Loki - S02E06 - Glorious Purpose

[00:00:00] Welcome to the MCUniverse, we're the Lorehounds, your guides to the multiverse and beyond. I'm David. I'm Alicia. And I'm Jean. And we're here to guide you through the tale of the God of Stories. We'll be recapping and breaking down the Loki Season 2 finale, and maybe series finale,

[00:00:40] wrapping our head around what just happened and what it all means. And then in Comics Corner, Jean's going to fill us in on some important Marvel comic tie-ins that are going to help us understand the story.

[00:00:51] Even as Loki wraps up, we are still covering everything MCU and we'd love to get your feedback. Any Loki feedback that comes in, we will carry over to our next MCU podcast.

[00:01:03] Email all your feedback to mcu at the lorehounds dot com or head over to our website and use the contact form or the voicemail feature. We also have a fun and active discord community and invite you to join us there. Links in the show notes.

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[00:01:48] Before we get started, just a quick spoiler warning. We'll of course be spoiling all of the series Loki up to and including the finale. But spoilers from the rest of the MCU and the Marvel Comics are also on the table.

[00:02:02] Jean, Alicia, we are burdened with great responsibility or? Oh, I feel like there's another G word you could use there. There is that we've got to like competing MCU things, right? Great responsibility and purpose and really quick, Alicia, can you hit us up with episode details?

[00:02:25] This episode is titled Glorious Purpose, which is the same, obviously, as the pilot. The first episode of this entire series was also titled Glorious Purpose. And it's seen out by our head trio of the season, the directors, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead and the writer, Eric Martin.

[00:02:44] Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. You might have noticed that I've just turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.

[00:02:52] And as we bring the season in for our landing, I'd like to invite all of you to get up and freely move about the cabin, maybe even dance in the aisleways, if you'd like.

[00:03:01] From all of us here at Lorehounds Airlines and the MCUniverse show, we hope you have enjoyed this season of television. They landed. They landed the plane. We made it.

[00:03:16] I mean, I know not everyone equally loves the bittersweet ending, but it was a work of art in any case, because it certainly has everyone discussing. Yes, it was gorgeous. I'm just so glad that something came together and we got a win.

[00:03:33] And then, of course, with Marvel's sounds like a lot of folks are enjoying that. So it just feels good. Jean, how you feeling? What are your thoughts on the episode? What's your takes?

[00:03:43] You know, for the last month I've been saying, and at the beginning of each podcast, I don't want to say that this was my favorite episode. But here I am again. Here you are. Lord, this was my favorite. Amazing. Yeah, just amazing. The proper word for it.

[00:04:07] Just really amazing. I can't wait to dive into it. But really great storytelling. Just this was just awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Anything particular that jumps out or do you want to save it for? We'll talk about it. We'll talk about all of it. All right. All right.

[00:04:26] Good. Alicia, where are you at? Yeah, I mean, I wrote down in the notes, my feelings are Legion, which is an excellent Marvel show that all of you should watch. So just a plug for that.

[00:04:40] I am actually glad I called this on Twitter, the Barbenheimer of the MC universe. I saw that. The fact that Loki and the Marvels came out in the same day.

[00:04:51] But I am glad personally I didn't watch them on the same day because they both left me with a lot to think about. And definitely Loki was the meal and the Marvels was the delicious dessert. Just a preview of my feelings about that movie.

[00:05:11] And yeah, just a quick heads up. We are all going to see that and probably get a podcast out towards the end of this week, if not early next week. We just got to get life schedules lined up and everybody gets to the theater.

[00:05:24] But yeah, we're fully intending to do a full recap on it. No, I mean, I just like I said, I think this is a work of art. And I fully expect that we will see all these characters again.

[00:05:35] I do hope that Tom Hiddleston is messing with us with this whole his appearance on The Tonight Show where he said it was a conclusion of 14 years. But he also said, I can time slip.

[00:05:47] I don't know that others can time slip, which makes me think, yeah, different Loki variants. You know, he's talking about maybe kid Loki is coming back. But at least I mean, I have to assume that we get this version of Loki at least appearing at some point.

[00:06:07] And like the Avengers movies. And I need more of Sylvie because she was backgrounded more than I would like. And I want her to come back for more. And what about you, David? What do you think? I have so many feelings.

[00:06:21] I was left really in a befuddled state after I watched it the first time. I listened to some podcasts, read some stuff, watched it again before we got on the mics today.

[00:06:38] There was just so many vibes and so many feelings about this episode and about the series and about Marvel in general. So it was all mixed up and it was really hard to try to process everything. But I'm feeling really good about it now. The visuals, the music.

[00:06:59] Oh my God, the music in this episode was just incredible. It just did so much to give me the emotional punch that we got from this episode. Shout out to Natalie Holt again. Totally.

[00:07:12] The big vibes, on a vibe check, the two things I really got were Edge of Tomorrow and Bran. So those were two things that I had. Bran from Game of Thrones? Yeah, exactly. With the tree, right? And being at the center of things. Right, yeah. Good call.

[00:07:29] I really do largely hope that this is a primary end for the Loki character. I don't necessarily want or need him back in future stuff. If there's some references or some sort of little drive, you know, little something, it's fine.

[00:07:49] But I'm just really satisfied with this ending and I don't want, oh well we can bring him back and it'll be fine, then we get into that whole world of everything means nothing. If everything is there, then what does it all really mean?

[00:08:02] And I just love the bittersweet thought that going into any future projects, seeing Tom Wilson sitting on the throne there with that wry smile with a little bit of a tear in his eye, thinking about his friends, holding all the time strings together for all of eternity.

[00:08:24] I really like that and I don't want that to be spoiled, is what I'm saying. Whether they bring him back structurally or not, I just don't want to lose this feeling that Loki's out there holding it all together for us.

[00:08:40] So a lot of interesting things in this series too, in this season, little theories and things that we had that didn't pay off, you know, Obi wasn't evil, the book is a book, the banana in the sack too. No Val at least, you know, in this.

[00:08:57] So I like that they were just fun little things and the main story is what took center stage and I really appreciated that. And again, all the little details, there were subtle things like when Loki is doing the demonstration of the launcher in one of the montages,

[00:09:18] even as he moves the little expander thing from the launcher, there's a background sound of fireworks shooting off going, you know, or the back of the suit when Victor Timely's in it when he's not connected to the big tube thing.

[00:09:33] There's like a fan blade closure thing around it, right? In the control room, I never noticed this before, but somewhere in the middle of the control room, the colors invert on the upper, it's hard to explain,

[00:09:47] but it's like his one color of green above and a lighter color green below and then it hits a line and then those two colors flip-flop. So the darker is below and the lighter is above. Just beautiful stuff. I cannot fault this show.

[00:10:02] It's the show for folks who've listened to me before and you know, been on, been around with the Lore Hunts for a little bit. You know, folks know that I've got this idiosyncratic ranking system for end of year shows. And I have a sort of a prestige class

[00:10:21] and then things that are entertaining and whatnot. And this show, I think, is going to fall into that prestige, to that S tier, which automatically puts things into my top 10 zone. If I don't have enough S tier shows, then it sort of drops down to the next level.

[00:10:36] But this is definitely, I don't know where it's going to rank yet, but it's definitely going into that top tier, that top echelon for me for shows of the year. So, and I just love that they started out and they told us exactly what was going to happen,

[00:10:52] that Loki's burdened with glorious purpose and that he's going to be a king. They telegraphed it, the entire series. That's what this was about. And they delivered. They landed it and it's amazing. More than a series, even. And if this is the end of Jonathan Majors,

[00:11:09] then it came to... What a way to go out. It's a perfect, it was fine. Like it wasn't just sort of cut in the middle. It was nicely handled from that regard. So I'm pretty excited about this overall

[00:11:22] and it's just so pleasurable to have MCU have a win and for us to have a win in all of that too. Yeah. Totally agree. I'm all wound up. All right. So before we get into the episode proper, Alicia, you've got some notes for us

[00:11:44] about some general MCU related news, some Strike stuff and some Loki stuff. So why don't you take us through all that? Just updating on the MCU drama as it unfolds. So we talked previously about the Variety article and Jean, you shared with us this Forbes article

[00:12:02] that was refuting point by point, going down to financials with that. So it was a direct rebuttal, not a perfect article in and of itself, but it calls out the media hyperbole in general and yeah, it goes through the numbers. Go see the numbers

[00:12:22] and don't take all the naysayers and the sky is falling type of critiques of the MCU at face value. The Marvels is obviously drawing the kind of mixed reviews you would expect. We'll talk about that more when we break that down. But in positive news,

[00:12:41] yeah, and just for the record, as I already said, I loved it. I found it delightful and the people who have come after me on it have been the types you would expect. So I've heard from what I'm seeing, Marvels is people are really happy. They're entertaining.

[00:13:00] They're walking out chuffed there. It doesn't need to be. No, it doesn't have to be Citizen Kane. Right, right. It doesn't have to be heavy and big. We want entertainment. We want to have an enjoyable time if we go out to the theater.

[00:13:17] You know somebody I watched a snippet of a review where they said they had fun, but they don't like the movie. What does that even mean? Oh, I had fun watching the movie, but I didn't like this movie. What do you want from a movie?

[00:13:34] Yeah, right. You had fun watching the movie. What else is there? You know, it just boggles the mind. It's not like it's completely superficial, but it's not trying to be, you know, it does move the MCU plot forward. Forward, yes.

[00:13:52] Which is what a lot of people wanted, right? Right, exactly. And it's a fun film. And I think, yeah, we'll talk about it, but there are some deeper themes at play. And I think it's a serious contemplation of emotions like Loki. Right.

[00:14:09] What else we got? We got some news about Blade. Yeah, so Blade is confirmed rated R, which we'd already said it was, but just more confirmation. And yeah, I'm excited about the future of the MCU. We also got the next big movie project

[00:14:25] that we have coming up is Deadpool 3. And the cameo rumors are going crazy. And we got, I posted this on the Discord. A personal favorite of mine, we got Dogpool confirmed. Okay. So go to the Discord if you want to see what Dogpool looks like.

[00:14:42] Ryan Reynolds himself tweeted it out. And also in the positive camp, the actor strike is over! Yay! Congratulations, Zach After. Congratulations. That was a long one. The longest on recorded. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a three year deal again. So hopefully we won't be doing this again in 2026.

[00:15:05] We still have maybe a VFX strike before us next year. And who knows animation, voice actors, everything else. Long way to go, but let's celebrate this win for now. Even the reality actors or whatever, the stars are in that are talking about unionizing.

[00:15:26] I think Bethany Frankel was talking about the really exploitative nature of that part of the industry. I mean, it's for the best that we have a sort of revolution in work standards because the thing is things. So yeah, the standards are changing

[00:15:43] because of changing technology and changing tastes. And they've just been taking advantage of it every turn by the people who have the money and power. But yeah, and then the plus side with the strike over Deadpool 3 and Venom 3 are both going into production immediately.

[00:16:01] And we have production for multiple projects reportedly beginning in January. The ones that were reported were Thunderbolt, Blade, and Wonder Man, which some people are surprised by because Joanna Roberts had said something that made a lot of people think it was canceled. But I think that was just.

[00:16:20] OK, yeah, I would be surprised if it was canceled. I am not wondering if, yeah, like we speculated one of the previous podcasts about a lot of this material that we're hearing. We're behind. They've already made a whole bunch of decisions. Right.

[00:16:35] They're just now this information is either being leaked intentionally or through good reporting or what have you. We're just now getting stuff that is what three, four, six months already decided. So yeah, we'll see what when it hits the screen is when we'll know.

[00:16:52] The other thing, a piece of news that came out is that Captain America New World Order is the next one that's up for extensive reshoots. They're apparently. Yeah, I mean, but this is normal, right? It should it shouldn't be. I mean, it is normal for MCU projects.

[00:17:11] If you go back through the MCU projects, they pretty much all undergo some form of this process, maybe not as extensively as, for instance, you know, Daredevil and Blade or Daredevil, especially, which was reportedly just like, start over. Well, my my issues, I have issues with Captain America.

[00:17:32] Oh, why? What are your issues? It's all about Mackie. You don't like Anthony Mackie? No, he's a long time. A long time. Oh, no. Why? What did he do to you? I don't know if we can get into it. We will cover Mackey. OK, we'll cover back.

[00:18:02] This film's going to cover Mackey's covering it. Yeah, we'll cover Mackey's portrayal of Sam. OK, OK, OK. All right. Yeah, but whatever. I just wanted to like quite some of the rumor mill that say some of the reshoots have to do with the the character Sabra,

[00:18:23] who is a character from the comics who is Israeli. And she apparently in the MCU, she will work for the CIA, not the Mossad. And it will the plot will not in any way involve Israel and Palestine. So that's not the source of the reshoot reportedly,

[00:18:43] according to several insider reports. So hopefully all of this will be long past by then. Right. But that's not what it's about. Right. Twenty twenty five is expected for Captain America. Yeah. So the reported new release dates are for Deadpool three. It's now July of next year.

[00:19:03] Then Captain America is February of twenty twenty five. And then we have Fantastic Four coming in May. And we should expect some casting announcements about the Fantastic Four within the next couple of weeks. Then, yes, there's going to be four movies in twenty twenty five.

[00:19:21] Captain America four, Fantastic Four in May, Thunderbolts in July and Blade in November. OK, and only one in twenty twenty four. Yeah. And just definitely into. Yeah, yeah. Going to be a quiet year in the MCU theaters. That's what the folks wanted, right?

[00:19:37] Mm hmm. It's people chance to. Yeah, yeah. Production to work it out is for the right number for big screen MCU titles for a year. Does that feel right to you guys? It doesn't feel off to me. That's Max. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:55] I don't know. And what and what like two or three television shows? I think that would be sufficient for. Yeah, I think like five or six titles in total, be they shows or TV that kind of feels like any more than that.

[00:20:09] Then I feel like I'm drowning over the catching up. Yeah, I'm more of a more is more for me. No, but I see you drowning in comic books over there. I'm John and I was catching up this week. I need to catch up on other stuff.

