Loki (1x03/04) “Lamentis” / “The Nexus Event”
Being trapped on a doomed world is a great place for hiding — as long as your time machine still works.
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Events
Note: As much of this episode takes place inside the TVA, any events taking place in that location will be considered inside their own universe and thus won’t affect the timeline in these critiques.
◷ Lamentis-1; 2077 AD
In an act of desperation, Loki randomly activates Sylvie’s TemPad and sends them both to Lamentis-1, a moon that is about to collide with another planet. The TemPad ends up damaged, so they decide to try and hijack the evacuation ship. Unfortunately, the ship is hit by a piece of the planet, so history will continue along its recorded path.
Along the way, Loki finds out that everyone working for the TVA are variants, just like himself and just like Sylvie.
After the ship is destroyed, the two of them prepare for their imminent death. They hold hands and this causes a timeline branch… somehow? I’ll get back to this in my analysis.
◷ Sylvie at Asgard
In this timeline, we see that Sylvie, as a young girl, was playing with her toys when the TVA suddenly appears and kidnaps her. She steals Ravonna’s tempad and escapes.
I included this branch information in my review for Loki 1x02, so I won’t be included it in the Visual Timeline below.
Loki’s Time Cell
Mobius throws Loki in a time loop. Loki is on Asgard, at the moment when Sif confronts him for cutting her hair. And confronts him again. And again.
Unfortunately, there isn’t really any information given about the true nature of time cell. The name certainly implies that it’s causing time to loop back on itself over and over again, but it could also mean that it’s a recreation of a moment in time, and it is the recreation that is being looped. Since I doubt they’d be sending Loki into the past, even temporarily, and risk a nexus event, I’m considering this a “snapshot” of time and not actually. time travel.
Analysis and Ranking
Loki doesn’t know what caused the nexus event on Lamentis. Nor does Sylvie. Nor does Ravonna. Nor does Mobius, even though he thinks it was caused by Loki falling in love with Sylvie.
MOBIUS: (to Loki) Look at your eyes. You like her. No wonder you have no clue what caused the nexus event on Lamentis. Both of you are swooning over each other. Two variants of the same being forming this kind of sick, twisted romantic relationship. That’s pure chaos. That could break reality.
Sorry, Mobius. Actions split the timeline, not thoughts. You’re not making a lot of sense.
I’m not holding this against the episode, though. Just because we don’t know what caused the nexus event, doesn’t mean that it was caused by emotion.
The episode doesn’t give a lot of explanations, but what it does explain doesn’t contradict itself or go against my Theories of Time. Therefore, I give this episode a ranking of:
Visual Timelines
References
- Lamentis | Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki | Fandom
- https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/The_Nexus_Event
- Loki | On Disney+
Afternotes
Accuracy: Reasonable efforts have been taken to maintain the accuracy of any information presented, mainly by relying primarily on the source material. However, for the sake of brevity and fair use, quotations from the movie that I have included have been edited to only include the relevant sections of dialogue. Also, I’ve added dithering to screenshots to both reduce bandwidth and for visual effect, so don’t conclude that the episode itself has a dithered image.
Effective Theories of Time: I base this temporal analysis on my “theories of time”, which at the time of publishing (21 June 2024) there are presently three (3).
Copyright Disclaimer: This article and any attached images are claimed as acceptable uses of the copyrighted source content. I consider this as permissible, without requiring prior authorisation, under the following laws: the United States Copyright Act, Section 107, for purposes of criticism or comment; and the Australian Copyright Act of 1968, Section 41, for purposes of criticism or review.
