#loki series speculation

[delyth88]

Loki episode 5 reaction and initial thoughts

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I can’t believe it! I’m so unused to getting what I hope for with Loki in movies and TV that I almost don’t know what to do when you get almost exactly what you’d hoped for!!!!!   (Within the bounds of this being the TVA version of Loki of course.) That was excellent!  And hit most of the key things I was hoping for as well as giving some absolutely charming additions!

It packed in a lot of story, and it was a delight to see the characters on the timeline. It wasn’t as gripping and tense as the last episode, but that's probably a good thing for my stress levels lol! But it was a really lovely time travel story.

And Loki has unlocked a new ability. Maybe.

The opening music!! Perfectly creepy!  And even more so than the music over the credits of the last episode. It really sounded like the disintegration of reality!

And I loved the way the letters disappeared from the Loki title card… *shivers*

It was a small thing, but nice to see at least one thing I’d guessed correct – that they started the episode with the reverse of this shot at the end of episode 4.

I loved how spooky it was having Loki walk through the corridors of the TVA by himself. And I did rather enjoy the moment he almost met himself.  That was cute. But it was clear that they needed to get on to other things quite quickly – there was a lot in this episode!!

The imagery of the universe disintegrating was perfectly terrifying! (Although I was getting big “snap” vibes.)  And what is Fail Safe Mode? And does it matter?

I was a little sad to see Casey was a prisoner. 😔   But I wonder if we’ll see these timeline versions of the characters again?  I feel like the need for them is over? Unless maybe briefly at the start of the last episode. So we didn't have to watch him being particularly horrible.

I didn’t pick that he’d be the first person Loki would visit, nor did I pick that it would all be unintentional. 

I did like the way Loki still hoped that Mobius would recognise him. And the conversation itself was ambiguous enough I suppose for the first couple of sentences that you could interpret it that way. Poor Loki looked so disappointed!

I laughed as was intended at the imitation of the inflatable advertising character.  😁

And then OB!!!  Omg!  I LOVE what they chose to do with his character!!!  He was so sweet, and retained his enthusiastic and super intelligent personality! I hadn’t really settled on what I thought OB might have been like on the timeline, but this was so much better! And how he was like “and I had to get a PHD to keep my day job as a theoretical physicist”….!  😄

And @pinkpondofasgard I hope you’ve seen this episode when you see this mention, because spoilers - looks like you were right about this being a location from OB’s past!  Which I think is super cool!  I don’t have any idea what this would be in the 1990s in the US, but obviously it worked so well for OB that he replicated it in the TVA!  Unless this whole series all turns out to be his dream… Ha ha! Ha…. ha…… er…  Anyway. I love that so many of the shelves are covered in books instead of technical TVA equipment.

Okay, so now I’m seriously thinking there’s a chance OB might actually be the founder of the TVA.  HWR could easily have come along later and taken over the leadership and wiped his memories.  But the fact the rooms are sooooo similar is just a bit too weird.

I did like how they handled Loki explaining things to Mobius.  Mobius was suitably sceptical and Loki was trying so hard not to sound threatening, but that’s not really his bag, is it. Lol! Things would definitely have gone pear shaped if OB hadn’t turned up.

I feel like Loki’s getting a lot of use out of the phrase “I promise you this will make sense” lol!

While I was kinda looking forward to the multiple crazy conversations while Loki tries to convince people he’s not mad, I do appreciate they had to make this quick, and I liked how they made each interaction shorter than the one before it, until he didn’t even need to say anything after stepping through the time door.

Then there was Sylvie.  I was by this point just as surprised as Loki that she kept her memories.  Now I have to assume that’s because she wasn’t ever a TVA worker who had her memories wiped.  But if that’s the case, then why wasn’t she in the Loom room with Loki when he ‘woke up’?  I’m assuming we’re meant to understand that this is because Loki feels most at home in the TVA, rather than Asgard. I find that's a little bit much, personally.  But I guess I’ll put that one to the side for the moment.

I did not expect her to be so adamant about not helping.  I mean I should have, but I didn’t. Their conversation at the bar was interesting, and I liked that Loki was so concerned that the TVA folk get a choice.  (And I kinda think now that they might, come the end of the season.  With OB choosing to stay because it’s literally his dream, Casey because it’s better than being an escaped prisoner, and B-15 and Mobius choosing to leave.)

