Although, it really should’ve been called ‘The Road to Hel(l) is Paved With Good Intentions’…. The curtain has been parted and we’re about to find out who or what lies behind it…
SPOILERS AHEAD
We start with a quick recap of the story thus far before the Marvel Studios logo. But instead of the music over it, we get various voice clips from across the MCU, clear at first before coming together in a static like cacophony, almost as if the entire Marvel universe itself were being affected. We then take a 2001 A Space Odyssey-esque zoom out from the Earth, through the Solar System, the Universe, then reaching across other universes, right to the end of time itself, emerging from the time-stream surrounding the castle on the rock beyond the Void at the end of time; all accompanied by even more sound clips from both the MCU and the real world.
After a much more sombre opening title sequence, we find Loki and Sylvie standing outside the castle doors, everything’s been leading up to this moment and Sylvie is a little overwhelmed, but the doors themselves obviously feel like they spend too much time dithering and open of their own accord. They enter and are promptly jump-scared by Miss Minutes—complete with scare-chord, shrunken pupils and a slightly deranged grin. She reveals that this place is called the Citadel at the End of Time, that it—and by extension the TVA—is run by a being known as ‘He Who Remains’—“he created all and he controls all. At the end, it is only he who remains”—and that they’ve been expected. She tempts them with the claim that he’s worked out a way to reinsert them into the timeline in a way that won’t disrupt things too much, so the TVA can keep doing what it does and they can live the lives they’ve always wanted. Loki could win the Battle of New York, kill Thanos and take the Infinity Gauntlet for himself. Sylvie could wake up to a lifetime of happy memories rather than being on the run. But both recognise a deal too good to be true and refuse.
Miss Minutes then appears in Renslayer’s office. When Renslayer asks her what took her so long, she replies that “some things had to get worked out”, before downloading some files to Renslayer’s TemPad. Ravonna points out that these aren’t what she asked for, but apparently “he thinks this’ll be more useful.” (So Miss Minutes has gone full HAL.)
Back in the Citadel, Loki and Sylvie make their way through before coming to a pair of elevator doors, which open to reveal… Jonathan Majors, wearing a sh*t-eating grin. Yeah, so you know how last week I said it would be unlikely that – even with all the Easter eggs that were setting him up—they’d reveal Kang as the villain in the last episode? Turns out I was wrong. True it’s technically a Variant of Kang and that they’ve combined him with ‘He Who Remains’ (similar to how Sylvie is a composite of Lady Loki and the Sylvie Lushton version of the Enchantress) but Kang is a character for who, in the comics, multiple versions of himself are already part of the deal, to the point where there’s a council of them. He’s pleased to see them and invites them up to his office to talk. Loki is bemused that the mastermind they’ve been searching for has turned out to be an ordinary man, but to Sylvie, that just means he’s easier to kill. Except every time she tries, he’s able to avoid it, showing that despite his goofy exterior (he’s more concerned with eating his apple) he is very much omniscient (Miss Minutes’ offer having already hinted at the power he’s able to command).
Back at the TVA, Mobius arrives in Renslayer’s office as she’s frantically packing a bag. Ravonna expresses remorse for pruning him but says she couldn’t let him get in the way of their mission and calls for security, but Mobius replies that that’s not going to work how she thinks, now that they now her ‘secret.’ We then cut to B15, in a high school in 2018 Ohio, being pursued by more Minutemen. Chekov’s pen finally pays off as she enters an office with a pot full of ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt High School’ pens like the one Renslayer has. The other Hunters have her cornered until… Judge Renslayer shows up. Except it isn’t. It’s her main timeline version—a diploma on the wall revealing her name to be Rebecca Tourminet—clueing the other Hunters in on the fact that they’re all Variants.
In the Citadel, He Who Remains demonstrates to Loki and Sylvie just how omniscient he is, showing how he already knows what will happen by pulling out a TVA dot matrix printout script of events and dodging another of Sylvie’s attempts to kill him. She angrily points out that that’s just because of TemPad he has but he counters by pointing out that how else would he be able to programme it with everything he needed to avoid being killed by them? He’s seen everything they’ve done and every step they took was down a road he paved for them. (He also seems to be trying to drive a wedge between them, asking Sylvie if she can really trust Loki, or if she’s capable of trusting anyone at all).
