The god of mischief is back!
*Warning: Major spoilers ahead for Loki season 2 episode 1.*
Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief returned to our screens last week, with Loki season 2 premiering to strong reviews and re-introducing the iconic Loki cast.
That means that Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) are back too, joined by some new faces including Ke Huy Quan’s OB.
Waiting for episode 2 to arrive is the perfect time to delve deeper into the events of the first episode, which picked up after Sylvie effectively broke time and started a multiversal war. So yeah, the TVA’s hands are full, and of course, busy getting up to all sorts of wibbly, wobbly, timey, wimey antics.
Read on to find out exactly what went down at the end of the first episode, and what that post-credit scene might mean.
Loki season 2 episode 1 ending explained: What happened to Loki?
Hunter B-15 (played by Wunmi Mosaku) is dealing with the shattering of the Sacred Timeline and the realisation that everyone at the TVA had a life on the timeline.
Mobius and B-15 are summoned to the war room to speak to General Dox (Katie Dickie) and Judge Gamble (Liz Carr), interrogating them about why they put out an order to stop pruning. B-15 attempts to tell them that the TVA has been committing “atrocities” and Gamble tells the TVA to stop pruning immediately.
Meanwhile, in the midst of his time-slipping, Loki hears a voice recording of He Who Remains telling Renslayer he would be “proud to lead” with her. He rocks up at the meeting in the war room, showing them that He Who Remains built the TVA and “stole their lives”. Dox orders her subordinates to find Sylvie.
Loki recounts what happened with He Who Remains at the end of time to Mobius and, after a few more instances of some very painful time-slipping, the pair head to repairs and advancements to chat to new pal OB (who we also find out wrote the TVA handbook – maybe keep that in mind).
As Loki slips back into the past, OB creates a plan to bring him back to the present – for Mobius to use a temporal aural extractor amid the temporal loom (the heart of the TVA’s power) to pull Loki out of the time stream and bring him back to to the present.
Meanwhile, Loki has to prune himself to rip himself from time and space so as the extractor can pull him into the present. Easy!
OB establishes that the branching on the timeline is overloading the temporal loom. Mobius begins his mission, heading out into the temporal loom to bring Loki back – and OB instructs Loki to prune himself. Loki time-slips again and finds himself in the future.
He hears a phone ring but, on his way to answer it, he sees Sylvie pushing open an elevator door. Loki is seemingly pruned, which results in him crashing back into the present at the last minute. Upon his return, he says: “We need to find Sylvie.”
So who actually pruned him? And where is Sylvie? Only time will tell!
The last scenes of the episode see B-15 watching an army headed out of a time door and questions whether it’s all for Sylvie. It seems, as usual, there’s something bigger at play…
Season 2 episode 1 of Loki takes place fully in the TVA, with executive producer Kevin Wright telling Variety: “I think we had to just keep reminding ourselves that the TVA is a great world, let’s live in the drama of what we’re creating there.
“Which means not fast-forwarding through the drama that they just decided to stop pruning timelines, but also staying in the emotional turmoil that Loki and Sylvie are coming into this season with.”
Loki season 2 episode 1 post-credits scene explained
Following the revelation in season 1 that all variants actually had lives on the timeline, it seems Sylvie now wants to actually experience a normal life.
She’s seen arriving in Broxton, Oklahoma in the year 1982 through a time door on a branched timeline. She walks into a fast food restaurant and asks: “How do I do this?”
The cashier asks: “What would you like?”
Sylvie responds: “Not squirrel, not possum, not rats, something that’s already dead and nothing with a face. Please.”
The server makes some suggestions, as Sylvie looks around at the people in the midst of enjoying their lives – on a date, laughing with friends.
Clearly moved, she says: “I wanna try everything.”
Loki season 2 will start streaming on Disney Plus on 6th October 2023. You can sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year now.
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