All Twelve Loki Episodes RANKED!

Loki is a phenomenal TV show, with Season 1 being absolutely phenomenal at release and Season 2 somehow surpassing it. Both seasons have fantastic plotlines that I love, with the first season focusing on Loki variants, the mysteries of the Time Variance Authority (TVA), and taking down He Who Remains; and the second season focusing on the repercussions of Sylvie killing He Who Remains and how it affects the branches innumerable branches of the multiverse. As much as I love most of the episodes of the show, some are much better than others so, without further ado, I, Brighton Nelson of The Reel Ranker present to you... All 12 Loki Episodes RANKED!

12: Season 2, Episode 2 - "Breaking Bad"

Everything associated with actually breaking Brad was fantastic. Loki was practically sci-fi, Marvel Jack Bauer, which was incredibly entertaining. And Sylvie working at McDonald's? Comedy gold. So why do I dislike this episode even though it has great moments? Everything about Dox was the worst thing that's ever happened to this show, and up there with some of the worst MCU moments. For some reason, the show decides to kill off whole branches of the timeline with essentially no emotional gravitas or tension. An episode like this should've been absolutely devestating, but it kind of just happened and was forgotten about. This episode had some great moments, but the Dox storyline's poor execution made She-Hulk unironically look like a masterpiece and that's just depressing.

11: Season 2, Episode 1 - "Ouroboros"

This seems like it'd be a very controversial opinion by nature, but this episode was not that great in my opinion. On paper, the plot and events are very interesting, but I found the execution rather uninteresting. This episode focuses on Loki "time slipping", a phenomenon caused by branching timelines overloading the Temporal Loom. In retrospect, it does an alright job of setting up the season, but this episode simply didn't hook me in. It just felt like an overload of discombobulated events that could've been condensed to about ten minutes. It took me about six months to find the motivation to continue watching the season after this episode, which I'm very glad I did, because the last four episodes of the season were amazing. Ultimately, this was the most boring episode of Loki and was a much less gripping episode than the first episode of Season 1, but at least it wasn't as ill-concieved as the previous episode on this list.

10: Season 1, Episode 2 - "The Variant"

This episode is exponentially better than the last couple episodes on this list! But it still deserves to be in third to last in my eyes. This episode centers on Loki getting to redeem himself with the TVA by trying to find Sylvie, a Loki variant. At the end, she teleports away to an apocolyptic world, and Loki follows her. It was a really cool twist to have a female Loki variant and see Loki's redemption story start to flourish, but, unfortunately, Sylvie doesn't get all too much interesting development in this episode (hence "Lamentis" being higher on this list). So, as good as it is, this episode has a hard time standing up to the rest of the episodes on this list—especially on rewatch.

9: Season 1, Episode 3 - "Lamentis"

I kind of understand why people call this a bad episode, but I couldn't disagree more—this is a great episode. It just isn't, well, the greatest or most important, making it less memorable than the next eight episodes. The purpose of this episode is to develop Sylvie's character and to demonstrate the harsh brutality of what happens during the end of a world. This is one of the most action-packed episodes of the series, and while some call it filler, I believe it was a crucial episode in developing Sylvie's character and adding gravitas to the season's conflict. For that, I feel this is an underrated episode of Loki, even though it's not exactly top-tier.

8: Season 2, Episode 3 - "1893"

This episode is absolutely bonkers. It starts with Renslayer and Miss Minutes attempting to corrupt a young variant of He Who Remains in 1868 by giving him a TVA manual. Loki and the gang than travel to 1893 when this variant, now-genius Victor Timely, has grown up and has created a prototype of a Temporal Loom by using the TVA guide he acquired in 1868. Renslayer and Miss Minutes try to recruit him to becoming evil like He Who Remains, but he rejects them, making him instantly become an incredibly interesting character. I didn't expect to have a good guy protagonist variant of this saga's head honcho big bad! Not that I'm complaining, it was a brilliant idea. But I digress. Sylvie then tries to kill him when she sees him, but when Loki convinces her to bring him back to the TVA because he isn't inherently bad, she reluctantly complies. As the episode where we get the most time with Victor Timely, there's no way it'd place lower on this list. Sadly, it isn't exactly a top tier episode, as much as it is great.

7: Season 1, Episode 1 - "Glorious Purpose"

This episode did a fantastic job of introducing the show and instantly convincing me that Loki teleporting away with the Tesseract was not a cash-grabbing idea, but a brilliant idea that I would've never imagined up if I were Kevin Fiege or the comic writers or whoever came up with this. This episode may not be as groundbreaking or intriguing as many of the previous episodes on this list, but this episode being fantastic needed to happen for it to be successful, and they aced it. Seeing the TVA for the first time? That was incredible. Great job, Marvel, great job.

