The biggest moment of Loki episode three happened in an instant. The God of Mischief (Tom Hiddleston) was talking to his newly discovered Loki counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) about their lives, and Loki confirmed he’s been romantically involved with both men and women. The moment made him the first canonically bisexual character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and fans rightfully rejoiced.
“From the moment I joined [Loki] it was very important to me, and my goal, to acknowledge Loki was bisexual,” directed Kate Herron tweeted soon after. “It is a part of who he is and who I am too. I know this is a small step but I’m happy, and heart is so full, to say that this is now canon in [the MCU].” However, in an excellent, wide-ranging follow-up interview with Entertainment Tonight, Herron confirmed that Loki’s sexuality won’t come back up in the show’s final three episodes.
“Can we expect to see any further exploration of what it means for Loki to be bisexual in this show?” the reporter asked. “I’m trying to think how to answer your question,” Herron jokingly began, being extra careful to make sure she didn’t spoil any plot points coming up. “I would say in our story, this is how we acknowledge it. But I hope that that paves the way for deeper exploration.”
In the same interview, Herron also followed up on her tweet acknowledging that while Loki’s sexuality is important, she’s not quite ready to pat herself and the Marvel team on their backs about it. “Like I’ve said, it’s very personal to me, and I said it was a small step in some ways — because obviously, he’s just talking about it,” she said.
“But in the bigger scale of things, I’m like, oh no, it’s massive actually. If I saw that when I was 10, it would be really big for me. It’s been really nice getting comments from people online. Some people were like, ‘It helped me actually talk about how I feel to my family and helped me come out.’ And I thought, ‘Well, if it helped one person do that, then it’s worth it.’”
That’s absolutely true and we know future Marvel movies like Eternals and Thor: Love and Thunder with have more LGBTQIA+ characters joining the universe. Which is great. But while Marvel is finally moving in the right direction in terms of representation, you can’t help but wonder at what point all of these characters will go from just being coded a certain way to actually being explored more fully.