Warning: the article contains spoilers for Loki season 2 episode 3
Loki season 2 has been full of surprises, with the most recent example in episode 3 being the unexpected depth of complex emotions held by the animated Miss Minutes, voiced by Tara Strong. Specifically, fans have been calling out the clock that looks like a 1920s cartoon for coming across in the episode as quite horny. What’s going on here?
In the episode, Miss Minutes finally confesses her love of Jonathan Majors’ Kang, AKA Victor Timely, AKA He Who Remains, the individual who created her. As part of the artificial intelligence’s stalker-y monologue, she laments that Kang has never put her in a human form. She makes Victor uncomfortable in this moment by superimposing her face onto a mannequin, then comes on to him so hard that he has to prune her, essentially, to the End of Time.
Anyway, Loki fans immediately highlighted the weirdness inherent in the show presenting a horny clock as part of the plot.
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What makes it a love triangle?
Miss Minutes’ dilemma of unrequited feelings for Victor is made more complex by teasing that Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer may also be forming affectionate feelings for him. At the beginning of Loki season 3 episode 2, it seems as if Ravonna and Miss Minutes are working together as the former agrees to the latter’s plan of planting the Time Variance Authority manual into Victor’s childhood bedroom. However, as the episode progresses, Ravonna and Miss Minutes seem increasingly at odds.
There’s a vague sense that Ravonna and Miss Minutes are perhaps courting Victor to become the new He Who Remains. However, when they both bring Victor into their orbit in 1893 Chicago, Ravonna starts cozying up to the time travel scientist in a way that implies she wants to be more than just friends. She even puts her hand on his knee at one point, and alludes to the two of them being “partners.”
When this flirtation between Ravonna and Victor happens, Miss Minutes dumps her off on a lifeboat from the ship they are on while she’s asleep. Ravonna returns later, looking like she is ready to prune Victor for his betrayal by siding with Miss Minutes. However, Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie jumps in at that moment, pruning Ravonna instead. In the end, both Miss Minutes and Ravonna find themselves at the Citadel at the End of Time, staring at the lifeless corpse of He Who Remains, who was murdered by Sylvie in season 1.
This wacky love triangle that has seen a series of double and triple crosses was immediately pointed out as truly bizarre by fans.
However, when you consider the first season of Loki involved the God of Mischief falling in love with a female version of himself, it comes across as simply being par for the course.
What’s next for Loki? Will we find out more about the motivations of both Miss Minutes and Ravonna? Are they truly loyal to Kang or is each one simply making a deceitful bid for power at the throne of the End of Time? We’ll have to find out together when Loki season 2’s subsequent episodes drop on Disney Plus each Thursday from now until Nov. 9.