Warning: spoilers for Loki season 1, episode 1
Loki season 2 has already retconned season 1’s shocking Kang twist from the finale, hinting at bigger changes coming up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thanks to his variant’s actions in Avengers: Endgame, Loki is now back in the MCU in his own TV series, through which Marvel introduced the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and delved deeper into the concept of variants and how the multiverse works. Loki season 1 ended on a major cliffhanger after the surprise introduction of He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), a variant of Kang the Conqueror.
Loki and his variant, Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), made it to the Citadel at the End of Time, where they met He Who Remains, the creator of the TVA. He Who Remains explained that a multiversal war between his variants led him to create the TVA to manage the timeline and prevent another multiversal disaster, but Sylvie ended up killing him. Sylvie sent Loki back to the TVA thanks to a TemPad, where Loki discovered that the TVA now had a giant statue of one of He Who Remain’s variants, believed to be Kang – but now, the first episode of Loki season 2 has retconned this Kang twist.
Loki Season 2 Undoes The Original Finale’s Kang Set-Up
Loki season 2 picks up right where season 1 ended, with Loki returning to the TVA and approaching Mobius and B-15, who don’t recognize him. This, along with the Kang statue in the middle of the TVA, gave the idea of Loki landing in a future where another He Who Remains variant, most likely Kang the Conqueror, had taken over the TVA. This massive change would have meant that Mobius, B-15, and everyone else had their memories wiped, which is why they didn’t recognize Loki. This made way for theories about Loki season 1 setting up the upcoming crossovers Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, but season 2 has completely changed all this.
As it turns out, Loki didn’t land in the future where a Kang variant took over the TVA as a result of He Who Remains’ death and the branching of the Sacred Timeline, but he actually traveled to the past. Loki season 2 episode 1 sees the God of Mischief unintentionally “time slipping” as a result of the instability of the branches of the timeline, making him jump to different points in time. When Loki saw the statue of Kang, he was actually in the past, with the statue being of He Who Remains. This was a point in time before He Who Remains created the Time-Keepers and reset the TVA, wiping the minds of everyone working there.
Why Loki Going To The Past Is So Deep
Loki going to the past rather than the future is a lot more interesting and deeper than it seems, and it can have big repercussions on the rest of the MCU. The multiverse and its timelines in the MCU have been quite messy so far, with each movie and TV show addressing them making up their own rules and breaking them soon after, but Loki’s time-slipping and the reveal of the ending of season 1 being set in the past point at time in the MCU being a circle. This is further confirmed when Loki slips into the past and meets Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan), with their conversation in the past influencing the one O.B. was having with Mobius in the present.
Time as a circle (which was also teased in some of the posters for Loki) makes the MCU’s multiverse much more comprehensible but also makes it more dangerous. Time as a circle makes He Who Remains’ return feel inevitable, though whether his plans and goals will remain the same is unknown, and it has a huge impact on the rest of the MCU. This means that Loki can see the reboot of the MCU, thus making way for The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, this in hopes of getting rid of Kang’s variants for good and making sure the TVA is left in good hands.
Is Loki Setting Up A Huge Kang Change?
The revelation of how time really works thanks to Loki and his time slipping not only serves as a setup for The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars (along with the chaos of the branching of the Sacred Timeline), but it also points at a potential villain change. Loki season 2 will introduce Victor Timely, who is yet another Kang variant, and He Who Remains’ presence is still felt even though he’s dead, so Loki could be the beginning of the MCU moving away from Kang the Conqueror as a key character in the MCU.
This makes more sense when remembering the ending of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where the Council of Kangs revealed the Conqueror is now dead. Loki season 2 can be key in shaping the rest of the MCU’s Multiverse Saga, especially Phase 6, as it can not only see the beginning of a timeline reset and an MCU reboot but also the rise of a new villain.
New episodes of Loki release every Thursday at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Disney+.
