What Happened in Season 2, Episode 1 of ‘Loki?’
Loki’s back and the mischief has followed him.
Loki’s season two made its much-anticipated return on October 5 — bringing all the chaos we know and love from the God of Mischief. After an eventful end to season one, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) must deal with the consequences of his and Sylvie’s (Sophia Di Martino) actions at the end of time, but one problem: Loki returns to the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and none of his friends remember him. How does he rectify that? Find out what happened in the season opener of Loki season two.
Spoiler alert for Loki’s “Ouroboros” episode ahead!
What Happened in “Loki” Season One?
In case you need a quick refresh, you might remember that a Variant of Loki (not the one we know from the Avengers movies) was taken to the TVA because time Variants can disrupte the main timeline. There, he meets Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Sylvie, a female Variant of Loki, who work together to prove that the TVA isn’t what it seems. Instead, the TVA is stealing Variants and using them to do their bidding to “protect” the timeline, that actually might not need protecting.
Loki and Sylvie venture to the end of time to speak with He Who Remains (Johnathan Majors), who says he created the TVA after a multiversal war between his Variants caused mass destruction. Sylvie ends up killing He Who Remains, which starts an outbreak of alternate timelines that the TVA cannot control, and sending Loki back to the TVA where he’s met by Mobius and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) who don’t know who he is.
What Happened in “Loki” Season 2, Episode 1 “Ouroboros?”
Loki returns to the TVA — but not the TVA we know, this one has a statue of one of He Who Remains’ Variants at the helm — if we had to guess, we’d assume its Kang the Conqueror. Loki is immediately enemy number one when Mobius and Hunter B-15 don’t remember him, and he narrowly escapes being pruned before being sucked through time back to the present-day TVA. There he tries to find Mobius, who is with B-15 convincing the TVA board that they shouldn’t be pruning timelines because they’re all Variants themselves and have a life on the timeline somewhere.
Loki eventually finds Mobius and explains what happened at the end of time — and that He Who Remains’ Variants are likely on their way. He tells Mobius that in the past, which is the timeline that Loki is being sucked back to, Mobius worked for He Who Remains at the TVA, but he doesn’t remember it because He Who Remains wiped everyone’s memories.
Before they can really worry about He Who Remains, they need to stop Loki from “time slipping.” So, Mobius and Loki go to TVA’s Repairs & Advancements department, where they enlist the help of Ouroboros "OB" (Ke Huy Quan).
OB explains that Loki is time slipping, which happens again during the conversation and Loki is brought back to the R&A department in the past. There Loki meets past-OB who tells him what he needs to do to break the time slip — while OB in the future relays the same message to Mobius. Past-OB builds the machinery to break the slip, and present-OB gives it to Mobius, just as Loki returns to the present.
They learn that to break the time slip, Loki needs to prune himself to separate his body from time, while Mobius shoots the “Temporal Aura Extractor” device at the Temporal Loom, which will suck Loki back into the normal timeline. However, if Mobius stays near the Temporal Loom too long, he will “lose all his skin,” according to OB — so the stakes are pretty high.
While Mobius and Loki are discussing their plan, Loki time slips yet again — but this time, to the future — and without his pruning Time Stick. Mobius suits up, heads to the Temporal Loom, and begins the extraction. However, Loki can’t find a Time Stick to prune himself — and just as time is running out, he hears a phone ringing. He walks toward it — as OB is closing the Temporal Loom doors in the present timeline — and finds Sylvie. OB tells Mobius it’s time to turn around and leave Loki since he’s “lost in time,” but someone prunes Loki and he’s sent hurling through the Temporal Loom.
The episode ends with dozens of Hunters leaving the TVA to search for Sylvie, who they blame for the whole mess. During a mid-credits scene, we see Sylvie entering Oklahoma in 1982 seemingly following her encounter with He Who Remains. She visits a McDonald’s where the employee asks what she would like to try, to which Slyvie responds with a slight smile “I want to try everything.”