The whole scene in the record shop – that was cool!  The small things that went wrong first, and the way the store owner slowly noticed it. *shivers*

Although again, very similar to the snap. I like how small objects vanish first, and I really should have seen that coming when the tempad went missing, but I didn’t.  I think there was just so much squashed into this episode!

And this was such a haunting image.

And then Sylvie says “there’s nowhere left to go” before she too disintegrates.  Eeeee!

Again, this looked really cool!  Are we meant to understand that Loki could hear a moment in the timeline of a person each time he touched a thread?  I wonder if that holds for any thread? Or was that just illustrating his memories?

I’m not sure that’s important though, given he almost immediately jumps back to the TVA, but we haven’t seen this image from the mid-season trailer yet. Not one from this angle where Sylvie is still whole, and where Loki is standing confidently and making this specific gesture.  I wonder now if he’s just snapped his fingers? Perhaps this moment is revisited, or perhaps just an alternate take that looked cool for the trailer.

I did like the ending, and how he jumped back to them all to tell them he’d figured out how to do it.  I wonder if he’ll be able to come back to them under his own steam at a later date? 

I’m still not entirely sure if this is something that in integral to Loki now or whether its related to circumstances. Like will it be possible to time-slip after the TVA is restored? If that means going back within the TVA before the moment he started time-slipping in the first place. *shrug*

So, what point did he jump back to?  There’s an alarm blaring in the background, but no other identifying things.  So I’m guessing this is just as they watch Timely go down the stairs to suit up?

Does he try to stop Timely from going out there? Explain it didn’t work, and then ask OB for information in the last few moment before jumping back further?

And more importantly, after the multiverse is saved, does this mean he can jump to the time and place of any person he cares about?  Could he visit his Mum? Or a Thor?!! 🥲

Ah!  This was a really great time travel episode! And I'm thoroughly looking forward to the final episode.

Tagging @sparklegemstone @pinkpondofasgard @woodelf68 @scintillatingshortgirl19 @projectprotectloki @ladyofthestayingpower @juliabohemian @galaxythreads @makerofrunevests @thelightofthingshopedfor

As usual, please let me know if you'd rather not be tagged. :)

[delyth88]

Was I disappointed with the direction of Season 1?

Yes.

Will I watch Season 2 with undeserved hope regardless?

Also yes.

Sigh.

So despite myself, I have questions.

The first two gifs look like they're in the TVA? But what's with the new jacket? (Not that I mind - it's a huge improvement over the horrible brown variant jacket! 😅) Is that just this universe's uniform?

The shot with Mobius saying "a little over the top don't you think?" - I'm now going to go ahead and blindly guess that the three Loki's are illusions since they're in the real world. If so, that'll be kinda nice to see some more magic. However, I don't like the tone I'm picking up from this - still looks like its leaning more into the comic in his bearing and attitude than I would prefer. Though of course we all know that trailers, let alone random snippets like this, mean absolutely nothing when it comes to guessing what a show is like! 😆

Loki - Season 2 First Look

[delyth88]

I haven't seen much talk about this, but I think it's significant that Sylvie says she couldn't kill Timely because:

"Timely just looked so scared. He Who Remains wasn't scared. Or maybe he was and I didn't notice."

Like I think that's a pretty big thing to admit that maybe you had such strong feelings about something that you didn't notice someone was scared of you killing them. I guess that's been eating her up for a while now.

There was that moment before they entered the citadel where Sylvie needed a moment to prepare herself. So I wonder what she would do in cold blood now. If the key to keeping the multiverse alive is to make sure HWR survives then maybe this is important growth for her. Though I don't think that will be the way things are resolved.

But I think this is a big step for her.

[nerdy-frog98]

So for experiments’ sake, I asked my straight brother who doesn’t consume Marvel, romantic media, or LGBTQ+ media often this question - “if a person fixes their jacket collar and smooths their hair before going to talk to someone, can that be taken romantically?”

