You’re forgiven for being a little confused by the beginning of Loki season 2, episode 2. Last week’s premiere ended with General Dox and her TVA loyalists traveling through a series of time doors. You might expect this week’s installment to pick back up there, but instead we open in 1977 London with Loki and Mobius tracking down missing TVA Hunter X-05.
Some viewers have said they thought Loki had accidentally released its third episode rather than the second (or that they’d somehow missed an episode), and we agree that the transition is quite jarring. So, if you’re confused, here’s what’s going on.
X-05 has abandoned his mission to settle into a new life as actor “Brad Wolfe”, who is attending the premiere of his new movie Zaniac!. So, how did we get from the ending of episode 1 to the start of episode 2, and why is X-05 so important?
‘The sky is falling Mobius, this changes everything’
Part of the confusion may be that X-05 looks very different in episode 2. We first met him last week at the TVA wearing body armor and with a short modern haircut. He seemed upset at discovering the truth about the Time-Keepers, saying that their being robots “changes everything”.
At the conclusion of the hearing, General Dox ordered X-05 to find Sylvie to get some answers as to what actually happened with He Who Remains at the end of time. X-05 presumably embarked on this mission but never returned, leading Loki and Mobius to conclude that he’d abandoned his duties. However, as he’s their only lead as to where General Dox and Sylvie are, they must go after him.
At this point, they can’t have known whether he was successful in finding Sylvie or that he’d know where General Dox is now, though he’s their only option. Besides, him immediately attempting to escape absolutely hints that he’s hiding something, which is later borne out in the episode.
Arguably the transition between episodes 1 and 2 could have been a little smoother, though we hope this clears up what’s going on.