Did you know that Loki is a romantic comedy? Eric Martin certainly wrote one for Loki season 2, episode 5, “Science/Fiction.” Whether he meant Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) storyline in this episode to be a love story or not, it’s indisputably the plot of a romantic comedy.
**Spoilers for season 2, episode 5 of Loki lie ahead, beware!**
After the explosive (literally) fourth episode ended with the Temporal Loom turning Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors) into spaghetti—just like his family before him—our Time Variance Authority team was left with a flashing light and no idea what was to become of them. In the end, Loki was left standing in an empty TVA and time slipping again, questioning where everyone was. Thankfully, before the TVA vanished for good, he managed to take one of Ouroborous’ (Ke Huy Quan) books with him. But, even though he is slipping through time to find everyone he holds dear to him, the only one he steals glances at through windows and fixes himself up to see is Mobius. Or Don, if you’d rather.
Donius, as I like to call him, is a jet ski salesman, and Loki is a man lost in time just trying to say hello again. If that doesn’t sound like a rom-com tagline to you, I don’t know what does. The first time Loki sees Mobius, he sees him through the window of the store where he works while Loki is standing outside before he time slips again. Mobius says multiple times that he’s “single” and that he has two sons but that his wife is out of the picture.
This is a perfect little romantic comedy set up and I truly wanted to scream, cry, throw up, and also watch them smooch for four hours all at once.
They just needed to smooch
If you told me that Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson were told to play this entire episode like it was two men in love with each other—and only Loki knew, but slowly Mobius was remembering how he felt about Loki—I’d believe it. The entire episode felt like it was shot like While You Were Sleeping or some other rom-com I used to watch with my dad. Everything about what Mobius and Loki were doing felt romantic.
When Loki gets dropped at Mobius’ house—which is weird, and yet Mobius is like, “Great, my buddy from the shop”—Loki has to first fix his hair before speaking to Donius—okay. Then, when Mobius is like, “Did you follow me to my home?” Loki is so flustered that he cannot think of a single location that a man would need to go to and promptly stops talking.
This is the cutest and most flustered rom-com crush. It was so sweet and awkward, and the fact that Loki just kept saying “my friends” felt like I was being stabbed repeatedly in the heart. However, I firmly believe that Hiddleston and Wilson were acting like every single reunion between Loki and Mobius was the biggest moment of their romantic life. I mean, who brings up their wife leaving them that much to a stranger they just met?! Unless …
(featured image: Disney+)
