After an emotional finale that left several characters' fates up in the air, Loki season 2 head writer Eric Martin has broken down that dramatic final moment for the God of Mischief.
"The big idea was taking Loki from a lowercase-g god, to a capital-G God, powering him up to that place where he gets his throne – but it's not a throne he wants anymore," Martin explained to Esquire. Loki's final scene sees the trickster guarding all the timelines and, essentially, keeping the fabric of time together with his magic.
"This is a duty," Martin continued. "He's doing this so everyone else can have their lives. He's giving up the thing that he wants most so that everyone else can have their free will… We wanted to power up his abilities, but also his wisdom and knowledge."
"I leave that up to interpretation," he said when asked if Loki is suffering in that scene. "That final image is meant to be ambiguous. So I'll let people make up their own minds there. If you look into mythology, someone like Atlas is an interesting person to look at with that."
And what about Renslayer's final scene? The former TVA judge wakes up somewhere at the end of the episode, which we can assume is the End of Time with Alioth, the creature who destroys those who have been pruned. However, the presence of a pyramid and the TVA's motto inscribed on the ground have left viewers with more questions than answers. "I'll let people muse about what that can mean," Martin said.
"She's up in the air. There are things that can happen with her. If you look to the comics, there are some fun inferences that can be drawn from the pyramid. And you know, who knows? Does Alioth kill her? Or did they strike up a friendship? Maybe Alioth remembers her? I don't know." When it comes to those comic references, we have our theories – did someone say Rama-Tut?
All episodes of Loki season 2 are streaming now on Disney Plus. For more on the MCU, check out our guides to Marvel Phase 5 and Marvel Phase 6.