[00:20:27] There's other stuff I got to watch. I don't disagree with any of that. Give me more. I want it all. But it's also just, you know, you can see when they invest in fewer projects, the quality goes up. Obviously for obvious reasons.

[00:20:42] We want quality. We want quality over quantity. Yeah. All right. And you got some notes on Loki gossip here. What's this about? Eric Martin, the head writer. He said that the original season ending of this season was vetoed by Marvel. And this is actually the ending.

[00:21:01] The episode five script was what hooked the directors, Benson and Moorhead, but then quote unquote nuked by higher ups. So we have to thank I have to thank new rock stars for bringing this to our

[00:21:13] attention. But it makes me wonder if this could be related to the character they couldn't use. Apparently they had to write episode five over the course of a weekend. But I don't know. Do you guys like now that we've seen this masterpiece of an ending,

[00:21:26] would we have wanted it to be anything else? I can't imagine anything. I don't know, John, what do you? Yeah, I can imagine other endings. Yeah, I could. I could see it going a different way. Definitely. It doesn't take away from what this was.

[00:21:45] Right. This was the ending. But, you know, storytelling wise, there were other ways they could have gone. Absolutely. Yeah, sure. All right. So whatever I'm I'm hoping that this marks this new era for MCU making, because I think for me, showrunners and exactly.

[00:22:12] It's a singular vision that they have and they had to fight for it. I'm I'm all for showrunners and writing fighting for their decisions because it's going to sharpen them and it's gonna make them think. And it's like work. It's like mental workout.

[00:22:27] OK, like I know the execs are going to get crazy with this. They're not going to like it. But here are my arguments. And that just is going to make people better and that's going to make their creative projects better. So it's fine for that tension to exist.

[00:22:40] All creative process. I think my my my belief is, is that that needs that. And I'm so satisfied. I'm so happy that a creative vision won out rather than corporate pablum. You know, we actually got something that is tells a new type

[00:22:59] of story. The fact that men to turn Loki around and give him this heroic. Not death, but this just so bittersweet, so good. Oh, well, let's save it for the episode. Let's get into the thing. All right. Cool. Anything else on news or general context stuff?

[00:23:19] No, just I think there seems to be a general, you know, there's going to be the haters, whatever, but I feel like there's an uplifting people are feeling more confident in the MCU again after this Loki, the Marvels weekend.

[00:23:35] Right. Yeah. Yeah. So two in a row like that feels good with potentially a strong echo coming in the early year. Right. Yeah. And that trailer for Echo also helps. Yeah. And what is three different flavors of things to which is

[00:23:48] also good, you know, promising. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about I think we've talked about this too before, like have have a diversity of offerings, you know, everything from kids through adults, you know, that's that's totally valid.

[00:24:02] And I and I think it's a good idea and a good model because, yeah, I want something that's a little bit more challenging or a bit bittersweet or every once in a while. I want the popcorn of big explosions and, you know, wild VFX

[00:24:15] and stuff. So, yeah. Yeah, exactly. All right. Let's take a quick break. And then when we get back, we can do our full episode breakdown. And we're back. So during the break, we decided we juggle things up a little

[00:24:30] bit and Jean is going to bring up our comics corner stuff because it's going to help contextualize the story a little bit more. So Jean, talk to us about the God of Stories. OK, so, you know, when I watch this again, I I I'm

[00:24:57] going to say, you know, I'm going to say, you know, I'm going to say, you know, I'm going to say that I need to go read Loki, Agent of Asgard comic art. So in that comic arc, he goes from being the god of mischief to the

[00:25:11] God of Lies to the God of Story. We have a young adult Loki and a old, old end of time Loki as the main protagonist of the story. So he's a young adult Loki and he's a god of

[00:25:26] mischief. And he's a god of stories. And he's a god of stories. And one of the arcs he's confronted by Dr. Doom, Dr. Doom is a major Marvel villain, a villain of the Fantastic Four primarily. But in The Secret Wars from 2015,

[00:25:46] he takes on a huge role in that entire storyline. Right. So this Dr. Doom realizes that this young Loki is not of his time. So he needs to contain this version of Loki. I'm just going to read this panel really quickly.

[00:26:06] It's from a conversation that Dr. Doom and Loki are having. It's from episode. It's from issue number six. Consider this. This is Dr. Doom. If magical thinking is the assumption of a higher narrative in the flow of events, true magic is the imposition of a negative

[00:26:31] narrative upon reality. It is telling a story to the world and making the world believe it. The dark work of police and politician, of rulers and tricksters. And if magic is narrative, then to be a creature of magic,

[00:26:51] to be a god is to be a creature of story. That's totally episode five, right? And this is Loki saying, I can rewrite the story. So these guys read the comics. And isn't Verity Willis B-15's other alter ego is an important part of that story too?

[00:27:21] She is some say love interest of Loki, of young adult Loki. But they are best friends. They are best friends. We know she feed them. No shipping, no shipping to the point that we see them like an end of the secret wars of the

[00:27:41] incursion storyline. So I just felt like that when I read that really informed what this series has been about or me in my mind. Yeah. Definitely. Right. So this, I don't know. I might have from you in to chip off so many different clauses and parts of this.

[00:28:04] If magic is narrative, if magic is narrative, then to be a creature of magic, to be a god is to be a creature of story. Wow. That's wow. Yeah. Very, very cool. We got to maybe we got to get. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. No, it's all right.

[00:28:25] I was just saying we have to get Marilyn in on some of these conversations. So. Yeah, I can't wait to hear her thoughts about this episode. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Especially the Norse mythology angle. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So are we ready for the episode breakdown?

[00:28:42] Alicia, do you want to take us through as you usually do? Thank you again for all the hard work you did for this season. It's really great to have your contributions. I love your title headings and your phrasing. So it's been great. I like to play with toys.

[00:28:58] They're my favorite toys. All right, let's begin the time loop tango. So the usual Marvel's opening credits play backwards, leading us into the TVA control room at the moment just before Victor Timely, Jonathan Majors went down to suit up for Operation Thruple Multiplayer installation in episode four.

[00:29:18] And Loki, Tom Hiddleston is determined that this time he will make it work or next time he time slips back to keep trying over and over, pushing the gang along faster to everyone else's confusion. Going back earlier in the day to rush everyone through the events

[00:29:34] of previous episodes to hilarious effect. He even tries roping in Miss Minutes, Tara Strong to help at one point. But it's never enough. We get to see Victor Timely get peeled like a grape by the time radiation over and over, screaming like one of Thor's goats.

[00:29:50] He screams every time. And New Rock stars, they paused it and zoomed in on it. And you really see like the skin peeling off the skull. Like they really went all in on the graphics. But during all this, Loki keeps turning to OB, Ke Hui Kwan for advice

[00:30:07] until he finally asks him how long it would take to just learn everything OB knows about mechanics, physics and engineering himself. OB says decades. Victor Timely interjects centuries. Cut to the title card. Centuries later, and Loki is walking into the control room

[00:30:25] with an upgraded throughput multiplier, while Casey Eugene Cordero tries not to question his surprisingly advanced engineering skills. By this time, Loki has worked out every step of the dance through countless rehearsals, answering every objection before it's raised, figuring out and memorizing the necessary passwords,

[00:30:44] warning Victor of the mistakes made before, like setting the device down in the gangway where it will be blown away by the temporal radiation. And this time it works. After much suspense and near mishap, Victor is finally able to launch

[00:30:58] the throughput multiplier into the temporal loom and get back safely. But it's still not enough. The timeline is branching infinitely, and it soon outgrows even a widened time loom. It will never be enough, they realize together. It will always fail. And in this moment, Sylvie, Sofia DiMartino understands

[00:31:17] she ultimately caused the problem. It's almost like this was doomed to happen the moment the timeline started branching, she says. And Loki knows what he needs to do next. Oof. Pretty big scene. Yeah. And not to diminish it, but I got definitely

[00:31:35] Edge of Tomorrow vibes here with this whole thing. And I thought that and I was listening to the ringer verse in Joanna last week and apparently or in the in weeks before. And apparently these writers and directors are big pop culture nerds. They love Lost.

[00:31:53] They love Doctor Who, all of this kind of stuff. So for me, knowing that and seeing the scene, I felt more it was just a great big love letter to every timey wimey homage of Do-Over Soup, you know, it was it was really, really.

[00:32:10] I love a time loop story. Yeah, yeah. It was super. You know, Groundhog Day. Yeah, absolutely. Edge of Tomorrow, Looper. Yeah, for sure. Palm Springs. Yeah. And the music was doing a lot of good work. A lot of the heavy lifting. Yeah. Yeah. Setting the pacing here.

[00:32:29] The and the the role, the backwards running Marvel logo, that was a very cute little, you know, wink and a nod to the storyline. So really good stuff. And then like another great detail is as we come in on the episode,

[00:32:46] way out at the end of the gangway and we move in towards the control room and the music is playing as the camera reaches the wall of the control room. They mixed the sound of the siren whale with the music.

[00:33:04] And so the two blended together and then we push in through the glass and into the control room, like just super. The the visual effects and what they did with VFX was amazing this entire season, this entire show.

[00:33:20] And, you know, to start off a scene like that was so juicy with the music and just the heaviness of what's going on. Just really a master class in production. Yeah. And also the writing was quite strong. You know, we're already seeing Loki becoming a god of stories,

[00:33:41] telling every time in every repeat he has to figure out like, how do I tell this story better and faster so that we can move this forward? Right. John, thoughts? Man. Yeah, this was. Let me just start off by saying I felt bad for Victor.

[00:34:01] Let me just let me just say that. I was the rip. I felt bad. I felt bad for Victor because we had to see him get peeled over and over thousands, probably thousands of times. Seriously. For it to happen and for Loki to learn the lesson.

[00:34:18] Right. Victor was the sacrificial lamb to learn that this is not going to work. Right. And for Sylvie to come to the realization that, you know, the thing that she did may have perhaps caused all of this to happen in the first place.

[00:34:35] So they learned lessons of the peeling of Victor Timesleeve's skin. And I felt bad. I felt bad. I felt bad. And he was volunteered every time because he did volunteer the first time. But then after that, it's like, you're going to do it.

[00:34:48] You're going to do it. Yeah. Every single time, like you're the guy, you're the one who's going to do it. But like you guys, I just I enjoyed the telling of this story, right? Of having to learn this lesson, having to to learn

[00:35:06] the engineering aspects of it and that it literally did take centuries. Like we didn't we didn't cut to a scene, you know, five minutes later and he has all this knowledge. It literally said centuries, you know, had passed between those scenes.

[00:35:23] And it was a nice way to to say that, you know, things have to be learned and they have to be earned. Right. And yeah, I just I just thought. Everything about it was just. Going into the into onto the gangway, being Victor there.

[00:35:44] Hearing Loki give him the instructions, you know, and it is just just really, really good stuff. Just really, really good. Well, he was so unnervingly calm to everyone else, too. You know, everyone played off of that, too. Like, why do you know this? And why? Right.

[00:36:01] Talking about what's going on, you can see it in his eyes. Like I think of B-15 space to be 15 space, you know, doing a lot of the work as she's done, you know, throughout this entire team, much in the background. Too much in the background.

[00:36:16] But you can only criticize one criticism of the entire season is when he was just did not have underused under under. Yeah, it's fine side characters, but they could. I don't know. I think it's also because we've all we're all friends of.

[00:36:29] Sorry, we're all fans of Lovecraft's country. Right. Right. Yes. Yes. And so we've just we know what you can do. Yes. Right. But but you get the sense of what she can do in these small snippets of what she's doing in this show.

[00:36:45] And you just want it to be more. Right. Just wanted to be more. Especially considering she turned out to be Verity Willis. But yeah, right, right, right. And they could have used that. But, you know, that's that's for another day, another time. Yeah, it's kind of silly.

[00:37:03] You kind of played that role in the show. I think they're like seeing. I think so, too. I think so, too. And I guess I think no, I think you. I think it was Sylvie. I think it was Sylvie who took up that that role of, you know,

[00:37:17] she was his foil in his moral conundrum. She was the one that was, you know, setting up that check that, you know, you can't well and we'll get to it later. But there's no you've got to make a hard choice here.

[00:37:33] And it was it was her that that played that that splitting role for him. So, yeah, it's whether they could have used Verity Willis. You know, I don't know if that's that wasn't the story for me.

[00:37:47] I think it was that he had to push up against this hard morality issue. I mean, I think she would have taken the place that Sylvie did. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes, exactly. And I and I just love Loki.

[00:38:03] You know, you could see through Hiddleston's portrayal of the character, the the gravity of the situation. You felt it. You know, you felt his. Seriousness, his afraid of him being afraid. No, you saw it came through on the screen for me.

[00:38:23] The here he's gone and done everything that he thought that he had to do in order to to save everyone. And no, like that sense of dread and that sense of a failure. Is often nothing. Loki's. Yes. Yeah. Loki's lose and having that. For that character is so

[00:38:49] that that is so deep, because. When we get to the end of time, that is the recurring theme, right? What are you going to do? You are who you are. You know, there's no changing who you are. And that's the amazing tie in

[00:39:08] that I felt between this series and Agents of Asgard, the comic book. Right. And the fact that he. Never lost his will or his enthusiasm to try to figure it out centuries, centuries of of doing this over and over and over again.

[00:39:34] None of none of us mortals could do that. It took a god to do that. It took his will and his commitment to his friends. To what he wanted, right? He wanted something and he never let go of it.

[00:39:51] He had to go through some stuff to get there. He had to and then he had to hear from his friends. He had to hear from Mobius. He had to hear from Sylvie and he had to, you know, talk with he who remains

[00:40:01] to understand even the bigger picture, and he never let it go. And that determination was so expertly told throughout the story. It just felt so the ending felt so inevitable and earned for this character. Yeah, I'll say. Go ahead.

[00:40:21] OK, I just wanted to address related some major criticism I've heard is that, you know, people feel like this time loop set up means that what happened before he realized this doesn't mean anything.

