Marvel Just Confirmed The MCU's Most Sadistic Villain
Contains spoilers for "Loki" Season 2, Episode 4 — "Heart of the TVA"
"Loki" is full of supervillains. Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), of course, are variants of the trickster god who serves as the first true Big Bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Season 1's He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) and Season 2's Victor Timely (also Jonathan Majors) are Kang variants. Even Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) and most other Time Variance Authority agents serve an antagonistic role at various points of the series. It takes a lot to stand out in a crowd like this, but Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) manages to do just that. In fact, one "Loki" Season 2, Episode 4 moment proves that the show's resident nefarious artificial intelligence isn't just the most sadistic villain on "Loki" — she's the most sadistic villain in the MCU, period.
Viewers who remember the disturbing shrinking cube Loki uses to interrogate Hunter X-5 (Rafael Casal) in Episode 2, "Breaking Brad," now get to witness the nasty end result of the machine's shrinking function when Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) uses it to crush General Dox (Kate Dickie) and her troops. Though the gruesome death scene isn't shown, it's played out off-screen with unnerving audio that ends with quiet dripping indicating Dox's crew has been pulped into goo. All the while, the camera stays on Renslayer and Miss Minutes ... and while the former has the good sense to struggle with her composure, the AI is watching the scene with a gleeful expression that reveals how much she's enjoying herself. The MCU may be full of deadly villains, but Miss Minutes is the only one we've seen derive such sadistic pleasure from the agonizing deaths of others.
There have been cruel MCU villains before, but Miss Minutes takes it to another level
Any ranking of MCU movie villains will reveal a laundry list of cruel baddies, but when you look closer, they all have clear motivations and reasons for their evil deeds. Thanos (Josh Brolin) may wipe half the universe out of existence, but he genuinely believes he's doing good in the grand scheme of things. The Kang variant in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" is in the villain business for control, Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) for money, and the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) for science. Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) has a complex and tragic backstory that has shaped him into a dangerous, vengeance-seeking mercenary, and even the chaotic Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) is ultimately just a split personality of the far more reasonable Norman Osborn.
Despite the considerable cruelty they all display, none of them — or any other MCU villain, for that matter — has shown the kind of joyful, utterly needless sadism Miss Minutes does in "Loki" Season 2, Episode 4. Yes, she has a motive for her villainy — she's in love with her creator, He Who Remains, and wants to reinstate a version of him as the head of the TVA. However, nothing in that mission requires her to draw pleasure from seeing the people she's worked with for a long time die in a horrific way. The AI cartoon clock has always had a hint of malevolence to her — but this short scene in "Loki" Season 2, Episode 4 shows just how irredeemably evil she truly is.