He asked if it was a business thing, and I told him that it was more a reuniting thing. His response - “I mean, pausing to fix my appearance would only happen if I was about to see my wife again or if I was about to have a business meeting and my appearance mattered.” I explained the scene of Loki fixing his appearance with Loki (but didn’t use names and kept my words gender-neutral… plus a little context), and he said “Oh yeah, that’s super romantic.”

When I watched the episode with my sister, she told me at the end of the episode that she didn’t realize Loki was in love with Mobius until that exact same moment, the appearance fixing.

There was absolutely no fucking need to add that if Lokius isn’t endgame. I understand the whole “men should be allowed to be friends without getting shipped” but it just simply doesn’t apply in this situation. It is coded romantically.

I will be delusional and believe Lokius is endgame, and if it doesn’t happen, I will be so sad. Loki is canonly bisexual- PLEASE give them this Marvel 🙏🏼

[saturn-valleys]

The only thing making hopeful about Lokius maybe possibly being cacon in the next episode is the fact that Loki and Mobius are rumored to be in Deadpool 3 and if THATS the case, there's no way Deadpool wouldn't not only flirt with Mobius but also make sex jokes between Loki and Mobius.

It'd be very ooc if Wade doesn't ONCE mention their unresolved feeling for each other

[delyth88]

I did wonder about the reason they picked this date and location. I have to assume because they didn't show her freaking out entirely that it was beforehand, but omg! what if he'd been a few months later? lol!

No STOP, B15 being a doctor in New York- NEW YORK IN 2012??? Can you IMAGINE the conversation between her and LOKI if this was post Battle of New York?

[percheduphere]

I think we need to look at how the finale might play out from a non-shipping lens.

Hear me out.

Under this lens, the hardest thing Mobius can do, which is in direct answer to Ravonna's claim he never could make the hard decisions, is to leave his timeline in order to protect his kids.

Don can never protect Kevin and Sean as fully as Mobius can. His sacrifice will be protecting his children's timeline (and thus all timelines) forever, at the cost of not being there to experience his children's growth and love.

As for Loki, there are 3 themes that have been consistently set-up with a need for payoff since S1:

1. Loki's fear of being alone

2. Does what make a Loki a Loki the "fact" they are destined to lose?

3. Selfishness vs Sacrifice

The thrust of the entire series is Loki breaking out of the narrative constructs that necessitate his position as "villain". The answer to these set-ups, in order for the series to fulfill its thesis are:

1. Loki will NOT be alone.

2. Loki will win.

3. Loki will sacrifice.

His sacrifice will take 2 forms: 1. His personal safety in preventing the Loom Boom, 2. His emotional safety in allowing Mobius to return to his children.

Yet by letting Mobius go, setting Mobius free if you will, Mobius will have the opportunity to choose him the TVA, in an act of his own sacrifice.

Under the non-shipping lens, choosing the TVA to protect his kids is primary. Mobius's reward to make this sacrifice more bearable is an eternal friendship with Loki.

I am feeling fairly optimistic we will get a korasami-esque ending.

[delyth88]

Mid season trailer breakdown

Finally found some time (ha!) to take a closer look at the mid-season trailer.

It starts with a very brief shot of Loki time-slipping in a spaghettifying TVA that we've seen before, and then a split second shot of Loki walking into the pie room. But the lights in the pie dispensers are all off. Does this mean it's near the very end of the timeline where the power was cutting out? Or is there some other significance to this? Where is my anon who suggested they need to go through enough repetitions of the time loop to eat through all the pies...!

Then we move on to this scene of the gang in front of the model of the gantry and the Time Loom.

OB asks, "Loki, how much do you know?' and Loki replies "Lets assume I don't know much but I'm a fast learner, and I'm a god."

Timely is still holding his device, so this is towards the beginning of episode 4 shortly after Timely arrives in the TVA, and before the pie room or the Dox in a box.

I'm assuming Loki has just explained to them the situation and they're just going with it! :)

Then it skips to this scene where Loki says "Here we go".

Later in the trailer he follows on with a voiceover saying "Listen to me carefully, hit the green button", and then shows this shot again as he says "it can be a little sticky".

