Well, that certainly happened.

I wish I could say more about the finale of Loki, truly, but it has left me in a strange state of mind. As Taylor and I cover in this week’s podcast, we have some mixed feelings about this finale. I have a feeling that because they confirmed a season 2, they felt that they were able to be a little more relaxed in what they did in the finale. I personally think that this is what skewered the episode. But before I go any further, listen to this week’s podcast to really understand how we felt about the finale.

https://anchor.fm/ltmft/embed/episodes/Episode-7-Loki-Episode-Six-Breakdown-e14j405

I think that, unfortunately, the Loki series had the weakest finale. As I said above, the promise of a second season seemed to mess with the ending of the first. It feels that the writers almost made the second season a cop out to really wrapping up the first. While I have seen many mixed feelings about this finale, it seems that many were not in love with it for various reasons. I just feel that they could have done more with it than spending most of the episode talking. I also think that this episode showed that Loki has taken a backseat in his own series, but I wonder if this means Sylvie will be playing a more vital Loki role in the future.

As for things we missed, I’m not sure if there was much to miss. 25-30 minutes of the episode was Sylvie, Loki, and Kang talking. Maybe the only thing I somewhat missed was the Multiverse opening itself. I still don’t super understand how it opened or what changed to open it. The Multiverse I certainly understand and I keep seeing that Kang relinquished control but I truly don’t get why. At one point he says he’s tired, but that seems like a weird reason to have just stopped keeping the order to the Sacred Timeline. But if it really does all boil down to the fact that Kang was tired and stopping meant the Multiverse, than we need to understand just how powerful he is. And if this version of Kang was powerful, I would hate to see what versions of Kang who are less nice and out for revenge and power look like. Another thing to point out is that he is more powerful than Thanos, as he could have stopped Thanos completely if he believed him to be a real threat that would win. But he chose not to because he knew the Avengers would stop him. As for these other Kang’s who are coming, well, I would have to think that their stories make them a whole different type of threat. Something that many on the higher ups at Marvel have said is that these next few phases are going to deal a lot with space and the cosmic, magical aspect. This would be a great place to cue Kang the Conqueror.

Now the magical question left after watching the Multiverse open and Kang be introduced is whether or not he is the big bad of the next phase, aka Thanos style threat of phases 4-6. He certainly has the ability to be, but he was already confirmed for the new Ant-Man and the Wasp, which makes me question if he will be the threat we lead up to for the next few years. Now that we are four works into phase 4, I can say I believe we will see the big bad at least hinted at soon, since we see Thanos the first time in the first Avengers. While the purple grape disappears for a little and seems forgotten, he begins to make more consistent appearances a little later on. But as far as big bad, we have to remember the Multiverse means that there are quite literally infinite possibilities as to who may arrive, whether other versions of Kang or not. Going off this thought, the Multiverse also means just about anyone may show up, meaning dead heroes or characters that do not yet live in our MCU universe. I have some very specific characters in mind for both of these, so I am pretty hyped to see what happens.

I briefly brought up Sylvie’s fate earlier, but it remains a solid question. She is, at least for our purposes, still chilling in Kang’s house at the end of time. Where, or when, she will show up again outside the Loki series is unknown, as the Multiverse does guarantee she would be able to reenter a timeline. And I mean literally any timeline. She is certainly not a means to an end and will reappear somewhere. But I find that it is interesting the parallel drawn between her and Loki. As he was the one to explode and introduce the big threats to Phases 1-3, Sylvie is now the one to do so with Phases 4-6. We have gone full circle ladies and gentleman, so put your seatbelts on, because Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “Loki Episode 6”, Chris Smith, BGR