Loki - S02E01 - Ouroboros

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life! So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for The Lorehounds.

[00:00:36] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[00:00:42] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in The Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our Dragonfire Hot, but probably positive, takes.

[00:01:00] The Lorehounds' House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.

[00:01:37] Welcome to the MCU where the Lorehounds are your guides to the multiverse and beyond. I'm David. I'm John. And I'm Alicia. And we're strapped into our time suits, ready to face the temporal loom to rip you out of the timeline before you disappear forever.

[00:01:50] We'll be recapping and breaking down the first episode of season two of Loki, sharing Easter eggs and our current theories about what exactly is going on. And then we're going to hear from some members of the Lorehounds community with more Easter eggs and insights.

[00:02:06] We'd also love to hear your thoughts about Loki as we discuss the rest of the season. Email your feedback to mcu at the lorehounds dot com or head over to our website at the lorehounds dot com and use a contact form or record us a voicemail.

[00:02:20] For ad free versions of this in all of our podcasts, check us out at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds. I'll share more about that as well, with some notes about our programming schedule for the upcoming month at the end of the podcast.

[00:02:35] Also, we'd be forever grateful if you could help us get more ears tuned into the Lorehounds and see universe. All you need to do is drop us a five star rating and review wherever you're listening. Apple podcast is especially helpful, even if it's just a few quick words.

[00:02:54] We read all the reviews and they mean a lot to us.

[00:02:57] And before we get started, just a quick spoiler warning. We'll of course be spoiling all of Loki season one, but spoilers from the rest of the MCU and Marvel comics are also on the table, including the episode at hand, obviously.

[00:03:10] Finally, we want to congratulate the WGA for their strong final deal with the MPTA. We hope to hear more about a similar deal for the SAG AFTRA folks very soon.

[00:03:21] And we're supportive of all the other creative industries that are pulling together for advocating for fair wages and protections for their work. Jean and Alicia, welcome back to the MCU universe. Loki season two is here. We're excited to get going.

[00:03:40] Alicia, you want to tee up a little bit on this episode? We're going to talk a little bit ahead of time. We've got some MCU news and some other stuff, and then we'll get into some hot takes before we get into the episode breakdown.

[00:03:51] But you want to clue us into this episode real quick? Sure. Yeah. So the spoiler free setup is this episode title is Ouroboros. We'll talk in a bit more about what that means and how that applies to this episode specifically.

[00:04:03] It was written by Eric Martin, and he's writing most of the season. Last season, he wrote episode four, The Nexus Event, which is the episode that opened with Sylvie's backstory and ended with Loki being sent to the void.

[00:04:16] Plus, he wrote part of last season's finale for all time, always. This episode is directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. They are also within the MCU directed two episodes of Moon Knight.

[00:04:27] And this season, they're directing all but two episodes, all but episodes two and three specifically of this season. And they're best known before this for their horror movies. Their indie horror movies often have time trippy themes, the Endless and the Associated movies.

[00:04:43] I like this idea that they have... I mean, they're showrunners, right? And they're directing? I don't know. It feels a little bit- Well, they're directing. They're not showrunning. Yeah. Okay. They're not showrunning. Got it. But I like the idea that there's a little bit tighter creative vision.

[00:04:57] I mean, I think we saw in Secret Invasion that... I don't know. When you chop and change too much, it's messy. So, I don't know. I feel good about this idea of who they're bringing in. I don't know these guys, but they sound like this is their jam.

[00:05:10] I don't know. Jean, do you know any of their stuff? I don't, but let's keep the show that shall not be named far away from where we're at right now. Fair enough. Yeah, but they hired such a good showrunner for that too, but then... Initially, yeah.

[00:05:28] So, we're a little later this week in our release schedule for this podcast. So, apologies if you've been waiting for this and we haven't got it out to you just yet.

[00:05:37] We just had real life things going on and getting all three of our schedules to line up is not always easy. So, going forward, we should be hitting regular schedules usually around Monday, hopefully to have the episodes out if we're able to record on the weekends.

[00:05:53] So, speaking of delays, we've got some more news, lots of news in the MCU world. Alicia and Jean, what is going on with our MCU scheduling? Yes, we have The Marvels coming out in November. Okay. I believe we have What If? season two coming out on Christmas. Okay.

[00:06:16] Yeah, they're around. That should be lots of fun. We have Echo coming in January of 24. Wait, so they pushed Echo? Yes. I thought it was going to be at the end of November or something. I thought it was going to binge this year. Unfortunately, no. Okay.

[00:06:36] Alicia, did you have any inside intel about that? Basically, this whole list is full of things that have been pushed for various reasons. Obviously, there's still the backlog from the pandemic, the VFX overload, the more tepid reception to Marvel properties recently,

[00:06:52] and now, of course, the strikes and everything else. I think they're just going to be spacing things out a lot more. We see a lot of things in this list are released specifically beginning of the year or September.

[00:07:05] I don't know if that's going to become a new release pattern for them that they're going for, but everything's been pushed back. Okay. Joan, what else do we got? We left off. Now, we have X-Men 97, hopefully still coming in sometime in early 24. Okay.

[00:07:23] Hawkness, which a lot of us are waiting on, unfortunately has been pushed back to, I guess, what is it now? September 2024. It looks like it's going to be ... We talked about Halloween, the specials, and it looks like they're lining that up to be the Halloween thing.

[00:07:41] Now, we know they did film a special at the same time, so maybe that's going to be released in next year. Right. We have Madame Web, potentially in February of 24.

[00:07:52] I'm going to include Deadpool because this is probably going to play an important part in what comes up in the MCU. Deadpool 3 in May of 24. It's the only thing they moved forward. Yeah, interestingly enough. There's also supposed to be a Captain America, the movie, I believe in June 24.

[00:08:15] We have Daredevil pushed back all the way to 25. Wow. That's the new replacement Daredevil? Yeah. Yeah, that's the new reboot. Wow, 25. Wow, that's a strong push. Also, Ironheart has been pushed back all the way to September 25. Wow. That finished filming in what, 2022 or something? Yeah.

[00:08:41] I say we were hoping for the beginning of this year for that. Right. It fell through. We also got an announcement that Sacha Baron Cohen is actually going to be Mestifo in this universe, which is exciting. Yeah, and that's pretty much where we're at. Okay.

[00:09:01] So basically just spreading things out post-strike. Probably they need to do some marketing and they want to have actors on board for that because that's how you can generate some more stuff. Yeah. Anything in the DC world that we need? I mean, we got Aquaman in December, right?

[00:09:19] I mean, yeah. The last gasp, you know? Because James Gunn has basically said, like, this film doesn't even matter. But here you go. Yeah. It's so weird. It is so weird. I am not thrilled so far with what I've heard from James Gunn.

[00:09:37] I'm excited, but it's just, you know, the last whimper of the old DCU. Yeah. You know, but I'm excited to like, okay, let's reboot this time for real.

[00:09:48] Yeah, they had a prime opportunity to do so in this terrible flash movie that just happened and they didn't for whatever reason. Yeah. So Aquaman is coming, I think Christmas, no? Of this year. Yeah. It'll be a Christmas movie. Sometime in December I saw. Yeah.

[00:10:07] And after that, the Gunnverse starts. Okay. Let's see what happens. Fingers crossed. Yeah, fingers crossed for that.

[00:10:14] Speaking of studio stuff inside baseball things and all that kind of stuff, plug for one of our podcasting colleagues over on another network, the Ringer Network, Joanna Robinson, who you might know from House of R.

[00:10:29] They do a lot of deep dive podcasts, a lot of really great, interesting stuff. She coauthored a book with Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Edwards called MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios.

[00:10:42] So it's an inside look at what's been going on with inside MCU and how the sausage gets made. I think she's doing some press interview stuff these days. I know she's going to be on the Watch podcast, which is also a Ringer title.

[00:10:58] And I believe they're doing some live in-person events. So if you're near one of those, definitely check those out. But are either you guys going to be picking up this book, you think? It looks interesting and it sounds like it's gotten some good reviews and it's well written.

[00:11:13] Yeah. I mean, I'm interested in reading it. The reading list is long, so I don't know how soon it would be. That's what I was about to say. But I am overall interested. Yeah, I think it's relevant for what we're doing here, at least on this podcast.

[00:11:28] And she has fantastic contacts and gets really good information. Yeah, absolutely. And House of R and just the Ringerverse folks, there are a lot of different tastes and styles over there,

[00:11:40] but they certainly do lift the tide for all of us other podcasts that don't have big Spotify money promoting us. Yeah. House of R is definitely my favorite Ringerverse podcast. Cool.

[00:11:52] Okay, well, with all of that stuff out of the way, let's talk about our quick takes for the first episode of season two of Loki. Spoiler free at this stage before we will give you a big warning before we get into the episode breakdown.

[00:12:12] But just a reminder, when we get into the episode breakdown, all bets are off. All MCU stuff is on the table. You know, what have you. Just be prepared. But anyway, Jean, what did you think of episode one, season two?

[00:12:27] Oh, it's so nice to sit down and enjoy an MCU show like I wanted to over the summer. Yeah. Unfortunately, I had to wait until the fall to get it. This was really, I really had fun watching it. It was really enjoyable.

[00:12:49] The characters, you know, I was so happy to see them back on screen. And I'm really excited to see where they take the story. They're doing things that I don't know. So that's really cool. A really cool place to be in. Right. And I'm super excited.

[00:13:08] It left me wanting a whole lot more at the end of the post credit scene. So, yeah, I'm totally on board. Totally on board so far. Cool. Alicia? I said that the MCU needed this to be good. And yes, it is. So far, at least. Fingers crossed.

[00:13:27] One sixth of the way through. I feel the same thrill and excitement and curiosity that I felt at this point in season one. So it was really, it was so good to have the whole gang back together. Especially my favorite ship, Locobius.

