Loki season two, episode two, “Breaking Bad,” finds Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) chasing X-5 (Rafael Casal) to find out if he’s located Sylvie (Sophia di Martino). The Marvel Studios series jumps right back into the time crunch to save multiple timeline branches as they’re getting pruned.
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It’s 1977 in London; X-5 is Brad Wolfe, star of Zaniac, and Mobius and Loki go after him thinking he’s under cover. During the chase they realize he isn’t and has adapted to life on the sacred timeline. Loki uses his magic to bring him in and things get a little dark, with flashes of the old Loki in his desperation to get answers.
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Down in the basement O.B. (Ke Huy Quan) is tinkering with ways to stop the temporal meltdown. Loki and Mobius ask him to take a look at X-5’s temp pad, which he altered. Casey (Eugene Cordero) realizes Miss Minutes is helping Renslayer and tells the team they were the last to communicate on her temp pad. Speaking of temp pads, Casey also takes a look at the one X-5 has been using.
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They decide to go and talk to “Brad” and ask him what he did to the temp pad. He’s reluctant to answer any questions or help Loki, who he blames for all of the problems that have been going on. Brad is really good at poking the god of mischief into his darkness after tearing him down, by pointing out that Loki causes all the trouble even when he thinks he can redeem himself. Casal plays these scenes with relish and standout scene-eating, tearing Hiddleston and Wilson down to size. (When Brad gets slapped after making fun of Mobius’ refusual to define himself outside the Time Variance Authority, you’re like, “Ooh—you deserved that.”) Down in the pie room Loki and Mobius discuss why Mobius doesn’t want to know who he was. The set design for the pie room gives an immaculate backdrop as they discuss whether Brad found Sylvie.
Back in Brad’s cell, Loki deals with X-5 alone. It’s so great to see Hiddleston tap into the old Loki to meet Brad’s cruelty a little more than halfway. “I’m not trying to be a hero, Brad. I’m a villain,” he tells the prisoner, who immediately cowers in fear. Brad starts talking and tells them he doesn’t know where Dox and the others are. While trapped in a box, he confesses that he found Sylvie and then bailed—he saw her get her new life, and realized he wanted that too.
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O.B. tells B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) and Casey that the blast doors won’t open and without Miss Minutes they can’t override it. More timeline branches growing means that a meltdown is imminent. In 1982 in Broxton, Indiana, they make it to the McDonalds. The scene is like a romantic reunion for Loki and Sylvie, despite Sylvie realizing she’s been caught. It’s touching and sad but you can’t help but root for them. Martino and Hiddleston don’t even need dialogue, it’s in their movements and eye contact—and the ‘80s fast-food setting is so incredibly cinematic, damn that product placement. The tension is palpable, as X-5 points out.
Outside, Loki explains to Sylvie that he saw the future when he was being pulled through time and saw her at the TVA. She wants nothing to do with it and calls him out for becoming a TVA man. X-5 and Mobius have a great scene where they comment on Loki and Sylvie’s relationship between themselves. X-5 wants to leave because if they stay everyone’s going to die. Sylvie reaches into Brad’s chest and sees that Dox is bombing branches. They track her team down and derail the attack to save as many branches as possible. Loki and Sylvie magic them down to size, but it’s too late for a lot of the branches. Back at the TVA, B-15 and the team watch in horror at the branches being pruned. It’s tragic and Sylvie realizes that it’s the broken TVA that’s making this mess.
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At the end they get a hit on Renslayer’s temp pad and decide to follow.
Loki season two streams Thursdays on Disney+.
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