Blog 12: The End Is Just The Beginning

*THIS CONTAINS MAJOR SPOLIERS FROM EPISODE 6 OF LOKI*

By Odin’s beard, what an amazing episode!!! It was everything that I hoped the finale would be and more! This show has officially won me over for the title of best MCU show ever made! Sorry Wanda, sorry Sam, gotta make room for my boy Loki! There is much we need to discuss, so let’s get to it.

The episode opened to Loki and Sylvie standing at the door of the fortress that appeared in the Alioth’s portal in episode 5. Both of them were trembling in anticipation (or fear) of finding the one behind everything, but before we get to that we gotta talk visuals:

The fortress stood as the nexus of all space and time, and the bright beam of light that surrounds the fortress is meant to be the timeline. This is the type of magical/cosmic stuff I want to see from MCU’s Phase 4, and after what happened in this episode, I may get my wish.

So as Loki and Sylvie were about to enter the fortress, the doors opened for them, as if they were expected to arrive. They enter the fortress, and they are met with the true mastermind behind the TVA and the Sacred Timeline:

IT WAS MISS MINUTES ALL ALONG!!!!!

JUST KIDDING!!!!

She was simply there to greet Loki and Sylvie, and to tell them that “he” has been expecting them. This “he”, or “He Who Remains” as Miss Minutes addresses him, is the one who is behind everything. She tells them that he can offer them a new spot on the Sacred Timeline if they agree to not kill him, meaning Loki would be made ruler of the universe and Sylvie would get the happy life she was robbed of, but they quickly denied that offer and marched forth to find “He Who Remains”. They didn’t look for much longer since he came to them.

The man above is “He Who Remains”, and though he never says his name out loud, diehard comic book fans know that “He Who Remains” is Kang the Conqueror. Now let me be the first to say that I was fucking right!!!! Ever since the Time Keepers were revealed to be fakes, I knew Kang was the true mastermind!!! The minute he appeared on screen I faced my brother and said “That’s fucking Kang”! I was so happy to see him because this is a clear sign that Disney is starting to incorporate Fox properties into the MCU!

Just a little reminder, Kang’s father is Nathaneil Richards, who is also the father of Reed Richards (aka Mister Fantastic).

Back at the TVA, Mobius confronts Ravonna about the TVA being a lie. He questions her about why she wants to protect the lie, and she feels that it is a necessary lie. I had a feeling she would say that because the TVA is all she knows, and she can’t handled the fact that it was all a lie. During their argument, B-15 was set free (possibly by Mobius) and travelled to the year 2018 to Franklin D. Roosevelt High School, a school whose name is on one of Ravonna’s pens that Mobius used. B-15 was making sure that she was being followed by other time agents, and she led them to find Ravonna’s “Sacred Timeline” doppelgänger. All of this was a plan to reveal to the entire TVA that they are all variants, and it was done beautifully. It makes me wonder what Mobius’ “Sacred Timeline” doppelgänger is doing. Maybe he sells jet-skis and that explains his love for jet-skis.

After the variant reveal, Ravonna makes the argument that maybe taking away free will is what keeps everyone safe. If they didn’t prune timelines, if they let people make their own decisions, it would cause chaos. Maybe she’s right, but a wise man once said that chaos is fair. After her argument is made, Mobius tries to take her down, but fails in doing so. Ravonna spares him, and leaves through a time portal saying she’s “In search of free will”. Not sure what that means, but I do have a feeling that we have not seen that last of her.

Back at the nexus of time, Kang reveals how he came to be the mediator of the timeline. He says one of his variants from the 31st century (little reference to his comic book origin) discovers the existence of parallel universes, and the means to travel between them. Soon his other variants started to travel to different Earths as well, and things went along pretty well. The Kang variants shared their tech and knowledge with each other to help improve each other’s universe, which is very similar to the actions of the Council of Reed Richards from the comics (Reeds from different universes), but there were some Kang variants who wanted to conquer other universes. He tells Loki and Sylvie that this lead to a Multiverse War, and many worlds were destroyed in this battle, so the variant of Kang in the episode said that he had to assume absolute control of the multiverse. He destroyed every other universe, and isolated his timeline as the “Sacred Timeline”, and he’s been preventing the restoration of the multiverse ever since.

Kang is telling Loki and Sylvie all this because he wants them to justify his reason for creating the TVA. He admits to being a villian, he calls out Loki for doing unspeakable things for selfish reasons, and he calls out Sylvie for being a hypocrite since she won’t admit that she had to act as a villain to stay alive. After Kang’s rant about Loki and Sylvie being villians, he offers them a deal that could change the fabric of the MCU, forever.

