An adventure needs conflict and conflict often means bad guys. Over the past few episodes Loki set up the Time Variance Authority as a potentially evil organization and then came out swinging in episode four. Good bureaucracies don’t kidnap young girls and drag them in front of a judge to be deleted from the timeline. Unfortunately this show of fascism made me roll my eyes. I didn’t miss the earlier hints that the TVA was evil, I just didn’t care. If I was supposed to be shocked, Loki could have done a better job earlier making me think the TVA were the good guys.
Episodes one and two portray the Time Variance Authority as an all-powerful but charmingly goofy bureaucracy. Forcing suspects to sign a massive pile of paper confirming every word they had ever said is a good sight gag. Using Infinity Stones as paperweights demonstrates both the power of the TVA and the general obliviousness of the employees. Everyone is punching in their work hours, a few management types are a bit more motivated by the mission, and overall the place is run like city hall. This portrayal is unflattering enough to be funny, but not so bad to immediately question the TVA’s motives.
However, if I didn’t question their motives, I also never got any feeling the Time Variance Authority was on the right side of history. TVA employees parrot the company line that the Time-Keepers and the authority are necessary to protect the flow of time from absolute chaos. Unfortunately, they are all unreliable sources since they have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. I wanted some real evidence that the TVA is actually holding together the timeline. I can imagine a city with a byzantine fire department or education bureau and what would happen if they suddenly ceased to exist because we have examples of these situations in the real world. But the TVA isn’t extended that same belief because we’ve never seen a complete timeline collapse. Simply put, I wanted to believe in the TVA’s mission even if I dislike their jack-booted techniques. That would make for a more complex story as watchers are asked to accept awful behavior because the alternatives are so much worse.
Because I never believed in the TVA’s mission, I didn’t care when they were shown to be evil. Episode three brought up this possibility before episode four kicked in the door to hammer home the point. A heel (or face)-turn works best when a viewer or reader has bought into the character. A six-episode season does not allow for much build-up. We never saw the TVA actually protect the Sacred Timeline from destruction because once Loki entered the show it became his, not the TVA’s, story. I would like to see Agents Ravonna and Mobius working together like in a police procedural cracking a case that leads to Ravonna’s promotion. If the TVA had been shown as unambiguously doing good work before getting a bit sloppier and corrupt leading into the Loki storyline, the hard about-face to evil in episode four might have felt more meaningful.
The Keasy Depot 