Three episodes in, “Loki” Season 2 already has better pacing than the majority of Marvel’s Disney Plus shows.

Last episode left Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) with a dilemma discovered by Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan): The Time Variance Authority is going to collapse unless they get the temporal signature of TVA founder He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), who is a variant of Kang the Conqueror. The issue is, He Who Remains is dead.

Thankfully, this episode sees Loki and Mobius find a younger version of him in 1893, where he is posing as inventor Victor Timely. We also learned that Miss Minutes (Tara Strong), the rogue AI who has complete admin access to the TVA, and former TVA boss Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) slipped him a TVA manual decades prior, essentially making it such that, through Timely, the TVA creates itself.

Miss Minutes, Renslayer, Loki and Mobius all want the same thing, which the episode openly admits. Yet they refuse to cooperate, as the two groups (Miss Minutes and Renslayer/Loki and Mobius) all want different things for the TVA, specifically as it relates to its policy of pruning multiverse branches. There’s also a third party that crashes the episode: Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), who wants Timely and his TVA dead.

Sylvie nearly gets what she wants, but there’s a brilliant moment where Timely makes a stand against her, declaring that he is not He Who Remains and that he is free to make his own choices. It strikes at the core of what Sylvie is all about; she can’t kill Timely without being a hypocrite, as the TVA also sees her as nothing more than a variant who cannot change beyond her predetermined nature.

This is an another great episode in an already strong season. “Loki” the show already had strong, compelling characters and is perhaps one of the best recent multiverse shows or films out there, but what really sets it apart is its sharp focus, pacing and overall direction. Last season was one of the few Marvel shows that consistently and competently built towards an interesting and entertaining conclusion; this season so far has been no different.

Loki” Season 2: Episode 3 “1893” gets a 9/10