The following review contains spoilers for Season 2 Episode 4 of Loki.The explosive moment that fans have been dreading has finally arrived in Season 2 of Loki. The temporal loom has been unstable since the season began, due to the events of the Season 1 finale, and there have been talks about how everyone in the Time Variance Authority “is going to die.” Well, the latter is yet to be seen, but the loom finally became entirely overloaded in this week’s episode of Loki and led to an explosion of Oppenheimer proportions.
The past three episodes of this season of Loki have led to this moment. The story has been slowly progressing, with Loki and his newly banded team members working hard towards finding a solution. Ever since He Who Remains was killed by Sylvie, an imminent threat to the TVA has seemed inevitable. But, fans hoped that with the help of Victor Timely, the TVA and the multiple timelines could potentially be saved. However, there might be grander plans in place for the future of not just the TVA, but the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, which many fans believe has just been reset.
The fourth episode of Loki’s Season 2 ends with a massive cliffhanger. All hopes of saving the heart of the TVA are lost when Timely, who is evidently a variant of He Who Remains, gets obliterated by the radiation from the loom. The final scene shows the loom collapsing into itself, and emitting a really bright light, which seems to engulf everything in its path. It is unclear whether the God of Mischief and his band of misfits were also killed in the process, or will somehow magically survive. Emphasis on the magical part.
Before the so-called end of time arrives, there are many moments in the episode that have got fans theorizing. Many believe that this week’s episode of Loki has intentionally reset the timeline in the Multiverse, perhaps to make way for a new storyline in the phases ahead. Kang the Conqueror was being set up as the major villain of the next few phases in the MCU, but ever since the controversy surrounding Jonathan Majors and his assault accusation, the actor’s future in the MCU has been uncertain. The latest Loki episode has many fans wondering if the studio has decided to go in a different direction after all.
This fourth episode of Loki’s Season 2 brings Ravonna Renslayer and Miss Minutes forward as two potential villainous candidates. The episode begins with Minutes revealing that Renslayer was in fact a part of He Who Remains grand plans, but he instructed Minutes to wipe all her memories. For years, Renslayer continues to do He Who Remains “dirty work,” but it seems like he wanted sole control of the TVA. After this revelation, Renslayer realizes that she’s the one who “commanded the army,” and perhaps doesn’t need He Who Remains or Timely by her side at all.
This scene almost hinted towards the fact that Renslayer would become the next big bad of the MCU instead of Kang, along with Minutes by her side. The two hatch a great plan to team up and reclaim the TVA. Minutes continues to display her chaotic behavior, and reminds fans that she is the most unpredictable character in the series. This episode was designed to showcase the character development for both Renslayer and Minutes. They’ve both come a long way from when they were first introduced in Season 1 of Loki, and this is evidence that Marvel Studios is good at building stories, but oftentimes misses the mark.
It’s unfortunate though that Renslayer and Minutes’ glorious plan is short-lived, and the fan theories about Renslayer becoming the next big bad of the MCU face a premature death. When O.B. reboots the TVA’s systems, Loki and Sylvie are able to use their powers inside the TVA, and Sylvie enchants X-5 to prune Renslayer. Minutes, on the other hand, shuts down, once again working as a reminder to fans that she was just AI and not a big bad.
The episode also slows down to offer fans a different perspective of some of the incidents that took place in Episode 2 of the season. While Loki was traveling through time, he saw several visions of the characters involved in the series, including one where he sees Sylvie inside the TVA. The scene repeats in the latest episode, but current Loki prunes Future Loki, and upon Sylvie’s confusion, promises her that “it’ll all make sense.” It is an obvious time loop wherein Loki is protecting his past self. When the episode ends, it hasn’t made any sense, but perhaps the next two episodes in the season will answer all fan questions about Loki’s visions.
With Renslayer and Minutes out of the picture, all eyes go back to Timely. But, after he’s killed by the radiation, it leads to the question whether it ended the time loop that Minutes created to make Timely the next He Who Remains. Additionally, if the loom has collapsed, it could mean the end of all branched timelines, and the end of all He Who Remains variants that were spotted in the end-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. So does this mean that Kang is gone from the MCU? But, then does that also mean that all the characters in the MCU were just killed off?
Many may argue that the entire Multiverse could not be reset within a television series. But, they have to remember that the concept of the Multiverse was first introduced in Season 1 of Loki and Kang was also introduced in the season finale. So, Loki has already played a key role in the progressing storyline of the MCU. Then why can’t it be responsible for resetting the same Multiverse that it first introduced to MCU fans? The latest episode progresses much faster than the third episode in the season, and takes the storyline leaps further. While fans had only heard about the impending threat so far, this week’s episode turned it into a reality and potentially wiped all the MCU timelines. But, this is all speculation. The episode itself doesn’t confirm this aspect. O.B. kept reminding his team that if the loom collapsed, they would all die. He never spoke of the repercussions on the larger universe. It remains to be seen where the Sacred Timeline will go from here, but for now, the explosive episode of Loki is something that fans are talking about until the next one answers their questions.
Loki is streaming on Disney Plus.
Loki
The fourth episode of Season 2 of Loki offers further character development for Ravonna Renslayer and Miss Minutes, and ends with a massive cliffhanger.