[00:13:43] And yeah, OBS already an iconic addition. I love that. Yeah, so we have Mobius. His name's like the Mobius strip that wraps back around so it has like an infinite edge. And then now we have Ouroboros. Yeah, that's a good call. Yeah. Hadn't even thought about that, right?

[00:14:00] Like, duh. Yeah. Now we have Ouroboros, which is that ancient Egyptian Greek symbol of the snake eating its own tail, which is also like a symbol of infinity and time wrapping back around on itself. Okay. So I'm very curious.

[00:14:14] Obviously, this is applicable to the plot, but I'm also curious what that might mean for the character. It's funny because we just wrapped on season two of Wheel of Time.

[00:14:26] And there we're talking about a wheel and reincarnation, which is specifically part of the lore and setup of that world. But you can definitely look at an Ouroboros as well as part of the iconography of that show. Yeah, it's in the books.

[00:14:44] That's what the Isidae ring looks like. There's no stone in it. It's just an Ouroboros ring. Oh, very cool. All right. So I love it when all of our shows are talking to each other, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not. It makes for fun cross connection stuff.

[00:15:00] What did you think, David? Yeah, I was also very happy to see something that I could be very easily entertained by. And it wasn't a lot of work to watch it.

[00:15:15] I've heard some other podcasters and other folks talking about the show and being worried about the techno babble and the timey-wimey stuff. And for me, I would just put all that aside, give my trust to the showrunners to just say, take me on a trip.

[00:15:35] Take me on a journey. Let's see where we go. I'm down for it. Visually, incredible graphics and the whole TVA vibe looks so good. The casting is awesome. Muni Masaku, Hiddleston, Owen Wilson. Everybody's just great. I forget the name of Obi's character, the actor.

[00:16:02] He's just been recently everywhere. Kei Hirikawa. Yes. And it's great to see him so just everywhere for us right now. And he's such a fun, light actor. He brings a lot of energy and just breeziness to his role. So I really enjoyed it.

[00:16:21] So I had a good time. I was entertained. That's what I will say about this show. And it makes me – I'm trying to come to it fresh without bringing all the baggage from other shows or just the whole big genre, big property, IP stuff.

[00:16:40] And I'm just trying to see, okay, what are these showrunners up to? Does it connect to the rest of the MCU, whatnot? I don't care. Entertain me. Give me something I can sink – not even sink my teeth into, something that I can just kick back and enjoy watching.

[00:16:57] And so far season one, that's what I feel I got. I think when you said it's a trip, I think that's a great way for folks to kind of look at this. It's a trip in many different ways. It can be a trip for you. It's a journey.

[00:17:15] And visually, like you said, it's astounding. And you can think of it in that way as a trip as well. So yeah, I think that's a great choice of a phrase that we should just view this as a trip and take it for what it is. Yeah.

[00:17:30] And it feels good to have an MCU show that's landing solid. Nice to feel that from this, just the struggle that we've been having with MCU properties and the inconsistencies that we're getting across shows and stuff. So nobody's got nothing else? Nah, let's go.

[00:17:51] I want to get into it. Yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to talk the details. The meat and the bones. Okay, let's do it.

[00:17:57] Okay, so the premiere picks up seconds after the finale with Loki, Tom Hiddleston, running from his friends, Mobius, Owen Wilson and Hunter B-15, Wunmi Musaku, who don't know who he is and are trying to prune him. This is the past and they haven't met him yet.

[00:18:12] And it's implied that virtually all TVA employees have had their memories wiped between this earlier point on the timeline and the timeline we saw for most of season one. In this past point, we see a statue dominating TVA City.

[00:18:25] It's Kang, not he who remains, but specifically Kang because he has that collar matching the suit we saw him wear in Quantumania. John, what are your thoughts and expectations? Do you think this is the same person as do you think he who remains is Kang or a variant?

[00:18:42] I think it's the variant. I'm hoping it's the variant. Yeah, I think it's exactly that. Hopefully, because I enjoyed that variant that we saw in Quantumania very much. So I'm hoping that it's him because, you know, he's a next level type of villain.

[00:19:02] So yeah, immediately I thought, okay, this is the guy that we've already met. And now we're going to meet him and some sort of new incarnation in this show. Okay.

[00:19:14] Yeah, and I just want to shout out a piece of production design that I noticed was that the entire episode kind of had a grainy retro like tan filter look to it.

[00:19:24] But then anytime they're out in the hallway, it just grows brighter and brighter anytime they're exposed to like the quote unquote outside area as which I realized was because the timelines are casting all this bright energy throughout the rest of the TVA.

[00:19:38] Do you think that's specifically a visual language that they're creating for the show to sort of clue us into other shows have done this foundation did it with a kind of wobbly edge? I think Westworld did it with an aspect ratio change.

[00:19:53] I'm sure there's other examples, but is that what you're thinking? No, but we saw it. We saw it happening at all points on the timeline at the same time as Loki was slipping forward and back. Right.

[00:20:05] So I think it's another, it's another proof, which we'll talk about as the episode goes on that, you know, there's some questions about how does time work in the TVA? And I think that this is a clue. Got it.

[00:20:17] I thought it was interesting on a side note and something that we kind of have to not avoid, but also not go deep into, which is the Jonathan Majors question. Right. And we talked about this a bit on the last podcast.

[00:20:31] I thought it was doubly interesting when the little mail delivery truck hits the cheek of the statue. Right. And the statue starts to crumble. So that's partly he who remains, you know, Kang stuff.

[00:20:46] But it also struck me in the real world as, ooh, you know, here we have an iconic figure literally, you know, crumbling before us. And we don't know, there's a lot of details that are unknown.

[00:20:59] This is kept, I haven't heard any news about what is going on with charges or accusations or who or what. It's all very quiet and I don't know. Yeah, it got very quiet. Very.

[00:21:09] And I don't know what that means because usually we have information in innuendo and conversation about it and bits and pieces of news. I haven't, I've heard nothing.

[00:21:20] But anyway, it just struck me both simultaneously as the big bad in the show and then the real actor person actually crumbling a little bit, you know, with, you know, posted following an impact of something, it starts to fall apart. Right. Yeah.

[00:21:39] That's why I think I chose the word incarnation of Kang because it could mean I used it for that reason as well. Right. Because we don't know what the future is for the actor who plays him. Right. So do they change that within this show?

[00:21:56] Do they give us a hint that something is going to be different going forward? Because I've heard no news about breaking away from using Kang as a major piece in the upcoming MC universe. Although that could be why they're stretching out release dates of things.

[00:22:14] It could be, it could be. So we'll see. But put our best foot forward and see what they do.

[00:22:21] Yeah, I mean, yeah, I have very mixed feelings watching him because, you know, I've always thought that he's just so talented and just like eats up the screen when he's on it. And now I can't take out of my head the various things that I've heard people say.

[00:22:36] So I guess it's good that he's at least playing a villain I'm supposed to have complicated feelings about. I guess. Right? Like, well. Well, all right.

[00:22:47] So back in the TVA in the past, we see Casey played by Eugene Cordero, who last season didn't know what a fish was, but knew he didn't want to be turned into one.

[00:22:59] He's polishing the floor of the control room and he's listening to a calming meditation, which I hope helps him when he witnesses the accidental death of the escape truck driver that Loki jumped into.

[00:23:12] And an overhead monitor ball slams into the freshly polished floor, forming a new crack that didn't exist on our present timeline when we saw this room previously.

[00:23:21] So does that mean the present day season two plotline is on a branch timeline from season one or that a single timeline can be changed? Don't yet know, but we get another hint later. What do you think, David? Is your head hurting yet?

[00:23:33] I think this is where I fell into the back of this delivery truck and I'm on a ride. I'm not going to try. I'm going to approach, I've heard various explanations for this. Some people use hard and soft.

[00:23:47] Other people talk about easy, hard kind of quality of the show. They're going pretty hard here. Yeah. I'm taking this show as soft. I'm going to just enjoy the entertainment value and go for the ride.

[00:24:00] Even though I don't know how many videos are flooding my YouTube stream of the Easter egg breakdowns and what does all this stuff mean? And did you notice in the blah, blah, blah. I'm like, cool. You know, they put a crack on the floor.

[00:24:13] That's probably going to tell me something about to remind me which timeline I'm supposed to be in and all that kind of stuff. You know, but it changed. It changed for the whole timeline. So that's sad.

[00:24:23] And it was just fun to see Casey again and just to get, it was a good setup. It felt like it was efficient storytelling.

[00:24:32] They packed a bunch of stuff in and they set some stakes and got energy into the characters and into the story so that we're really starting to build some momentum here. And I love the fact that we didn't start somewhere else.

[00:24:46] We basically picked up from the end of season one almost instantly, right? No meandering. Yeah. Boom. Straight to the story. Yeah. You know, just straight to the story. And that was great. But to your question, I think it's a branch timeline. Okay. I think it's a different timeline.

[00:25:03] Okay. I have a reason that will come up later why I think they're telling us it's not. But yeah, we'll get to that when we get to Ouroboros. Okay. Well, this is really the fun of the show of the season, right?

[00:25:15] Is playing with these, you know, what is this, this or is this that, you know? Right. Right. And it's all cool, right? A fun little puzzle for us to be entertained by. Yeah. No, I'm very interested in quantum mechanics and like just quantum theory, especially as

[00:25:32] it relates to the multiverse and, you know, the trying to think of the real science behind time travel. So this theory is like brain candy for me. This whole series. Nice. Awesome. Yeah. Okay.

[00:25:46] So in the last KC calls the cops on Loki, we see the first instance of Loki time slipping this time back to the present day for season two where non-NARC KC does recognize Loki

[00:25:57] and tells him that Mobius and B15 are probably in Chrono Bay three before Loki time slips away again. Jean, does this time slipping effect look like the glitches from Into the Spider-Verse to you or different? A little bit because Into the Spider-Verse, the glitches were all encompassing.

