Let's Talk About LOKI Episode 6 - "For All Time. Always"
I’ve got to say, I was kind of underwhelmed by the season finale of Loki. Mostly by how “He Who Remains,” a.k.a. Kang the Conqueror ( Jonathan Majors) was portrayed. He came off as being more silly than sinister. It was not at all what I was expecting and it just didn’t click with me for some reason. Loki refers to the character as being “terrifying” in the show, but there was really nothing terrifying about this version of the character that I saw. I’ve talked to a lot of people who loved the way the character was portrayed in the series, though! I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something.
Loki and Sylvia come face to face with Kang in the series, who is also set to appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, when they are in the Citadel at the End of Time. Majors’ character is never referred to as Kang in the episode, so maybe they are waiting for the actual super menacing variant of Kang to appear before they say his name? He does imply that his own variants are “far worse.” Regardless, this is a version of Kang.
Kang reveals that he is the last survivor of a multiversal war that broke out when multiple versions of him made contact after the multiverse was discovered in the 31st century. We learn that he tamed and weaponized Alioth, using the trans-temporal being to end the war, and to stop it from happening again, he created the TVA to manage the Sacred Timeline.
He explains, "Once I isolated our timeline, all I had to do was manage the flow of time and prevent any further branches. Hence, the TVA. Hence, the Time-Keepers and a highly efficient bureaucracy. Hence, ages and ages of cosmic harmony. Hence, you're welcome."
Sylvie isn’t on board with Kang’s plan because it resulted in countless innocent Variants and timelines getting pruned. She isn’t happy with how it’s affected her own life, and she is hell-bent on wanting to put a stop to him and his rule.
Kang ends up presenting them with a choice. The first option is to kill him and let the multiversal war break out again. The other option is for Loki and Sylvie to take his place and continue his work because he’s become tired having lived a million lifetimes. He just wants to retire.
Loki and Sylvie end up getting into an argument over what to do in this situation. Sylvie straight up wants to murder this variant of Kang, while Loki doesn’t want to risk the possibility of another multiversal war. They end up getting in a pretty brutal fight over what to do and in the end, Sylvie kisses Loki and then thrusts him back to the TVA. She then kills Kang, and the timeline branch starts splinter even worse, and this apparently unleashes several versions of Kang in the multiverse causing chaos. Before Kang dies he says to Sylvie, "See you soon.”
At the very end of the episode, we see the consequences of Sylvie killing Kang. When Loki finds agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) he tries to warn them about what is happening. He says, "Someone is coming. Countless different versions of a very dangerous person. And they're all set on war. We need to prepare."
Loki is then presented with another problem as Mobius and B-15 don’t recognize Loki. They don’t know who he is! It’s like they’ve never met him before. Loki then turns to see a giant statue of Kang looking over the TVA. It looks like Loki has ended up in a completely different timeline, one where another Kang Variant is openly controlling the TVA and wants the timeline to continue to branch.
These new variants of Mobius and B-15 watch as the timelines split and go beyond the red line on a monitor. They agree that there's no turning back, and Mobius says, "For all time,” and B-15 responds with "Always."
This final moment was the best part of this episode for me. It’s safe to say that this is exactly what leads to the storylines of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Loki is expected to show up in Multiverse of Madness. This will also most likely kick open the door to Marvel’s What If…? animated series. That show will explore the alternate realities based on events playing out differently in the MCU.
As expected, Miss Minutes ends up being a sinister character who is working for Kang. She is like his puppet, and when she confronts Loki and Skylvie when they first enter the Citadel at the End of Time she presents an offer to them where they can be reinserted back into the Sacred Timeline "in a way that won't disrupt things." She entices Loki by telling him he can actually defeat the Avengers at the Battle of New York, kill Thanos, take the Infinity Gauntlet and seize the Throne of Asgard. She entices Sylvie by telling her that she can forget all her time on the run from the TVA and "wake up tomorrow with just a lifetime of happy memories."
Miss Minutes also tells them that Loki and Sylvie can exist together on the same timeline and be together, but they obviously ended up rejecting that offer. Later on, we see Miss Minutes meet up with Ravonna to give her some files to read. The information isn’t what Ravonna was expecting, it seems like it’s a backup plan and she is dedicated enough to follow the instructions she was given.
The original Mobius that we’ve come to know and love confronts Rovonna in this scene in her office. They get in a little fight as he tries and fails to prune her. He presents an idea to team up and rebuild the TVA into a better organization, but she rejects it and jumps into a portal to a destination that we don’t know.
We also learn that before Ravonna managed the TVA, she was the principal of Franklin D. Roosevelt High School. This was previously hinted with a pen from the school that was shown in her TVA office. We also see a Ohio State University diploma hanging above her desk, and it reveals her name to be Rebecca Tourminet. In the comics, Rebecca Tourminet was an alias used by Ravonna.
Hunter B-15 led a group of TVA Minutemen to Rebecca's principal office in 2018, to prove to them that all the TVA workers are Variants.
The season finale opened with Marvel Studios logo as always, but there was a difference this time when we can hear certain lines from various points in the MCU timeline and real life. Here are some that we hear:
"Way to go, Tic-Tac." -- Sam Wilson in Captain America: Civil War.
"That's how you punch." -- Hope Van Dyne in Ant-Man.
"Wakanda forever!" -- T'Challa in Black Panther.
"You wouldn't have heard of me." -- Scott Lang in Ant-Man.
"Let me put you on hold" -- Natasha Romanoff in The Avengers.
"Dance-off, bro." -- Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy.
"He's a friend from work." -- Thor in Thor: Ragnarok.
"I can do this all day" and "Yeah I know." -- 2012 Steve Rogers to 2023 Steve Rogers in Avengers: Endgame.
"I'll show you ferocity." -- Hank Pym in Ant-Man.
"Higher, further, faster, baby." -- Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel.
"We have a Hulk." -- Loki in Avengers: Infinity War.
"We're gonna jump on that spaceship and get out of here. Wanna come?" -- Korg in Thor: Ragnarok.
"We think of time as a one-way motion." -- philosopher Alan Watts in real life.
"One small step for man…" -- Neil Armstrong in real life.
"How dare they!" -- Greta Thunberg in real life.
"My dream…" -- Malala Yousafzai in real life.
"We have fought for the right to experience peace." -- Nelson Mandela in real life.
"Glorious purpose!" -- Classic Loki in Loki episode 5.
"Motivated by women throughout the world." -- Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in real life.
"What is grief, if not love persevering?" -- Vision in WandaVision episode 8.
"I will rise." -- Maya Angelou in real life.
"Open your eyes." -- Sylvie in Loki episode 5.
You can also 1945 song “It's Been a Long, Long Time” which is the same song playing when Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter are dancing at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Another song that is heard is Kylie Minogue's 1987 debut single “I Should Be So Lucky.”
I’m not sure what exactly this all means, but we’ll find out.
What did you all think of Loki Episode 6? Are you excited for Season 2 and to see how the events in the episode will affect the rest of the MCU?