This article contains spoilers for the entire Loki series.
Loki has probably succeeded in being Disney Plus’ oddest MCU exclusive and that statement should not be interpreted as anything but a compliment towards the mysterious plot writer Michael Waldron has managed to put together.
Initially, WandaVision seemed destined to take the weirdness crown among Marvel productions, yet Loki’s combination of detective police elements (à la David Fincher's Se7en) with a splash of Orwellian inspirations make it a definitive stand out in both substance and style. Now, Loki has an opportunity to also beat out that series and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier with a finale that can leave fans fully satisfied after the relative disappointment that followed those two.
It’s not that the previous two shows’ endings were bad at all (quite the contrary), yet prior to their respective finales fans got overhyped at the thought of Doctor Strange or Spider-Man showing up for some exciting cameos. As it turns out, Marvel Studios' chief Kevin Feige is quite against the idea of using other famous characters without a clear purpose in the broader scope of the MCU long-term plans for all its franchises.
Loki’s prime candidate for this currently is and always has been Kang the Conqueror, not only due to his future appearance in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but also because of his romantic history in the comics with TVA executive Ravonna Renslayer and his multiple run-ins with the TVA and the Living Tribunal. However, due to the plethora of Kang the Conqueror easter eggs in episode five, the man also known as Nathaniel Richards got a nice boost in his odds of showing up in Loki.
Above all, Kang’s likeliness of appearing rose due to Alioth being last episode’s main threat for Loki and Sylvie, because Kang is the only character in Marvel Comics known to have such ties to the all-devouring entity. Although these two are usually enemies, it’s more than plausible that the story commands for Kang to have gained control over Alioth to use it as a decoy while he continued pulling the strings of the sacred timeline from his fancy castle.
That is of course because comic book Kang is also the famous resident of a place called Chronopolis, which he uses as his main base, so given that there’s no set idea of what Chronopolis should look like this may well be the place Sylvie saw in her visions when she came close to Alioth. Most importantly, this should mean Kang gets plenty of screen time in the final episode and not just a post-credits scene introduction since Loki and Sylvie have to unravel the TVA mystery or, at the very least, figure out where their quest will take them in an eventual season two.
Kang’s appearance in Loki would also serve a real purpose because while the other two series had the task of fully introducing the Scarlet Witch and a new Captain America, Loki, much like Black Widow, is still about a character that’s known to be dead in Phase Four. Loki’s glorious purpose would then be to kickstart the events that cause Kang to come out of his trans-temporal hideout after the TVA’s grasp on power is challenged by Sylvie, Loki, and Mobius gone rogue.
If it is Kang, then Marvel fans should be prepared to witness some sort of cataclysmic event that defines the TVA’ role from now on, but also something that rocks everything else going on in the rest of the MCU, with all this being backed in the real world by the fact that Jonathan Majors was cast as Kang before production for the new Ant-Man had started but while Loki was already moving forward.
But what if Kang the Conqueror is not the one lounging in that castle? Well, an alternate theory suggests that since Loki is all about Loki, the person who could be in full control behind the curtains is another Loki variant, King Loki. While this would be a more disappointing twist, the main thing backing it right now would be the choice of having Alioth’s cloud resemble the shape of a wolf, a beast associated in Norse mythology to Fenrir son of Loki.
That particular theory would fall in line with a similar course as WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier, turning Loki into more of a self-contained series but the problem with that is rendering the entire production as merely an excuse to give Tom Hiddlestone one last go at the role unless fan theories believing Old Loki's story to fool Thanos is actually what the mainline Infinity War Loki did in the first place.
Nevertheless, there are more problems and reasons why King Loki is a much worse villain than Kang the Conqueror and those are mostly related to the rest of the cast. Ravonna Renslayer is portrayed as a heartless bureaucrat who's just had her entire life crumble before her, yet she remains loyal to the TVA's goals, so what better way to make her carry on with that mission than to infuse it with an emotional component that binds her to the TVA's mastermind? And really, the same goes for the TVA's employees of the month Mobius M. Mobius and Hunter B-15 who probably still have to fulfill their plan to burn down the agency to deliver proper payoff to their character arcs.
When taking all variables and variants into consideration, it would seem almost strange that Loki's real antagonist ends up being anyone other than Kang the Conqueror, so perhaps a bigger question worth asking might be how Loki can extend itself to a second season if Kang is starring in Ant-Man 3 too? At least one thing's for sure, no matter how powerful of a duo Loki and Sylvie have become, going up against such a powerful foe on their own can only end in tragedy.