This is a great take! It's very close to what I was getting at, yeah.

I think Loki being good now was rushed, but isn't entirely unbelievable given that Loki does tend to turn good every so often anyway. But even if he does decide to be the good guy for a bit, he's still Loki — like you said, we're expecting "trademark grandiosity, sick fight scenes, and surprise turnarounds," and we didn't really get that, I totally agree.

One of the scenes that frustrated me in the show was when Loki got kicked off the train on Lamentis. First of all you'd think he'd be way too powerful to lose to train security, even drunk, but you can handwave the power levels for whatever reason; more importantly, it just felt like a dumb move so the plot could happen. I thought he might have some kind of plan behind what he was doing, but it seemed like he didn't, unless I missed a reveal somewhere?