The Disney Plus Marvel show reveals how Loki Variants deal with impending doom. Stick around after the credits.
We left Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) seemingly trapped on the doomed moon of Lamentis in 2077, with a planet about to crash down and the escape vessel they'd planned to hijack destroyed. Sylvie had also bombed the Sacred Timeline, creating countless branches and forcing the TVA to deal with the chronological chaos she'd unleashed.
Back in Asgard from another timeline, a young Sylvie is taken by Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to the TVA. Despite being a little girl, she manages to steal Ravonna’s TemPad and escape. Cut to the present (whenever that is) Ravonna faces the Time Keepers. Ravonna tells Mobius (Owen Wilson) that they are agitated and that Hunter C-20 (Sasha Lane) is dead from the after-effects of Sylvie’s (Sophia Di Martino) enchantment. Sylvie and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) are still stranded on Lamentis as the doomed world is bombarded by fragments of the dying moon above.
Sylvie reveals her backstory and how she spent her life running from the TVA. They share a bonding moment as they talk, which somehow triggers a new timeline branch. This helps the TVA trace Loki and Sylvie to bring them back to the TVA. Mobius is understandably frustrated with Loki’s antics and sends him into a painful, but hilarious loop on Asgard with Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander). Mobius wants to interrogate Sylvie, but Ravonna disagrees.
In an episode filled with swerves, some of the narratives weave in and out of each other at breakneck speed. But director Kate Herron doggedly keeps us enthralled with the disclosures as they keep coming. Mobius begins to doubt Ravonna and the TVA after Loki tells him they are all variants. Obviously, he doesn’t buy it at first, but his suspicions are raised when he figures Ravonna isn’t telling him the truth. Owen Wilson’s general nonchalance in his performance becomes the ideal guise to unravel the show’s mysteries. Mobius’ fate is currently unknown, but if the show doesn’t put him on a jet-ski before the end of the season, it’ll be a shame. As a side-note, Mobius mentions vampires have been apprehended by the TVA.
After recovering from his latest death fake-out at the end of Loki episode 4, "The Nexus Event," Loki Variant L1130 finds himself face-to-face with four new Loki variants - one of whom is a crocodile. While two of these new variants are lifted from the pages of Marvel Comics, the other two appear to have been created for the Disney+ show.
On the far right is Old Loki, played by Richard E. Grant, who is wearing a version of Loki's classic costume from his very first appearance in the 1962 comic Journey Into Mystery #85. In the middle is Kid Loki, played by Jack Veal, who is taken from a more recent comic arc in which Loki died and was reborn as a child (beginning in Thor #617). On the left is a Loki wielding a hammer, played by Deobia Oparei, who in the German voice cast credits is listed as "Prahlerischer Loki" - Boastful Loki. Finally there's the crocodile being held by Kid Loki, whose horned helmet identifies them as another Loki variant.
Waking up after being pruned by Ravonna, Loki wonders aloud if he is in Hel, the realm where Asgardians go when they die. Old Loki replies, "Not yet. But you will be unless you come with us." The Loki variants are standing in the ruins of New York City, with the crumbling Stark/Avengers Tower visible behind them. It appears that these variants have been hiding out in an apocalyptic event, like Sylvie was, but in this case are hiding out after the apocalypse has taken place. It's unclear whether this is the future in the sacred timeline, or whether it's an alternate timeline. Of course, given that so much else about the TVA has turned out to be a lie, there may not be any such thing as a "sacred timeline" after all.
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