[00:26:15] Whereas here it's just focused on this individual, right? There's no other visual aspects going on. There's nothing breaking down. It's just him breaking down and it looks so very painful. Oh my God. Yes. Mobius' reaction. Yeah. Would be my reaction, right?

[00:26:37] Was my reaction because it looks so bad. But I guess if you're being pulled through time physically, that has to be, it can't be something smooth and ice cream. It has to be something that is rather hard on you physically to go through.

[00:26:59] So just the way his body twists and turns inside out almost, it's really jarring in a way that doesn't come through in the animation. Weird comp. I watched The Thing the other day, the John Carpenter, Kurt Russell movie.

[00:27:17] So one of our affiliate podcasts, Properly Howard Movie Reviews just did The Thing. They're doing a whole series of remakes. Anyway, they had The Thing as their last movie that they just reviewed. And I thought, oh, well it's spooktober and I've got all kinds of spooky Halloween

[00:27:34] themed movies that I'm trying to catch up on this month. And I was like, oh, what the hell? Let me throw in The Thing. And I won't get into too many details of it, but the monster in The Thing, there are

[00:27:45] times where the way that Loki looks being sort of stretched like taffy is exactly what parts of the monster look like in The Thing. And so I was like, really like, whoa, this is weird visually.

[00:27:59] And it seems like the first time we see Loki doing it, they do it very quickly. It's a very quick effect. But later on, they extended out a little bit more and they show us a little bit more of it happening. Like it's getting worse. It's getting worse.

[00:28:14] And it's also just a nice way to wet our appetites a little bit, you know, and not completely blow us away, but they're building something as opposed to shock hitting us with Force 11 right out of the gate.

[00:28:28] They just turn the knob up to three or four and then each time they turn the knob a little bit more. And that's, I think, just better storytelling too. It is remind you of the Spider-Verse, Alicia.

[00:28:37] I mean, yeah, but there's a key difference in that there in the Spider-Verse, it's, you know, jumping between different universes. But then in Loki, it's like jumping forward and backward in time.

[00:28:50] Now, this is where I could go off the deep end and tell you that my personal theory is, you know how time is considered the fourth dimension, like, you know, we have the three space dimensions and time is considered like a fourth dimension that we move through, even

[00:29:03] though we only move in one direction. But theoretically, what if we could move both like Loki does? And then I would imagine, you know, the space between the different universes being like another dimension, like a fifth or sixth dimension, so to speak, that you move through that.

[00:29:21] So it would be similar, but then only moving through the fourth dimension instead of a higher one. Anyone who follows, tell me what you think. That's what you come to the Lore Hounds for is for deep dives into time-space mechanics.

[00:29:34] But yeah, I just, I think there's a few visual similarities they've given us recently between the Sony Spider-Verse side and the MCU side that signify they're going to be stitching the mechanics of these two universes together. Of these two multiverses. Fingers crossed. The same multiverse. Yeah. Cool.

[00:29:54] Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Okay. So I think that's the end of the cold opening to this season. Yeah. Shall we take a break before we get into the full episode? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. So stick around. We'll be right back. Okay. And we are back.

[00:30:29] Alicia, you want to pick us up and bring us into the present day? Question mark? Question mark? Okay. So we got our Loki ticking opening, and then we get a worried Mobius in B-15 looking on as the timelines branch out of control on the monitor.

[00:30:46] B-15 wants to tell people the truths that they've learned about the TBA, that all the agents are really variants, but Mobius thinks telling people everything you've ever been doing is wrong and all your gods are dead won't go over well. David, does he have a point?

[00:31:02] I think so. You know, at the one level of this being a timey-wimey chasing the MacGuffin through time kind of show, there's also a really interesting component here, which is when you have institutions or centers of power, those things will want to hold on to their

[00:31:23] power or their authority or their control because that's what they've been set up to do. And it takes a very specific effort to dissolve yourself of that. I think there's even a thing in like the foundation world these days where certain

[00:31:38] foundations set up from the beginning, we will close after this period of time. There's one big one that I know of that closed recently, very big pot of money. They ran for a good 20 years or something like that, but they had a specific thing.

[00:31:54] The guy was like, I want to bounce my last check when we go out. And it took a huge effort by all the people in the organization to keep that mission of saying we're going to close because yeah, good job, nice offices, good salaries.

[00:32:08] People want to keep that rolling. They don't want to let go of the work that they're doing. And so I think it's a very natural human tendency to if you've established or created a space for something.

[00:32:20] So just going through the TVA, the TVA is massive when we look outside and we just see the horizon going off. That is an earth shattering thing. Earth shattering. A consciousness shattering thing to suddenly say, yeah, it's all wrong.

[00:32:38] Which has nothing to say whether B-15 is right or not. She's making a valid point, but then how do you manage that? I don't know. What do you think, Shell? Who's the subject? Oh yeah, totally on B-15 side here. Yeah, tell the people the truth.

[00:32:56] The bureaucracy of the TVA, man. Down with the bureaucracy. Down with all of the lies and the half-truths and the non-truths and having people believe one thing and they're in service of this one particular thing when they're in service of something else totally different.

[00:33:17] Do away with all that crap. You know what I'm saying? I'm firmly on the side of B-15. People need to know that they're very different. Sure. They had different lives and those lives were lost on the whim of a person who is evil, basically.

[00:33:39] So you got to deal with the reality that you've been following somebody who has the utmost regard for himself only and has done terrible things in that end, and you have been part of that. Unknowingly, but you have to deal with it.

[00:33:59] You have to come to some sort of ... What's the word I'm looking for? You just have to understand that, hey, what I've been told is a bunch of lies. Yeah. And I've acted and done some really bad things because of those lies.

[00:34:17] But you do have to also prepare for the reactions. There's going to be panic at the bottom and people clenching further control at the top, tighter control at the top. Oh yeah. Definitely.

[00:34:30] But that's the thing is like you can use the argument that we mustn't panic the people. That's a very slippery slope. Very slippery slope. Right. Very slippery slope. So I'm all for the panic. I'm all for the panic.

[00:34:45] The rights will die down and then we can move forward. I think if more people panic at the right times for the right things, and this to me is the right time and the right thing to be panicked over, then yeah, we should all get panicked.

[00:35:02] I think Alicia, you're going to need to bring in Jean from Time to Time on the Worship Dust podcast when season two of the show comes back because that's a show ultimately about truth and society's integrity at the same time of yo, you can't be lying to people.

[00:35:23] Jean, Stephanie, Team Juliette. It's like tell the people the truth. Absolutely. Season two shift. Sorry, season two will, spoiler, but yeah. Well, yeah, I'm firmly on Juliette's side here. Nice. So yeah, that's where I'm at with it. Let's go be 15. Tell the people what they need to hear.

[00:35:43] Are you down with having Winnie be that voice? Is that a... I mean, black women have led protest movements since protest movements have been around. Right. At least in our Western culture. So yeah, definitely.

[00:35:58] I feel in the sense of this show, it makes sense because she's an agent. And she's done... She got the wool pulled from her eyes. Yeah. Exactly. And she's done terrible things and she's coming to realize that. Right. And trying to then go, right, we got a...

[00:36:21] What do we need to do to stop the harm and to move forward? And move forward. Will not harming doing more harm. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And this is coming from someone... It's not coming from a low level pencil pusher. It's coming from someone who's pruning people. Right.

[00:36:40] It's not Casey. She's out there with the stick. Yeah. Directing troops. Yeah. She's done horrible things. And coming from her, it has real weight to it because of the role that she's played in the TVA. Right. She can tell the other hunters I really am one of you.

[00:37:00] I understand what you're going through. Exactly. Yeah. Between power surges, Casey tells Mobius and B-15 about the time slipping that Loki's doing. And Loki's about to show back up to give Casey another heart stopping demonstration. But worth noting, Mobius' device to contact Miss Minutes isn't working right now.

[00:37:19] So we don't see her all episode. And I have questions obviously. But we do meet a new character for this season, Hunter X5 played by Rafael Casal.

[00:37:30] And we know that he's also going to be playing the actor Brad Wolf, who AKA the Zaniac, who we saw in the trailers. So first introduction, he's making fun of Mobius' Jet Ski magazine. And I already hate him. What do you guys think?

[00:37:44] What do you think of X5? X5 is the problem, right? X5 is the problem. The guy is, when I think of the problem with the TVA, it's X5. Right. This guy has got to go. Like that was my first instinct.

[00:38:05] I was like, yo, I think I'll get rid of this guy. Somebody get the stick. You know, I'm not in favor of pruning, but we kind of got to get rid of this guy. Yeah. Does he have X5 on his gloves?

[00:38:20] I never noticed glove markings on any other of the Hunters or anything like that. Yeah, no, he has that. And then also he does this pose where he like grabs his chest plate.

[00:38:31] And when he does that, you can see that there's a scar going across his arms and his chest plate to the other arm. So it was like he was posing like that and something slashed him. And I hope we get to see that. Right.

[00:38:43] Yeah, that's an interesting Easter egg. I didn't notice that he had that slash across him like that. But he's come down to deliver a message from the new judges counselor, which has convened to replace the missing Renslayer, Gugun Bathura, who we didn't get to see this episode.

[00:38:58] We hear her voice briefly later. And so the new counsel is General Docs Katie Dickinson. Oh, sorry. Katie Dickey, aka Lisa Aaron or Liza Aaron of Game of Thrones and Judge Gamble played by Liz Carr, who we last saw in the Angels Council on Good Omens Season 2.

[00:39:17] And there's also a third unnamed man who's like sleeping or vegetative or I don't know what do you guys think is going on with Judge Number Three. There's a story for Judge Number Three, I'm sure.