[00:40:34] But I disagree because I think he needed to go through all of this to accept the outcome. Right. And that people would have also and I feel like in this case rightfully have complained if he just jumped to the conclusion without earning it like this.

[00:40:49] He had to earn it. I'm so glad it was a montage though. Yes. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes. And the one thing I want to say is this is an overarching thing for me, you know, reading the stories, reading the comics, whatever comics that you read,

[00:41:10] whatever comics that I'm reading, whatever arcs, whatever characters. When you see them on screen, you know, you want you want it to be true to that character, right? They don't have to tell the story verbatim. For it to be true to the character. Right. Correct.

[00:41:27] They don't have to do that. They told this story in a way that makes me say, this is Loki. This is the Loki that I'm currently reading. This is the Loki that I read 10 years ago. This is Loki. This is the character.

[00:41:46] They don't, it doesn't have to be word for word panel for panel, you know, theme for theme for you to get the sense that who you're watching on screen is who you've read.

[00:41:59] And that came out to me in this series, in this finale, in this season, just good storytelling. You take the base of the character, you build it up and you give it to us as you see fit.

[00:42:18] And I think they did an awesome job connecting those two mediums, connecting the character across mediums. That's great. That was really special for me. And then you set it to a badass disco version of Beethoven's Fifth. You got a winner. Right.

[00:42:42] So that song that they set the montage to, that is entitled a Fifth of Beethoven. It's three minutes and two seconds long. It was composed by Walter Murphy, who's a composer, keyboardist, songwriter, record producer, wrote a lot of television in the seventies and the eighties.

[00:43:03] This is his most famous work. And it was released in 1976 and it took a while, but it hit the number one. And it stayed there for about a week. And then of course, they featured it in Saturday Night Fever in 1977. Pretty big year for film, 1977 for sure.

[00:43:22] But it was the perfect music to set that montage to. And it was the entire song. What we hear for the montage is the whole thing, a Fifth of Beethoven. So again, the music just did so much work in this. And it was fun. It was upbeat.

[00:43:40] It was serious, but the classical music gave it that kind of different vibe for the show and gave the Loki, just gave it a more, I don't want to say classy. That's not the right word that I'm looking for, but it adds refined.

[00:43:55] It added something to, you know, God, he's a God. He's a classic, you know, right. He's a classic God, right? He's from North mythology. So it added some import of history to him as well. And he's also quoting Shakespeare in this, where he's like,

[00:44:11] I wasted time and doth time waste me, which is from Richard II. Okay. Yeah. I was gonna, I saw your note there. Is there any more on that or just, because that is a great turn of phrase, right? I mean, I feel like that's pretty self-explanatory.

[00:44:26] I do have a bit of a lore bomb coming up in the next section about TS Eliot. All right, yeah. Let's go. Very cool. Very cool. I was also going to just throw out that the, on the writing side, the techno babble, right?

[00:44:40] The three-way multiplier, the inferred flux capacitor, the iron coupling, and then he just goes, the rings are too small. That was so great. Ignore all that shit and just go. That was so great. So small. We need to make it. This is a problem right here.

[00:44:57] I do have one small gripe on that though, which is, you know, at this point, they realize you cannot scale for infinite and like, well, duh. I've been thinking that for weeks now and I just let it go because I'm like fiction, whatever their solution is.

[00:45:12] But I would expect that Victor Timely and OB would, and Eugene for that matter, would have thought of that. What would you do, Alicia, if you got, if OB knocked, rang your bell right now and had

[00:45:25] a signed copy of the second edition of the TVA manual for you? Would you just geek out? I mean, yeah, I would say, yeah, I would say thank you.

[00:45:35] And can I come, you know, be a TVA agent until I get one of those 10 pads and then do my own thing. Nice. All right. What's next? Okay. So then we get into some timely talks.

[00:45:52] Loki time slips back to the last season's finale at the Citadel at the end of time, just as he steps in front of Sylvie, who is leaping at Victor's less pleasant variant, He Who Remains, also played by Jonathan Majors. And she's ready to kill him.

[00:46:08] Loki tries over and over to stop her from doing it, knowing that this is the moment where it all starts to go wrong. But each time she tells him he'll have to kill her if he wants to stop her. And he definitely does not want to do that.

[00:46:20] So Loki calls He Who Remains out for just sitting there watching all this go down like it's his favorite TikTok video on repeat. And He Who Remains finally teaches him the trick of time freezing in a totally jackass mocking way.

[00:46:34] And they put Sylvie, they put the Sylvie factor on pause so the two of them can talk. He Who Remains, he knows all about the time slipping, his stammering variant and everything else because he planned it all himself. The temporal loom was designed to be a failsafe.

[00:46:52] So if he died, it would destroy everything by the sacred timeline because his Kang variants are all out there waiting to destroy everything, including the sacred timeline with their intelligent greed. Loki's sure he can outstubborn all of those variants though, even if as He Who Remains

[00:47:10] reminds him, Loki's loose. And every moment of peace he's ever experienced was because He Who Remains was there alone at the end of time. But Loki will not accept that the options are only either this guy's way or the total destruction of everything.

[00:47:27] He's determined to find another way. And when he thinks to himself, this was all a waste of time, he knows what he must do next. What a great scene. Yeah. What a great scene. Just everything about it. Just. Yeah. Just. Ha ha ha. Man, man.

[00:47:49] Jonathan Majors was just eating the scenery in this. He was so wacky and funny and serious and ominous and heavy and light. He was just everywhere that construct of Kang that he's created of He Who Remains needed to be.

[00:48:09] He was there like a half a step ahead in his acting delivery. It was really so disappointing to think that he's an asshole or a jerk or whatever's going to happen. Real talk, in my head I was substituting in Omar Sy's face the entire time. Ha ha ha.

[00:48:26] I nailed every scene past Omar Sy. Although, okay, so I heard another option that I would also accept. Aldous Hodge, who played Iron Man and Black Adam. He was the only good part of Black Adam, basically. Ha ha ha. Yeah, basically. But okay, I would accept that.

[00:48:43] But no, it should be Omar Sy. He's perfect. Watch Lupin if you doubt. Right. Right. You know, the thing I loved about Kang in this scene was that he so clearly was acting in season one. Mm. Right?

[00:49:04] We thought he was, you know, at the end of time, this guy is lost. He's lost the... Oh, like he's a little cuckoo. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's not all there. It was all an act. It was all an act.

[00:49:21] Not once did you feel that he was not in control of the situation in this scene. Totally true. Not once did you feel like he was a lesser version of himself. He felt every bit of the Kang who won the Kang Wars, who won the Multiversal War. Right?

[00:49:46] He felt every single bit of that character. Yeah. And I watched it and I was like, wow, this guy here, unbeknownst to all of us, was behind this entire thing. And here I am thinking that he's just, you know, nuts.

[00:50:07] Like, I'm thinking there's a worse version of him. No, he is the worst version. Well, do you think? Yes. I feel like he's worse than Victor Timely, but I feel like there's even worse out there. Yeah. How?

[00:50:28] But do you think like, okay, do you think he's the same variant? No, because he's not the same variant as in Quantumania because they reference that variant. Yeah, he's not him. They're on the run from him. You think he's worse than that variant from Quantumania who

[00:50:44] committed apparently several genocides before? So has he. I guess, yeah. Well, it's true. In a more detached way, I guess. Yeah. He consolidated all timelines. What does that mean? Well, yeah, true. Billions. He consolidated all timelines to save something because otherwise they all destroy everything.

[00:51:07] Isn't that always the excuse? Isn't that always the excuse? Right. It's not that it shouldn't be challenged. But let's think about it. Let's think about what did he, he destroyed all those timelines to save what? To save the timeline where he's victorious. Right.

[00:51:23] But in every other timeline, there's nothing left. Yeah, but that's what he says. That's what he says. Loki doubts that, obviously. That's what he says. We don't know the truth of that because we've never seen the other timelines branch out.

[00:51:39] We don't know if there are other versions of Kang who lose. Not to Kang, but to an assortment of heroes. We don't know. Well, we do know now because we have Loki. Right. Loki is the only one who makes it through all of that stuff.

[00:51:59] You were my favorite. As he says. That's why I need this not to be the end of Loki. I need to see a Loki-Kang confrontation in the future. There's no way this is the end of Loki. Yeah. Yeah, well, what happened to him?

[00:52:10] So is the TVA now set up just to keep the Kangs at bay? Yes. They're monitoring for now. That's my belief. My belief is that the TVA is actively using everything that they have to hunt down variants of Kang.

[00:52:33] Even the young little boy making candles at the end who looks amazing. Even the young little boy. What happens, by the way, to this version of Victor Timeline? Yeah, I was wondering that too. We don't know what he becomes, what he grows up to become.

[00:52:47] Do they just watch him to make sure he doesn't- No, but I mean the one who was with them doing all of this while Loki was time slipping. Which, I still have a few questions that I hope are maybe answered in future projects.

[00:53:02] Like what caused the time slipping in the first place? Do you guys think you have a satisfactory answer to that? I have no idea and I don't care. No. What about who remains dead causing the timelines to branch? Do you need a causal link? No.

[00:53:21] I had to call, I had to laugh by the way he called himself HWR and I thought about- He did. Yes, yes, yes, he did. All the times that we've typed that in our notes. Yeah, exactly.

[00:53:31] We say he who remains out loud but in the notes it always says HWR. That's right. But yeah, and just questions like, so I guess the gang he gathered last episode was from all the branch timelines. They weren't actually his original friends. I don't think they were. No.

[00:53:47] No, yeah, because they were from, but okay, but he said that he who remains said that the failsafe kills all but the sacred timeline. But then Loki traveled to branch timelines to gather his friends to put like the pens in the cup as we put it. Right.

[00:54:05] So how does that work? Because shouldn't those timelines have been pruned? Not at all, not meaning to be rude or any way, but I don't care because I got that ending shot of Tom Hiddleston, I don't know what was going on on his face.

[00:54:23] It's so complex, but and with the music, I am good. I don't need to break down the time you want me stuff. That's just me. So I don't want to throw cold water on anybody's thing, but yeah, I'm good with where they did this.

[00:54:38] But you're still itching for knowledge. I hope that they close these little loopholes. Okay. I care about those things. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, that'd be to like take the wind out of your sails. Sorry.

[00:54:52] No, I think if we look back and he goes as he's time-stepping and he's bringing these characters is his cohorts into that room and what year was it? 94, I guess when. Yeah. So he's pulling everybody out at different points of time. Right.

[00:55:13] But also from different branch timelines, I think, or yeah. I don't think they're different branch timeline. Well, it's a branch timeline when he did in last episode, when he went back to pick them all up. Ah, then I'm stuck. Yeah. I mean, okay.

[00:55:36] It's just a little nitpicky thing that can easily as a loop that can easily be closed. But what did you think about the cyclical nature, David, of the storytelling? The cyclical nature. Like the jump back to the Citadel. I liked that. I thought that that was great.

[00:55:52] And I thought it was when we got there, it felt earned, you know, just go through this a couple more thousand times till you get your bearings. It was a great way to like encapsulate that.

[00:56:05] I thought from a storytelling, from a TV storytelling standpoint, they trained us properly at the beginning of the episode with the fifth of Beethoven montage. So that when we get to the Citadel, they don't have to explain anything.

[00:56:23] They don't have to set it to any extra special music or anything like that. They just cut, cut, cut, cut the scene, or they just edit the scenes together. And it felt really good seamlessly, costuming, lighting, actors.

[00:56:39] I could maybe go back to season one and do shot for shot Citadel comparisons, but it felt seamless to me. The acting, I mean, both Hiddleston and remind me of Sylvie's, the actor who plays Sylvie's name. Sofia DiMartino. Yeah.

[00:56:55] Sofia, they were just everything about this felt earned and inevitable, and it was put together on the production side properly. So I felt that the, as you say, the cynical part of it, it was the proper place for this part of the story.

[00:57:13] And it was told expertly, confidently. So I never felt lost. I never felt in doubt. Uh, it, it, it, and then this idea of this setup of like, well, look, I've been here.

[00:57:27] My mercy has been to, you know, all those moments of peace and like, Whoa, that's a pretty crazy thing to say. And you're a mortal dude. And they did that in the, in the previously on, right.

[00:57:41] They showed us them writing in the elevator and he's just like, yep, just a man. And he's eating an apple, which is a sly little thing. And there's an apple, a partially eaten apple on, uh, on his desk.

[00:57:53] Just, yeah, it, it really set the stake so that when, when he does go through the decision making process that he has to, it feels right. It feels right for the character and it feels right for the story. And then just how I felt bad for Victor.

[00:58:12] I felt bad for Loki because King basically did to him what he did to Victor. Right. He had to learn this lesson and the lesson that he had to learn came at great cost because it meant him having to repeatedly think about killing. Right. Right.

[00:58:40] Do I do this? Do I not do this? Right. Do I do this? Do I not? How many thousands of times did he have to live that question to come to the decision that he made at the end of the scene?

[00:58:58] How many fights did they have where if he had just made one little move and like got her instead of her getting him or something? That was really, it had to be so taxing on Loki's emotion, his psyche, and to,

[00:59:12] to know that the person who's putting you through this, who's putting you through these pieces fully expects you to do what he's telling you you're going to do because he believes that your story is one that ends in your failure. Right. Loki's here to be a hero.

[00:59:39] He's trying to save everyone. And the only way you can save everyone, he who remains is telling him is by failing yourself, which is what all Lokis have done before. Right. All other variants, right? All Lokis fail, all Lokis lose. You're going to lose bro.

[01:00:03] You're going to lose and I'm going to make you see that you're going to lose over and over and over and over again, because you only have one choice. And for him to break that, that, that, that was earned. That was earned. A hundred percent. Just great storytelling.

[01:00:23] Right. Agreed. Good writing. Right. Just to geek out a little bit more on production, the shot of Loki stopping Sylvie when he time slips into his body again, the way that they, where they are, where the camera again, and I

[01:00:43] nerded out last episode about this or the record shop, but on this one, this was a much simpler and shorter one, but they, they stop the camera sort of behind Sylvie and it pans around to Loki's right.

