Loki/Sylvie Relationship Was Improved By Pandemic Delays

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Loki season 1, episode 4, "The Nexus Event"

Loki director Kate Herron opens up about how the mid-filming shutdown of the show led to an expansion of the titular hero's relationship with Sylvie. The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe series centers on Tom Hiddleston's Loki as he is recruited by the mysterious Time Variance Authority to track down a variant who is killing off members of the agency. Despite the character's demise in Avengers: Infinity War, the story picks up the events of the 2012 iteration of the character after his escape during the events of Avengers: Endgame.

Having discovered the identity of the killer as Sylvie, a variant of himself, Loki joins Sylvie in an effort to get to the secret behind the TVA, including the omniscient Time Keepers. After finding themselves trapped on the doom moon of Lamentis-1 due to Loki's accidental destruction of Sylvie's TemPad, the duo begin to resign themselves to their fate on the planet. Though they are saved just in time by the TVA, their time with one another sparks a new emotion in both they never knew they were capable of and it appears this wasn't always the plan for the writers room.

In an interview with Marvel to discuss episode 4, entitled "The Nexus Event," Herron opened up about the mid-production shutdown for the series. While putting together the footage shot during lockdown, Herron and her team discovered the potential in Sylvie and Loki's relationship and elected to take the extra time to find a way to expand upon it. See what Herron had to say below:

“There were tonally some things that were coming to the surface [between Loki and Sylvie]. As we were cutting it together in the studio, everyone was, ‘Oh, this [relationship] is really cool. Let's dig into that more. When we went back to filming, we added or tweaked scripts basically to [emphasize it].”

Shifting from the fast-paced nature of the previous episode, "The Nexus Event" may have pumped the brakes a bit in its pacing but shifted to pulling back the curtain on a number of unanswered questions for the series. But between the reveal of the Time Keepers being androids and the seeming demise of Owen Wilson's Mobius was a development of Loki and Sylvie's dynamic in an intriguing direction. Though Mobius' comments that Loki falling in love with Sylvie is a case of extreme narcissism, for those who have longed to see a positive progression for Hiddleston's God of Mischief, it proved to be a hopeful wrinkle.

The character has proven over the past few years to be capable of a familial love for his foster family, but to see him continue to show a capability of love for more people is a great element of character development for Loki. While the pandemic lockdown may have led to a number of highly-anticipated projects being delayed, it has also proven to show promise as it gave many time to better develop the work being put out. Four episodes in and this extra tweaking and development has proven to be effective for the series.

More: Loki’s Bisexuality & The MCU’s History Of LGBTQ+ Representation

Source: Marvel