How the Avengers’ botched time heist in ‘Endgame’ led to Loki working for the TVA

If you’re a Marvel fan, it can be easy to get distracted by Tom Hiddleston’s flowing locks and forget that his character Loki is low-key a government worker of sorts in the titular show. However, on the eve of Loki season 2’s debut, it’s worth asking: Just how did the god of mischief end up working for the Time Variance Authority to begin with?

Loki was the main villain in 2012’s The Avengers and the central antagonist for his MCU film debut, 2011’s Thor. As anyone who watched his character arc from Thor: Ragnarok to Avengers: Infinity War will know, he eventually swings back on the side of good, having reformed his once-broken bond with his brother, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. In fact, Loki even goes out like a hero as he nobly tries to assassinate Josh Brolin’s Thanos in Infinity War, only to die at the hands of the Mad Titan in the process.

With a backstory like that, it might not be entirely surprising that Loki would work for a bureaucratic entity like the TVA. However, it makes less sense once you realize the protagonist in Loki is actually the version of the character from 2012’s The Avengers and never actually went through the redemption arc that is familiar to us. The reason for this is explained in the blockbuster smash from 2019, Avengers: Endgame.

The time heist goes awry

In Endgame, the Avengers perform the time heist in order to steal — ahem, borrow — the Infinity Stones to undo the damage done by Thanos. As part of that adventure, they travel back to 2012 during the Battle of New York right after Loki is taken into custody. However, because of the interference from our heroes from the future, the Tesseract, one of the MCU’s super-powered MacGuffins from the Infinity Saga, falls back into Loki’s hands. He immediately uses the Tesseract’s ability to transport instantly from one place to another to escape custody by traveling through a wormhole to the other side of the world.

At the cusp of Loki’s escape in a desert setting, mysterious portals open up through which futuristic soldiers appear and once again put the trickster god into custody. These are the TVA agents, and this is when Loki is taken to their headquarters that exist outside of time. The agents tell Loki that in order to secure the Sacred Timeline, they must prune him from existence.

Loki tries to tell the TVA that the Avengers were unduly messing around with time. However, the TVA agents tell him the time heist was part of the Sacred Timeline but that the 2012 version of Loki escaping was not. Despite this back and forth, Loki resists and tries to escape once again, only to find that the Tessaract is powerless in the TVA. Inevitably, Loki finds himself on the chopping block to be pruned by the TVA agents to prevent a Nexus Event.

Loki steps into his TVA role

At this point, when Loki is about to be pruned, Owen Wilson’s Agent Mobius steps in and suggests they utilize the adopted Asgardian to assist the TVA in exchange for letting him live. After Mobius shows Loki a clip of the canon events that were supposed to unfold in his life, such as sacrificing himself to try and stop Thanos, Loki finally warms up to helping the TVA and agrees to work with them. From then on, Loki works for the TVA to prune other variant versions of himself that are causing trouble throughout the timeline.

Things inevitably unfold in twists and turns from there, including Loki falling in love with a female version of himself named Sylvie, played by Sophia Di Martino. We won’t go into further details here about what happens in the remainder of the first season in case you want to catch up yourself, but suffice it to say we’re very interested in Loki’s standing with the TVA in the second season, and the organization’s overall structuring, given all that’s happened.

You can catch the debut of Loki season 2 on Disney Plus on Thursday, Oct. 5 at 6pm PT/ 9pm ET.