[01:00:59] And then pans back again as that whole scene plays out with Jonathan major sitting at the desk and then the two Lokis facing each other. It's a long shot with no cuts.

[01:01:12] And it just, the way that they told the story and the tension and the drama of all of these characters together was it really did lend itself to the inevitability and the earnedness of, of the storyline and this progress that Loki has to make. Right.

[01:01:36] The, the, what's the old adage about the definition of an insanity doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. He got a different result this time. Yeah. And what did it took? It took him. He tried a new thing. He did try a new thing.

[01:01:52] And, but in part of the new thing for him was having friends and having a community and being part of something that he felt was, you know, he was a part of it as much as I don't know. There's that two way street of like, of belonging.

[01:02:10] Are you trying to fit in or you, or do you just belong? And he belonged he belonged with those, with his, this little cadre of people, he wasn't just trying to fit in and go along.

[01:02:22] And that gave him the insight to be able to make a, to change the equation. And to see Kang actively work to erode that, to, you know, chip away at that. That was that, that, that just shows to me the type of villain that the character is. Right.

[01:02:45] It's not always about, you know, the, the big explosion and the snap and, you know, doing away with, with countless people and that sense of, of, of just dastardly villainy. Right. This little thing, like I'm going to chip away at everything that you hold dear at the

[01:03:08] things that you think you are until I get the outcome that I want. What was his outcome that he wanted? Did he want to be replaced? Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, I think he was ready to lay down his burden.

[01:03:21] This is why I think he's by far, not the worst of the Kangs because he genuinely thought like, okay, this is the best solution that I could work out. And he didn't want to just like walk away without handing it over to someone else. Right.

[01:03:37] John, you look like you disagree. John's got a look on his face. I don't know what dad would do for that. Yeah. I just think this, this character of Kang is, is just dastardly. Mm. I, because he's done. I mean, not terrible.

[01:03:55] This one, this one here has done terrible things. Also terrible thing, horrible thing to get to this point. And just because he's at this point, I refuse to, to sweep under the rug, the terrible things that he's done to get to this point.

[01:04:16] That it doesn't, it doesn't hold weight for me. I think he's, I've truly believed that. Yes. There are other Kangs, there are other Kangs who want to rule all, you know, rule all they want to take over.

[01:04:30] They want to do all these things, but that's essentially what he's done. He's given people a semblance of what they think is free will, but is it really free will? It's free will. Did he look beyond to solve the issue so that he's not having to do it?

[01:04:47] He didn't examine the equation. No, everything is on my terms. It's my terms or no terms. But at least I mean, he's a good villain because Yes, yes. He's a great villain, but he's a, but he's a villain nonetheless.

[01:05:09] Capital V I L L all the, all the alphabets capitalized. Right. Villainy. So I really, and I, again, I get that we will probably see down the line versions of Kang that are much more bombastic on screen than, you know, in terms of the destruction that they wrought.

[01:05:36] Right. That they will bring to the MCU that we get to visualize and see. We just didn't see this Kang do that, but he did. Well, it's more insidious because he was like, and it comes to the question of what's worse.

[01:05:51] If you kill five people with your own hands or a thousand with a button. And I think he's, he's done both. I think he's killed billions with right. Which one is good for pushing a button and with his own hand and with his own hand. Right.

[01:06:11] So that, and, and just the level of, again, the glee in his eyes as he watched Loki repeat this over and over and over and over again, he was having fun. He, it was almost like watching, um, Ms.

[01:06:27] Minutes when, when the Q was, was crushing the captain in the room, in the question, this room, her face was like gleeful, but you got this glint in his eyes as he was watching Loki repeat this over and over and over and over again.

[01:06:50] He was having fun because we'll think about it. This is like the most entertainment he's had in centuries. Hmm. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Waiting for this moment for how long for this, whatever happens here. Yeah. Which we can't, it's like impossible for us to imagine that. Right. Right. Right.

[01:07:10] It's totally beyond our capacity. I'm really curious, Alicia, for your war, your, your lore. Yeah. So, so also, yeah. So Loki quotes T.S. Eliot in this scene. He says, we die with the dying.

[01:07:24] We are born with the dead, which is, uh, it's an excerpt from T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding, which is a poem, uh, first published in 1942, which is the last of his four quartets. So these are poems that were written during World War II and published immediately after.

[01:07:40] And the full, like the full quartet, almost four line thing of that is we die with the dying, see they depart and we go with them. We are born with the dead, see they return and bring us with them. And so overall, the four poems are about respectively.

[01:07:57] The first is about the futility you feel when you face the Ouroboros nature of time. And I'm using the word Ouroboros, but it is all about the cyclical nature of time. Uh, the second poem is about the range of emotions experienced and personal perspective

[01:08:13] gained from enduring the Ouroboros of time. The third is about the perspective on humanity gained from undergoing the Ouroboros of time. And finally, the fourth, the poem that's quoted here is about finding salvation and rebirth at the end of time. Wow.

[01:08:29] So that's, that is, that's what Loki goes through. Yeah. Is this cycle is that he has to find his humanity and he has to find this perspective. So, and he has to deal with it.

[01:08:44] Like John said, you know, fighting with, with Sylvie over and over again, and the heaviness of that and the thought of losing his friends, it's, it's all there. And no, I'm on my soapbox here for just a hot second.

[01:08:58] No AI is ever going to pull that together like this. No. Oh, we agree. This is human perspective. You know, But this is someone who yeah, has a connection with the, with his poetry and, you know, brings it to bear on this series with a similar theme. Yeah.

[01:09:16] Exactly. Yeah. You know? And yeah, so the last part of that last section of the poem on of the book is we, what we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning, which requires me to immediately misquote the

[01:09:35] wheel of time and say, the temporal loom was not a beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings in the weaving of time, but it was a beginning. And so I think that leaves that suggests a note of hope for people who are saddened by the way this ended.

[01:09:53] Right. And interestingly, the poem slash quartet, which you can find it online, it'll take you like half an hour to read the whole thing. It's it ends with all manner of things shall be well when the tongues of flame are enfolded

[01:10:08] into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one, which kind of describes to me in the way things like Loki, not knots things up in the end, which actually the name Loki is often translated from old Norse as not.

[01:10:23] That's one of the translations of his name. So there you go. There you go. Good writing, right? Good. So always, if you hear something that sounds like poetry in a TV show, always Google it

[01:10:36] or come to the lore house podcast because we're going to unpack it for you. Actually go and read the thing. Right. That's good stuff. Well, it's interesting. One of the couple of times we've had these comments where people have written in and

[01:10:50] said, you know, one of the things that I value about this kind of this style of podcast is that you guys pull these references so that then I don't have to or I get them in a way

[01:11:00] I get them instilled in a way that I can pick up and continue on without having to take the moment, read the Wikipedia while I'm ignoring my domestic chores or my job or family. Okay.

[01:11:13] So I have to say this one, if you want to find a good version of this, go to davidgorman.com, which is like if chaotic good was a website, it would be davidgorman.com. He's apparently someone who specializes in methods of learning from a philosophical and

[01:11:36] practical point of view, but then he also has a huge recipe section, which is just astounding. And I definitely bookmarked it and then just has his grab food recipes and then just have this grab bag of, you know, these old texts from prior decades and centuries that he's

[01:11:53] put online that are, you know, roughly related to what he's interested in. Okay. Should we put that in the, in the show? Yeah. Let me copy the link to the four quartets. Cool. All right. Good stuff. Yeah.

[01:12:10] So when there's a show that's operating in these, I'll say depths of waters, you can feel it. You don't always necessarily know it or understand or can pull the references, but when there's thought behind a story constructed in this way, it comes out on the screen.

[01:12:31] And even if you don't understand at the end, what did I just watch? You felt like you watched something that your spirit was challenged, that your mind was challenged in some way.

[01:12:40] And that just makes me, it just warms my heart to know that this pull, and I'm glad you pulled this because otherwise it would have just passed me by. All right. You guys ready for some more heavy conversations with Loki? Let's go.

[01:12:55] Are you, Alicia, you want to take us into the next scene? All right. It's time for our last dance, Mobius. I do like they gave them this time with each person. Yeah. Yeah. It was nice. It was nice.

[01:13:11] But Loki, he time slips back to the first episode of the series where Mobius Owen Wilson is confronting him with his life and death on the sacred timeline. And we witnessed that previous Loki talking about how he was born to be king and was

[01:13:26] ready to claim his thrones. But then new Loki slips in and surprises Mobius by recapping everything Mobius has planned for this conversation, including the callback line. My life was a waste of time. Loki asks Mobius how he chooses who lives and who dies. Sorry, who to prune.

[01:13:44] And Mobius tells him a story about a couple of hunters named Mobius and Ravonna Renslayer, Gugun Bafra, who went on a mission around the black sea to find a variant who is going to be responsible for 5,000 deaths that were not in the proper flow of time.

[01:14:02] But Mobius couldn't do the job when he finds out it's an eight year old kid they're supposed to prune. So timelines branched, new variants appeared and a couple hunters died cleaning up the mess. So Mobius became an analyst and Ravonna eventually became a judge.

[01:14:17] Mobius leaves Loki with some tearful words of wisdom and a handshake before he spaghettis away and Loki is left standing in the void outside time. So. Ooh. Yeah. Heavy. Born to be king. Yeah.

[01:14:33] Do you think Sean that, um, this whole black sea thing, uh, could this be a reference to doom? I thought that the black sea reference was oddly specific. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Why say that? Yeah.

[01:14:45] I don't know because I guess I would have to pull up a map of the MCU to see where it is. Like Latveria, they is one of those countries that moves around. That's around. Yeah. So no, it's pretty stationary. So yeah.

[01:15:04] I mean, we don't know where it is in the MCU. No, that's what I'm saying. Where we don't know because we haven't seen it. So I'm trying to think of displacement in the comics or whatever. Um, several different places in the comics even. Let's see. Let's see.

[01:15:17] I have to come back to that because that's a good, that's a good question. That's a good question. Because who was that little boy? Yeah. But also seems like 5,000 isn't that many when you like talk about the biggest death dealers in the MCU.

[01:15:32] It's weird for us to be debating the moral relativism of it, but you know. Terrible. But it's just like, I think, I feel like Victor Von Doom has killed more than 5,000. Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. He's ended entire universe. Right. So yeah, he's much worse than 5,000.

[01:15:54] Owen Wilson in this scene, just, oh man. Yeah. Both him and Tom and everybody, but this scene of Owen Wilson with his perched little lips and you know, his eyes, his hair, the little nose, everything.

[01:16:12] And then they did this thing and they did it with Sylvie too, where they do these like really extreme closeups on their faces. Which really gave me a lot of, oh, what's the director that a lot of Owen Wilson's movies he's in, I'm blanking, like Tannenbaum. Wes Anderson?

[01:16:35] Wes Anderson, thanks. Sorry, my brain, the synapses of my brain are slowly aging. But it felt very Wes Anderson-y in a way. It just created a sense of intimacy and connection between these two characters.

[01:16:50] And it was a little weird, but at the same time, this is the last time that these two characters really get to have a one-on-one buddy moment. And I'm glad that they, like you were saying, Jean at the top here, that they took the time

[01:17:07] for these characters to have this time. Right. And for these actors to just nail it, just to absolutely deliver on every line, every look of face, every emotion playing across them. It was exquisite. It was just a really wonderful scene to watch. Yeah.

[01:17:27] And the music, again, the music, what the hell is this show? I know. The more that we unpack it, the more I'm like, oh man, maybe it's going to rank higher. Pay attention to detail. Yeah. You see, Sean and I have been saying top five all along.

[01:17:40] Top five, man. Top five. It's tough though. It's not an easy year. There's some things out there. Five, five, easy. It's easy. It's easy. Something such easy. I already know where I'm at. I did a pre-ranking already.

[01:17:54] I went through and sort of combed through my list to see where things were shaking out. So, and then like thinking, does this belong here or there or what have you? And, oh, I don't know. Loki's going to have to push up. Definitely. So. Mm-hmm.

[01:18:08] No, and just the writing, these conversations are where Eric Martin's writing really seems to shine. Like he really, I mean, Mobius hit a nerve with me with like most purpose is more burden than glory, which is the new, like with great responsibility, with great power comes great responsibility.

[01:18:27] Yes. Yeah. And then this exchange just destroyed me where Loki says, how do you live with it? And Mobius says scar tissue. Like I had to pause and just feel something there. It makes me think. But how true is that though? You know what I mean? Yes.

[01:18:43] It is. Because we don't. That's the human experience. We're not talking about, you know, murder here, you know, in our own personal lives, you know, but how do you deal with the pain? Yeah. Or tissue.

[01:18:57] It makes me think of Marva from Andor when she's saying, you know, to Cassian, he's saying, oh, I'm worried. I can't, how am I going to go on without you? And she's like, it's just love. There's nothing you can do about it. Right.

[01:19:12] You just have to be able to. Love is grief, it's just love persisting. Yeah. Yeah. There are some things that can't be healed and you just have to keep, you have to find a way to keep moving forward. Keep moving forward. Yeah.

[01:19:23] Or as he puts it here, there's no comfort. You just choose your burden. Yeah. Ain't no comfort in the TVA. Nah. And you know, these are the facts. These are the facts because when you think about it, right?

[01:19:37] He says, you know, we had to get everything back together because a few hunters died. Yeah. I mean, okay. But how many non-hunters have died in, under the TVA at this point? Right. Which is why I keep going back to saying like this, this King is terrible.

[01:19:58] You know what I mean? Because even at, at, in this moment, Mobius is so wrapped up in doing the work. And what is the work? The work is taking people out. Right. That's the work. Right. Pruning, pruning. Great. And where do you end up when you get pruned?

[01:20:16] It's not so great. Right. Right. And then he gets asked, how do you keep going on? And he, the only answer he can give is, is the scar tissue answer, because there is no answer to what he's done. Yeah.

[01:20:31] There's no suitable way to say how I go on. Scar tissue is tougher than regular tissue. You know, it's ugly, but it's tougher. It's a reminder, you know, it's a reminder of what you've gone through.

[01:20:44] The battles that you've, you've waged, the things that you've done, the, the harm that you've caused to yourself, to yourself, the harm that's inflicted on you. Yeah. The moral harm, the moral harm. Right.

[01:20:58] It's a thing that we talk about now with soldiers who've come back from war situations, that the moral injury to them of having to do something horrible. Right. And I don't want to go into talking about hypotheticals or realities, but the fact that,

[01:21:17] you know, in that kind of armed conflict, life is on the line. And sometimes the decisions that you have to make, take life. And what does that do to you as a human being? Yeah. That's a huge central theme of Beacon 23, the book at least.

[01:21:33] So I'm going to play with that in the show. Go listen to the podcast. We'll talk about it at the end, but yeah. So yeah. And then when you counter that with the fact that he who remains was saying, well, you know,

[01:21:49] any sense of peace that you've had is because of my mercy. Yeah. Oh man. It's just such a moral- Because I was there, but that puts the idea in his head, you know, because I was there. I was there. Taking the burden. Right.

[01:22:05] And it goes to the poem that you were breaking down for Felicia, that he has to go through to find these perspectives and then to be able to find his humanity. To be able to make the hard play. Is it Cap that says that?

[01:22:19] That talks about, it's the conversations between Captain America and Iron Man. Yeah. Where Captain America is like, I don't know that you can make the sacrifice play. I don't know that you can make the hard choice. And that's another great ending for a character, right?

[01:22:37] Is that that character went through something and it felt earned when it happened. And so it feels earned for Loki here in that same way that he made the big sacrifice play. Yeah. Joan, are you there? Yeah, I'm here, man. I thought you were- I'm not leaving.

[01:22:55] No, no. I'm just thinking, you know, we keep saying it's the humanity. It's not to me. It is his godly purpose. Right? You said earlier, you know, as he was going through centuries of trying to become an engineer.

[01:23:20] I don't know how many masters and PhDs he earned in that time. But, you know, only a God could do that. To have that conviction. And go insane. And not go insane. And not go insane. And that is something that Loki has been searching for.

[01:23:48] To attain, like when he says he's meant to be a king, he's trying to say he's meant to be where Odin is. You know, like Odin the All-Father. That's what he is, right? He's the All-Father. So he's saying he's meant to be that.

[01:24:07] And that is such a heavy lift that he's trying to accomplish throughout his arc in the MCU. He's trying to live up to that right there. To get on that throne. To become that All-Father, the father of everything that is known.

[01:24:30] The ruler of everything that is known and unknown, I should say. That's not... It makes it more poignant too that he was a complete jerk in the Avengers. Yes, yes. And like, the subject of people.

[01:24:45] Because now as this God of time, this God of story, he's got this broad... He died. He saw his brother... Didn't he see his brother die? Or, you know, I'm trying to remember with Avengers Endgame, how it went down with him and Thor in the ship.

[01:25:07] No, Thor watched them die. Oh no, he died. Oh yeah, right. Yeah, Thor watched them die. That's right. That's right, that's right. But still all of that... So that he embodies all of these different experiences and failures and triumphs and heartbreaks and high moments with friends and family,

[01:25:30] so that he can have a kind of compassion as he sits there. And could he have had that humanity had he not lived? Had he just gotten it, right? And could he have had that humanity without Sylvie,

[01:25:48] without the version of himself that spent her entire life hiding in apocalypses, only seeing destruction and longing for a chance to live? Right. For a chance to... Onk, eerie. Onk. And then she gives the impassioned plea about that. Maybe we should move into that scene now too.

[01:26:08] Yeah, so Sylvie's final words of wisdom. Loki has one more conversation to have with the other love of his life. He slips forward to the moment they're all spaghettiing out of Obi's workshop in Pasadena, just in time to see B-15, Wunwi Misaku, panic as she noodles away.

[01:26:26] And once the two Lokis are alone, he stops time to chat. Loki catches Sylvie up on everything he's learned and asks her what to do. She points out that even the sacred timeline is full of horribleness.

[01:26:38] Is it worth taking everyone's free will away if you can't even give them peace? But what good is free will if everyone is dead, Loki retorts. Sylvie, of course, would rather die fighting, echoing Loki's promise earlier of never giving up fighting all the Kang variants.

[01:26:56] Together they decide it's okay to destroy something if you can replace it with something better. And Loki has his final solution. He leaves this soon-to-be-pastified Sylvie to her fate and goes to face his own.

[01:27:10] So I do wish they had said, it's just okay to destroy something, punt, you know, period. I think some things don't need to be replaced, but that's just a little nitpick. But that moment of her standing there alone, ready to be spaghetti

[01:27:25] was the saddest moment to me this episode actually. Because that version is gone. That version, that was her experience. She gave his wisdom to him and that was the end of her existence. And meanwhile, he's standing there just wanting her to give him permission to kill her.

[01:27:44] And she's like, I'm not gonna do that. Bro, you got this. There's no easy answer here, man. You gotta make a choice. You have to do it. You have to do that. I don't think he wanted the permission though.

[01:27:59] I think he kind of wanted her to be like, no, like, that's not the way. He needed the kick to know that like what he needed to do was not the easy solution, but was for him and the hard solution.

[01:28:13] I don't think he saw it yet in this moment though, until the end of this, right? It was at the end of this scene. It was in this conversation that he got there. Right. But I think he went into the conversation wanting her permission, a blessing to...

[01:28:27] Well, he says, I don't know what to do. Yeah. I think he genuinely didn't know what to do. He's like, I can't. I think he didn't want her permission because he knew he couldn't do it. True. Okay. I'll take that. Yes.

[01:28:37] I don't want to do this, but I don't know how else to explain. Yeah. Help me figure it out. Give me something else to do. Which is beautiful because it's going to your community, it's going to your friends, it's going to your family.

[01:28:51] When you can't see the way out of this particular conundrum, you need eyes outside of you to be able to help you see. And again, doing the hyper closeup shots really gave us that... Gave me that feeling of intimacy and connectivity between the two. Yeah, absolutely.

[01:29:13] Yeah. It was absolutely visually beautiful too with the spectacular scenes. It really was. It really was. Yeah. Like the visuals for this series are just... Crazy. Goodness gracious. And I also thinking about Sylvie in one of her lines about death, destruction and injustice. Right?

[01:29:33] Like what kind of God are you going to be? You know, it really, she really was challenging. I felt really challenged in this too, because I'm like, yeah, okay, well if you take agency and free will away,

[01:29:46] which is what he tried to do in the Avengers when he tried to subjugate all those people. And he's like, oh, well, we'll just take, you know, I'll use my magic powers and you won't have free will and everything will be great.

[01:29:56] But she's like, who are you to tell us that we can't die trying to make a better world? Right. Right. And again, going back to her onk earring, right? She's the symbol of life. But life ain't easy either.

[01:30:11] Just because you believe in rainbows and unicorns doesn't mean it's easy to achieve that. And this is what a lot of us have to fight for it every day. Right. And that's what Kang has taken away, right? Yes. Yeah. Which is why he's such an insidiously great villain.

[01:30:30] Exactly. And he's trying to convince Loki to do the same. Right. To swap out for him so that he can take a rest, take five. Yeah. Jean, which conversation did you find more compelling, Sylvie or Mobius? Sylvie. Yeah. Sylvie.

[01:30:48] Because I just felt like, you know, she had something with him that none of the other characters had because she is a version of himself. Right. She's a version of him. She's a part of him. Mm-hmm.

[01:31:07] No matter what their lives have been, how different they've been, she's still a Loki. And we always have to take that into consideration. Mm-hmm. So I felt like this was a more compelling... For me, it was more compelling just because of that,

[01:31:29] because this is a conversation that he's having with part of himself. You know, Loki had to learn to love himself too. Yes. Yes. Right. He had to learn to come to terms with himself as well. And Sylvie's a big part of that.

[01:31:52] You know, Sylvie has accepted who she is. Mm-hmm. Totally. In a way that Loki 2012 did not until now. So this is... If people are put in our lives to help us learn lessons, then she was put in his life for that reason, I think. Mm-hmm.

[01:32:17] To help him see that you have to come to terms with who you are in order to become who you are meant to be. Mm-hmm. So yeah, I thought this conversation, this one hit home for me more than the one with Mobius. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:32:42] She really puts it to him. Yeah. And she puts it down and says, yeah, you can't go on. You got to pick this out. You got to figure this out. In a way that only she could have told him. Mm-hmm. Only himself. Right.

[01:32:58] In a way, she's the only character that could have told him what he needed to hear in this moment. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And they could only have done that because they... How many times did they fight in the Citadel of Tommen? Right.

[01:33:15] You know, just this constant repetition of working with her against her. Well, he was desperate enough. He was desperate enough to be open to new ideas. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, I've literally... Good point. Spent centuries trying everything. Yeah. Yeah. It's time for a new idea. Yeah.

[01:33:35] So back in the TVA control room again for the uncountable time and centuries of ground Loki day, this time Loki volunteers to brave the temporal radiation himself without the time suit even. So I guess Obi's model wasn't Loki shaped after all.

[01:33:54] They make a little point of it too. He's like, C-O-B or no, C-O-B. C-O-B is not shaped like you. Not like you. I love just all the details of the... This is what I love about time loop movies, all the details of when they repeat the days

[01:34:09] and then make fun of the previous encounters. And play with it. Yeah, exactly. His last words to his friends are, I know what I want. I know what kind of God I need to be for you.

[01:34:20] The two most important faces in his life, sorry, Thor, are framed in the window. As the temporal radiation strips away his clothing, his body is unaffected and a full Loki comic costume is revealed complete with cape and horns.

[01:34:35] Using his Loki magic, he rends the temporal loom apart, grabbing the strands of time that spill out with his own hands, using his magic to pump life back into them as they die.

[01:34:45] With a final look for his friends, he gathers them into a giant, giant, giant, giant, giant pulling them with him into the void where he finds a misshapen throne waiting for him. The gold of the Kintsugi-cracked citadel follows him, enveloping the throne, and he sits,

[01:35:02] wrapping the timelines, nodding them around himself, holding on with both hands to use his God powers to keep them all alive in a multiverse where people are free to live their own lives on their own terms. Glorious purpose indeed.

[01:35:17] As the camera pans out and rotates, we see that Loki has twisted the timelines into the shape of the Yggdrasil, the Norse tree of life. The world tree. The world. So, let me, I want to interject a really quick comics corner here because I think it's important. Okay.

[01:35:43] This is also from Agents of Asgard, Agent of Asgard. This is from issue number 11. We've said a few times here that he's standing, you know, in the void between time, right? And in this issue, we find Loki wandering the void. There's a space that is not a space.

[01:36:09] The space between the 10 realms. And in that space, you must walk it alone. He looks up and he says, father. And Odin is staring at him and Odin says, Loki, my child who is both son and daughter. Did I not say I know you?

[01:36:33] I know everything you are. And I love you still. Hmm. Loki says to Odin, if you love me, then you know me not at all, old man. I, I am an old man, foolish and fond and quick with my temper.

[01:36:56] There are times I show little wisdom and yet here there is wisdom. He's pointing at his eye. Hmm. The strange wisdom of the world tree. I gave this eye to. Hmm. The tree that is everything that has its roots and branches in all that it.

[01:37:20] There are 10 realms in this reality, 10 spheres, 10 universes. The tree winds through them all. And through every star and planet. Every hero and villain, every life, every story. I am Odin Borson who built the world from the corpse meat.

[01:37:44] I am Odin One-Eye and sometimes my one eye is open. And above all, I am Odin All-Father. I am the one who speaks for the tree. I am the king of all stories. Of all stories. And you are my child. Finn. I mean. Yeah.

[01:38:10] I mean, I read it. I read it, you know, last night and I got shivers. And I just read it again. I got shivers again. Right. I mean, come on, guys. Come on. This is the best of what this genre does, right?

[01:38:30] This is the kind of the quality, the qualitative stories that we want from this genre. Come on. Well, I mean, pulling together the best literature from the comics and from, you know, our world, T.S. Eliot and Shakespeare and all that.

[01:38:46] And these are just, you can tell this is written by a room of writers who just have a passion for the way humans communicate their humanity. And that's what this show ends up being all about. Yeah. And it's just visually stunning, too.

[01:39:05] Like I just, in a stunning show of stunningness, this, all these scenes, like the scene with Loki, his cape has turned into these ropes of time. I know, I clocked that as well. Yeah, that was just gorgeous.

[01:39:21] And the, when Loki's getting ready to go down the stairs and out onto the door, there's a long shot of him, just his face. And he's, it's like, he's looking, you see his eyes and his face move.

[01:39:34] And he's looking at all his friends and getting emotional about the choice he's about to make. Yes. Very, it's very, that scene is very Stations of the Cross. Or Catholics. Who are listening.

[01:39:51] When Jesus has the cross on his shoulders and he's burdened with what he's about to do, the sacrifice he's about to make, and he's walking that walk and the burden is heavy,

[01:40:05] which each step that Loki takes, you can see the heaviness of the burden that he's about to shoulder. You can see the, just the depth of, I'm at a loss for words. I was at a loss for words watching and I'm at a loss for words now.

[01:40:21] And he says, I know what I want, what kind of God I want to be for you and for all of us. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. And this reminds me, so a friend of mine, Bruce Crawford on Twitter, he pointed out that he says,

[01:40:35] I couldn't help but think of the moment in the 2012 Avengers film when Phil Coulson told Loki that he lacked conviction. Boom. Yeah. I loved how Loki finally found his conviction and his glorious voice. Yes, yes. That's a great, great call. Yeah. Great call.

[01:40:52] And just, you know, him being at the end of time in this space between time. Yeah. Overseeing it all and not even overseeing it. I'm not even saying he's overseeing, he's keeping it all together. Yeah. Yeah. His role is not to watch over.

[01:41:12] His role is to hold it together. Just be the force that holds the universe together. Everything together, that holds reality as we know it together, that holds time as we know it together. That is his purpose. And that is the purpose that he has been given.

[01:41:30] That is the purpose that he's taken for himself. He realized and he made the sacrifice. The sacrifice is I'm going to sit here on this throne and I'm going to make sure that none of this goes away. And he had one last little hair flip.

[01:41:48] He was like, whoosh. It wouldn't be Loki without it. Absolutely. And just, you know, just awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah. And I love the tie into the comic in that he's having this conversation and in the comic, he doesn't become this. Right.

[01:42:13] And in Agent of Asgard, as the incursions happen, what he does is he weaves a story for the Asgardian gods and keeps them in sort of like a pocket universe, you know, so they don't end. He told he's given them their story and they are outside of the.

[01:42:38] Nothingness that exists. Right. And just really, really good storytelling in this series to even have, you know, Sylvie play a role in this. And for me to go back and read the comics and to see how, yes, I know, you know, Loki

[01:43:02] trans becomes female, becomes a woman in this comic. Right. But to have Odin, who he's always, always in constant friction with and constant battle with, always trying to. Yes, yes, accepted. Like you are my child.

[01:43:27] There's another point in this in this series where he goes, you know, yes, I know you. I have a son. I have a daughter and I have one who is both. Right. Because they come to figure out there's another realm and that, you know, Odin has a daughter.

[01:43:48] Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But he says that he says, I have a son, I have a daughter and I have one who is both and I love them all. Yeah.

[01:43:56] This is the stuff that, you know, when I see the type of shit that goes online and purports to be the voice of comic readers. Right. No, these people who say this stuff do not read the comics. No, I know. At all. At all.

[01:44:17] But they inhabit a space where they talk as if they are and given face value, people believe that they are. Yeah. Because it happened after 1975. It's valid. Exactly. And just knowing that the comic and this series, again, the way that they tie in together is

[01:44:43] just a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. Another beautiful thing was Yggdrasil, the tree, that vision of the tree at the end. It was absolutely gorgeous. I tried to do a little reading on it.

[01:44:58] I'm not going to even attempt a lore bomb on this thing because it's so deep and it has so many connections way above my pay grade. So there's a great Wikipedia. Marilyn, we're calling on you. Yeah, seriously.

[01:45:12] Or yeah, drop into our Discord and jump on the MCU Loki channel and give a holler if you've got some insights or email us if somebody else out there has a particular point on it.

[01:45:24] I just really like this idea of sacred trees and groves and paganism and sort of the Germanic mythology is. George R.R. Martin liked that idea too. Totally. It's all there. Somebody else, I think, had a couple of trees rolling around in their world.

[01:45:44] It was just a beautiful image to end on for Loki's story. And I love that it was the time tree, as I'm calling it. Not the world tree. I love that it was the time tree because it's true to his character.

[01:46:04] This is what the manifestation would look like because that's the world that he's from. Right. It wouldn't look like something else. It wouldn't look like a loom. It wouldn't look like, you know, it would look like this because this is who he is. This is who he is.

[01:46:22] He is the child of Odin. He is the brother of Thor. He is a frost giant. He is the son of Jonathan. This is who he is. So it's, you know, that imagery was really, really, really so great to see because it

[01:46:43] reminded me like this is a story of myth. This is a story of heroes. This is the stories that I grew up reading and loving before I even got into comics. Right. You know, mythological stories were my first comic books. Yeah. As they were for probably many people.

[01:47:07] You can tell by my name that was the first books I put in front of me. Right. So it's really so well done, so well crafted this series has been. And the finale, the final death shot of Loki just, you know. Yeah. It killed me.

[01:47:27] Man, you can't, you can't, you can't script it better than they scripted it. I have an important question to ask though. Do you all wear socks when you're wearing your loafers? Because Loki wasn't wearing socks. It's going to, I'm not going to lie.

[01:47:45] It took me out for a second. It depends. Weird little bit. It depends on the season. It depends on the outfit. Come on, man. Right. He's rocking the new socks.

[01:47:57] I'm going to tell you if I'm, if I'm at a like Potawatomi powwow, I am not wearing socks with my moccasins. Yeah. Depends on the season. Depends on the outfit. He was styling the cape turning into the branches of the tree. Just great stuff, man.

[01:48:19] And that's why, yeah. Teddy Roosevelt said walk softly and wear soft loafers without socks. I think something like that. All right. Should we wrap up the final scene? Yeah. So, okay. The epilogue simply titled after B15 walks into one of the Crono Bay's passing a poster showing

[01:48:40] TVA agents taking care of the tree of life with the text, let's grow together, nurture our nature for a stable future. She throws out a random compliment on the work floor, which now also features employees dressed

[01:48:54] like nurses or medical staff before checking in with Casey and OB who think they might have fixed missed minutes. All better now as Casey and OB head to the war room for a strategy session. B15 lingers to talk to Mobius who has decided it's time.

[01:49:10] It's time to reenter time. His sons are waiting for him and his last job as an analyst is delivering the Kang variant reports, including a brief mention of the plot of Quantumania. Luckily, they don't know about TVA yet, the Kang variants, but Mobius suggests that they

[01:49:28] keep the murals showing he who remains pruning the branches of the tree as a reminder not to repeat the past. OB unboxes some new TVA manuals now with yellow covers and labeled second edition and a young

[01:49:43] Victor Timely makes candles in 1868 glancing back toward the open window in his cabin, but a book never comes through. Ravonna wakes up at the end of time. A storm is brewing and it blows some grass off a metal disc.

[01:49:57] It's the one from the floor of TVA for all time, always. Ravonna clocks a pyramid and then is approached by flashing purple lights, presumably a lion, but her face settles in a determined look. Then we cut to Mobius's, sorry, Don's suburban home in Cleveland where he's watching another

[01:50:18] version of himself play with his boys when Sylvie stops by to say her farewells. She's headed out to she doesn't know where because for the first time she can go anywhere she wants that he who remains Tempad will sure come in handy and on his throne of stories,

[01:50:35] the god Loki smiles with tears in his eyes. So good stuff. First question is Miss Minutes really fixed? Oh, no. I kind of hope not oddly. Oh and get one. OB is not a bad guy.

[01:50:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Turned out to be an okay guy all along, but you know, the funny thing is, is that we were in a way we were kind of playing small ball.

[01:51:12] Well, this was playing a whole different game and we were doing our usual thing of hunting for connections and shadows and who's, who's this and what's really going to happen. And all the meanwhile, they were doing something much, much bigger that could not,

[01:51:29] there's no way we could have seen this coming. Yeah. And I think it really took this final scene in this final episode for it to really show together. Final little piece in the Lego set. So. Yeah.

[01:51:45] Do you think when we saw the people in the war room at the end was D90 among them? I think so. But how is it? So Ravonna was pruned, but he was not pruned by the end, I guess because of where Loki slipped at some point.

[01:52:01] I, yeah, I don't know if I can answer it, but it seemed fine that he was there. Whatever. If I came back, I'm cool with it. They didn't, they didn't ever show us his face. It was just from behind. Exactly. It looked like him from the day. Right.

[01:52:17] Yeah. And where's Brad? Yes. Where is Brad? What happened to Brad? I guess he just like. Brad is living his movie star life. Movie star. Movie star life, right. They gave him the life that he wanted. Yeah.

[01:52:30] What's and what's in the second edition of the, of the manual? Don't listen to Kane. Don't prove people, right. Watch out for this face. Chapter one, don't listen to Kane. I also found it interesting. They referenced the quantum realm where the quantumania happened was a 6166 adjacent realm

[01:52:54] where yeah, people had been theorizing in the past that maybe the TVA was in the quantum realm, but nope, apparently every universe has their own quantum realm. So I guess every universe has their own nor realm and their own as, you know, as guardian afterlife and Egyptian afterlife.

[01:53:13] And Wakanda and then. That's a lot of worlds. Recast to Challah. Even within each multiverse. It's a little. No, I think you have to go to a different universe to recast Challah.

[01:53:29] Except for the, the child who's going to become a teenager and meet a young woman named Aurora. On the streets of Cairo. You're going to get to Challah and storm to heaven. That's right. Let's get to Challah. Back to Ravonna really quick. Yeah.

[01:53:52] We don't see what happens to her. No. She. Yeah. And we don't know if that's a life. I mean, it feels like the, that place. It sounded like a life, but then when I saw the pyramid, I'm thinking more around my time. Yeah, exactly.

[01:54:09] And she was purple light, which is both a light of a liar and Kang. So I was thinking around my time. Yeah. It sounded, yeah. It sounded like a life, but that pyramid means something. The other version of King.

[01:54:22] What about Google and both the raw being our next big phase X, whatever bad. Baddie. What about Ravonna being our, uh, our mean antagonist going forward? I can't rule it out for that. Can't rule it out. I mean, she should at least play a bigger role in it.

[01:54:39] Yeah. Yeah. With Omar Ski, but yeah, she, she's a great actress. Yeah. It's great actor. Well, I feel like from the way that it ended. Yeah. No, go ahead. No, I just want the Kang storyline to play out just because it's like, we started this whole Kang storyline.

[01:54:55] Let's let's finish this off and perfectly happy for. Of specific recasting, but I'm open to others. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I feel like the way that the, this ended for Ravonna, that she's very much in play totally for whatever, whatever comes down the line.

[01:55:14] That she is going to be a part of it. So I absolutely feel we'll see her. We will see Ravonna again. Definitely. If that was a Alioth, she's about to put Alioth on a leash. Yeah. Yeah, definitely the way that she looked right. A hundred percent.

[01:55:32] A hundred percent. Okay. Yeah. Any other loose threads we want to tie up here or? Well, so I have a question if, so if Mobius shows up back at his house as Don is,

[01:55:47] is like the other Don leaving soon, or is he going to have to like, take care of that? He's going to prune Don. I don't think he's going to prune Don. I think he's gonna, you know, wander the world, whatever world. I don't think he's staying.

[01:56:03] He's going to linger here and he was staring at his sons. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think he's going to stay there though. Because I don't, I don't, I don't think he's going because in order for him to stay there,

[01:56:14] he has to prune Don and I don't think he's going to do that. Or maybe he timed it. So it was like earlier in the day, right before he left with Loki. Yeah. Hard to say. Yeah. I think he needs a break. I think he needs a break.

[01:56:32] Yeah. And knowing what he knows, how could he go back to a mundane existence? Exactly. And he might be lurking for a little bit, you know, in the background of Don and the boys lives. But I don't think he's going to try to, you know, become Don. Right.

[01:56:51] Yeah. Because how many Dons are there? There's an infinite number. Infinite number of Dons. Right. And how many Dons survive? Maybe some, maybe there's a Don that passes away. He could take that Don's place. Who knows?

[01:57:04] But I just don't feel like Mobius at this time is a pruner. Right. Right. I mean, I love that for this final conversation. So before that, in this whole last section, the music had been down tempo, but only consciously

[01:57:24] hopeful at first, but then it like grew until when we saw Ravonna staring down, whatever the purple was, that was when it really kind of exploded. And I love to tell you that it mirrored that whole sequence, mirrored B-15 turning to Mobius. And she says, are you scared?

[01:57:40] And he's like, oh yeah. And that's, that's bravery. They keep talking about going back on the gangplank, going back out with Victor Timely to face the temporal decay, like be brave, be brave. That's bravery is are you scared? Oh yeah, but I'm going to do it anyway.

[01:57:58] But then for this final talk with Mobius and Sylvie, the music just totally cuts out. So we only leave them to their own devices and just hear the wind blowing. And then we cut to Loki. Yeah.

[01:58:12] And there's this green gold lens flare before we cut there, just as she says, it's weird that Loki's not here. Yeah. Yeah. That was good. But he is. And then his voice, we hear time passes sort of echo as we swim through time to catch up to Loki.

[01:58:28] We hear Mobius' voice, Owen Wilson's voice a couple of times deep in the background. It's not even in the subtitles. So it was just really beautifully done. Beautifully done. Yeah. Great stuff. Any other loose dangling threads that you want to wrap up? Yes, a few. Okay.

[01:58:47] So one is that it was pointed out in heavy spoilers that for all time always, if you take the acronym, it's FATA, which is destiny in Latin. Oh, okay. That's great. There you go. That's great. I have to point out there are some dangling threads.

[01:59:03] Like we never figured out about the War Room recording, but I still feel like I'm still thinking that there are some unanswered questions that I hope that we just, we see all these characters again. I think that we will.

[01:59:17] Also the statues in the Citadel, you know, there was the one that was crumbled. I guess Jack was a nobody. We'll have to let that go. That's my Markley. That's from Foundation. Just an NPC who didn't have any other connection.

[01:59:32] Well, and I still want to see Loki and Mobius ride jet skis together. No, no. Somebody who's got Photoshop skills, send Alisha a Loki and a ski do. And yeah, I have to credit my friend Aaliyah. She said she called the crew the Loom Squad.

[01:59:50] So I see that terminology. Do you think we'll see the Loom Squad together again? Yes. Yeah. Yes, I do. I think the TVA is going to play a, the TVA will play a big role in Secret Wars and Kang Dynasty Avengers. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:00:08] There were a lot of questions that they like left implied, but not said like the link between Obi's isolated workshop and the TVA and like the whole time slipping thing and stuff. And also, I don't know.

[02:00:19] I'm thinking Thor must be the character they wanted to use, but weren't allowed to. I agree. There were rumors that the brothers, that there was a brotherly reunion in the works. So I'm still, I still think that that must be in the plans because there's no way they

[02:00:35] wouldn't want to see that payout on screen. I agree. I'm, I'm, I'm so satisfied with the story. I don't want, I don't want anything else. I'm happy with. But the nature of the next two stories. It's his brother. I know. But it's bittersweet.

[02:00:53] It's bittersweet and that's what I think it is. Yeah, but they have to have something. We have to see some payoff. I don't know. Not even some payoff. It's just the nature of the story that they're telling with Kang dynasty and secret wars.

[02:01:08] This Loki who is holding everything together has to be a part of it because if those are the two stories, everything goes away. Right. If we're talking about the incursions, we're talking about secret wars, we're talking about everything goes away.