[00:39:31] But Judge Number Three is so reminiscent of the bureaucracies that exist in our world. They're convening a council to try to get to the bottom of what's going on, to try to move forward, to try to, you know, get everybody on the same page.

[00:39:51] And the guy is just sleeping. He's just knocked out. If that doesn't speak to, you know, how people view, you know, our systems, then I don't know what can. Because that was a great little twist for me.

[00:40:07] And do you still think it's possible that Katie Dickey, she's playing General Docs, but is it possible she's an older Sylvie variant? I don't know. I don't know. She seems awfully obsessed with her. I don't know if that means anything.

[00:40:20] I know, but it just, I thought originally when I read the question, I'm just like, I thought that she was obsessed because she's been chasing Sylvie for so long as most of the TVA has, right? Like she's been the one person that they couldn't get.

[00:40:40] So maybe there's an obsession with catching Sylvie, as we see later on in the episode when I guess we'll get to it. But yeah, it seems like there's an obsession with catching Sylvie.

[00:40:54] I don't know if they're the same person or if it's just like, OK, this is the one that got away and I can't let her get away with getting away. Right. And David, what do you think her relationship is with X5?

[00:41:08] They seem close in the way that her character, Lisa Aaron of Game of Thrones was with Robin. And also you also watch Only Murders, right? Oh. In the most recent season. There was another father-son relationship. Oh, I didn't even see that. I don't know. Are they mother-son?

[00:41:28] What's going on with her and X5? That's definitely the vibe that I picked up without, you know, thinking too closely about it and just picking the vibe and seeing their interactions over the course. It felt very much like that.

[00:41:42] So I'm kind of just taking it at face value. It was creepy. It added great creep factor for the general and for X5. Oh, these people. Not only is X5 kind of a blowhard, but he's got political connections higher up. Right.

[00:42:01] And so he can flex a little bit more than he might not otherwise. And then having the general be kind of creepy that way as well. It's a great setup and I'm interested to see where they take it.

[00:42:16] I mean, this doesn't strike me as a world where there are many families because people are just kind of tuned as adults and made TVA agents their whole life. Maybe they're found family? Yeah. Yeah. I loved B-15's reaction to that. Yeah, she was just like disgusted.

[00:42:35] I don't blame her. I just want to point out when Loki goes over to the reel-to-reel tape and they've got the screen and everything and just all of the set decoration stuff so far, it's just gorgeous. Kaspar Farahani is the head production designer.

[00:42:56] Well, props to them and props to their teams because whoever's doing set deck and props and property procurement is killing it with this stuff. That reel-to-reel looked pristine and I'm not an audiophile in that degree, but I wanted that.

[00:43:13] I just wanted that on my wall because it's so beautiful looking. Yeah, I kind of would love to live in TVA decor. In TVA land? Oh my God. Just in terms of decor. Right.

[00:43:28] I don't know Liz Carr as an actress and I guess she's a comedian as well. And so she's playing one of the judges here? Yeah, we last saw her.

[00:43:38] It was funny because she was on Good Omens season two and she played a very similar role where she was on the panel of angels that time. Okay. And yeah, she's an actress who's fairly prolific. I think I heard Jessica Clemons in her recap of the Loki episode.

[00:43:54] I think she said that she was also in the most recent season of The Witcher maybe? I haven't watched it yet so I'm not sure. But yeah, she's a prolific actress. She's a disability advocate wheelchair user herself.

[00:44:06] It's nice to see that she's just popping up in more and more things. She brings a fun gravitas to this sort of role. Yeah, for sure. Cool. I'm curious to see what comes of it more.

[00:44:20] She seems to be more on our hero's side than, you know, I have my eye on General Docs but Judge Gamble seems to maybe be an ally? Maybe.

[00:44:32] Another ally is we get a chagrined Hunter D90 played by Neil Elise and he apologizes to Mobius for pruning him last season. And Mobius says he only blames Renslayer before Mobius and B-15 enter the war room to talk to the Judges Council.

[00:44:48] Where they're listening to a recording of Loki from last season preaching the truth at the TVA. And this recording also reminds us that Sylvie has the ability to unlock past memories with her enchantment skills. So I expect that to come up again this season.

[00:45:02] The Judges Council though, they're not happy with our hero's crew of shenanigans. And they're not really interested in their explanations. The robot head of one they once thought was one of the timekeepers is on the table and they're in total damage control mode.

[00:45:19] Meanwhile, a temporally unstable Loki eventually makes it to the war room looking for his friends. He's just on the wrong timeline again. And he discovers that wall you mentioned. Well, first he discovers the wall with the five golden faces of Kang.

[00:45:34] And then the wall you mentioned with the recording. This time of Kang promising Renslayer to be the queen of his world. Now we don't quite know if that happened in the past or the future or both. Is this the wheel of time?

[00:45:47] But just as on the present timeline, our friend Judge Gamble has seen the light and orders the end to pruning on the current timeline. Loki time slips back into the room with them to reveal the Kang faces behind the modern timekeeper mural on the wall.

[00:46:03] And General Cox seems to blame everything on Sylvie. And yeah, indeed, as Sean alluded to, we later see her leading an army to go looking for her. So, yeah. What do you think Dox's deal is, Sean? Yeah, I just think she's really obsessed with Sylvie.

[00:46:21] You know, this is. And to your question again as to whether they're one in the same, I just don't right now can't see it. I can't see that connection because they are in damage control. Right. And we know Sylvie can unlock past memories.

[00:46:39] And we know that General Dox probably doesn't want that to happen. Right. For the broader TVA, for all the folks who have, you know, who are variants.

[00:46:53] So she doesn't want that, that the knowledge of these past memories to come to the people that are effectively running the TVA. So she seems to be very much the person who wants everything to remain as close to as close as possible to what it is right now.

[00:47:14] She doesn't want any deviation from what the plan is. We prune people, we keep the safety timeline. That's our job. That's what we're going to do and nothing else matters. That's the vibe that I get from from General Dox. Yeah. Yeah. Very much.

[00:47:31] Somebody who can't see beyond their uniform outside of their mission to think critically at the bigger picture of things. Except when it comes to Sylvie, which there is a definite obsession with Sylvie, with General Dox. The reasons are not clear to me yet.

[00:47:48] Right. No. And something with her son too. Maybe Sylvie gave him that scar. Maybe. Maybe. I should stop calling him her son. We don't know. Maybe it's a boyfriend. Could be.

[00:48:01] But I also have to give credit to the composer Natalie Holt for the tension she creates during the sequences with the soundtrack. Yeah. Really great. It's a really standout soundtrack. Really, really good soundtrack here. And then, yeah, the next step we finally we're getting into Ouroboros territory.

[00:48:18] We get first Loki catches up Mobius on everything that happened in the season one finale after Loki, sorry, after Mobius had already snapped back to the present.

[00:48:26] And we see that in the current TVA there are actually murals on the TVA walls explaining about the whole War of Kang's thing, which I guess Mobius and everyone else just thought was like weird corporate art. He's like, oh, look at that.

[00:48:42] And interestingly, someone is walking by in the background where they're having this conversation and we hear them come to like a squeaky stop when Loki kind of half shouts like he wiped your memories. And that person definitely like did a double take looking at them.

[00:48:55] A double take. Yeah. Yeah. So we don't know. Friend, foe, innocent bystander with a possible penchant for gossip. What do you think? It would be so dope if it was some gossipy co-worker. Right. And then just uncontrolled rumors spreading.

[00:49:11] Yeah, that would be so that would be so awesome. But let's wait to see. I don't know. But I want it to be like a gossipy co-worker. Yeah. The mural thing. I mean, how many walk around your average city that's been around any particular length of time?

[00:49:29] There's statues and plaques and all kinds of stuff that we just are completely oblivious to. How did it get there? What does it mean? You know, who are these people?

[00:49:38] Absolutely. Yeah. But we finally get Mobius finally gets a chance to see Loki time slip, which he says looks terrible. And he wants to call Miss Minutes, but Loki says they can't trust her.

[00:49:50] So Mobius suggests they visit repairs and advancement after and after they traumatize a poor young woman in an elevator.

[00:49:57] We finally get to meet the new star of the season, Kei Hikawa as Ouroboros, a.k.a. Obi, a nickname given to him by Mobius for now, though Obi's memories seem more intact than his.

[00:50:11] Obi's been down here all by himself for centuries, playing the god of fixing things with a schedule as relentless as his optimism. What do you guys think about our new Obi? Oh, he's great.

[00:50:21] Yeah. He's a breath of fresh air. It's really great to have somebody new in the story. One of the things that I like to about the Loki story is that they've hived off their own little world within the MCU. So they've got inspiration and they have connectivity.

[00:50:42] But within this, they've got a lot of latitude to play. And so to bring in a character like Obi that doesn't break or affect a lot of stuff, it's just, I think, a lot of fun to see him play with some new...

[00:50:59] Yeah. And why do you think he remembers more, Jean? Do you think he's another variant or something else? I think he might be something else. You think he's supernatural in some way?

[00:51:09] Yeah, I think he might be something else. He's just too adept at everything going on around him in ways that we've seen no one other than he who remains. And Miss Minutes. And Miss Minutes be... That aware of the systems and structures.

[00:51:28] Yeah. Yeah. So I'm thinking he's something else. Do Mobius and V15 and the rest, do they sleep? Because apparently Obi doesn't.

[00:51:39] He doesn't sleep. He doesn't sleep. He remembers how many hundreds of years he's been waiting for Mobius to come back and visit him. So yeah, there's a mystery surrounding our friend Obi.

[00:51:53] Do you picture him with like a little calendar where he's ticking off the days since Mobius' last visit? I hope he's as benign as that. I hope he's as benign as...

