While it still feels early, the second episode of Loki season 2, now available on Disney Plus, delivers a few big developments for the story. That sort of pacing is great for Loki, considering we’re picking up directly from the ending of season 1.
After all, the recent events in Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) life happen in quick succession. The season 2 premiere picks up right after the season 1’s jaw-dropping finale. And the just-released episode 2 continues the action in the premiere. Come to think of it, it’ll be great to binge-watch all 12 Loki episodes once the current season ends.
With that in mind, seeing episode 2 deliver such meaningful developments is unsurprising. And since I follow MCU leaks for a living, I already see connections between Loki and future Marvel adventures. Loki season 2 episode 2 practically teases what will happen with the MCU in the long run, and this kind of foreshadowing is exciting.
Before I can explain, you should know that spoilers will follow below. Not just from Loki, but other unreleased MCU projects as well.
The TVA might be the Avengers’ best ally against Kang
Marvel did not shy away from confirming that Loki will lead to the events in The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. The implication here is that Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) might be part of at least one of the upcoming Avengers stories.
The finale of Loki season 1 unleashed the multiverse. The Sacred Timeline branched in the past, present, and future, with the Avengers not even realizing what’s been happening. But we, the fans, we know what’s going on. And that most of Phases 4 through 6 events are tied to the multiverse. Also, the events in Endgame are partly explained by the Loki season 1 developments.
Loki season 1 also told us how much of a danger Kang is for the multiverse. And Loki, the character, is now looking to prevent the doom that He Who Remains teased just before Sylvie killed him. That’s the premise of season 2: trying to fix Sylvie’s murder of He Who Remains. However, I don’t think that not even Loki has truly grasped what’s happening.
Loki did understand that the TVA is a key weapon against Kang. He conveys this message to his beloved Sylvie during episode 2. The organization, as flawed as it might be and as nefarious as it might seem, can be a massive resource for fighting the variants of the man who invented it.
This is probably a foreshadowing of the TVA’s role in the MCU in the coming years. Specifically, the TVA should show up in Deadpool 3, where it’ll have a major role in recruiting Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and (Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to help the Avengers eventually. Rumors also say the TVA will extract other superheroes from other realities to eventually battle the Kangs of the multiverse.
But the multiverse has to die
The multiverse concept is both a gift for Marvel and a curse. On the one hand, it lets the studio deliver stories like Loki, What If…?, Deadpool 3, Doctor Strange 2, Spider-Man 3, and anything else that involves alternate realities. Similarly, the multiverse will let Marvel revive or bring back characters like Wolverine, Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).
On the other hand, the multiverse makes you feel like the stakes are no longer real. Iron Man died, but we can bring one from a different reality to replace our Tony Stark. After all, the Loki in the Disney Plus TV show isn’t our Loki. The main Loki died in Infinity War while trying to be a hero. We’re attached now to a Loki variant that experienced a different redemption arc.
The multiverse can also create plot issues and holes that might be harder to ignore the more complex things get. Not to mention that the multiverse rules makes it more difficult to follow the MCU. You don’t want the MCU to feel like homework.
So Marvel has to kill the multiverse eventually. And rumors say that will happen after Secret Wars.
But guess what? It has already started in Loki season 2. A rogue team of TVA agents who want to restore the order of the Sacred Timeline has gone ahead and bombed several alternate realities out of existence. Trillions of people have died along the way, unaware of what happened.
This partly fixes Marvel’s problems with the multiverse. All of a sudden, the multiverse is more limited than it was just mere moments ago. I’ll point out that the chronology of the Loki events does not matter as much for the MCU timeline. The events in Loki happen at the same time as every other moment on the timeline because the TVA sits out of time.
Therefore, it’ll be years until we see the destruction of these alternate timelines in any MCU multiverse movie or TV show. We’ll likely see worlds perish because of the TVA bombings in future stories. We probably need that perspective.
Also, the rogue TVA group that General Dox (Kate Dickie) tasked with bombing the multiverse practically killed an unspecified number of Kangs in the attack when destroying those realities.
That’s actually a great development, one that Marvel needs for Kang Dynasty. You can’t have a Council of Kangs with potentially unlimited manpower going against the Avengers. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, to quote a certain God of Mischief. And it could be a huge problem for the plots of Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.
Just like that, Loki brought the entire Multiverse Saga story forward while fixing a few issues for Marvel in the process. And while Loki & Co. are shocked to have witnessed the bloodbath, it’s actually terrific news for the MCU. The multiverse will probably come to an end once the TVA, Avengers, and all the Kangs left in the multiverse can fight each other.