[02:01:25] This Loki that's holding all the threads together, that's holding the root together, that's telling, that's holding time together has to be involved in some way. Right. You definitely have to see him. You can do whatever you want as long as you do it right.

[02:01:41] Yeah, you have to do it right. You have to do it right. Do it right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take your time. We're going to sit here. That's right. And we're going to judge no matter what you do. Absolutely. We're going to critique you. Be Loki, not secret invasion.

[02:01:56] Could you imagine if this trio had been, oh. Oh, yeah. Let's not do it. Let's not do it. Let's not do it. Let's not do it. Let's not do it. Nope, nope. Well, let's take a quick break and then when we get back, we can cover some feedback.

[02:02:09] John, you covered everything with comic books, right? Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. All right. All right. Quick break and then we'll come back and we'll do some feedback. And we're back. Okay, let's switch into some feedback.

[02:02:38] First up is Dork of the Ninjas, friend of the pod and faithful voicemailer, sender inner. He sent in two voicemails. We're only going to play his most recent one. His first one was pre episode six and he had a theory about the TVA and seeing the creation of

[02:02:56] the TVA. Also, he mentioned the Echo trailer and I think he's, I guess the sense was that he's looking forward to it. He was just a little concerned from all the back chatter that we've all been hearing. So, but here is his. Hopefully that's cleared up.

[02:03:13] Yes, hopefully that's all cleared up now. So here's. Because that started before even the filming. That, yeah. Exactly. All right. Hey guys, just wanted to talk to you about the season finale of Loki. Got to say, I absolutely loved this season.

[02:03:28] It is easily my favorite of any of the MTO shows at this point. It was already up there pretty high for me, but this completely sealed it for me. I love the idea of just realizing that this is going the God of stories route,

[02:03:43] the comics kind of, but it's a different twist. The visuals going absolutely perfect for this episode, just seeing them go absolutely for broke, just seeing all that bunch on the screen, just seeing how it looked fantastic.

[02:03:57] Seeing that we finally get to see Loki make the giant sacrifice play, not just try to win, not try to just be happy, but to just do the sacrifice and do what he needs to say, the

[02:04:09] universe, well, not the universe, the multiverse being the guardian of it and just bringing back uterus. So I think it's how you say it, the world tree. So I have some imagery we haven't seen for Thor since I think the first Thor movie,

[02:04:23] if I'm not mistaken, but just a beautifully made episode and just a appropriate end for the character. I wouldn't mind if we never see this Loki ever again or we like next time we see him as like secret wars or King Dias D.

[02:04:38] But I just hope that this is a great set up for that character if not, and I just think it was beautiful and hopefully Marvel can continue this type of trajectory going forward. I'm actually going to go see the Marvels later today, have heard mixed things, but hopefully-

[02:05:02] It's not true. It's all good. I don't know what to think about it then. We'll see it. Have a good one. Thanks, Michael. Yes, this was a beautiful send off for a character for 14 year long run. So that's pretty awesome. Yeah.

[02:05:17] I mean, I think even if it's a pause until secret wars, this is a beautiful place to pause. Yeah, for sure. All right. Next up is Cincinnati Joe who wrote in right after episode five. You wondered in the podcast why Sylvie had her memories when Loki showed up.

[02:05:34] This is what I think happened to the characters at the end of episode four. Loki started time sleeping again. Maybe he did it subconsciously. Sylvie used her memories. So even though we didn't see it happen, my guess is that she used her He Who Remains

[02:05:50] temp pad to save only herself, return to her favorite McDonald's timeline. By the way, she didn't seem to act surprised or relieved or happy to see Loki again, which is odd. What does she think happened to him when the loom exploded? Did she not care?

[02:06:08] Maybe the other three variants ceased to exist along with Victor. Loki seems to be traveling to the timelines where they each came from, perhaps near the time when the variant timelines branched that the TVA pruned when that person was originally

[02:06:23] taken to the TVA and memory wiped to become an agent. Does that make sense? Cincinnati Joe. Anybody played spaghetti that I can try to pull apart? But are you online with this? Yeah, I was gonna say it's been a like a big geek time for spaghetti.

[02:06:44] We had that analogy in the flash. We've got this whole spaghettification thing and one of the best Rick and Morty episodes that's ever aired aired this week. That was also about spaghetti. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Nice. John, any thoughts on spaghetti?

[02:07:02] I kind of agree with what about Cincinnati Joe said. Yeah. Yeah. About going back to just before they were pruned. Sure. Branches, the timelines were erased. So yeah, I get that. Cool. All right.

[02:07:16] Next up is all Chalant and wrote in two emails, episode five email and an episode six email. Regarding episode five, Obie's 1994 lab has the same shape layout, even the same fans on the rear walls as his TVA lab.

[02:07:31] His TVA lab has just a bunch more junk crowding it. Looks like the roots of the TVA began in Pasadena before it moved to the time doesn't work the same here black hole that the TVA calls home. Is that where they're at?

[02:07:44] Are they inside of a black hole there to be able to hold that space? I mean, that would make sense why they spaghettify, so to speak. Right. Okay. So because we see that black hole book and they never really talk specifically about

[02:08:02] black holes other than the meta of spaghettification. So let me just say that's not real physics. Again, I've mentioned it before. I'll show on continues. Also, all the 80s and 90s looks of the TVA tech is now explained by being constructed

[02:08:18] in 1994 from a physicist spare parts junk shop. I think we're seeing the creation of the TVA by Loki and friends and the promise to Mobius that he can go back to his son whenever he wants will be broken when Kang comes along

[02:08:32] to take over the TVA and mind wipe everyone. Biggest Hail Mary tinfoil hat here. Hold on to something. Buckle up. The mind wipes from Kang done at some point are done to everyone, including Loki and the

[02:08:44] old sleepy drooling man in the war room on the table in season two. Episode one is a feeble mind scrambled. Okay. Does that make? Well, I don't think we know it's not clearly.

[02:09:00] I think this is where we were hunting again for a show that was playing a different stakes than what we were hunting. Absolutely. Absolutely. So well done. Yeah, this is written after episode five. So before the conclusion. Yeah.

[02:09:15] But Alshalant on point here with the creation of the TVA, we have a well, we have a reinvigoration of the TVA, right? We have a TVA with a new mission. So all right. So Alshalant continues wrote in an email regarding the name pronunciation.

[02:09:34] It's a moniker given to me in the Detroit punk scene. My name is Alex and I fronted for a band nonchalant as they started calling me Alshalant. Continue to use it as my online avatar name now that I'm much older and out of my punk rock party days.

[02:09:50] You're never out. You're never out. Good stuff. Even when you're out, you're in. That's right. All right. And they conclude with their post episode six email. They ended Loki well. He's at the heart of the, sorry, I was going to say universe.

[02:10:07] The heart of the multiverse now, and we will probably see him again in upcoming Avengers films. So this gives credence to what you guys were saying. We see a path forward now in the story with the new TVA second edition hunting Kang variants to protect the multiverse.

[02:10:24] My issue with the war room recording, it wasn't directly addressed, but I can head cannon my way into believing it was left by he who remains since he was shown to be in much more control than we previously believed by the additional conversation he had with Loki.

[02:10:41] It was to your point, John, that he who remains, we saw was not crazy, but it was in total control. So do you guys buy, can you guys head cannon that too as well? That the, I can't, it's all part of his. Okay.

[02:10:56] I mean, it's not head cannon. I think they explicitly stated. Okay. All right. I just want that tape player. All right. All Sean, thanks so much for all your emails. Uh, give us a holler if you go see the marvels as well. Let's hear your takes on those.

[02:11:14] Marilyn writes in after episode five, we have not gotten her episode six feedback. So like we said, any feedback that comes in for Loki episode six, we will include on our marvels post viewing, uh, feedback section.

[02:11:32] So if you've got something that you want to send in, cause we're just going to keep the marvel MCU shows rolling, you know, interstitially between projects and things like that. So things will always carry forward. So if you've got something, don't hesitate. We'll, we'll throw it in anyway.

[02:11:46] Marilyn writes another enjoyable episode. My thanks to you all. I found it somewhat ironic that throughout the earlier episodes, Mobius kept saying that he didn't want to know his other life.

[02:11:57] And now he doesn't want to go back to his jet ski life and would rather save the world Loki. The point seems to be that whatever life we're in now is the quote unquote real life, at least for most people.

[02:12:11] Evidently Brad, the movie star disagree, but the real life is the one where you're a movie star. I mean, yeah, exactly. The one where you made it. That's right. I found it interesting that the topic of platonic friendships came up and how many of you said

[02:12:31] that you were ready for more of that? I heard a recent news piece that said that teenagers are also swinging away from romance and their stories and preferring to explore friendships. So I guess y'all are just on the cutting edge, the latest trends.

[02:12:46] Why does that not surprise me? Well, we don't want to get too far off. We're into romances. Our holiday romance movie fan, or I have a weakness for Hallmark Christmas movies. I won't lie.

[02:13:05] But I do in general, like I want in my life, my personal private life has been full of romance. There's been romance, but there's been a lot of platonic friendships and these are some of the most important relationships of my life.

[02:13:18] So obviously I do want to see those explored on screen. I just don't, you know, the people who are like, oh, we don't need romance. I understand some people are aromantic. That's fine. We can have those stories, but romance is also very real and important and fulfilling

[02:13:34] part of existence for humans. It's true. It's true. Absolutely. We can have stories guys, you know, you can have all the stories in the world, everything that we can imagine. And I think it's fun to explore them all, even if you don't want to somebody else will.

[02:13:55] All right. Marilyn continues. It's very difficult to remember that Sylvie and Loki are in fact each other in origin. It's rather like the usual discussions about twins, nature or nurture. Here we have some identical individuals in every respect, but with differing lives, they come out very differently.

[02:14:12] Chalk one up for nurture. I agree that the best part of the show overall is Loki's development arc. The first episode was astonishing. For the first time, we see humans seemingly controlling Loki. How is this possible?

[02:14:27] There's a power in the universe that is greater than the selfish trickster God. There is, she's I should reread that. Tell me more. And they have, and it's delightful to see Tom Hiddleston really strutting his stuff and Loki finding compassion for others.

[02:14:42] I'm less drawn in by all the timey wimey stuff, the notion of sacred timeline, all the branches off from there, et cetera. It definitely has a more comic book flavor. Whereas the beginning episode or two really did seem to be about individuals and personalities,

[02:14:59] which is of greater interest to me, but it's a fun ride. And I'm looking forward to seeing if the plane gets well and truly landed. All the best Marilyn. You've landed the plane, Marilyn.

[02:15:13] We've landed the plane and it was an orderly disembarkment and we're on our way to pick up our luggage. So, well, we look forward to hearing your feedback, Marilyn, because there's some big lore stuff in there. We'd love to get your perspective on.

[02:15:33] So, so glad that you were able to send in all your emails and have been enjoying the show. It's really, it's a worthwhile show and we're all grateful for that. All right. Next up is Aaron K.

[02:15:44] Hey, lore hounds just watched the finale of Loki and wow, it was something special. The episode was visually stunning in a series whose special effects have already been stellar. I am by no means an expert on Norse mythology, but I love the time tree created at the end

[02:16:01] as it's certainly referencing. Oh, now I had the name in my head and now you do it, David. You just sell. I looked at those jumble of vowels or I mean, Do it again, baby. Do it again. The tree of the tree of life, which connects all realms.

[02:16:22] You just sell. How's that? There we go. I can't, you can't think about it, right? You just got to jump. But just the Y is a, is a vowel. Right. There's a time and a place for soft magic. And I think Loki's abilities in this episode were perfect.

[02:16:40] His character development in the MCU has been one of the best of the episodes. And this episode has become my second favorite of this year, right behind foundation. Can't wait to hear your thoughts, Aaron Kay. Soft magic.

[02:16:53] Were you guys good with the way that they dealt with Loki and Sylvie's magic this whole series? Yeah, we're okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of funny because the science went hard enough, you know, went fairly hard for for the MCU.

[02:17:11] And then indeed, I never really questioned anything about the magic. Like, you know, yeah, that's sure. That's just, they are Lokis and that's their magic. And they can do this stuff. Yeah. Go ahead, John. No, I'm saying at the end, the magic was anything but soft. Oh, right.

[02:17:30] When we get back into magic and storytelling, right? Magic was anything but soft. It went hard in the story department. Nice. Well done. Thanks, Aaron Kay. Thanks for sending in your thoughts and look forward to hearing some more from you.

[02:17:46] Billy writes in, so glad you read my last email. A few things from your episode five show before getting into the finale. You kind of brushed it over when I mentioned that I thought Loki would time slip back

[02:17:59] to the first episode because episode five already cleared that up. But I wanted to clarify that I meant the first episode of the series, which we kind of sort of got in the finale. Kind of sort of. Yeah, we did get it. Yeah, we definitely got it.

[02:18:14] Seriously, I'm going to take that as a win. Absolutely. Internet points, serial awarded, pull the string and have a big thing of serial drop down on you. I don't think I'm alone in thinking this, but as far as the romance between Sylvie and Loki,

[02:18:35] I believe their relationship is more of a symbolic self-love. This is what we were talking about before, right? You have to love yourself. You have to be accepting of yourself, who you are for everything you are and everything that

[02:18:46] you're not to be at peace with yourself before you can move, right? You got to be. You got to be centered in yourself. But if you're angry with yourself, you can't get stuff done, right? So that's right.

[02:19:00] I like the idea with Loki at odds with his own feelings of doubt and worth. I think that could have still worked if they had gone with a romantic twist, but I like to think

[02:19:11] of I just like to think of what it symbolizes more than what we see on the surface. As for the finale, I can't believe how epic they made this story. I'm not sure if this is a series finale, but I'd be happy if it was.

[02:19:27] So a lot of folks seem to be happy with this idea that this is a chapter close. A chapter close. Yeah. But I mean, I'm happy if it's the last season of Loki, but I'm not happy if we don't see these characters again. Right. Right. The chapter's closed.

[02:19:41] The book is still being written. Right. Right. But luckily- Story still to be told. There's heavy rumors that Mobius might appear in Deadpool 3. Interesting. Okay. Could be a Phil Coulson-like type character. Yeah, well, I mean, we know that Deadpool's going to be jumping around between timelines, so. Okay.