[00:52:03] He certainly, I mean later on we'll get into it, but he certainly does have a very deep understanding of the mechanics of the TVA. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he wrote the handbook himself. Right. The mechanics of time.

[00:52:15] Yeah. And he knows a lot about the loom and all this kind of stuff.

[00:52:20] Yeah. And I have to give out another shout out to production designer Kasra Farhani because this was like peak. I can't imagine how much fun it must've been decorating that set that he was in.

[00:52:34] And there's very, I don't know where the scrim, whatever they call them, the backdrops end, where there's CGI and where the practical is. So that's great. Right? There's no, it's seamless. Right.

[00:52:50] But I would assume at least his desk, that entire wraparound desk is all practical props. Everything from the gumball maker to the old computers. I even think I saw a popcorn machine there that we had as kids, you know, that blew hot air onto things.

[00:53:06] And him being lowered from the ceiling. All of it is just extraordinary. They had a lot of fun shopping for the show.

[00:53:14] Well, Loki and Mobius have come to talk to him about time slipping, which he's at first incredulous about, but then Loki time slips right in the middle of their conversation. And he meets past Obi. And now Loki is the one who gave Obi his nickname, not Mobius.

[00:53:30] So, yeah, little note to the Foundation writers room. This is what quantum entanglement looks like.

[00:53:52] So as one thing, because time is being treated as like a spatial dimension, almost. It's the same type of quantum entanglement where these two different versions of Obi, the past and the present, they are linked together so that something that affects one immediately affects the other as well.

[00:54:11] I liked the way that they explained this mechanic and they didn't have to get into a lot of exposition, but they showed us really effectively with the world as we're understanding it now. And then they, and just the way that Obi was able to go, oh yeah, by the way, I do have this doodad gizmo.

[00:54:34] His delivery, so good.

[00:54:36] It was perfect. It was really, really well done when you can have a show, you know, a timey wimey show, it gets tricky. How do you explain and get the audience involved and enrolled and understanding enough? And I just felt like that was a really nice set of choices that they made for this. So kudos.

[00:54:56] And Obi tells Mobius that to fix Loki's time slipping, they need the timey wimey wobbly thing, the temporal oral extractor. And luckily past Obi is busy building one. So it's standing by when Loki slips back forward to the present. And now Mobius needs to get Loki to the temporal loom and launch the extractor into the time stream so that the extractor can pull Loki out of the time stream.

[00:55:21] But he shouldn't take too long about it or the intense aging powers of the temporal energy will peel Mobius like a grape. Sean, would you risk being peeled like a grape to save David from time slipping into oblivion? Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, John.

[00:55:41] And David, would you be able to violently rip yourself from every thread of time and space with the self pruning with the hope that the extractor will pull you back to the present hole? Maybe?

[00:55:51] Look, if John's willing to go in the thing, I'm going to do what I need to do to respect that choice.

[00:56:01] I love that Obi also says, have you heard about how if you fall into a black hole, you'll turn into spaghetti? And like, okay, good. No, better not. But I have to think somewhere Reed Richards is thinking too soon. Fantastic four.

[00:56:16] I loved Multiverse of Madness and I will always have the image of Reed Richards as blue spaghetti in my head. Terrible. Just terrible. So now operation extraction is a go. Obi looks scared for the first time when he hears that there have been power surges throughout the TVA.

[00:56:34] The branching timelines are overwhelming the temporal loom, the machine that refines raw time into physical timelines. And Obi's the only one here who's read the TVI guidebook. In fact, he wrote it himself.

[00:56:46] So he's a de facto leader, though he's never had to come down here before because Miss Minutes took care of everything. So Miss Minutes loomed over this episode despite not appearing. Do we have any more ideas on who or what she is and how she's related to Obi?

[00:57:02] Isn't there a Renslayer theory slinging around the internet that Miss Minutes and Renslayer are somehow... One in the same? Yeah, or reprogrammed. One was reprogrammed into the other or something like that. Hmm. Okay. I think...

[00:57:19] I mean, I'm taking spaghetti from the internet here and I have no idea where I got that information. It's just in my head. I'm remembering from a past life.

[00:57:29] So the thing is to me, there has to be some sort of constants within the TVA that Kang has set up, right? Besides himself. Because he's off being Kang. And Kang is a person who's moving throughout time constantly, right?

[00:57:47] So he had to have set up some sort of constants within this. And I think Miss Minutes and Obi are those constants. What they represent to him is what needs to be fleshed out a little bit more. But those two entities seem to be what keeps everything humming.

[00:58:09] It's not the pruners. It's not the agents. It's not the KC's of the world. It's not Mobius. It's Miss Minutes and Obi. I think those are the constants that keep everything humming the way that Kang intends it to hum. Which is why he says... Right.

[00:58:30] It's almost as if he, Obi, has gaps in his memory. Right? That's not allowing him to fully access everything that he can be. If that makes sense. I was pretty surprised that Obi knew as much and had solutions for and was able to build the thing.

[00:58:54] Just all of it. He seemed more competent for a guy who earlier says he doesn't know a lot or he hasn't been down here or whatever. Right. He fit very neatly into what they needed to do and understood exactly what, how, when, why, the little clock.

[00:59:15] All of it was all very convenient for Obi to have all that information and all that skill and that ability to construct the solution for them. Right. And it's like, he needs a nudge to remember himself.

[00:59:34] He remembered that I can actually, I know what I'm doing here. I know I can do this. I know how to do this. I know how to do that.

[00:59:41] I know the inner workings of this. It's like he just needs a nudge to get him to remember himself almost. I just think Ms. Minutes and Obi are the two constants that keep the TVA running as intended.

[00:59:59] Well, what if instead of one He Who Remains, you had hundreds of He Who Remainses? Well, that's again, why do you need a constant? That's interesting because you have King running around throughout time fighting his multiversal wars, trying to obtain absolute power over time and space.

[01:00:24] Can he really be counted on as the day-to-day manager of the TVA? Right. Is that something that even he wants to do? Like, I created this, now I have to stay here and make sure it goes according to plan. Does he even want to do that?

[01:00:41] Right. So you think Ms. Minutes is maybe a quasi-AI type individual who is there to just keep the clock ticking? I don't know what exactly they are, but I just feel like their purpose is to make sure that everything is running. Okay. Okay.

[01:01:05] Cool. All right. You got some internet points down there now. So we'll see if you win some cereal at the end of this. I guess on cereal, I like Frosted Flakes. That's right.

[01:01:14] All right. Well, Operation Extract Loki, Don't Peel Mobius goes into effect. And yeah, B-15 tells OB that no, they can't prune the excess branches because genocide.

[01:01:31] So OB says, well, then they have to close the blast doors to protect the TVA until he can figure out how to fix the time loom so that it can handle all the new branching timelines.

[01:01:41] So only problem is Loki has to be time fixed before the doors close or they'll never be able to do it. So they have an hour to get both done and actually no wait, a flying object hits the window, make that five minutes.

[01:01:54] But Loki time slips at the worst moment. And while Mobius faces the ravages of time in the most awkward time suit ever in the present, some duct tape doing the heavy lifting of keeping his face intact.

[01:02:06] Loki is jumping back to an unknown time where the TVA is also in a panic evacuating everyone due to a TVA code 1124.

[01:02:15] So I'm going to be looking out for 1124. Loki's panicking too. He's looking for a pruning stick before the light on the device in his hand turns green so that he's not lost to time forever.

[01:02:25] And just as Loki fears all is lost, a phone rings and he walks toward it. He sees Sylvie, Sofia De Martino, prying open elevator doors. And she says, there you are to him. Happy to see him.

[01:02:37] Just then someone, it looks like a man in a suit prunes him from behind just in the nick of time.

[01:02:44] And Loki comes flying back to the present, jetting out of the time loom, sweeping Mobius in his terrible time suit with him back into the TVA just before the blast doors close.

[01:02:54] Our heroes are safe for now. Who do you guys think pruned Loki? And do you think that that was the past or the future? I have no idea. I'm completely in the dark about it.

[01:03:07] I don't know. And it is so weird for me to say that I don't know. I don't know. I don't know who it was. Um, yeah.

[01:03:21] I have two guesses. I think, I think it could be Mobius because he said that he was going to do it for Loki. Or maybe I'm thinking even more locally, even more likely it was Loki himself because Sylvie was obviously looking for Loki.

[01:03:37] So it seems like Loki was probably there with her because she's like, oh, there you are. Like they just separated. Interesting. I like that theory. I like that theory that it's Loki who prunes himself.

[01:03:48] Yeah. And then also the question is who was calling on the phone and was that on purpose to draw Loki toward it? Yeah, I'm on for the ride. I'm not trying to figure this one out. We're tripping over here. We are definitely tripping.

[01:04:04] I think it's, it'll be a good measure for the show too, for MCU fans and non-fans alike that if this show is quote unquote a success, all of this, by the end of it, you will have felt the inevitability of all of these setups.

[01:04:25] And that I think is a good sensibility if hardcore MCU fans are like, yeah, it made sense. And then non-fans are like either no, I completely was confused by it or no, yeah, I got it.

[01:04:41] That's a nice indication of how good the writers did in putting this together.

[01:04:46] Yeah, I look forward to that coming back together. And yeah, we also, we talked about general docs is calling on the full force of the TVA on the hunt for Sylvie and we see, it seems like sides are forming.

[01:04:58] So we've got B15 and now we've got pruner turned ally D90 and they're like super suspicious of what docs is up to, but we, the audience get.

[01:05:07] I was just going to say that it seems natural for, for a, you know, an organization that suddenly had its core mission turned upside down, that people are going to try to make sense of it and they're going to take sides. That, that seems very normal reaction.

[01:05:23] Right. Yeah. We, the audience though, we get to find out immediately where Sylvie is because we get a mid credit scene. Woo hoo. Right. Take that secret invasion. First episode already delivering. Can we jump back really quick to the, the time loom space? Yeah, sure.

