Loki season 2 finale recap: all ‘God’ things must come to an end

Our Verdict

Loki season 2 gives the God of Mischief a grand and suitable send off.

All good things must come to an end, and after six weeks of time-traveling shenanigans, Loki season 2 has drawn to a close. Still, don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened, and there’s a lot to smile about in the Loki season 2 finale, as well as a lot to cry about.

Loki season 2 finale recap summary:

• Loki realizes he cannot save the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s multiverse without killing Sylvie and that this was always He Who Remains’ plan.
• Loki takes a third option and destroys the Temporal Loom. He then becomes the new He Who Remains and weaves the timelines into a world tree.
• The TVA refocuses on protecting the tree, but Mobius decides to leave and see the timeline for himself.

The final chapter in the MCU’s most time-wimey series picks up where Loki season 2 episode 5 left off, with the God of Mischief deliberately time-slipping back to the TVA and attempting to save all of time. Unfortunately, even with Loki’s knowledge of the future, he’s unable to stop the Temporal Loom’s destruction, forcing him to travel even further back.

During a hilarious montage, Loki spends literal centuries learning everything he can about temporal engineering from OB and Victor Timely until he’s eventually successfully able to launch the Multiplier and save the Loom. Or, so we thought, because OB quickly notices some odd readings, and before we know it, the Loom is in danger of collapsing all over again.

According to Timely, the problem is that Loom simply cannot scale to infinity, and the multiverse is growing too quickly to accommodate the multiplying branches. Realizing he has to stop the branching, Loki travels all the way back to the day Sylvie killed He Who Remains and attempts to stop her from killing Kang the Conqueror’s smuggest variant.

We’re then treated to another montage of Loki trying and failing to save He Who Remains from Sylvie, but it’s all for nothing. This was always the plan. He Who Remains tells Loki, during one of their many encounters, that he engineered Loki’s time-slipping powers and that the Loom isn’t broken. In the event of He Who Remains’ death, it was designed to prune all the variant timelines, leaving only the Sacred Timeline behind, destroying the TVA in the process.

That leaves Loki with two options: he can either kill Sylvie and save He Who Remains, which will save the TVA, or let the timeline play out, saving Sylvie but destroying the TVA and the multiverse, allowing another He Who Remains to rise from the ashes. Either way, He Who Remains wins. Caught in an impossible decision, Loki does the only thing he can do: he turns to his best friend, Mobius, for advice.

Traveling back to the day the TVA arrested him, Loki asks Mobius about the burden of glorious purpose. Confused, Mobius explains how working at the TVA is a burden that requires Hunters to make difficult decisions, sacrificing their own desires (and humanity) for the greater good. Realizing what he’s got to do, Loki goes to say goodbye to Sylvie, explaining how she must die to save the rest of creation.

Unsurprisngly, she’s not too pleased with the idea, as this means He Who Remains will continue to rule over all of the time, and demands Loki stand up for free will. Emboldened by her words, Loki decides to take a third option. If the Loom is pruning the variant timelines, he’ll destroy it before it can prune the multiverse.

Loki says his goodbyes to his friends and blows up the Loom, freeing the strands of reality from He Who Remains control. Then, in one of the coolest scenes we’ve ever seen in a Marvel series, he weaves the remaining threads into a new multiversal tree, a play on the Norse legend of Yggdrasil, and takes the throne outside of time as the new He Who Remains, maintaining multiversal order.

It’s a bittersweet ending that traps Loki away from his friends, but it works, and the TVA rededicates itself to preserving the multiversal tree, even rebooting Miss Minutes to serve this new mission. Sadly, Loki’s not the only one to leave the TVA; Mobius also makes the decision to go and see the timeline for himself, leaving the work of hunting Kang’s variants to his friends.

As the episode draws to a close, we see that Ravonna Renslayer has been pruned before she could give Victor Timely the TVA manual, ensuring he’ll never become a Kang variant, and all seems well in the multiverse for now, with Loki seemingly protecting us all.

It’s sad to say goodbye to Loki (unless we get a Loki season 3 announcement soon), but as far as finales go, this was a fun one. I’m never usually a fan of shows that set up a hard decision before presenting a third option, but here, I think it works. Loki is the MCU’s ultimate survivor after all! It’s also great to see Loki finally earn a throne, but not through cruelty or deceit. He earned it by being brave and self-sacrificing, exactly the type of traits the Asgardians value.

Was it perfect? No. I imagine there’ll be more than a few questions about what the hell happened, and it really wasn’t fun seeing more Kang variants die, but if you’re willing to roll with it, this is a pretty satisfying conclusion to Loki’s story. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to mourn the Lokius relationship that never was.

If you love the MCU and want to know what’s next, we’ve got guides to all the upcoming Marvel movies and detailed breakdowns on Marvel’s Phase 5 and Phase 6. We’ve also got a guide breaking down everything you need to know about Deadpool 3.

If that’s not enough, we’ve also prepared an article explaining how to watch all the Marvel movies in order (if you need reminding) and a list of everything new on Disney Plus so you can find something new to watch.