Mobius and Ravonna’s reunion continues to sour. She insists that if they didn’t prune the timeline, chaos and death would be the result. Mobius points out they’d also have free will but Ravonna replies that the only one who gets to have free will is the one in charge. She finally snaps when Mobius accuses her of betraying him, yelling that threw away eons of friendship for a ‘couple of Lokis’. This, and her earlier comment that the TVA’s mission “had to mean something” makes her seem an awful lot like someone in cult who’s worldview’s breaking down when they’re confronted with the magnitude of the lies they’ve been told. Mobius tries to stop her from leaving but fails. Before she steps through the time door, he asks her where she’s going and she replies “in search of ‘free will’”. And that is the last we see of her. For now.
Speaking of the TVA’s mission, He Who Remains says that, while his methods may be deceptive (maybe stick a pin in that) the mission never was. Loki asks him what he’s so afraid of and he replies: “Me.” He reveals that he’s been called many things—including “conqueror”, just in case you had any doubts remaining—but that before the TVA, a Variant of himself, a scientist living in the 31st century, discovered the existence of multiple universes and figured out how to cross between them, making contact with other versions of himself who were learning the same thing. For a while, there was peace (although “narcissistic” and “self-congratulatory”) but some of his Variants weren’t so cordial and saw other universes as new lands to conquer. This saw the peace between realities shatter into a multiversal war, with each Variant, fighting to preserve their timeline by making sure it was the one that came out on top. But it’s here the story diverges from the TVA dogma. He Who Remains created the Time Keepers and the TVA to oversee the proper flow of time, but they didn’t end the war. It was Alioth, who’d been created from all the tears in reality. As he was capable of consuming time and space, He Who Remains experimented on and weaponised him, using him to isolate their timeline—the ‘Sacred Timeline’—end the war and save reality. And all it cost was everyone’s free will. But, if Loki and Sylvie think he’s evil, just wait until they meet his Variants.
Then, like the snake in the Garden of Eden, he offers them a sadistic choice: kill him, allowing malevolent Variants of himself to emerge, thereby starting up another multiverse war, or they can take over the TVA, continuing to prune timelines and trample all over everyone’s free will in order to keep the timeline safe. “Stifling order or cataclysmic chaos.” Loki wonders why he would want to give being in control and He Who Remains replies that he’s been at this a long time—he’s a lot older than he looks—and he’s tired; he’s gone through a lot of scenarios, trying to find the perfect person to take over, and it just so happens that that person “came in two.”
Sylvie is unimpressed, accusing him of playing with real people’s lives like it were some kind of game. He replies that it was practical not personal but Sylvie states it was personal to her. This actually makes him come close to something like losing his temper, throwing back what she told Loki in episode 2, that it’s not about her. “Grow up Sylvie! Murderer. Hypocrite.” He points out that they’re all essentially villains here, how they’ve all done terrible things, but here is a chance to do them for good reasons. Again, when the ends justify the means…
But Loki and Sylvie don’t have long to think about this choice. An ominous rumble sounds outside, and He Who Remains says they’ve “just crossed the threshold.” Turns out, he was fibbing earlier when he said he knew what was going to happen… he knew what was going to happen up to a certain point… and that point was a few seconds ago. Outside, the timeline is beginning to branch. Again, Loki is slightly incredulous that he’s just going to sit there and let them decide his fate but He Who Remains argues what’s the worst that can happen? Either they take over the TVA and carry on his life’s work, or they kill him, the Sacred Timeline fractures into a multiverse again, his Variants start another multiversal war and another version of him will end up right back here. “Reincarnation baby.” As he seems to believe it’s inevitable that that, eventually, another Kang Variant will emerge to start the whole thing over again.
Sylvie remains convinced that this is all another elaborate manipulation and goes to kill him…only to be stopped by Loki. Loki seems to have taken the “it’s not all about you” message to heart and thinks that He Who Remains is telling the truth (a liar can recognise another liar after all) or, if he isn’t, the consequences are such that they risk unleashing something even worse than the TVA and need to take time to figure out the best solution. After all, “remove the dictator and what fills the void?” Unfortunately, Sylvie is having none of it. She thinks Loki is after the throne for himself, asking if everything between them has been a con. A heartbroken Loki replies: “Really? That’s what you think of me. After all this time?” We then get to the crux of the matter: Sylvie asks “why aren’t we seeing this the same way?” Loki answers “because you can’t trust and I can’t be trusted.”