6: Season 2, Episode 4 - "Heart of the TVA"

This is the most action-packed episode of Season 2 by a pretty wide margin. Following up Episode 3, Loki, Sylvie, Mobius, O.B., and Victor Timely, this episode deals with the Temporal Loom (which, for those who don't remember, keep the timeline branches balanced and alive) reaching catastrophic failure. Lots of evil people finally get pruned in this episode—let's just say villains are not the strong suit of this season, and the show was better without them stealing time away. Judging the main conflict involved Sylvie's prior decision to kill He Who Remains, the villains being crushed by Miss Minutes and being pruned very much benefitted the final two episodes of the show, as it let the show have more breathing room for the stuff that actually mattered. But I digress. Anyway, with a bunch of action-packed sequences and a race to the end full of ontological paradoxes, magic-supression, temporal radiation, Throughput multiplication, spontaneous combustions, and spaghettification, this episode is infinitely memorable and sets up a fantastic, emotional two-part finale for Loki Season 2.

5: Season 1, Episode 6 - "For All Time. Always."

As the season finale of Season 1, this episode completely put me off when I first watched the season—where was the action-packed Marvel finale? IT didn't take me very long to see the error of my ways, as this is one of the best Marvel TV finales by a pretty wide margin. The screen presence of He Who Remains is masterful, and the dramatic talk-fighting fits perfectly with the vibe of the show (as much as I really want to see Loki full-on fight people with his magic like the old days). This episode is also so much stronger in retrospect, as Sylvie's decision to kill Kang in this episode completely defined the plot of Season 2. This episode is pretty much Loki at its finest, but there are four more episodes that are, well, finer.

4: Season 1, Episode 4 - "The Nexus Event"

How did all the best plot twists and Ravonna Renslayer's best moments end up in one episode? And in the same episode where Thor's Sif randomly returns? It was an epicness overload. With the twist that Ravonna was evil, Loki getting trapped in a time loop, the truth that everyone at the TVA was forced there against their will, and Loki literally dying by being pruned at the end of the episode? This is easily one of the best episodes of Loki.

3: Season 1, Episode 5 - "Journey Into Mystery"

This episode was crazy, as Loki literally dies at the end of the previous episode by pruning. It turns out Loki didn't die, but ends up at The Void at the End of Time, like many other Loki variants who have died. It turns out that being pruned doesn't kill people, it simply sends them to the Void, and the only way to get back is through a TemPad which not everyone who is pruned has access to. Mobius returns to the TVA to reveal the truth of the organization that he learned from Loki. In the meantime, Loki and all of his variants attempt to reach the humble abode of He Who Remains at the End of Time. This episode shines because if its interesting premise, setting, and characters, and for that, it deserves a spot in the top three.

2: Season 2, Episode 6 - "Glorious Purpose"

This is a bombastic finale to Loki Season 2! In this episode, Loki learned how to control his time-slipping, and he tries a multitude of times to fix the Temporal Loom in one of the coolest and most disheartening montages of Marvel. After this immaculate sequence of failed attempts, Loki attempts a new approach by time slipping to the moment where Sylvie kills He Who Remains. He tries over and over to stop Sylvie, but she never listens. He Who Remains senses that he has looped time over and over and tells him there are only two viable options to stop the Temporal Loom from deleting all the branches except the Sacred Timeline: kill Sylvie or take the spot of He Who Remains at the End of Time. He picks the latter and disappears from the life of his friends, making for an emotional finale full of twists and turns, making it an easy contender for the second best episode of Loki.

1: Season 2, Episode 5 - "Science/Fiction"

Like Season 1, the fifth episode yet again follows up on a shocking plot twist. Everyone was spaghettified except for Loki. However, he is able to time slip away from the situation, which takes him to an alternate reality where our main characters finally get a chance to live their lives outside of the TVA with no memory of their time there. Loki then collects each of the people who were spaghettified in the other reality and convince them to join his cause. This episode does a brilliant job of showing new sides of the characters and setting up the finale, "Glorious Purpose." I'm just saying, seeing Mobius selling jet skis kind of just hit differently. Such great scenes. Ultimately, with the most drama and awesomeness of any episode in the series, this stands as my favorite episode of Loki.

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The Verdict

The Reel Ranking:

12. Season 2, Episode 2 - "Breaking Brad"
11. Season 2, Episode 1 - "Ouroboros"
10. Season 1, Episode 2 - "The Variant"
9. Season 1, Episode 3 - "Lamentis"
8. Season 2, Episode 3 - "1893"
7. Season 1, Episode 1 - "Glorious Purpose"
6. Season 2, Episode 4 - "Heart of the TVA"
5. Season 1, Episode 6 - "For All Time. Always."
4. Season 1, Episode 4 - "The Nexus Event"
3. Season 1, Episode 5 - "Journey Into Mystery"
2. Season 2, Episode 6 - "Glorious Purpose"
1. Season 2, Episode 5 - "Science/Fiction"

Common Consensus:

12. Season 2, Episode 2 - "Breaking Brad"
11. Season 2, Episode 3 - "1893"
10. Season 1, Episode 3 - "Lamentis"
9. Season 2, Episode 1 - "Ouroboros"
8. Season 1, Episode 6 - "For All Time. Always."
7. Season 1, Episode 1 - "Glorious Purpose"
6. Season 2, Episode 4 - "Heart of The TVA"
5. Season 1, Episode 2 - "The Variant"
4. Season 2, Episode 5 - "Science/Fiction"
3. Season 1, Episode 5 - "Journey Into Mystery"
2. Season 1, Episode 4 - "The Nexus Event"
1. Season 2, Episode 6 - "Glorious Purpose"