Option 1: Loki and Sylvie kill Kang, free the timeline and create the multiverse. If they kill him, they run the risk of starting another Multiverse War.

Option 2: Loki and Sylvie spare Kang, and they assume control over the TVA. The Sacred Timeline is kept, but they can rule it however they want.

Kang doesn’t care if he dies because if he does, other versions of him will just take his place. In a fit of rage, Sylvie goes for the kill, but Loki stops her. Sylvie thinks that Loki just wants to save Kang so he can rule everything, his goal in Avengers, but that’s not the case. Loki believes that Kang is telling him the truth that killing him will cause a Multiverse War, and he doesn’t want to plunge the multiverse into chaos. Sylvie doesn’t believe him, and Loki can’t blame her since he knows that he can’ be trusted and the she can’t trust anyone. They both have a small fight, but Loki eventually throws down his weapon and pleads with her to not kill him. He admits that Kang could be lying, but that is not a risk he is willing to take. Loki says he doesn’t want a throne, and the only thing he cares about is her saftey.

This leads to them kissing, with Kang gleefully looking at them like most of us who are watching, but that feeling of happiness quickly ends when Sylvie uses Kang’s TemPad to send Loki back to the TVA. With Loki gone, Sylvie kills Kang. During this whole confrontation with the three of them, the timestream that surrounded the fortress has been branching out to form new timelines, new universes, and it speeds up after Kang’s death. Back at the TVA, Loki has a little freakout about what just happened, but he quickly gets a hold of himself and looks for Mobius. He finds both Mobius and B-15 in the Archive Wing, and he tell Mobius that Sylvie and himself have made a huge mistake and tries to tell him about Kang. Mobius tries to calm him down, but then he asked Loki was division he’s from….

Mobius thinks Loki is just some other TVA Agent, he has no memory of the god of mischief. Mobius and B-15 leave quickly after that to go handle a situation involving 63 new branches being created, and Loki looks over the balcony of the Archive Wing. As he is looking around, he finds to his horror a statue of Kang in a spot previously reserved for the Time Keepers’ statues. A new Kang variant leads the TVA, and no one remembers Loki. I believe that Loki might have been sent to a different universe, or that this Kang variant altered the TVA’s history to make himself the ruler. All I know for sure is that the MCU has officially joined the Marvel Multiverse, and this changes everything.

Now we see how important Loki is as a show since what he did here is going to affect everyone. Spider-Man: No Way Home already casted villians who have confirmed to be from alternate univereses, so we can expect to see a logical reason for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man to join the Spider-verse. This could also lead to Sony’s Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse entering the MCU, aswell as Venom and Morbius the Living Vampire. The same could be said about Fox propteries such as the X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool. Deadpool already had a little sit down with MCU Korg, so Deadpool teaming up with Spider-Man and/or the Avengers on the big screen is only a matter of time.

The actions of Loki and Wanda (her shenanigans from WandaVision) will all lead into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which will possibly give us a more thorough tour of the multiverse. I feel so bad for Doctor Strange because he has to fix this whole fucking mess, and he’s defineltly going to be needing a few drinks when he’s all done.

Now let’s talk about the big picture for Phase 4. We know that this phase will involve more cosmic level threats, but who could be the big bad be this time? I think it might be Kang, or a Kang since “He Who Remains” Kang says that his variants are incredibly dangerous. Also with the rebirth of the multiverse we might be seeing long dead villians make their returns, aswell as some dead heroes. The possibilities are endless, but I feel that it will all build up one impossible event.

The Secret Wars! Kang spoke of a Multiverse War involving his variants, but this war will involve everyone’s doppelgängers! The gauntlet to see which universe will be the last one standing, a battle no one truly wins…

The next show to drop onto Disney+ is Marvel’s What If, where we will be exploring different universes answering the question “What if?”. I do have high hopes for this show, and I have a feeling that this show will act as a tease for what we could expect to see for the future of the MCU.

And speaking of the future, Loki has been confirmed for season 2 in the post-credits. This season was very enjoyable, but it did have its flaws. Most of the stuff that happened was pretty predictable, but this is coming from a comic book fan and I saw that about most superhero movies. Also some people did complain about Loki getting beaten up by normal people and making dumb decisions, but I think he’s doing this all on purpose because he’s playing the long con. Loki is many things, but above everything else he is a trickster. He’s planning something big, but I can’t figure out what it is. I guess only time will tell.

Well I hope you all enjoyed yourselves, and I will see you all in the next blog.