They start to fight, Loki all the while trying to talk her down, refusing to hurt her and trying to get her to see that the cost of getting this wrong is too great. He is on verge of tears when he tells her that he has been where she is emotionally, knows what it leads to, and all he wants is for to be OK.(All the while He Who Remains is sitting back with a metaphorical bowl of popcorn and watching.) He seems to get through to her, Sylvie kissing him as a way of showing that she does reciprocate his feelings… before she sadly tells that “I’m not you”, making the decision for him by opening a time door with He Who Remains’ TemPad and pushing him through it, sending him back to the TVA, so she can have her revenge without having to hurt him. Sylvie then kills the one responsible for all her pain, He Who Remains is rather nonchalant about the whole affair, going out with a wink and a smile, promising to “see you soon.” Sylvie has finally gotten her revenge, but instead of bringing her happiness or a satisfactory conclusion, all it seems to have done is ruin the one meaningful connection she managed to make and she sinks to the floor in tears. Meanwhile, outside, the timeline continues to sprout branches like cracking glass.
In the TVA monitoring room, Mobius and B15 watch as the branches pass the red line, acknowledging there’s no going back now. Loki, clearly emotionally devastated by Sylvie’s betrayal (give this man a hug and then give this man a break, please!) makes his way through the TVA to find Mobius and B15, finding them in the archives, panicking over the amount of branching timelines. He tries to tell them though they’ve freed the timeline, they may’ve made a terrible mistake, that they found who one who created the TVA, how he orchestrated everything, and now they’ve unleashed countless different versions of a very dangerous person. But we, and Loki, are stopped cold when Mobius asks “Who are you?”
And here’s the even scarier part: insane villain though he may’ve been, He Who Remains might also have been right. Because Loki looks over in disbelief to where the statues of the three Time Keepers used to be… to see that they’ve been replaced by a single statue of He Who Remains… in his guise of Kang the Conqueror. Marvel’s ‘Time Lord’ is here folks, and if Majors’ performance turns out to be anything like the brilliant one he gave here, we’re in for a fun ride.
And on that bombshell is where we end things, with a promise that Loki will return in season 2. And it’s a good thing too, because there’re a lot of questions that need answering:
- Where is Loki? Is he in an alternate universe or has the TVA workforce just been ‘reset’?
- What does this version of the TVA run by Kang the Conqueror do if ? If it’s not to preserve the one timeline anymore, what’s their directive?
- What was in those files Miss Minutes gave to Renslayer that He Who Remains thought she should have?
- Has Renslayer gone off in search of Kang? What will happen when she does? Will she eventually become his lover (as she is in the comics)? What sort of villain could this make her?
- What will happen to Sylvie? Is this the last we’ve seen of her? If Loki can grow to the point where he cares about another without any reciprocity, is there hope for her? (There is another meaning to the phrase ‘learning to love yourself’ you know.)
- Was the gambit proposed by He Who Remains the only option? Had he really considered every scenario or is it simply that, as a Kang Variant, he’s too close to the problem?
- Was He Who Remains even being completely honest? Was he really as well intentioned as he made himself out to be? He also seemed to be trying to drive a wedge between them – pointing out the trust issues they’ve both had – did he intend for them to fight because together they’d be more of a threat to him? Is he more closely aligned with his other Variants than he made out?
- Will we learn anything more about Mobius, B15 and the rest of the TVA?
- Will Mobius ever get his jetski?
- What happened to the surviving Loki Variants? Will we see them again? Will we see more?
- The timeline started branching before Sylvie killed He Who Remains. So if his death wasn’t the cause, what was? Could it be – as thanks to Disney+’s MCU timeline order, we know that Loki comes before WandaVision – the moment Wanda became the Scarlet Witch? (Who, in the comics, is a Nexus being )
And speaking of WandaVision, though Kang is obviously now the next ‘Thanos-level’ baddie, Loki’s finale is going to have more immediate consequences for the MCU. The return of the infinite multiverse of course ties into WandaVision, the next Disney+ series What If…? (which will seemingly be building to its own in-series culmination crossover event “Guardians of the Multiverse”—which there has been some promotional material for—and also setting some things in the MCU going forward), SpiderMan No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, in which we already know Wanda will be appearing but now it’s rumoured Loki will be too. Which is possible as, not only is there precedence for it in the comics, but Loki’s head writer Michael Waldron is also the scriptwriter on that too, and I really hope it does turn out be true, as having Marvel’s most powerful magical characters interact and team up on screen would be awesome!
What sort of place will the MCU be in by the time we get to season 2? One thing is for certain: goodbye Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, hello Marvel’s Cinematic Multiverse! I’ve had a blast. See you in season 2!
