It’s the end (for now) of our episode-by-episode look at Loki. As always, spoilers lie in wait, threatening evil and ruin.
Years ago, back when I’d find myself in a movie theater two or three times a week, I took in a late showing of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (2004). It was a week night in a suburban theater, so but for one other fellow way on the other side of the room, I had the place to myself. If you’re unaware or have never seen it, Passion concerns itself with the last day of Jesus’ life, culminating with his crucifixion. Gibson’s movie runs 127 minutes, including credits, and I’d wager that at least 90 of those minutes are given over to flesh-shredding, blood-spattering, bone-cracking mayhem and torture of the most graphic sort. If mainstream American filmgoers have ever been exposed to a movie more relentlessly cruel and violent than this one, I can’t imagine what it might be. There are virtually no concessions to audience expectation. Passion‘s dialogue is primarily in Aramaic, a dialect that very few people still speak…and by some accounts I’ve read, Gibson had to be persuaded to add subtitles! Nor are there any accommodations made to catch anyone up on the story or provide any context. If you know the details and the principle characters surrounding Jesus’ arrest and death, great; if you don’t, too bad. I remember sitting there in the theater, watching this deeply strange and unsettling film, and thinking: Who the fuck is this movie for? Like, seriously…who’s the intended audience for this thing?
