Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Loki episode 3.
It's possible Loki episode 3 was all just a trick, with Loki planting the illusion inside Sylvie's head - and here's the evidence. Loki is the God of Mischief, and there's one major problem with mischief; it tends to go wrong. As Tony Stark pointed out in The Avengers, Loki's plans are often flawed; there, it seemed to depend on getting too many powerful people irritated with him. "There's no throne, there is no version of this, where you come out on top," he observed.
But it's hard to think of a scenario where one of Loki's plans has proved more flawed than Loki episode 3, "Lamentis." There, Tom Hiddleston's trickster god used a stolen TemPad to whisk himself and his variant Lady Loki (aka Sylvie) away from the TVA so they could spend some quality time together. Unfortunately he'd programmed the TemPad to transport them to the worst of the apocalyptic scenarios Sylvie had identified as potential hiding-places from the TVA, and the battery had run out. The two were literally stranded on a world that was about to die, one where - according to the history books - there would be no survivors. And things only got worse from there, as their attempt to find a way to recharge the TemPad led to its being badly damaged, and the two Lokis were forced to watch as their only other way offworld was destroyed. As Tony Stark would say, "Not a great plan."
But on closer viewing, there are subtle hints this whole thing is an illusion, one cast either by Tom Hiddleston's Loki or Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie. There are a number of details that just don't quite work - suggesting there is trickery afoot. Here's all the evidence.
On the face of it, Lady Loki's powers work very differently to the traditional Loki's. She's a self-taught sorceress who appears to have focused on enchantments of the mind, capable of possessing the bodies of others and using them as pawns, or of digging into the memories of lesser beings in order to learn their secrets. According to Sylvie, this latter techniques requires physical contact, and she can plunder the thoughts of the weaker-minded with ease. She needs to construct elaborate scenarios in order to encourage the trust of beings with stronger minds, though - and that's where the theory Lamentis is all an illusion comes in.
But Tom Hiddleston's Loki may not be as unaware of this kind of sorcery as he pretends. While it's true Loki depended on the Mind Stone to perform similar feats in The Avengers, there have been hints the mainstream Loki also possesses enchantments too; most notably in the post-credits scene of Thor, where he was revealed to have established a lasting link with the mind of astrophysicist Erik Selvig. The experience was overwhelmingly intrusive, with Selvig later reflecting, "I have had a god in my brain. I don't recommend it." That means this isn't necessarily a mental construct created by Lady Loki; it could just as easily be cast by Loki himself.
There are actually a number of moments of prolonged physical contacts between the two Lokis where such an enchantment could be cast. The earliest of these is during the confrontation between Loki and Sylvie in the TVA, with Loki attempting to persuade his variant to work with him. He manages to restrain her for a couple of seconds - and it's entirely possible he then enters her mind. It's worth remembering every Loki possesses the same arrogant belief in their own superiority, meaning ironically Sylvie may not have erected mental defenses against such an intrusion.
Then there's the doomed planet of Lamentis itself, which feels very much like a mental simulation designed to coax Sylvia into telling Loki more about herself and her plans. It's notable the details are populated from Sylvie's mind and her memories, with the world filled in as she remembers it. At every stage, there are potential quests that force the two Lokis into an alliance; find a power source, find the Ark, get off Lamentis and change the timeline so as to draw the TVA in. But, unlike Sylvie, Loki never seems to really sense the urgency of these quests. He even disrupts it by taking absurd risks, dropping his illusions in order to have a hedonistic party on the train that leads to their being tossed off - and consequently forced to spend more time talking together. Every stage of this journey feels engineered.
The most important clue is offered towards the end of Loki episode 3, as the moon of Lamentis cracks like an egg and the meteor bombardment intensifies. There are explosions in the streets due to the impacts, and buildings begin to fall, the catastrophe escalating at a horrific pace. One collapsing building looks set to kill the two Lokis, but fortunately Hiddleston's Loki intervenes, using his telekinesis to capture it and fling it away. It's an impressive feat - but there's just one problem with it. While Loki has demonstrated telekinesis before in the MCU, he's never been shown to have power on that kind of scale before. Either he's been holding back all along in the MCU, or this whole thing isn't real, and he was forced to step in because the scenario had just gone too far.
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In narrative terms, it's clear Loki's story will not end on Lamentis - the series is only halfway through, after all. Loki episode 3 has carefully set up and then destroyed potential escape routes, meaning there is now literally no way off this doomed world. That, more than anything else, suggests this whole thing is a misdirect, an artificial scenario used by Loki to get into Sylvie's head and learn what he can. If that's the case, though, how long has actually passed in the "real" world and what is happening there? Viewers could be in for some surprises in Loki episode 4, when the illusion fades.
Loki releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.
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