[01:05:40] Kudos to again, production for being able to create such a complex visual, visually complex space with practical and CGI effects seamlessly connected to each other.

[01:05:56] When Mobius is standing on the walkway and the time wind is blowing him and his suit is ripping apart. That was just great because there's both practical and CGI there that looked really, really good.

[01:06:10] So just, it was such a joy to watch the show and for them to pull off all of this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they nailed it. And yeah, I'm really excited to see now we're going to start time traveling outside the TVA more. Right.

[01:06:25] And that's also always so much fun the way they recreate these different periods. The first one is the year I was born, 1982. And we find Sylvie in a McDonald's, which we obviously knew it was coming from the teasers.

[01:06:39] And it's interestingly, it's in Broxton, Oklahoma, which is the location of new Asgard in the comics. Oh, interesting.

[01:06:47] Yeah. So what did you, what did you guys think of Sylvie? She's ready to like gorge on everything McDonald's has to offer. What are you hoping to see from her in this timeline, Joe?

[01:06:58] I hope she enjoys a few Big Macs before she realizes they're not for her. Like most of us have done.

[01:07:06] You got a couple of happy meals and, you know, I say, yeah, I've had it. And yeah, no thanks. But yeah, I'm interested in the Broxton, Oklahoma thing because like you said, it is a part of Thor's, you know, recent comic run.

[01:07:22] So when in the Ragnarok and in the comic books, Asgard has fallen. They need a place to stay. And Asgard goes to Broxton, Oklahoma of all places in the world. So you have. I see yours better often than normally.

[01:07:40] Yeah, exactly. So it'll be interesting because I'm not expecting to see any Asgardians, you know, roaming around Broxton, Oklahoma in 1982. But it was a cool shout out to that series of comic books that dropped maybe like 20 years ago.

[01:07:57] I'm hoping to see Sylvie find some semblance of happiness for a moment, if only for a moment. You know what I mean? She seems to have had a very difficult time of it, to say the least.

[01:08:11] And if she can find some sort of normalcy, some sort of, you know, pause where she doesn't have to think about running for her life every 60 seconds. I think it'll be really cool for her to have that moment before she gets thrown back into the business of the TVA and pruning and all of that stuff.

[01:08:34] So hopefully she gets to enjoy a little bit of a respite in Broxton.

[01:08:40] Yeah. And it's fun. I don't know that I doubt we'll see like Asgardians, as you say, but there do seem to be some fun Easter eggs in the credits that we see the closing credits, like something that looks like maybe a sling ring, which I would love to see some wizards show up in this, some sorcerers.

[01:08:58] And we also, I just noticed that over and over in the credits, they keep showing us the TVA logo, but whenever it twists upside down, which happens a lot in the credits and they zoom in on it, it looks so much like Val. And I'm trying not to read too much into that, but I don't know. Do you think, do you think we might get any surprise appearances that we hoped for in Secret Invasion?

[01:09:23] I think there's a chance. I forgot who spotted it, but there is in Moon Knight. Oh right, the jacket.

[01:09:33] No, to the podcast. So there's a podcast and that Moon Knight's character, Stephen Grant, his name was getting me for a minute. He was listening to because he was afraid of falling asleep. Okay.

[01:09:48] So he would listen to this podcast and Casey happens to be listening to the same podcast.

[01:09:55] Oh, interesting. I wonder if that was, I can't remember what episode in Moon Knight he was listening to that podcast in, but I wonder if it was an episode that was directed by the same directors as this episode.

[01:10:08] Oh, that's a good, we should go down that rabbit hole and find out. Definitely for our next, we'll find out. But yeah, so I think that we might see some sort of, some characters, some interconnectedness to the broader MCU. Disco round, then we saw in the show that I don't want to talk about that we watched over the summer.

[01:10:35] Maybe just the entire MCU is like, we don't want to show up there unless we're already confirmed.

[01:10:39] Yeah, maybe, maybe. So there were some cool, that was a cool nod again to show that interconnectedness and someone else pointed out that the room to the time loom, if you look at it, it's like a big X. Okay. Like that's the... Wouldn't time powers cause mutations?

[01:11:06] Exactly. Right. That's like the big, you know, Professor X is going to use Cerebro. Cerebro is this big helmet that Professor X of the X-Men uses to find other mutants out in the world. That X, the door to that room looks very much like the door to the temporal room.

[01:11:32] Yeah. It might be something, it might be nothing. Well, so you brought up Moon Knight. That was an interesting catch.

[01:11:38] You brought up Moon Knight. Another interesting Easter egg in Moon Knight is that at one point, like when they were fighting, there was, I can't remember what episode that was now, but they were fighting on the cliff with, and they ended up killing this young kid, unfortunately. And the kid was wearing a jacket that had Rama tuts from the comics, like straight out of the comics on the back of it.

[01:12:01] And this version of Kang that we saw the statue of, I mean, it was... It is Rama Tut. Yeah, it looked directly like his collar from the Quantumania, but it also looked Egyptian. Because Kang in Aegis Pass is Rama Tut.

[01:12:18] Right. Right. Which is probably why his collar looks like that. Exactly. What do you think, David? Is all of this going in one ear, out the other? Or does any of this sound potentially exciting to you?

[01:12:32] Again, it's going to be in the measure of does it, as the mid-level casual fan, does this all make sense at the end? Great. You know, and otherwise I can just let it all fly by. And if it connects then... And again, we've talked about this as the MCU, in the subgenre that is the MCU. That's what we come to the MCU expecting is the interconnectivity.

[01:12:58] And if they can pull it off without it feeling forced, then awesome. Otherwise, I'm just going to go for the ride and watch the occasional Easter egg video. Right. Right.

[01:13:11] I mean, that ending credit sequence, which seems to be a big thing that's going on. We're getting a big shift to... Ahsoka did this and a couple of other shows have done this. They're putting their big credits at the end and then just doing a title card at the front.

[01:13:27] But anyway, this ending credit sequence is gorgeous and I want to take it apart. And I want to look at all of the bits and the pieces and what's Easter eggs for the storyline? What clues are they giving us? And what's just fun stuff to give us the vibe for the show?

[01:13:48] Oh, by the way, weird side note. Chicken McNuggets were released in 1981. Wow. So when the guy says you can try out our new chicken nuggets. Ah, okay. Okay.

[01:14:02] And I think they've sourced... They got some photos that whoever did the historical research, that felt like a 1980s McDonald's. Straight up. The signage and everything looked perfect.

[01:14:15] Yeah. I'm excited for... And we know obviously they're going back to... I thought it was a 1910s because it's in the comics, but I think it might actually be like Tesla time where we see Victor time. Oh, right. I think it's the 30s, 20s, 30s. Yeah.

[01:14:29] What is with the McDonald's? And the 70s. Hmm? Yeah. I was just wondering what is with the McDonald's tie in? Did the McDonald's just write a nice big fat check for the MCU or... Money. We're loving it.

[01:14:43] Yeah, clearly. But I haven't seen any extra McDonald's wraparound on it. The only thing that I've seen... I haven't seen any of the other big ads. I've only seen these in-show trailer placements. Yeah. They don't seem to have a campaign around it. No. Yeah. So...

[01:15:04] Not like I'm in a McDonald's that frequently either. Right. Oh, I thought... I mean, I thought that there was something about Loki with the sweet and sour sauce. Yeah, I didn't hear about that. I haven't seen the commercials either for it. So I haven't seen anything really.

[01:15:20] I thought that there were a few different shows that McDonald's was teaming up with to get them inserted and advertised in that way. But I can't tell you what the other ones are off the top of my head. Anyway, I'm getting hungry.

[01:15:35] Just one last thing on the Ouroboros. It also goes into death and rebirth, right? Which is interesting that they bring it up in this show that's Loki because the Asgardian gods are about death and rebirth.

[01:15:54] So in the comics, they're constantly Ragnarok, the end of the gods and the rebirth of the gods. It's a constant theme in the comics. So I'm interested to see if they play around with that in this season as well.

[01:16:09] Because as we know, there is a Loki that died in the Avengers. And this Loki is the Loki that replaced that Loki, right? In our MCU. So it's really an interesting thing that I want to see if they really do play with the theme of Asgardian myth about death and rebirth.

[01:16:33] And yeah, is it this line? This time is a loop. It's not? Is it just going to restart everything? Will we be craving for it to just restart and reset to season one by the time this is all over?

[01:16:47] Asgard is gone already. It's been destroyed. The Asgardian peoples are in Norway. So Odin is gone. So it's just a lot of questions that I have surrounding what this means for this group of heroes that we've come to know if this is going to play in any way, shape or form into their story going forward.

[01:17:14] Right. Okay, well, I guess that brings the episode to a close. Shall we take a break and come back for the feedback? Sounds like a good plan. Let's do it.

[01:17:24] Okay, and we're back. All right, we've got some feedback to go through. So we've got a couple of emails by Abby and something from Maryland. So jumping in, Abby, who wrote this before episode one debuted. Oh, and just a reminder, you can send feedback to mcu at the lorehounds.com or you can hop over to our website. And there we've got a contact form and a voicemail feature. As well, we have our discord.

[01:18:11] So if you want to jump in there, we have a channel set up just for Loki and folks already chatting away about the show right there. So but please do send us in. It's a lot more fun when we've got good takes from the listeners. Abby writes, greetings, lorehounds, Alicia, John and David. John, even if absent from this feed. My name is Abby, faithful newish listener to your amazing nerdy podcast. Very grateful to Alicia for the introduction by way of silo. I'm looking forward to hearing your Loki 2 series.

[01:18:40] Season thoughts, your marker. I'm looking forward to hearing your Loki season two thoughts. I'm not well versed in the comic books, but my overall knowledge of these is sparse and very Loki oriented. I got into watching MCU because of a film titled Thor North Miss. You got my attention since I've been watching everything with Loki in it become a so called Hiddle stoner and tried to follow the rest of the MCU to.

