This article contains spoilers for the Loki season 2 finale
Loki season 2 is now complete and with it potentially the entire character arc for Tom Hiddleston’s all-time great MCU antihero. Over the course of his appearances in the movies and on TV we’ve seen a fully rounded character arc that took him from a scheming villain to arguably the greatest hero in the history of the multiverse.
But there was a huge amount to take in over this finale, so let’s break down exactly what happened.
He Who Remains
Loki spent the first half of the episode using his new time-slipping powers to try and save the TVA by repairing the temporal loom, though no matter what solution he attempted nothing worked. Soon we’re back at the finale of season 1, with He Who Remains back in his chair at the end of time. We find out this Kang variant has every right to be smug – he’s absolutely correct that his death will inevitably lead to spaghettification of all time and space.
He Who Remains reveals that the only way for Loki to prevent the end of all things is for him to kill Sylvie before she can kill him. He knows that his death will create a loop and that Loki will inevitably return to this point (giving his cheery “see you soon” new meaning”). He Who Remains’ survival will prevent the temporal loom from becoming overloaded and allow the TVA to keep ticking on indefinitely.
But Loki figures out another way.
Loki’s plan
He Who Remains may have been a genius, but Loki outsmarted him. Despite it apparently being the only available option Loki refused to kill Sylvie, allowed He Who Remains to die, and let the loom explode. Rather than attempting to repair the loom, he did something that nobody would expect from a Loki variant: heroic self-sacrifice.
This Loki strode into the blast of time radiation, with his immortality protecting him from spaghettification. His interjection prevented the loop from being reset, though left him within a tangled chaos of dying timelines. But, using his magic and his hard-won knowledge of all things temporal he singlehandedly wove the time streams into a new multiverse, with him holding everything together at the center of it.
Loki finally gets the golden throne and the “glorious purpose” he’s been craving ever since we first met him 2011’s Thor. His friends are safe, the timelines are all ticking along happily, though victory comes at the cost of being trapped alone as the God of Time at the center of all reality. As far as we know, this Loki’s story has now come to an end, as his vacating his throne would end the multiverse. However, there are now an infinite number of other Loki variants out there who now have the freedom that Sylvie so desired.
We finally see that the new shape of time is a tree, which fans of Norse mythology will recognize as Yggdrasil, the world tree. Loki being trapped here neatly mirrors his fate in the original Norse mythology, in which he’s tied up in Yggdrasil’s branches and tormented by a snake’s slowly dripping venom.
What’s next?
As far as we can tell, this Loki is now a permanent fixture at the center of the multiverse, meaning this may be the final time we see Tom Hiddleston in the MCU and the chances of a third season feel remote. That said, there are now a lot of Lokis out there in the multiverse, though as they haven’t been through the same character development most of them will be of the moustache-twirling “invade Earth” variety.
As for the future of the MCU? Well, the destruction of the temporal loom and the permanent death of He Who Remains means there will now be more Kangs and the destructive multiversal war threatened by He Who Remains will indeed take place – likely over the course of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.
As for the TVA? Well, it seems to be ticking along happily monitoring Yggdrasil with a rebooted and non-homicidal Miss Minutes. A poster shows TVA agents as gardeners caring for the tree, with the slogan “nurture our nature for a better future”. Mobius has understandably dipped out and appears to have ambitions of finding a life on the sacred timeline (hopefully with personal watercraft) and Sylvie now has the freedom to explore time and space as she sees fit.
Sadly things don’t appear so positive for Renslayer, as it appears she’s stuck in The Void and may be about to be consumed by Alioth. That said, we don’t actually see her die, so we’d bet she’ll be back as Kang’s trusted lieutenant in The Kang Dynasty.
It’s been a heck of a ride and let’s hope other Marvel TV shows and movies take note. This is how you do it right.
