The following contains spoilers for Loki Episode 4.
At last, a Loki The credit scene came with the fourth episode of the fourth season of the Marvel show, although we haven’t really been waiting that long. Both WandaVision Y The Falcon and the Winter Soldier waited until its penultimate episodes to feature post-credits scenes that advanced its endings (and beyond), but it’s a testament to LokiIt’s the fast-paced narration that we’re getting a credit scene with two more episodes to go.
The Loki The episode 4 credit scene has some major ramifications for the rest of the season (and the MCU as a whole), so let’s break down what exactly is happening there, what it means, and what it tells us about the final two episodes of the season.
The fourth episode of Loki, titled “The Nexus Event,” is packed with revelations. On the one hand, we learn that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia di martino) may or may not have something romantic. We also learned that Sylvie was right, all TVA employees are variants and were not, as previously told, created by TVA. U.S what’s more learn that Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) has some sinister underpinnings, as he knew everyone was a variant and pruned Mobius (Owen wilson) when he finds out. And the final revelation is that Time-Keepers don’t actually exist, they’re android facades controlled by someone or something else.
That all of this happens in less than an hour and that the episode also provides genuine emotional weight is a testament to how great it is. Loki it is, but the most shocking surprise was saved for last. While Loki and Sylvie fight Renslayer and discover that the Time-Keepers are androids, Loki is pruned by Renslayer, who they thought was unconscious. The episode ends with Slyvie taking the lead, refusing to prune Renslayer and instead telling him that he will tell him everything.
So is Loki dead? Of course not. The Loki The credit scene finds Loki of Hiddleston waking up in a strange land and saying, “Is this hell? Am I dead? “An off-screen voice responds,” Not yet. But you will be if you don’t come with us, “only for the camera to reveal four Loki Variants staring at Hiddleston’s Loki, surrounded by a ruined city. Cut to black.
So the big takeaway here seems to be that when TVA “prunes” someone’s timeline, it doesn’t actually delete it. They just send them … somewhere else. Wherever it is, it is clearly dangerous, but also potentially inhabited by other variants of Loki that have been removed from the timeline, the most distinct being the one played by an Oscar-nominated actor. Richard E. Grant.
In fact, Grant appears to be playing a variant of Loki wearing the 1960s comic book version of Loki’s costume, but is flanked by other, very different variants: Veal (The end of the damn world) plays a young Loki, and Deobia Oparei (game of Thrones) plays a brutal Loki (nicknamed “Boastful Loki”) wielding what appears to be Mjolnir. And then of course there’s the best Loki variant of all, a little alligator wearing a Loki helmet. Amazing.
So what does this all mean? Well, for one thing, Renslayer knew he was only shipping variants elsewhere when he pruned them or he was lied to. On the other hand, we probably haven’t seen the last of Mobius, as it was pruned earlier in the episode and likely sent to the same location as Hiddleston or a location where variants of its type live. Something is happening on TVA, and now that we know that the Time Keepers are not real, the search will begin for the Great and Powerful Oz who has been operating them all this time and overseeing “The Sacred Timeline”, which, as it turns out, it could actually be a bunch of nonsense. Whoever is operating the Time-Keepers is clearly monitoring the timeline for their own benefit (which also raises the question why they wouldn’t have interfered with any of the Avengers antics or Thanos snap, though perhaps that is will address at a later date).
But this also has bigger ramifications for the MCU. Grant’s Loki variant was an opportunity to bring a classic Marvel Comics costume and make Loki really exist within the MCU, so what other variants of other MCU characters are there? Is there a timeline where Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) did not die, and thus could he re-enter the MCU as a very different version of himself? Might Scarlett JohanssonWill the Black Widow, of some kind, resurrect from another timeline or one of these worlds to which the variants have been banished?
That might be an exaggeration – by most accounts, Downey completed his contract with Marvel and is now doing other things with his career, and as with the various variants of Loki, many of them are physically quite different from Hiddleston. So this could be a way to introduce different versions of Iron Man or other MCU heroes in the future, especially as the sequel to the movie. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Insanity (also written by Loki lead writer Michael waldron) will dive deep into the MCU’s multiverse.
What we know for sure is that Loki is alive, and all variants of Loki that the TVA “pruned” can be alive in whatever pocket world or dimension he was sent to. There are still two episodes of Loki left, and every episode so far has been steeped in history, so trying to predict exactly where this show will go can be silly. For now, however, the Loki Episode 4’s credit scene opens up even more possibilities, and at least it promises we’ll see one of the most charismatic actors, Richard E. Grant, put his own stamp on Loki’s character in next week’s episode.
Stay tuned…
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