[02:20:01] All right. Billy continues, I was wondering how the MCU is going to move forward with Loki so powerful that he can control time and traverse the multiverse, kind of like a souped up version of America Chavez, possibly on par with Kang.

[02:20:18] But they took care of that by making him the keeper of timelines. I can't say it. Interesting. Interesting. I think this is the last time we see this full version of Loki until maybe the climatic ending of the Secret Wars story.

[02:20:33] Hopefully, that doesn't mean that we don't go to see other versions of Loki though. All right. So everybody who knows about the Secret Wars stuff and what have you still is open to the possibility of Loki. So I think that's a pretty fair thing.

[02:20:49] I think for me, and I said this before, this was just so damn satisfying that I don't need something to undo it. I don't want to lose the bittersweet- I don't think it gets undone. Right. I don't think it gets undone.

[02:21:01] I think it's a continuation of the story. Right. Right. Fair enough. I want this Loki to have more than that in the end. He can do this for a while. Right. Billy continues, he who remains was absolutely diabolical. Agreed.

[02:21:20] I figured he had all this planned out, but it was still great to see it manifest. I think this is an important point, right? We could have guessed that this was the case, but we had to see how it worked. Right.

[02:21:33] We had to see the mechanics of it work through. The dilemma he gave Loki kind of reminded me of the trolley problem. It's almost like Loki's solution is to hold the train back so no one dies. And there's a crying emoji.

[02:21:50] The train is still pushing forward and could kill either track at any given time, but it's a stalemate as long as Loki holds onto it. Ooh, this is good. I like this. I like this thought. I like how Billy has summed it up.

[02:22:04] Do you guys, how are you guys thinking about this? That's a good point. Okay. What would get him to break it though? What would be the circumstances? Well, yeah. How do you distract Loki's attention so that he lets the train slip by him? Yeah. So. Yeah.

[02:22:25] Billy continues, I wonder if the pyramid... Sorry, did you have something else there, Alicia? No, I just was going to... It was a question for Jean. I was just thinking where does this put him in, for instance, terms of the watcher?

[02:22:37] What's their relationship to each other in watching the multiverse? Well, I think it's different. I think the watcher is more of a... I think the comparison... The watcher doesn't have to hold on to... Right. That's what I'm saying. He's a creature. He has power.

[02:22:58] He's very powerful, but he's not doing anything to maintain reality. Whereas Loki is doing something to actually maintain reality. Loki's putting his energy into keeping the timelines alive. Yeah. Right. But here's my question, is Loki watching the watcher?

[02:23:17] Is the watcher watching Loki or are they watching each other? I think both. Because the watcher is aware of the other higher level of beings. Right? So he knows of their existence. It's true, there's other god power. Right. Living tribunal, beings like that.

[02:23:36] The watcher is aware of their existence. The beyonders are aware of their existence. So I think it's both. Okay. Billy continues, I wonder if the pyramids we saw when Renslayer was in the void is a little Rama-tut tease? Yes. I think that's a resounding yes.

[02:23:58] I could talk at length about everything this season gave us, the cinematography, the writing, the acting and effects were all so amazing that this show has single-handedly restored my faith in the MCU moving forward. Awesome. The plane landed. Watch the Marvels.

[02:24:14] I can't wait to hear what you have to say about the show and I'll be eagerly awaiting to hear your takes on the Marvels. I won't spoil anything, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm glad they're pushing the big story forward. Appreciate all that you guys do.

[02:24:28] We appreciate you believing. Thank you, appreciate you. You're writing in. We appreciate everybody who wrote in. Alicia, you did see the Marvels and I think Billy's comment here probably comports what you are feeling and thinking that it's a good entertaining show and moves us forward. Right, exactly.

[02:24:48] Yeah, and just anyone who likes Kamala Khan will love this movie. All right. They're all good. Cool. They all do their roles well. Let's go. Last but not least, Abby. Abby writes in saying, Greetings, lore hounds. What a ride this was.

[02:25:05] I'm attempting to structure my feedback on my thoughts and feelings in a quantum physics way. So Abby's education background is physics, by the way. Okay. Abby continues as an analogy with the duality of light as both wave and particle.

[02:25:23] Not going to bore you with any science stuff, just a sort of philosophical tool. This show is light. The wave function is described by my love for the show, flowing and undulating and growing with every re-watch.

[02:25:37] The particle aspect is manifest by my nitpicks and hopes small enough not to overshadow my love for it. Starting with my love wave, a visually gorgeous piece of cinema with soundtrack, a perfect match to every scene. David can elaborate more. Go on, praise fest.

[02:25:54] And I agree with him on every point. Absolutely. There was a lot to be... Just such confident filmmaking. These filmmakers, the cinematographers, the camera operators, the focus pullers, the editors, it was just such a competent, confident effort that it really shows.

[02:26:14] It really got a really quality product and it feels it in every aspect. Loki character arc. Went from a villain to an antihero to a hero, from a selfish narcissist to a selfless, responsible god.

[02:26:29] From one whose birthright was to die, as per Odin, to becoming the tree of life. From being broken down, no magic allowed, questioning his every decision, to admiring the powers of his other variants, to actually controlling time, all time, everywhere, all at once.

[02:26:45] As an aside, classic Loki's jaws would be on the floor, but he would be very happy that he played a part in getting... in... played a part in getting him there. And so all the supporting characters we got attached to, loved or hated,

[02:27:01] we were there with them, with their own glorious purpose of helping Loki along the way. The burden with glorious purpose line has new weight to it. Totally. Maybe with the stress on the burden part, it was beautiful and so Loki of him

[02:27:17] that after being repeated by friend and foe alike, that sacrifice of loved ones is necessary. He went with, I do what I want and it is going to be something unexpected and different and gorgeous. He's a Schrodinger's cat. A Lokitty. Is this... Are you down with the...

[02:27:39] Is this... Are you down with the Schrodinger's cat? Well, she elaborates. She says he is alone and always will be. I made myself to cry typing this. But he has the best reason for it now, saving everyone, giving everyone a chance, saving the multiverse from a collapse.

[02:27:56] But also in essence, he isn't really alone and never will be as he is connected to all and even the unseen audience. So he's watching us too, she said. Yes. And that's the beauty of the scene.

[02:28:09] This is that final scene of him looking with whatever that emotion is on his face, is that he's watching all of our lives as they unfold. Yeah. I mean, I guess he's Schrodinger's Loki because it's like he's out of the MCU, but still in it. Yeah.

[02:28:30] Which I also think is great because they did an MCU story, but then they didn't have to worry about what the next movie was necessarily, right? It can play later. It's fine. But this was self-contained. This is self-contained. Yeah.

[02:28:45] And any MCU show I watch going forward, I just I'm going to have in the back of my mind, oh, Loki's there holding all the time strings together. Happy... Abby continues, happy ending, right? Narrowing down to the particle level. Here comes the nitpicks.

[02:29:00] Why does every escapist stuff we watch in this bitter world need to have a bittersweet ending? Oh, well, I was down for it. Why is romance vilified? Oh, there you go, Alicia. Why is self-sacrifice put on such a high pedestal at the expense of community?

[02:29:17] Connection, the stronger together trope. Why isn't there any announcement of another season, a movie, a spinoff of some underutilized yet full of potential characters? Thoughts on this comment? I mean, I think I've said I want to see more. I think this is not the end of the pause.

[02:29:38] Yeah, that's not the end. But any of these... Even though Tom Hiddleston said on The Tonight Show that he called it the conclusion of a journey, but I think it is a conclusion of a journey. Yeah, it is. And continuing it doesn't negate the finality of this moment.

[02:29:57] Right. There will be a new journey. That's a good point. That Loki has to take. So, yeah. Yeah. Abby continues on, Kang, no more for me. Thanks for... He never worked in either season. Sorry. If anything, he was overutilized and overacted. Okay, there we go.

[02:30:17] That's just how I feel not having read any of the comics about him. It was kind of funny, my inner darkness speaking, how Victor, who wasn't even the worst variant, got spaghettified over and over. The other thing we didn't really mention too was the, see you soon.

[02:30:32] That's true, every time. Every time. You hear that song clip. Condescending lecturing, he who remains a solution being denied was satisfying indeed. I need more Verity Willis just to give Wumi Masaku a chance to be more awesome as she can be.

[02:30:49] I think we all agree with that assessment, Abby. But it seems like that name drop was pure aesthetics, nothing else. Would like another episode about what happened to Ravonna in the void, maybe another Obi and KC tending the world tree, not just there to provide levity.

[02:31:08] So, yeah, Ravonna, they definitely left the door open, right? Yeah, yeah. She's like Alicia's been saying. These characters are not going anywhere. And that pyramid in the background was clear. Clear. They didn't, yeah, they didn't put that in. It wasn't an oopsie. No.

[02:31:29] All right, Abby continues, Sylvie better not even go into the feelings on the treatment. She got the season. She's supposed to be happy now. Would it be interesting to know how she really got feels after this?

[02:31:43] Maybe she chooses something other than a minimum wage job and sad songs. Maybe she finds a girlfriend and shows the world that romance isn't dead. Anything is possible. Go, Sylvie. I believe in romance.

[02:31:58] In conclusion, I will choose to go back on my wave of love and send this before I read anything more about the show online. One personal news, Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston will be visiting my timeline in December. Nice.

[02:32:11] I booked myself a meet and greet that will most likely last about a minute in total. Anyway, my heart will be full. Reference to Loki season one, episode three. So I guess he's going to be at some con or something that she's able to see him at.

[02:32:24] In Tokyo. Yeah. Very cool. Thanks for all. Thank you all for being my weekly companions on this Loki ride. Thank you, Abby, for riding with us. Thank you, Alicia, for disagreeing me on some points and making me see them in a different light. There you go.

[02:32:39] We need our friends to brace each other, to help brace each other up, right? To test our own opinions. Yep. I will be sure to tune into your various projects as it seems we do watch and like some of the

[02:32:51] same content, wishing us all a great time watching, reading and dissecting these for all time. Always, Abby. Thank you. Thanks, Abby. It's great to have you along for the ride and great that you and Alicia are working on some fun stuff.

[02:33:09] So I think we're ready to wrap up here and shift into some programming notes. Alicia, Beacon 23 at the time that we're recording this has hit the interwaves, right? The interwebs. Yeah. The first two episodes have dropped. I've watched the first 10 minutes of the first one. Oh, right.

[02:33:28] So far so good. Okay. Can't say much yet. Cool, cool, cool. But yeah, we're going to be... Luke and I put out the preview episodes so you can find that on the WorshipDust timeline. And we're going to be recording very shortly the first two episodes breakdown.

[02:33:46] I'm putting that out as well. And we're going to be, I think the next episode will hopefully be the Dune Book Breakdown. Okay. Very cool. Over on Properly Howard Movie Reviews, Steve and Anthony have finished up their season.

[02:34:00] So they're on a little break and we'll let you know when we've got new stuff. But if you want to go back and check any of their coverage, absolutely do that. In the meantime, we have our Severance feed running.

[02:34:11] We're expecting Severance season two to kick back in sometime in early 2023. We don't have a firm date yet, but we're hopeful. So we went ahead and fired up the feed. And Steve and Anthony have already recorded a season one recap episode by episode.

[02:34:28] So those episodes are dropping weekly on Fridays. Once we get season two started, John and I are going to join Steve and Anthony. And the four of us are going to do full episode recaps going forward. For the Christmas, well, not Christmas, the holiday season and into Thanksgiving,

[02:34:48] we're going to be doing a bunch of different one shots. There's no big shows right now. So we're going to catch up on our Silmarillion stories, our Star Wars Film Festival. The next film up on that is going to be Solo.

[02:35:01] We're also going to be doing a special in December with Steve and Anthony. We're all going to watch the Star Wars 19, was it 78 or 77 holiday special? That really, really terrible one. Life Day is coming up. Yes. So we got a good copy of that.

[02:35:22] We're going to watch that and that should be out in December. Otherwise, I think, John and Alicia, you guys keep talking about expanded universe coverage, some DC related things. So there will be, there will be, there will be see what happens. Yeah, well, there will be.

[02:35:41] And we're going to, yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. Cool. It's going to be a lot of fun. I think there's a lot of good stuff potentially coming out of the pipe. James Crom. Coming from Peaks, we'll be satisfied. Very good. Very good.

[02:35:56] Regarding our Patreon, we have one. It's the best way to support us if you're interested at all in contributing to what we do and making sure that we've got all the tools that we need to keep things running. We've got three levels.

[02:36:12] We have a $3, a $5 and a $10 level, and we do annual memberships. We've got a bunch of exclusive benefits, but for our top tier lore master patrons, we always like to give them a shout out.

[02:36:26] And they are Samartian, Cyrus, Mark H, Michael G, Michelle E, David W, Brian P, Nick W, SC, Peter OH, Bettina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Lavinia T, Dove 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Eric F, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Eondre B, Kuang Yu, Laura G,

[02:36:52] Deadeye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, Subzero, newest lore master, Aaron K, who I believe wrote in earlier on the feedback. And last but not least, who will always forever be last, is Adrian, who was specially requested to be listed last. This one's for you, Adrian.

[02:37:12] Thank you so much for your support. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone for your support. Thank you. Thank you to all our patrons. And if Patreon doesn't work for you, not a worry. You know, we're happy that you're just giving us a listen and enjoying the content.

[02:37:24] Remember to write in mcu at the lorehounds.com or visit us on the Discord to have conversations with us there. Look forward to our Marvel coverage, which should be out in about a week. Jean, Alicia, it's been, it's only six episodes. I know, but it was a journey.

[02:37:45] It really was. It's been a ride, boy. Been a ride. And we landed the plane. So thank you so much. The plane has landed. It was a plane journey. Extra special thank you for all the work that you did with the outlines, keeping us organized and pointed.

[02:38:00] It's really great. And yeah, it's been a fun ride. So thanks everyone for joining us. And we'll see you in the next one. For all time, always.