Spoilers ahead for the first five episodes of Loki.
Only one episode is left before the wild ride of Loki comes to an end on Disney+, with Tom Hiddleston's God of Mischief joined by Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie. The series has been slowly peeling back the layers on Sylvie, and the character who originally seemed to be set up as the big bad of Loki has turned into arguably the closest thing that Loki has ever had to a real friend and equal in his own variant. Of course, Sylvie's status as a woman presents a very big difference between her and the MCU's main Loki, and Di Martino spoke with CinemaBlend about her look as Sylvie and the important elements of it.
The third episode of Loki was the one that first really delved into who Sylvie is as a character rather than just a version of Loki not played by Tom Hiddleston, and she made quite an impression as she stormed the TVA until Loki ruined her plan and whisked them away to Lamentis-1. Even before she began wreaking havoc on the TVA, however, there was a small moment of Sylvie pulling her hair back and out of her face so she could jump into action. When I noted the moment in an interview with Sophia Di Martino, the actress explained how Sylvie's personality is reflected in her look, saying:
I think it was really important to us, to me and to Kate Herron, the director, and to Christine Wada, the costume designer. And Amy Wood, the hair designer. You know, we wanted her to be sort of practical. And the fact that, you know what it's like when you're going to do like a dirty job, you're going to put your hair back. You're going to get it out of your face, so it's not going to get in your way. And it's literally that. She just wants to get it out of her face so she can concentrate on taking out these Minutemen, because that's her mission in that moment. And it was really important for me to have, you know, the costume be really comfortable and to be able to run in it and to be able to fight in it and throw a kick in it and it not, you know, break or be uncomfortable or not be able to move. I didn't want to be wearing heels and leotard or something gross like that.
Although Sylvie was ready for a change of wardrobe by the time she had a quiet moment with Loki in Episode 5, her suit held up through deadly situation after deadly situation, and the practicality of her costume – including, as Sophia Di Martino noted, the lack of high heels – has meant that Sylvie more than holding her own in action isn't one of the elements of Loki requiring a suspension of disbelief.
Interestingly, Sylvie's practical look in Loki comes after WandaVision ended on the reveal of a new look for Wanda that's much more practical than what she was wearing in Avengers: Endgame and previous MCU movies (as well as earlier in WandaVision). Is this the beginning of a new trend? Sophia Di Martino continued, explaining why the costume made sense from a character perspective for Sylvie:
So I think it was all down to sort of practicality, comfort and the fact that this character has been on the run. Like, she's been hiding in apocalypses. It's not a comfortable existence. The way she looks needs to reflect that. And the fact that she's a little bit disheveled is a part of that. And you know, like the roots, her hair growing out and her whole vibe.
Considering how Episode 5 ended to set up the Loki finale, Sylvie may need every advantage she can get in the final conflict, so the practicality could pay off all over again. There are still a lot of questions about her past, present, and future that need answering, and no guarantee that fans will get all the resolution by the time the final credits roll, and possibly set up another MCU project. She wasn't ready to commit to any kind of future vision beyond getting her answers, so not even Loki has any idea of what she might have planned.
The good news is that the wait to find out won't be too painfully long. The finale of Loki releases on Disney+ on Wednesday, July 14 at 12 a.m. PT. The bad news is that the MCU will be out of live-action TV series for a while after the end of Loki, with Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel not expected until late 2021. The MCU is headed back to the big screen after taking 2020 off due to delays, with Black Widow making its long-awaited premiere on July 9, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to follow in September.
