“Loki” Season 2 so far has been the only Marvel Disney Plus show that hasn’t been predictable.

After Episode 3, having found Kang variant Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), he and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) work with TVA technician Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) to try to fix the TVA, which is collapsing because it is unable to adapt to the new multiverse.

Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) are not far behind, using Miss Minutes’ access as an AI to shut down all travel through TVA devices. Meanwhile, the TVA is strained to its breaking point, which brings it to the point where, earlier in the season, Loki time-slipped into (we also learn that he pruned himself).

Loki and Sylvie have a great talk about whether or not the TVA can be transformed into something good, in which Loki breaks down his perspective of how, while the TVA is not perfect and will probably never be, reforming it is their best option going forward. It’s easily one of the strongest scenes in any Disney Marvel show, period, showing a rare thing occurrence: Someone calmly explaining their points and slowly changing someone’s mind.

But not all goes as you might expect, with the episode ending in crippling failure, leaving the rest of the show entirely in uncharted territory. We’re at our “Empire Strikes Back” — or lowest moment.

I never know what to expect from this show. I like its first season, but I do admit it never reached any of the peaks the Marvel Netflix shows had, particularly “Daredevil.” So far, this season has notably raised the bar, with this episode managing to raise and somehow shuffle the show’s stakes while pulling no punches.

This is also arguably the darkest Marvel has gotten since “Infinity War” and “Endgame,” as it kills off a batch of characters in brutal ways. It introduces a sense of risk and consequences these shows have been lacking, likely because Marvel is careful about killing off characters who could lead their own IPs.

“Loki” Season 2: Episode 4 “Heart of the TVA” gets a 9/10