When he says "Hit the green button", Loki seems to be quite fearful and intense, with a slightly more whispery quality to the sentence, than the following shot where it's more light hearted when he says "It can be a little sticky".

Now if I'm not just reading too much into this (which to be honest that is exactly what I'm doing in this entire post, but its fun), it looks like this might be two different instances of the same event. Maybe the first is earlier on and the second is later on once it's resulted in destruction a few more times? Or perhaps the other way around once Loki's been through enough repetitions to be confident this bit will go well. *shrugs*

We then see what I assume is Timely again (because he's the only one missing from the shot above) out on the gantry having actually made it as far as the sphere at the end, pressing the green button.

However, we ALSO see this shot of what I again assume is Timely, but from behind this time. He's not wearing a helmet and we can see his hair, and the throughput multiplier is leaning against the wall. The airlock doors have been opened though and he's being spaghettified again.

So it looks like we're going to be seeing this attempt to fix the Loom multiple, presumably spectacularly unsuccessful, times. Poor Victor. :(

There's also shots in the operations centre (what are we calling the room looking out onto the Loom. Oh. Okay that just wrote itself, didn't it? XD). In the LOOM ROOM we have another shot of Loki saying "Here we go" and Mobius excitedly shouting "Yes!" as Loki drags him over towards the control panel / airlock. Which I'd guess is once they successfully manage to get a Timely out to the end of the gantry, or possibly even fire off the throughput multiplier.

There's a shot of Loki in the Loom Room turned back to face OB and the other while it looks like the Loom is exploding. He looks more dishevelled than he was in the scene we saw in episode 4. And I can't tell if he looks sad and defeated or suspicious. He's looking towards Sylvie, OB, Casey, and B-15. There was that whole weird moment with Casey and the throughput multiplier that just seemed off, so really putting my effort into leaping here, could this be that Loki's suspicious Casey sabotaged it?

Then outside the TVA we get those shots of Sylvie listening to music. I'm really not sure where she is - but I'm assuming since she looks to be wearing a T-shirt rather than her armour under her coat that she's on the timeline.

For Casey we get the shot we've seen of him in a tunnel, immediately preceded by this shot of what looks like a searchlight at a prison and audio of a siren. So is Casey escaping from prison? A POW camp?

They show Casey in two short shots in time with the music - does this mean anything? Like indicating the repeating of events? Or does it just look cool.

I do wonder if they're going to make some of the really likeable characters have a despicable past on the timeline and use that to further the discussion of free will and the power to choose to be different. That could be interesting. But I'd like Casey not to be a horrible person. :(

There's a couple of shots of a new location we've not been to, but one that still looks like it's within the TVA. There are pneumatic tubes behind Loki and great big fans. Some old armchairs on one side, and a pinboard on the other. The shot starts with what looks like spaghetti strands with Loki's magic radiating out from the centre.

As the magic fades we see the strands have disappeared and there are some other people in the room with him.

B-15 in plain clothes, and Sylvie just moving out of shot as the camera zooms in towards Loki. It also looks like Sylvie is in her outfit with the grey T-shirt.

So does this indicate Loki can use magic to hold things together to stop them from spaghettifying, even if only temporarily?

We get a fairly horrifying shot of Loki being distorted in front of spaghetti.

And I'm afraid this next image is going to give me nightmares, but it looks like this is in the same room - we can see the yellow on the wall and the same ceiling lights behind him.

By the time he's slipped away the spaghetti is gone. So again, is this because he somehow carries this destruction with him? Or is this a shot shown in reverse because time really got all timey-wimey on him and time is actually flowing backwards at points? (That would be pretty damn cool to see how he deals with it!)

Then we get another shot of that room and Casey, OB, and Mobius are there with Loki. All in their plain clothes. But this shot is flipped around from the one above that had the chairs on the other side of the room. Again, is that meaningful, or just somehow one of the versions looks cooler? Or does the room just have a pneumatic tube gizmo at both ends?

There's also this shot which I can't figure out where it is. Sylvie's still in her T-shirt, and Loki is either pointing at the ceiling or making some magical gesture. All around them are spaghettified strands. I still don't quite understand how it's possible for people to be in the same space as anything else that's spaghettifying (I never thought I'd need to use that as a verb so often!), without becoming spaghetti themselves.

