the room. Loki and Mobius congratulate each other on executing Mobius’s plan. It turns out Loki didn’t actually lose control—he was just going along with Mobius’ idea.
On one hand, the scene shows the camaraderie that’s developed between Loki and Mobius. Mobius puts a lot of trust in Loki—to both get the info and not kill Brad in the process—and that’s pretty cool, seeing as last season Mobius was torturing Loki himself.
On the other hand, the reveal erases all the stakes that the scene builds up. And those stakes would have been so juicy! Would Loki be able to reign in his anger? Would he do something he regretted? If so, what would the consequences have been, both in terms of his efforts to save the timeline, and his relationships with his found family? I wish we could have seen all those questions play out. Instead, the scene ends on a disappointingly safe note. There’s no tension. Everything’s fine.
Oh well. At least we get a brief glimpse of Loki’s horns this week, while his shadows are restraining Brad—although I desperately hope those shadows are a sneak peak at the darker side of his character, and not the main attraction.
Check out more of our Loki coverage below!
- This Character is 100% Crushing on Sylvie in Loki Season 2
- Loki Has the Potential for the Most Metal Norse Tie-In Ever
- Ouroboros Deserves the World in Loki
- Loki’s Fear Shows How Far He’s Come
- Loki and Mobius Are Tethered to Each Other Like Love Sick Puppies
- Loki Season 2 Review: Where Has the God of Mischief Gone?
(featured image: Disney+)
Published: Oct 13, 2023 09:00 am