The Time Variance Authority may be all about manipulating time, but they haven’t stopped the wait for Loki Season 2 from being over two years long. In that span, we’ve seen new heroes enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Bruce Banner’s cousin twerk with Megan Thee Stallion, and an underwhelming secret invasion.
With all that to keep track of, some crucial details of Loki Season 1 have probably slipped from your mental Sacred Timelines. So here’s everything you need to remember before Loki Season 2 — yes, the show featured on McDonald’s sweet ‘n sour sauce — kicks off.
4. Loki is Glitching Through Time
You probably saw Loki “time-slipping” in the Loki Season 2 trailers, but this is actually teased in Season 1, when Loki is pushed through a time door by his variant, Sylvie. Sylvie stays in The Void at the end of time and offs He Who Remains, while Loki is forced back to the TVA. But when he arrives, neither Mobius nor any other agent recognizes him. What’s more, the evil Kang’s face is featured prominently in this TVA.
The TVA exists completely outside of time and space. Time doesn’t work the same way there, so this probably isn’t as simple as saying Loki slipped into an alternate timeline. Whatever glitch is affecting Loki, it likely has something to do with this bizarro TVA.
3. Sylvie Is MIA
At the end of Season 1, Sylvie and Loki face a tough decision. They can either keep the Sacred Timeline (and Kang’s authority over it) intact, or destroy it and allow countless branches to split off, creating the MCU’s multiverse but opening up the possibility of Kang’s evil variants to wreak havoc. For Sylvie, whose entire life revolved around destroying the TVA, it wasn’t a choice at all.
Sylvie got her wish, and appears to be lying low in a multinational fast-food establishment. Is she hiding out, or has her memory been wiped? Will she return to help Loki? How blatant will the product placement be? We’ll get answers soon.
2. Mobius Once Led Another Life
In Loki Season 1, TVA agents are introduced as powerful bureaucrats, but it’s later revealed that Ravonna Renslayer, the straight-laced TVA judge, had once been a high school vice principal. In fact, every judge, analyst, and hunter had lived their own lives on the sacred timeline... they just don’t remember them.
Mobius was shocked by this revelation, but he hasn’t had a chance to act on it. Season 2 will likely explore more of our favorite TVA agent’s old life, and maybe even reveal if he’s ever ridden a jet ski.
1. Renslayer Betrayed Our Heroes
Ravonna Renslayer was the TVA Judge who oversaw the hunt for Sylvie, but by the end of Season 1 we saw her turn against Mobius and insist that keeping the Sacred Timeline intact was the only way to avoid galactic chaos. The last we saw of her, she was walking through a portal with no clues as to where she would end up. We only know she’s on a “search for free will.”
Now that the timelines are unleashed, we’ll see what schemes she’ll employ to re-establish the TVA’s control over the multiverse. Renslayer is poised to be a major player in Loki Season 2, and probably one who’s not going to make things easy for our heroes.