It looks like that record player Sylvie was using might be in the background, if so does that mean the last thing Sylvie was doing while the universe crumbled around her was listening to music? And then Loki turns up to get her out of her timeline and take her to the TVA to help? Or is the spaghetti somehow related to Loki?

It looks like we get the final shot of episode 4 in reverse. My bet is this is the opening of episode 5.

And finally we get to see Mobius on the timeline. And the house he lives in.

Loki visits him at work and says "The TVA is gone."

Mobius has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. So I think we can assume that Mobius is the first person Loki tries to find on the timeline and he wasn't expecting Mobius not to know him. I wonder how on earth Loki manages to convince him about the madness that is the TVA!! I think that's going to be a fun conversation. :)

I also wonder how Loki is actually able to find them all? Does he jump back and look everyone up in the system? Does he use HWR's special tempad?

I'm not usually a big fan of trailers mid season, but there's still so much unknown at the point that I've really enjoyed looking through this and trying to work out what might be happening. :D

Tagging my partners in wild speculation @pinkpondofasgard @woodelf68.

[elodiah]

Ever since I read the interview excerpt about the completely scrapped 2x5 episode, I’ve been thinking that not only was it possibly the reveal of canon Lokius (popular theory), but that it was executed in a romcom style.. e.g. Loki had to “woo” Donbius to get him to come with him, and all their scenes were played like something out of Love Actually or whatever. And that’s why we still had tiny elements of that scattered in the aired episode, such as “seeing him through the window”, “fixing the jacket and hair” and “flustered stammering”. Little references to what would have (SHOULD have) been…

[delyth88]

Oh! 😯

That would be brilliant!!!!

i swear to god if they redo the s1 ep1 interrogation but now its loki begging mobius to remember him as the timeline collapses i. ill fucking lose it.

[loki-who-remains]

I’ve been thinking about the significance of three.

The time keepers, however fake, were originally three. The war room has a triangular table where three people are supposed to be sitting at an equal distance from each other. Although there are five Kangs on the wall. In the end, there are many shots where people stand in three and almost always form an equilateral triangle. Yeah, it’s very cinematic and beautiful, especially in wider shots, but imo also symbolic in our case.

What if for the TVA to work properly it would actually require three people?

Someone who is practical and cares for order and people’s safety; someone who is more chaotic and can act quickly and effectively in ever changing circumstances; someone who thinks clearly, can mediate and decide at every moment how much chaos and order they need at any particular moment?

What if they have to be three?

[eddiewithcat]

i think the thing that annoys me the most about the “mobius odin variant” or “mobius thor variant” theories is the fact that.

like.

is it seriously that hard to believe somehow outside of loki’s family could love him?

like can mobius just … not be his own person? why does he have to be a variant of someone else? can’t he just be a silly Some Guy who is a single dad and sells jet skis (tries to at least) ??

i understand it is marvel and theories are fun but it also just rubs me the absolute wrong way idk idk

* also fuck odin LMFAO i was just using family to make a point i do not actually like that man plz *

[delyth88]

Oooh... now that's an intriguing idea! I'd be down for that!

Y’all do realize that next episode we might get a scene where the world might be quite literally collapsing, which means we’ll see who the characters truly are, what they truly want, who they would truly choose…

[chonkymoth]

I'm on my fucking hands and knees WHAT WAS IN THE EPISODE

article here

[iamanartichoke]

Loki season 2 things I am already obsessed with:

- Loki's eyes glowing green

- The way Loki looks at Sylvie when they see each other for the first time in the McDonald's

- The fact that McDonald's has become a character in the Loki Cinematic Universe

- "We're playing God"/"We are gods" - the theological / mythological meta that these lines have spawned in my brain is *flails*

So anyway.

[percheduphere]

Maybe Loki will finally get his drink with a companion now?

Avengers: Asks for it, didn't get it.

LOKI S1E4: Drinks both his and Sylvie's.

LOKI S2E2: Declines. Knows Brad is gonna run away.

LOKI S2E5: Scares Don into almost whacking him with a wrench because LOOM BOOM.

His shot of bourbon at the bar spaghettifies.