Were Mobius and Loki Really Ready To Play Good Cop/Bad Cop? I Have My Doubts

Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) seem to think they have the “good cop/bad cop” routine nailed down, but … uh, well, maybe talk about your emotions first? In Loki season 2, episode 2, titled “Breaking Brad,” we see Loki and Mobius try a little game to get rogue TVA agent X-5, a.k.a. Brad (Rafael Casal), to break and tell them what is going on with the Sacred Timeline and where Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is. What we see, though, is that Loki and Mobius are not sharing their feelings and emotions with each other. Maybe you should good-cop your hearts first, guys.

Within this interrogation scene, emotional breaks are happening, like Loki hating the “villain” comments from Brad, even though he knows that Brad is just trying to push his buttons. Mobius, too, is letting Brad’s spiel get to him in a less than productive way—the duo are just responding in ways that don’t match how deep their pain goes. Pain that neither is willing to talk about. Fixing it with “pie” is one solution, but that’s not going to continually solve every issue for them.

What is really telling in this scene, though, comes from Mobius. While they’re going back and forth, acting like Loki is the “villain” they label him as time and time again, we see a part of Mobius break that we haven’t seen before. Loki clocks it, because he tries to ask questions about it when they go for key lime pie, but Mobius keeps denying it. Still, the damage is done, and this idea of the two of them “good cop/bad cop-ing” their way through their own emotions and pain can only end up working against them when they are breaking at the seams—and slapping X-5.

Mobius slap, for the heart

While they’re trying to interrogate X-5 at the TVA, Mobius lets his emotions get the better of him. Loki might be “acting,” but Mobius isn’t. When Brad points out that Mobius isn’t even his real name and that the TVA took his life from him, Mobius turns around and open-palm slaps him across the face. Now, was that necessary? Absolutely not, but he does so because he is someone who gets emotional when pushed too far—and that’s exactly what X-5/Brad wanted from him.

Maybe it was all part of their plan, but Loki taking Mobius to calm down afterward makes it seem like wasn’t the case at all. Thankfully, the two do end up having a frank conversation about what Mobius’ past life might have looked like, even if Mobius doesn’t want to “know” what it was. We’ll just have to wait and see whether that means we’ll see Mobius opening up more in the future or if we’ll have to just enjoy his anger clawing its way out by slapping X-5 across the face. For now, however, this scene is still important, because it proves that Mobius isn’t completely okay with everything going on, either—even if he and Loki did love to play good cop/bad cop while interrogating X-5.

(featured image: Disney+)