Can we have one Episode 4 that doesn’t stress me out?

Yet again, Marvel has come out swinging with the fourth episode of Loki Season 2 being one of the most jaw-dropping pieces of content we’ve gotten in a long time. One might even argue that this episode bordered the horror genre, with some dark moments that we will be dissecting. On top of all of this, we have to rip the band-aid off on discussing how the heck the ending of this episode might be affecting the larger MCU. We have so much to discuss, but as always, make sure you listen to our corresponding podcast episode by clicking the button to find your platform of choice or listening live with the link provided.

Bye Bye Loom, and Maybe Everyone Else

There’s no point in ignoring the most important part of the entire episode, which took place in the last 5 minutes. The loom has officially exploded, with Victor failing to be able to fix it and it officially becoming overloaded. So now nothing is stitching together the branches to create one Sacred Timeline, which creates what could possibly be the real Multiverse. Let’s get into this idea.

All the branches being fed into the loom were coming off of the Sacred Timeline and being fed back in to help continue building the Timeline. I am aware that sounds like a cursed sentence but just stick with me on this. As long as the loom existed, those branches wouldn’t fully be able to become their own universes, as they were consistently being pulled into the loom. But now that the loom is gone, the branches can actually form full timelines, which could confirm my earlier theory about how the Multiverse is essentially a bunch of universes stacked parallel with one another. This could be the larger implication unless Marvel just blew up a huge part of the Multiverse, which I doubt they just did.

The series-specific question, though, is what happened to not just the TVA, but everyone in it? The TVA is supposed to sit out of time, although some things throughout this season have started to make it seem that the rules we were taught in Season 1 are no longer being followed. From the beginning, we learned timeslipping wasn’t supposed to happen in the TVA and then this episode graced us with what appears to be a time loop, something I would have to think can’t happen in a place outside of time. With the very fabric of the TVA being threatened, the loom exploding might just mean there is no TVA to return to anymore. And as far as everyone inside, well, our current running theory is that they aren’t dead, but were instead hit by different branches as the loom exploded. They either are now all scattered on different timelines, or they all returned back to their variant’s place on the Sacred Timeline, aka the moment that made them a variant. Now that the TVA isn’t there to prune them, the branch they should’ve created can be created and turned into a full universe. I will be insanely shocked if the TVA is still standing and our heroes are all still in one place come Episode 5.

Renslayer and Miss Minutes Return to the TVA

Our least favorite pair made another appearance in this episode and went above and beyond, returning to the TVA. Yet, before I get into that, I want to quickly discuss the scene in which Miss Minutes not only shows Renslayer the truth but also confirms a theory we’ve been working on since Episode 1. Renslayer was in fact with He Who Remains at the beginning, but we learned some valuable details regarding timing. Both Renslayer and the TVA, while not perfected yet, had already existed prior to the Multiversal War and actually were He Who Remains’ foot soldiers during it. The TVA members were then wiped once the war was over and put into ‘order’ mode if you will, doing the jobs we were introduced to in Season 1 blindly and without question. Miss Minutes not only was there but also knew this whole time, which is pretty interesting considering Renslayer doesn’t seem to be angry at Miss Minutes for never telling her the truth. Then again, they may be partners, but they are 100% not on the same page.

However, these two singlehandedly tried to force a coup on the current TVA and while it ended gruesomely, it was almost hilarious how badly they failed. Renslayer and Miss Minutes originally try to make Dox and her loyalists join their team, but instead are turned down. This then leads to one of the more horrific scenes of the episode, where Renslayer essentially squishes Dox and her team to death while Miss Minutes, terrifyingly I might add, watches. Then Miss Minutes tries to go through and hack the system, just to have Loki’s team reboot it and shut her out. But Miss Minutes naturally can’t go out without some sort of freaky last word, in which she tells Victor Timely he will never be He Who Remains. And then they come up really empty-handed when Sylvie gets into Brad’s head and ends up having him prune Renslayer, which ends up being one of the most joyous moments of the entire episode. So all in all, I’d say this was the worst coup I’ve ever witnessed.

The question remains on whether they will return. We’ve seen Loki be pruned in Season 1 and return, although it took quite a bit of work to do so. And of course, the loom has exploded and so the whole idea of the end of time and the wasteland is super up in the air as well. There’s no telling where Renslayer has been sent now that she was pruned. We definitely won’t see the end of Miss Minutes, as she was only rebooted but without a TVA for her to infiltrate, it will be interesting to see where her capabilities might take her. She’s clearly an enhanced AI, but we haven’t ever seen her outside of TVA-related instances. She could very much go full Ultron on us still, although right now I do think our heroes may have bigger problems other than these two.

Saying Goodbye to Victor

A part of me has to admit I’m happy that Victor went out as a good guy. I was worried to see him truly take the turn into villainy and become He Who Remains because he was so sweet. I also really didn’t want him to prove Sylvie right by becoming one of the variants of Kang that they would have to worry about. Yet, in the end, Victor is gone and we are now back down to zero Kang variants in the Loki series. So could this confirm that we are seeing another one in Episodes 5 or 6?

Since everyone may currently be transported back to their original places on the timeline and the TVA may or may not still exist, I actually am not sure we’re going to see a full Kang threat at all in the final two episodes. Maybe an end credit scene may show one of the three from the Quantumania end credit scene, but in all honesty, there is nowhere to put a full other Kang variant right now. I’d be shocked if the writers tried to incorporate another Kang into an already crazy storyline, one that likely has most of our heroes scattered across the Multiverse. We may have witnessed our one and only Kang variant for the show come and go within the span of two episodes.

Timeslipping and Now Time Loops in the TVA

As briefly mentioned at the start of this post, we were shown a time loop taking place during Episode 4. This wouldn’t be too strange, as Endgame and Ms. Marvel allowed us to see enough of time travel that a time loop isn’t inherently a weird concept. And if you’ve watched Agents of SHIELD, the concept of a time loop is even less crazy. But the problem is we saw it happen in the TVA, watching as Loki in the present realizes he is the one who prunes his past counterpart from the first episode of Season 2. As mentioned before, this from the start should be enough of a hint that the TVA is absolutely falling apart, but I really do think the chances are pretty high that the TVA might have been getting shoved onto a timeline of its’ own. Logically, that’s the only way a time loop especially could be happening in a place that is supposed to sit outside of time.

Conclusion

We know that the noodling that happened to Victor Timely isn’t going to be the only place we see it, as other clips from trailers have shown it happening to another Loki variant. With this knowledge and what just happened at the end of Episode 4, we are only on the path to more mind-blowing moments from Loki Season 2. We’re excited to keep covering it as the second to last episode makes its’ debut tonight. As always, keep up with Loki Season 2 and The Marvels, which is right around the corner, as Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “Lokie Season 2 Episode 4”, Joe George, Den of Geek