Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched Loki’s Season 2 finale, so be warned!
One of the elements I enjoyed the most about Loki’s second season finale was that its title, “Glorious Purpose,” is the name shared by the series’ very first episode, creating a loop that is quite applicable for a show that leans so heavily into time, cycles, and glorious purposes. Of course, there were plenty of other highlights to celebrate, from the psychedelic gorgeousness of the Temporal Loom and its branches to that twinge of happiness in Mobius’ eye upon seeing his variant’s home life. But I’d be lying if I said I completely understood all of the timeline shifts and shenanigans on display.
While I can obviously grasp that Loki saved the day by sacrificing his universal freedom to take over the timekeeping throne left empty after He Who Remains’ death, I’m more than a little befuddled by some of the moments that led up to Tom Hiddleston’s final smirky-poo face. I can usually grin and bear it when I’m not 100% clued-in on certain plotlines, but can only throw my hands up helplessly while waiting to hear more about Season 3’s chances. So here are some of the biggest points of confusion I was left with, without even getting into how things play into the overall MCU multiverse in any and all upcoming Marvel movies and shows. Gotta keep it limited somehow.
Why Did Young Victor Timely No Longer Get The TVA Guidebook?
Per He Who Remains’ wishes, Ravonna and Miss Minutes went back to the latter half of the 19th century to jump-start young Victor Timely’s expertise in time-related science by giving him a copy of the TVA guidebook. However, the finale’s epilogue revealed that the timeline changed so that the book was never dropped through his window. Which, in a way, perhaps means things reverted back to how things went down “originally,” without Victor becoming an integral part of the TVA’s existence. Only the opposite happened. (See below question.)
So why did the timeline change? That sequence was edited so that viewers next saw Ravonna in the Void, making it seem like her presence there had something to do with Victor not getting the guidebook. But the former TVA judge was pruned well after her trip back to 1868, and thus wouldn’t have played into that journey. Are we meant to believe Loki’s tampering and timeline-repetition caused He Who Remains to change tactics so that there wasn’t ever a play for Miss Minutes to get Ravonna’s help with?
How Did Victor Co-Write The TVA Guidebook With OB?
I didn’t have any issues when Loki introduced the ontological paradox of Victor Timely learning from the TVA guidebook that OB wrote in part from Victor’s own knowledge. Even if it doesn’t make complete sense, there’s a method to the madness. But if Ravonna never went back to give Victor the original version, then are we meant to believe that he just naturally developed the bulk of the ideas that went on to inspire OB?
Perhaps this is a case where OB still remembers his experiences as they were, even if timeline changes made his memories irrelevant, and wanted to give Victor credit where credit was due as a co-author, even if the young boy might not grow up to become the same version of the brilliant variant. But without knowing WHY the kid didn’t get the book, it’s harder to justify the TVA getting a second guidebook at all.
Was He Who Remains Time-Slipping Into Victor Timely?
At several points during Victor Timely’s…time…on-screen, I had a growing feeling that he at times knew more than he was letting on, which happened in the finale as well. (Particularly when he spoke of infinite timelines and finished Loki’s sentences.) But since he seemed so buffoonishly clumsy and clueless at other times, I sorta chalked it up to the character’s quirks.
But when Loki went back to the events of Season 1’s finale, in which he tried time and again to stop Sylvie, He Who Remains very intentionally stuttered in the way that Victor was known to do, and he also bragged to the trickster god about how amazing he is at time-slipping. So even though it hasn’t been confirmed that characters can time-slip into their variants’ bodies, is that kind of power something that He Who Remains is capable of? Or, alternately, could he have used other powers to go back and replace Victor at certain times without actually replacing the variant completely?
Why Was There A TVA Logo In The Void?
Just after Ravonna awoke in The Void, the camera swooped down to reveal she was near a piece of wall or flooring that featured the TVA’s logo. But how in the world (or outside of it) would that have happened? If everything within The Void was pruned from alternate timelines, that possibly means that the TVA viewers saw at the end of the Season 2 finale is a fundamentally different establishment than the one we were introduced to in the first season.
Or, since The Void exists at the end of time, perhaps it means that the TVA will eventually dissolve/collapse/etc. in a way that would allow it to get pruned from whatever timeline-adjacent capacity it exists in. But how does that even happen?
Why Didn't Alioth Eat That Pyramid Yet?
The Void that we see Ravonna in is pretty empty compared to the setting we witnessed in Season 1, where it was filled with Marvel easter eggs and references. Perhaps that was a sign of changes in pruning following He Who Remains’ death, even though whole timelines were going away left and right. But one of the only things that was shown was a bigass pyramid, which is possibly the same structure that appeared previously, even with the Sphinx-with-nose still next to it. (And if it somehow wasn’t the same, then why not use another instantly recognizable building from Earth’s history?)
But if Ravonna wasn’t even there for 90 seconds before Alioth arrived to gobble her up, how is that pyramid still standing? Are pyramids hard for Alioth to chew, with the corners going right into his gums? Or is he saving it for last as a sandy delicacy?
Both of Loki’s full seasons are available to stream with a Disney+ subscription, with the making-of special set to debut on Wednesday, November 29.
