Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Loki Season 2.
The fourth episodeofLokiSeason 2 has set up severe, possibly multiverse ending implications for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Despite the continued grave warnings fromO.B. (Ke Huy Quan), Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his companions in the Time Variance Authority still try everything in their power to save the TVA, and thus the multiverse, from falling apart. Just when it looks like they’ve come up with a plan to stop the multiverse from collapsing, a shocking twist results in that last-ditch effort completely falling through.
With two more episodes still on the horizon forLokiSeason 2 (not to mention a mountain of new content coming in Phases 5 and 6), this likely isn’t the end of Loki’s journey, but it sure feels like it. Though the unexpected cliffhanger ending may seem like a cataclysmic finale, there are actually many places that the series can go from here.
Loki, the God of Mischief, steps out of his brother’s shadow to embark on an adventure that takes place after the events of “Avengers: Endgame.”
Victor Timely Disintegrates and the Temporal Loom Implodes in ‘Loki’ Season 2
The road to doing so is long and torturous, but Loki and Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) find an unexpected solution to fixing the Temporal Loom inVictor Timely(Jonathan Majors) — a seemingly naive and innocent variant of He Who Remains, the creator of the TVA. Convincing Timely that they needed his help was difficult for the time-saving duo, especially since Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is trying to kill him, Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is trying to manipulate him, andMiss Minutes(Tara Strong) is trying to… seduce him? Anyway, once Loki and Mobius are convinced this variant isn’t a maniacal madman like He Who Remains or Kang the Conqueror, they trust him to help repair the Temporal Loom.
With that, O.B., Victor Timely, and Casey (Eugene Cordero) get to work on a device that can repair the Temporal Loom. This is all going on while Sylvie reprimands Loki and Mobius for eating pie while the multiverse is at risk and whileRavonna and Miss Minutes brutally massacre a roomful of TVA prisoners. These events merely delay the inevitable, as the Temporal Loom is still in very real danger of collapsing, much to the horror of our humble heroes.
Just as in the first episode of Season 2, fixing the Loom requires someone to go out into the irradiated environment to fix it. Loki is the first person to volunteer to go out but is quickly interrupted by Timely, who volunteers to go out there himself. The music triumphantly swells for this seemingly heroic moment, but the audience is in for a shock when Timely disintegrates almost instantaneously, screaming in agony as it happens. Everyone back in the control room is stunned as O.B. surmises that the radiation outside has just gotten too severe. For one of the rare times in his MCU lifespan, Loki is left completely and entirely speechless, as he’s helpless to stop the Temporal Loom from imploding. As the explosion covers the room in white, the shocking conclusion cuts to the credits.
Where Can ‘Loki’ Season 2 Go From Here?
So where exactly doesthe destruction of the Temporal LoomleaveLokiSeason 2? Well, the question that’s left begging to be asked is if Loki and his companions have been disintegrated like Timely. It would be a pretty bold move on behalf of Marvel Studios to kill its title character off in the fourth episode, so that likely isn’t the case. That said, if Loki and his friends aren’t dead, where are they?
Our first potential theory is that the Temporal Loom’s destruction functions as an impromptu “pruning,” sending the TVA and everyone in it to a different point in time. Everyone who is pruned is sent to the End of Time, which, as we know from earlier in the episode, still exists despite the death of He Who Remains. As seen in Season 1, the End of Time essentially doubles as a junkyard for all variant material. It’s here where Loki met plenty of Loki variants that were banished there, such as Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant), Kid Loki (Jack Veal), Boastful Loki (Deobia Oparei), and many others. Loki also finds plenty of other bizarre oddities there, such as a Thanos Copter and a frog version of Thor, not to mention a voracious smoke monster named Alioth.
Another potential option is that the Temporal Loom’s destruction has essentiallyreset the Sacred Timeline. Following He Who Remains' death in Season 1, that action effectively created the multiverse, making it so there are multiple timeline strands as opposed to just one. If this is the case, we could potentially see Loki reappear in a prior MCU event as a pre-redeemed villain. Not to mention, we could also see who the TVA’s other agents were on the Sacred Timeline, officially putting to rest thetrue identity of characters like Mobiusand O.B., the latter of whom has beenheavily theorized as a Kang variant.
Speaking of Kang variants, we know theCouncil of Kangswas making big plans for the Marvel Multiverse in the end-credits sequence ofAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Rama Tutt, Immortus, and other variants of Kang, as He Who Remains implied, are quite possibly the greatest threat to the MCU that has ever existed, being capable of declaring a multiversal war that could rip apart the very fabric of time. Victor Timely’s hasty volunteering to fix the Loom himself may imply that this was his plan all along and was another step to continuing his preordained path to create the TVA. After all,the variants of Kang the Conquerorare infamous for their masterful manipulation tactics, and Timely is already ahead of the curve in that respect with his past as a con man.
New episodes ofLokiSeason 2 premiere Thursdays on Disney+.
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