![]() Ali, and again directed by Kate Herron) recognizes that if we don’t understand who Sylvie is, and the ways in which she is and is not like her male counterpart, then none of her endgame really matters. Perhaps Mobius really did get to ride Jet Skis in the Nineties?īut “Lamentis” (written by Bisha K. (*) Sylvie’s conversations with and about Hunter C-20 reveal that the TVA employees were not, in fact, created by the Time-Keepers, but rather are variants who have had memories of their past lives erased while put in service to the Sacred Timeline. Loki’s quick moves with the TemPad, and then the device’s mechanical difficulties, simply seem to delay what Sylvie was planning, and it’s clear she intends to pick up right where she left off if they can get off the moon before its neighboring planet crashes in and kills everyone on it. ![]() In terms of Sylvie’s plan for the Time-Keepers, the TVA’s plans for Loki, Mobius’ true identity(*), and all the other questions set up in previous weeks, nothing of importance happens here. As Loki and Sylvie race for survival on the pre-apocalyptic moon that gives the chapter its title, the larger plot of the season is placed entirely on hold, and most of the supporting characters are either absent entirely (Mobius, Hunter B-15) or appear only briefly (Ravonna). And given only six episodes to play with, one might assume Loki had no time whatsoever to jump off the narrative tracks that had been laid through the first couple of hours.īut that’s exactly what we get with “Lamentis,” even if Loki and his female variant - who here reveals that she has adopted the name Sylvie - spend much of it riding a luxury train. But as dramas have pared down to making 10 episodes or fewer per year, rewarding digressions like those have become unfortunately rare. Lost made 22 episodes surrounding “Tricia Tanaka,” while “Fly” was one Breaking Bad episode out of 13 in 2010. Those episodes also, to be fair, come from an earlier era when dramas produced more installments per season. If all you care about on those series is the plot, you could easily skip each chapter (though the Dharma van actually serves a minor purpose later in that season) if you’re on a long-haul journey with Hurley or Walt, then episodes like that greatly enhance the whole experience. Many of the best dramas of this century have understood the importance of pausing the plot to spend some extra time establishing who these people are and how they relate to each other - like “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead,” the Lost episode where Hurley and the guys spend an hour fixing up a Dharma Initiative van just to have something to do or “Fly,” the polarizing but brilliant Breaking Bad hour where Walt and Jesse try to catch an insect intruder in the Super Lab. If I don’t know or care about the people these twists and turns of the story are happening to, then the twists themselves quickly lose all meaning or sense of entertainment. But that approach leads to diminishing returns in a hurry. The last 20 years of TV - and the streaming era in particular - have conditioned a lot of the audience to value plot over all else.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |