Episode 2 turned dark very quickly, and we’re still recovering from it.

Loki Season 2 continues to hit it out of the park with yet another strong episode. From a breaking Temporal Loom and a timeline bombing from the TVA loyalists, the stakes are rising to fix everything before the TVA and possibly the Sacred Timeline cease to exist. All this, and we are only on the second episode. Before getting into some of the details of this episode, tune into our reactions episode to get our raw reactions to the episode firsthand. You can find your podcast listening platform of choice by clicking the button below, or start listening live in this post by hitting play on the link provided.

X5/Brad’s Expedition to the Sacred Timeline

This episode covered a lot of uncharted territory, which began with X5 disappearing on the Sacred Timeline after being sent to find Sylvie. It is discovered then by Mobius and Loki that X5 hasn’t disappeared and has instead jumped back into his spot in the timeline itself, taking on his actual life there as Brad. As usual, this leaves us with more questions than answers, as we now have witnessed a variant return to their previous life for the first time.

The first big question is: what happened to the real Brad, the one that is living his life on the Sacred Timeline? If X5 jumped back into his place, then it means he had to do something to the original version of himself who was properly living his life. Due to X5’s attitude, it wouldn’t seem entirely out of character for him to have pruned him to take him out of the picture. Although if that happened, there will now be a hole, creating a new branch now that X5 is also not playing as Brad on the Sacred Timeline.

What seems even more interesting is that X5 was loyal to Dox originally but instead became a pretty passionate supporter of everyone returning to their rightful life. While he clearly went from one extreme to the far other one, X5’s return to Sacred Timeline life has seemingly made him an advocate for everyone going back to the lives they are ‘supposed’ to be living. He now doesn’t even believe the TVA should be around and that everyone working there needs to find their true lives, the ones that had been taken from them. It’s an interesting 180 and clearly one that makes one hectic character. I wouldn’t be shocked if X5 fades into the background now in season 2, as he has served the purpose of not only showing one of the best hunters switching points of view but also, as said before, that a variant has successfully reentered their life on the Sacred Timeline. Pretty good piece of knowledge for us to have when you have a character like Loki still on the board.

Sylvie Returns – Sort of

Sylvie has made her official return to the Loki series but she doesn’t exactly seem keen on staying. Episode 1 introduced us to Sylvie’s whereabouts right after killing He Who Remains, as she calmly finds herself a place to stay on a branched timeline. By episode 2, she seems like she has set up a nice little life for herself working at McDonalds, until Loki, Mobius and Brad came to crash that party. Obviously due to to Brad letting the group know they needed to get off the timeline as soon as possible and why, Sylvie accidentally ends up back in the TVA, even when she said she’d never go back. But we also know thanks to Loki’s timeslipping that this won’t be the only time she returns to the TVA.

Sylvie continues to hate the TVA, even though a good portion of them are now trying to protect the branched timelines. We will get to the bombing in a second, but what’s critical about the bombing happening is that it still reiterates Sylvie’s point, at least to herself. She doesn’t think the TVA should exist at all and even the version that is supposed to be ‘helping’ can’t seem to protect the branches. Yet one line continues to play in my head from the trailers and it’s along the lines of “we would be playing god.” Sylvie isn’t going to sit quietly on her timeline, something else pulls her back in after what she saw as a disappointing show of this new TVA. She’s likely going to have to save her timeline and I think the threat of losing it will be what brings her back in.

The Branch Bombings

The TVA loyalists bombing the branched timelines is arguably one of the darkest things we’ve seen in a Marvel TV show in a while. Trillions of people were forcibly removed from existence because Dox and her team believe the TVA should continue pruning branches. Obviously, the big difference here is that these branches aren’t just small variant actions but instead whole timelines with people living full lives there at this point.

So for one second, I want to deviate from my rule of avoiding the bigger implications in the MCU and actually consider what the branch bombings might mean for the Multiverse we’ve seen so far outside the Loki series. We’ve only seen small parts of the Multiverse outside of 616, but I think the best work to look at with this new development is MoM. We see a glimpse of a few different universes in that movie and also know that an incursion between the Sacred Timeline and another timeline is taking place. So how does this branch bombing possibly effect the things we’ve seen in that movie?

At the end of the day, Loki’s logic and the rest of the MCU’s logic are very different, but it’s possible that some of the universes we peeked through in MoM now don’t exist. I’m not going to pretend that the timeline of the Multiverse isn’t very hairy, as 2016 Dr. Strange and America’s existence prove it’s been open far longer than we have supposedly been told. But going off what we just saw, various universes were just forcibly wiped off the map and I have to think we will see that effect show up somewhere in the MCU, even if it’s just minor. We have to remember that the ending of Loki season 1 opened the Multiverse conversation, so events in season 2 will just as much effect what we see in the larger MCU.

On an internal level, the branch bombings, while a huge hit for the new TVA, may have bought O.B. some time. Keep in mind the loom is being overloaded with branches, which is what is causing many of the current issues we are seeing and driving the main plot forward. If the branches have been cut, the loom may have been given a small break, allowing O.B. more time to make a new loom and Loki and Mobius time to find Renslayer and He Who Remains. In the worst way, there is a positive to the massacre of timelines we saw and we will see that hopefully play out as the team recovers from the attack in episode 3.

Finding Renslayer and He Who Remains

From the predictions episode, Taylor and I discussed this season being all about finding He Who Remains possibly at the beginning before making the TVA. Yet as episodes 1 and 2 have come and gone, we have learned the search is much bigger than that. Renslayer is still very much a player in this game, as she escaped in season 1 and has yet to be found. Yet another silver lining in the branch bombings was that it exposed Renslayer’s position and she is going to lead them right to He Who Remains who will be Victor Timely, as seen in the Quantumania end credit scene.

We also learned in episode 1 that Renslayer has more of a past with He Who Remains then members of the TVA are aware of. We, of course, thought that we would see this moment, as Renslayer has a relationship with a few of Kang’s variants in the comics. But it appears that she likely either is remembering something of her past or also might have discovered a piece of her story that links her to Kang. Either way, we know that Renslayer is about to be found with a variant of Kang, as we know that Loki has no clue they’re about to go on the path of Kang. Two birds with one stone.

Conclusion

Episode 2 has left us with some solid direction on what might be coming in the next episode of Loki. Be ready, as I wouldn’t be too shocked if we run into a variant of Kang in Episode 3, coming your way tonight at 9pm or tomorrow if you don’t feel like staying up for it. We are ready for hopefully another amazing episode, as Loki season 2 is so far moving up on our list of favorites, so let’s keep the good vibes going. Make sure you watch Loki and listen to our reaction episodes as they come out, as Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “Loki Season 2 Episode 2”, Fran Ruiz, Space