[01:19:10] I like the TV shows all in all, some more than others. Same with us, Abby. Loki season one, the clear winner of my heart, which it seems to be a pretty in fandom wide, like we've taken everybody, both hardcore fans and casual fans. Loki definitely rises to the top.

[01:19:28] A lot of the vision.

[01:19:30] Yes. Yeah. WandaVision is right in there too, but it usually trans skews a little bit more to the hard, hard MCU fans. Anyway, Abby continues. I did have a few nitpicks coming from a Northern mythological perspective. The Christianization of the lingo, the supposed as guardian gods use was a bit frown inducing, had some quibbles with the episode two interrogation look back and interpretation.

[01:19:57] The part that makes the loss of Frigga Loki's fault seems to be the heroes. Thor Jane share an equal part in that, if not more, but according to him, series creator, Michael Waldron didn't watch dark world till after filming the series nor WandaVision before writing. Dr. Strange.

[01:20:19] Thank you. Okay, good. No wonder they needed the Hiddleston Loki lecture. Alicia, what did you, what did you take of Abby's first part of her email here?

[01:20:32] Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, so Frigga is Loki's mom and, and I, yeah, I get her point that why it was interesting. I was just listening to, I guess it was actually the house bar who we were discussing earlier that they were talking about, you know, doing a retrospective on Loki in general and talking about how in Ragnarok, especially they kind of tried to take Loki down a peg to let Thor shine a little bit more.

[01:21:00] And I think maybe that also had something to do with, well, it's also, you know, he, he is a, he's a villain in a way, but also like this is his mother, the person he arguably loved most in the world.

[01:21:13] So it's, it's complicated and I'm not sure that I think they only focused on the show on his part in her death just because it's looking at it from his perspective, but I don't think that that lets like Thor and Jane and the rest off the hook.

[01:21:28] No, I agree. I agree with that. And I don't, I don't know if they, if they diminished him in Ragnarok. I would quibble with that. No, I mean, not diminished, but made him look sillier. Yeah. But it was a sillier movie. Yeah, it was. Yeah.

[01:21:44] It was. And I think he's looked sillier in the Avengers than he did in Ragnarok. Yeah, okay, fair. When, when Hulk smashed. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:21:52] All right. Abby continues classic Loki was a delight until he said the line about how a female Loki sounds terrifying. Northern myth variant would roll his eyes. All Lokis having their minds blown to the existence of an alligator version. You're supposed to be a shapeshifter. Why is that weird? Those are good points, I think.

[01:22:13] Yeah, definitely. The last episode could have worked as an opening to the new season. Not a fan of cliffhangers all said though, I liked the new setting and just a reminder. They wrote this before seeing the first episode. So we'll see if they say anything additionally.

[01:22:32] I liked the new setting, the time you, why me stuff. And to me, the multiverse was understandable enough. And the character's journey of self-discovery and acceptance was great. I'm also on board with the romance done some fan art of them even illustrated a fanfic. Nice. So Abby is going, going full on Loki here. That's awesome.

[01:22:53] Excited about the new season. Loki still has so much more unexplored potential being complex, chaotic and powerful in myths as well as the comics. Hoping we can experience a fraction of that on screen. Thanks for reading my lengthy tome. Looking forward to sharing thoughts with you guys in an episode by episode basis of the new season. Abby. All right, Abby. Thanks. That's great. I'm love to have engaged fans and sending us really good takes because there's a lot to cover on any given show.

[01:23:21] And we're not always able to pull everything in. So it's super helpful. Abby continues with a part two of her email after seeing the new episodes. Abby says, greetings, lore hounds as per my last email. I'm continuing with jotting down my thoughts on the new season. Loved the first episode. It was nice that they picked up right where the season ended by answering the question of where rather than when Loki landed.

[01:23:47] Yeah. Or rather when, sorry, apologies or rather when Loki landed. This show doesn't let you stew too much and answers the questions raised relatively quickly. And so last season's conclusion was the exception that broke the pattern as we needed to wait two years for the answer. Elisha, were you, were you down for, I think we talked a little bit about this, but did you enjoy that sort of, even though we were waiting in real time, the kinetic energy that carried from season one to season two?

[01:24:14] No, Abby and I definitely have different feelings about cliffhangers. I enjoy a good cliffhanger as long as I know I'm getting the answer, which I knew it was coming so I could wait. And we got, yeah, now it picked up right from there and I love that. Yeah.

[01:24:27] Okay, cool. The time slipping looked awfully painful and it is interesting to notice how the reality history gets changed by the actions of the slipping person. The crack in the floor wasn't there in the first season TVA and only got to be the accepted reality after the crash in the past. Yeah, John, I think that's what we're looking forward to from this show is that the show runners are going to have, that's all, all those details are going to be tight from episode to episode, season to season.

[01:24:55] And they're off to a good start. Abby continues, our new and already beloved character Ouroboros, OB's introduction. See, that's the other thing, John, that, right? OB Ouroboros, like his character, his name, there's, there's more going on with him than. I'm telling you, man, gotta be more to him.

[01:25:15] Yeah, that's right. 17 minutes, poor OB doesn't even sleep. Do they even get paid? Casey must've gotten a promotion over the years from janitorial to office worker. He looked so confused and bewildered. Love Casey. And yeah, 17 minutes is not a lot of time.

[01:25:43] And that's great. The, the set decoration, like we were talking, uh, Alicia was, it's just really consistent. All the little posters, all the little signages, there's a real attention to detail here. They really care about their sets. Oh yeah, I think it's the Easter egg goldmine.

[01:25:57] Yeah, for sure. The TVA is outside of time. So did, do they actually need 17 minutes? But is it outside of time? Because I think they're discovering that that was a lie and that it actually is on its own timeline. It's on its own timeline.

[01:26:11] There you go. All right. The whole extraction from the time loop was exciting, but if it was meant to result in a Loki who remains maybe not so effective. We've been bombarded with trailer after trailer showing the same time slippage happening that wasn't in the first episode. Maybe the next ones will not be involuntary. Is it how Loki manages to prune his self from behind? There you go.

[01:26:36] There you go.

[01:26:37] There's your theory. If it was him, I'm convinced. Okay. So Abby's in a hundred percent on that as well. Wouldn't two Lokis of the same timeline being in the same temporal space at the same time create an incongruity? Or I read too much time travel sci-fi and am overthinking.

[01:26:56] No, I mean, I think, I think this is exactly what you should be thinking about. I think that the writers are definitely thinking about this.

[01:27:04] Perfect. Besides the gripping, well-paced storyline, the production design and music were excellent. A hundred percent agreed. And I managed not to gush about the acting as that will take another page. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Your faithful listener, Abby. Abby, thanks so much for writing in for me.

[01:27:20] Thank you for that. And I have news about Abby actually. Oh, you do? Okay. Abby is going to be stepping in to help me cover the Hugh Howey books in the book club from now on. Oh, look at that.

[01:27:33] Yeah. So we're going to be starting with Beacon 23. We're going to talk about that book because the show is going to start in November and then we're going to be picking back up the rest of the Silo series as planned.

[01:27:44] So are you connected to Abby in a different timeline? I mean on this one now. Very cool. That's very cool.

[01:27:55] Yeah. Abby was involved with the Silo and we've become friends through talking about that. And I know Abby went on and read not only the Silo books and Beacon 23, but a bunch of other Hugh Howey books. And I just think that her insights and her perspective is going to be a very interesting take on these political sci-fi novels.

[01:28:20] That's very cool. That's really cool. That you guys got connected in that way. I think Abby and I follow each other on that other real-time messaging app, which I'm not going to be naming right now. The Dead Bird.

[01:28:33] The Dead Bird. There you go. I like that. The Dead Bird app. Abby's on the Fluffy Cloud too. Okay, good. Yes. Which is Blue Sky. We can name Blue Sky.

[01:28:41] We're moving to the Fluffy Cloud for sure. Slowly but surely we're getting over there. That's great. Okay, awesome. Well, thanks Abby. And welcome to our podcast. I look forward to it.

[01:28:52] To our podcasting extended community. All right, speaking of extended podcasting communities, we have Marilyn Arpiquilla, our favorite Tolkien scholar and all around sci-fi fantasy fan.

[01:29:04] Marilyn writes in, hi, David, Alicia, and Jean enjoyed your first Loki episode very much. I particularly appreciated Jean's comic book insights and his descriptions of how much he connected to some of the alternate Lokis.

[01:29:17] I have to confess, I'm not a fan of comic books, but I did guess the connections between all those Lokis and the quote unquote real world, i.e. there were different comic book depictions of the character. And hearing Jean's story gave them depth for me.

[01:29:32] Oh, thank you. That's awesome. Yeah. We'll make you a fan of comic books, yeah.

[01:29:38] Marilyn continues, as for the first season, I thought it suffered a bit from the quote unquote mushy middle. I thought the first two episodes were super and they really drew me into the series, but three, four, and five seemed a bit thin.

[01:29:52] Their depictions of the end of the world with ruined cities, et cetera, just went on too long and the cloud with eyes wasn't frightening to me. In fact, it looked rather silly. Did you guys, what was your cloud monster vibes? I liked it. I liked Elias. Okay.

[01:30:10] Yeah, I didn't think Elias was, yeah, it wasn't scary at all. Well, yeah, okay, fine. The look of it, the look of Elias wasn't scary. But I think that played into the series though. Right, because wasn't it just supposed to be like a guard dog kind of?

[01:30:27] Yeah, it was. Yeah, a pet. I think it played into the whimsy of the series. Exactly. Sure, that's how I read it. It reminded me of some of the classic Loki, like Richard Grant in his spandex suit. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And an alligator.

[01:30:41] Marilyn continues, again, I thought that if I had the comic book introduction, I would feel differently. On the other hand, I love Mobius as we all do, don't we?

[01:30:50] I also understand Sylvie's motivation, but geez, talk about a Sabine's choice. Hey, did you notice that their name both start with S, could be a thing? Yes, I'm joking. Sabine from Star Wars, yeah. Miss Minutes reminded me of Microsoft Clippy. Oh, gosh.

[01:31:12] That thing was just, the art, the memes, the proto-memes that went around with Clippy before they took Clippy away are just great. You can search for Clippy stuff and there's some really funny stuff. I'm a Clippy apologist. Are you seriously? Oh, man. Sometimes useful, easy to hide.

[01:31:31] It looks like you're trying to produce a podcast. Would you like help with that?

[01:31:37] Microsoft Clippy, who I always found to be incredibly irritating. And then the 50-60 vibe of the TVA is scarily nostalgic to me since that's when I was growing up. I had fun looking at all the set decorations along with so many of the cultural Easter eggs.

[01:31:53] Yeah, this show is a visual feast. It is. And they've really done a good job at the consistency of keeping the world looking really just visually interesting and putting us in the vibe and the tone for what they're doing.

[01:32:11] Alicia, I heard your flirkin' and thought it was mine for a minute. And my flirkin' was meowing at the door a while ago. I don't know if anybody heard that. Otherwise she'd come and bite the microphone. Oh, boy.

[01:32:25] Marilyn continues, I'll also say that I liked the full official trailer better than the early short teaser. If I'd only seen the latter, I might not have tried Loki at all. Okay, that's interesting. That's good.

[01:32:39] I find the two together in interesting contrast, a good reflection of the two major zeitgeists of the show, goofiness and genuine threat. I like it better when it's real. Looking forward to your episodes. All the best, Marilyn. Thanks, Marilyn. Thanks, Marilyn.

[01:32:53] Looking forward to hearing some more of your reactions after episode one and maybe even episode two. All right, well, that's the episode. Thanks, guys, for coming in. Some quick programming notes. We mentioned earlier, Properly Howard movie review. They just put out an episode on The Thing, which was a lot of fun.

[01:33:17] If you haven't listened to their podcast, check out Anthony and Steve. Anthony's an academic. Steve's a standup comic. They review movies. Right now they're doing a bunch of remakes. Have you guys been checking in on those guys? I have. What do you think? I think they're hilarious. Yeah?

[01:33:35] Yeah. Yeah, a lot of fun. And you don't have to watch the movies. The movies to get into it. Yeah, that's a big hook for it. It's more about their chemistry than, you know, themselves. Yeah, they have an awesome back and forth.

[01:33:50] The Wicker Man episode was particularly hilarious. White Men Can't Jump that they had done a while ago. That was a lot of fun as well. Robocop was good. I think they're coming up near the end of their season and they're covering The Sorcerer from 1977.

[01:34:07] But Alicia, you were just on with Anthony. You guys are doing some crossover. There's some cross-pollination happening between your podcast and his? Yeah, well I guess it might be like a tripod cross-pollination. I love it. Well first there's a little blurb in an episode that came out.

[01:34:23] I love it. They came out like, I think last week, it was one of the Theon recap episodes on Electric Bookaloo, which is the Game of Thrones universe, Song of Ice and Fire podcast. That's Anthony's other big main podcast, yeah, where he's covering all those books.

[01:34:39] We talked for a few minutes about the friendship between George R.R. Martin and Robert Jordan, the author of The Wheel of Time books. And that was released I think like the same day as The Wheel of Time finale.

[01:34:49] But then we had a longer conversation they'll tie into. It seems like some cross-podcast coverage of the new Mike Flanagan Netflix series, The Fall of the House of Usher. Nice.

[01:35:02] So Anthony and I on Electric Bookaloo, we talked about he's going to release a two-part episode about us talking about the influence of Poe and particularly the story, The Fall of the House of Usher on George R.R. Martin in the Game of Thrones. Nice.

[01:35:18] And then, yeah, I think we're going to probably do some coverage on the Lorehounds feed about The Fall of the House of Usher.

[01:35:26] And also I'm going to do a full episode recap and breakdown with my sister is going to be a special guest, my best horror friend also from growing up and beyond.

[01:35:39] And we're going to be talking through the full season toward the end of the month. And in the meantime, I'm going to be releasing as a free extra to book club members, a full reading of The Fall of the House of Usher story with sound effects and everything.

[01:35:53] Oh, goodness. Wow. You're going full on. That's awesome.

[01:35:56] Halloween is my favorite holiday and Poe is one of my favorite authors growing up. And yeah, so I'm very excited about this because I know Mike Flanagan, first of all, I've seen the trailers for The Fall of the House of Usher and to call it an adaptation is a stretch, but I know-

[01:36:14] They looked way... They're using inspiration here, not adaptation. Yeah, but I know he's going to be pulling from... He always pulls from all the different stories of a particular author. So I know it's going to be a lot of Poe stuff in there. And then yeah-

[01:36:28] What is he just using the name kind of as a market share capture so people understand that it's a Poe-

[01:36:33] Yeah, and he's using the two main characters. There's three characters in this story and two of them are a brother and sister at the center of this family and that's how they're starting it. But then they added a bunch of different characters and I can already see references to several other stories. So we're going to be breaking that down.

[01:36:51] Awesome. And then in October... Sorry, in... Abby and I are going to be, as I said, starting with Beacon 23 because in November, Luke and I are going to be covering the new TV show based on the Hugh Howey book on our public Worship Dust feed. Right, what? Beacon...

[01:37:06] Beacon 23. Right. Very cool. So it's about... It stars Lena Headey and it's about someone who's stationed at something called a beacon. It's like a lighthouse in deep space in the middle of an asteroid field.

[01:37:20] I'm so glad that you're tracking this because I have no idea about this show, about Hugh Howey, about Silo. I might've given it a miss. So we're pretty lucky that you, in our galaxy, to be able to pick these things up.

[01:37:36] Well, I've got the Howey corner covered for sure.

[01:37:40] That's awesome. And then speaking of Halloween and spooky stuff on the Discord, we've got a Spooktober sub channel set up and people are sharing their October horror movie and TV show watchings. And are we going to do a... We were going to do something about Werewolf by Night or something, I think, for the MCU? Or what are we going to do there?

[01:38:02] I'm game. Okay. Yeah, that's totally... I'm up for that, definitely. I can't wait to listen to some plans. Well, yeah. There's not only... The black and white one released last year and they just released a color version of it. Right.

[01:38:19] But it's really fun to break down just because it's a love letter to classic horror movies with all these little Easter eggs. And there's also a really excellent, not too long documentary called Director by Night about... Yeah, it's unlike every other making of Marvel documentary. It's really itself a work of art worth seeing.

[01:38:45] Nice. Okay. I'm going to say his name wrong, about the family of the director.

[01:38:49] All right. For Lorehounds, we've got Loki. We're going to be doing a week by week episode recaps. We are going to be... We're picking back up our Star Wars Film Festival. We got off schedule because of summer madness and then we had triple show coverage with Foundation, Ahsoka, and Wheel of Time, but we've put all those to bed.

[01:39:11] Wheel of Time, we're going to do a season wrap up. Alicia, you and I and John are going to get that done. We've got a return to Earthsea. We're reading the fourth book in the series, Tehanu. And we're going to be releasing an episode with Marilyn on chapters one through six. So we're going to break that book up into chunks. And so the first part will be one through six.

[01:39:33] We are going to be... John and I are going to be interviewing Bear McCreary, the music producer, a guy who wrote the music for Foundation, for Rings of Power, and a whole bunch of other stuff. We had done an interview with David Goyer, who's the showrunner for Foundation, and he hooked us up with Bear McCreary. So we're going to be interviewing him. And I'm not sure when that episode is going to be out, but it will be coming before long.

[01:40:00] And then we'll have a Silmarillion stories. We're going to get back on that track as well. So lots coming from us in October. It's going to be a busy month.

[01:40:30] So we're going to be doing a lot of podcasting. We've got a lot of early access and occasionally early access to our podcasts when we get things produced early. We've also got a bunch of other side benefits. We've got some live watch things. We've got a separate channel on the Discord, working on a few other benefits as well in the pipeline. Hopefully we'll have some more stuff before too long.

[01:40:50] So if you're on Patreon, you can do a seven-day free trial. So that's kind of a cool thing if you just want to check things out. As well, you can do annual memberships. So you can prepay for the year. And some folks are using that and that seems to work well for some people's budgeting and accounting stuff. So whatever works. And if it doesn't work for you, no big deal.

[01:41:10] But for our $10 a month Lorehounds subscribers, Loremasters subscribers, we always like to give a personal thank you and shout out. And those folks are Simartian, Cyrus, Mark H., Michael G., Michelle E., David W., Brian P., Nick W., S.C., Peter O.H., Patina W., Adam S., Nancy M., Lavinia T., Dove 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H., Sarah L., Gareth C., and Matt C.

[01:41:40] Eric F., Matthew M., Sarah M., DJ Miwa, Andra B., Kuang Yu, Laura G., Deadeye Jedi Bob, Nathan T., Alex V., Aaron T., Sub Zero, and Adrian. Thank you all so much for your ongoing support. It helps us keep us in all the different softwares we need and to take care of our co-hosts and contributors.

[01:42:04] It just gives us a lot of energy, spiritual energy as well, keeping us producing all the stuff that we're working on. So Alicia, John, thanks so very much. And we'll see you next week. This was great. Or is it last week? Well played. Well played.

[01:42:34] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the lorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side, green or black.

[01:42:59] John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff.

[01:43:14] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorehounds.

[01:43:26] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[01:43:32] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes.

[01:43:50] The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heartened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.