Loki Spoiler Recap: For All Time. Always.
When we talk about sticking the landing, we don’t mean “satisfy every crazy fan theory,” nor do we mean all character development dissolving into another destructive fight that’s impossible to keep track of.
No. All we mean by sticking the landing is delivering a coherent, narratively satisfying final installment. And the team behind Loki has done just that. Let’s get right into how they managed it and dive right into the season - thankfully not series - finale, “For All Time. Always.”
The episode opens, not on the usual Marvel fanfare, or on any other musical cue, but instead on a chorus of familiar voices from across the MCU. These voices are soon joined by familiar voices from our real world, like Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousefzai. This was a strange choice that left me with mixed feelings. If they wanted to capitalize on the nostalgia invoked by older MCU movies, why not add a few soundbites from Fox’s X-Men films, or the earlier Spider-Man movies? Then again, that would be Timeline-destroying levels of chaos. In any case, the result is the same. The line has blurred and we find ourselves everywhere and nowhere at once.
Welcome to the Void.
Loki and Sylvie enter the fractured old castle seen at the end of last week’s episode and are greeted at the door by none other than...Miss Minutes?
Rather than taking a hard left turn into an “Agatha All Along”-style reveal, Miss Minutes instead ominously informs them that “He Who Remains” wants to make a deal with the two of them. A deal that will allow them to reinsert back into the timeline together, Loki having defeated the Avengers, Thanos, and acquired all the power he could want, while Sylvie receives a lifetime of happy memories in place of the misery she’s been living with.
The two of them refuse the deal, no longer willing to be played by a shadowy, mysterious figure, and instead wanting a chance to write their own destinies for a change. The offer rejected, they are at last greeted by the man himself. He Who Remains. And for once the Marvel speculation turned out to be true, as none other than Kang the Conqueror invites them up to his office.
At least, it’s sort of Kang the Conqueror. But we’ll get to that.
Meanwhile back at the TVA, everything Ravonna Renslayer thought she knew is crumbling around her. Having devoted eons of time to the TVA, she is struggling with the concept that it was all for nothing, and needs to know that there was some sort of larger purpose to it all. Many at the TVA, thanks to Mobius and Hunter B-15’s intervention, are coming around to the idea that they are variants who were used by this organization to carry out their will, and were stripped of the lives they knew. The narrative beat is something we see often: when presented with an opportunity to flee the evil organization, most characters often do without a second thought. But there is something to be said for Ravonna’s struggle, of not wanting to believe that her life has been nothing but lies and a wasted eternity. Not everyone flips on the dogma when they’re told the dogma is wrong. Ravonna’s struggle is not one often seen in stories like this, much less presented with a degree of empathy, and her disappearance though an unknown time door sets up a wonderful potential for her character in season 2.
Back in the Void, He Who Remains tells Loki and Sylvie that he already knows everything they’re going to do. It has all been predetermined, down to the conversation they’re having. This is also why neither of them can kill him. Because he already knows what they’re going to do. The purpose of him inviting them up at all is to get them in the right mental state to finish the journey.
He Who Remains offers them a choice: either kill him and unleash chaos, or kill him and rule the TVA themselves as they see fit. He stresses that it’s vital that the TVA remain, however, no matter what choice they make. And why?
Because multiverse, baby.
The looming plot point that has been hinted at for the entirety of Phase 4 is here at last, thanks to some handy exposition delivered brilliantly by Jonathan Majors, who is a welcome addition to the MCU family.
He tells them that in the 31st century, he was a scientist who discovered that there were several universes layered with his own, each with their own version of him studying along the same lines. They discovered a way to travel across universes and share their knowledge with one another. But as with anything, a few bad actors, or in this case Variants of himself, decided peaceful cooperation wasn’t an option and opted to conquer instead.
It was at this point that he Who Remains decided to create the TVA and the Sacred Timeline, to keep all alternate timelines under control, to stop things from spinning out into chaos. However, as these things go, chaos comes and finds them, instead.
The multiple nexus events triggered by Sylvie in episode 2 finally come into play, with the Sacred Timeline fracturing so completely that even the Void at the end of time crosses a threshold. The Timeline is split beyond repair, each branch splitting off into several new branches until it’s less like a tree branch and more like a web (Spiderverse, anyone?)
Out of options and out of time, Loki and Sylvie must make a decision. Only where they were in perfect sync last week, this episode finds them a bit out of step. While Loki is tempted to consider the offer before them, Sylvie is not so trusting. The two of them turn on each other, their damage rising to the surface in a scene that is played beautifully by Tom Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino. What happens, after all, when the woman who can’t trust and the man who can’t be trusted must make a decision that affects the fate of the universe?
The simmering tension that has been building between them for the last 4 episodes reaches a boiling point as Sylvie kisses Loki (I cheered) before shoving him through a Time Door back to the TVA (I cried). Whatever she may or may not feel for him, she is not yet at that point where she is ready to give up the only thing that has been driving her. She has not had the time for introspection that Loki did. She didn’t get to watch a highlight reel of her potential to be good.
With Loki gone, Sylvie kills He Who Remains. But vengeance, particularly after a lifetime spent seeking it, is never as satisfying as anyone thinks it will be. And the act leaves Sylvie broken, crying, and alone.
Loki finds himself in similar circumstances, alone at the TVA and devastated. After a moment to gather himself, he decides to take action. He tracks down Mobius and Hunter B-15 in the archives and tries to catch them up as quickly as possible. Only problem: they have no clue who he is.
He looks out into the Atrium. The statues of the Timekeepers have been replaced with one of He Who Remains. Or, rather, Kang the Conqueror, who we will next see in the third Ant-Man film.
Had this been a series finale rather than a season finale, I would have been furious. As it is, I’m having mixed feelings about introducing so large and universe-altering a concept in the season finale of a show, since we know that we’ll have to hop from story to story, show to movie, and back to show again, to follow this thread to it’s proper resolution.
That said, I still really enjoyed this episode, and the season as a whole. I came in expecting weird, and while it was certainly that, it went so far beyond my expectations. What we got was an in-depth look at the extent to which people driven by pain and anger only wind up hurting themselves and others, and in Loki’s case, what atonement for that inflicted pain might look like. In Sylvie, we see the toll that the drive for vengeance takes on the person hell-bent on exacting it.
I commend the entire creative team behind the show for just getting it. For understanding what it means to serve your characters in so large a narrative that by its very nature is expected to not only connect to the stories told by several other creatives, but also bears the burden of setting up the current phase of Marvel storytelling.
In the general sense, I look forward to seeing how the Kang reveal will come into play in Phase 4. But such was the strength of Loki throughout that what I’m really looking forward to is seeing how the events of this season continue to strengthen the characters going into the next.
