In the triumphant ‘Loki’ finale, the TVA’s maker reveals all

As it turns out, ‘Loki’ season one was just the beginning.

 (Photo: Marvel Studios)

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The season-one finale of Loki begins with a series of voices: the voices of Marvel’s big-screen heroes, some from literature, and others from recent history. We see the end of the timestream, bookended by a patched-up mansion floating at the edge of the universe.

This is the home of He Who Remains, Miss Minutes informs Loki and Sylvie, and he wants to make a deal with them to preserve the Time Variance Authority. In exchange for leaving the Sacred Timeline intact, the two tricksters “can live the lives you’ve always wanted,” says Miss Minutes. “You want the Infinity Gauntlet? Yours. The throne of Asgard? No problem.” She offers Sylvie “a lifetime of happy memories.”

In other words, a Loki wielding all the powers of the Mad Titan Thanos—that’s nothing compared to the threat the TVA holds at bay. Like a new Dragon Ball Z villain, the guy who shows up on Earth next time is going to be far worse than the last god of destruction. I happen to dig it; this approach suits Marvel.

How can you watch ‘Loki’?

Renslayer and Miss Minutes plot to keep the TVA going.

 (Photo: Marvel Studios)

In order to watch Loki, you need to subscribe to Disney+, the platform that serves as the online home for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can watch Disney+ using streaming devices, desktop browsers, a wide range of mobile devices, smart TVs, and video-game consoles.

A subscription to Disney+ costs $7.99 per month or $79.99 for the full year, though you can save by signing up for the Disney Bundle with ESPN+ and Hulu, which gives you access to all three streaming services for just $13.99 a month.

Sign up for Disney+ starting at $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year

What happens in this episode of ‘Loki’?

Conflicted lovers do battle at the end of time.

 (Photo: Marvel Studios)

The two tricksters refuse this offer to serve the time cops, of course. They’ll take free will, thank you very much. And so they venture deeper into the Citadel at the End of Time to meet the TVA’s maker. He Who Remains (Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors) is a handsome and eccentric gentleman in a purple cloak, smiling and chomping on a shining green apple (green for Loki, I assume, and an apple because he’s hoarding all kinds of mythical knowledge). The character is actually a flesh-and-blood being from 31st-century Earth. Today, he sits at a desk in a quiet little study adorned with bookcases and a fireplace and a window designed to resemble the cosmos itself; he serves the two Loki variants tea in tiny teacups.

But once, in another life and another age, he quietly saved the multiverse from obliteration. A former scientist, the original version of He Who Remains—known as Nathaniel Richards—made contact with parallel universes, and began sharing knowledge and technology between the infinite versions of himself throughout the multiverse. However, he warns, “not every version of me was so pure of heart.” In other realities, the scientist became a conqueror of worlds. The TVA was his way of bringing an end to the Multiversal War, he explains, and keeping the evilest iterations of Richards—otherwise known as Kang the Conqueror—from running amok.

He Who Remains has a transcript of all observable history, and they reach the end of it the moment Richards reveals his grand design to the pair of trickster gods. They’re left with an important choice, he says. The two can either take over for him, running the TVA and safeguarding reality from the conqueror—or they can kill He Who Remains, unleashing infinite versions of him into the multiverse. “If you think I’m evil,” he says, “just wait till you meet my variants.” Loki believes this guy’s story; Sylvie doesn’t buy a word of it. The enchantress makes up her mind to do what she came here to do.

Loki and Sylvie are in love, but they’re not yet on the same page. He trusts her fully; she’s still insecure, unbelieving, and has some catching up to do, emotionally, after a lifetime of chasing revenge for what the TVA did to her. Not to give Hiddleston’s Loki too much credit—but Sylvie’s changed him. Seeing his dark, tragic future in the series premiere has changed him. He wants to be a hero, essentially, and Sylvie made that possible. But she still wants her revenge. So the demigods fight, dagger to dagger, as the timeline splinters and branches with every tick of the clock, every swing of the pendulum.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want a throne,” he tells her, tears in his eyes. “I just want you to be okay.” Loki drops his dagger, the two share a passionate kiss, and Sylvie tosses him through a time portal. Then she plunges her blade into the maker’s chest.

“I’ll see you soon,” says He Who Remains, as he dies.

Back at the TVA, meanwhile, reality has been rewritten. A statue of the conqueror (Richards) stands imperiously at the center of the facility, where the trio of phony Time-Keepers once presided. Neither B-15 nor Mobius seems to know who Loki is when he runs to them; they don’t even recognize his face. The multiverse has been undone. The conqueror has been loosed. And Loki will return in season two.

These last six episodes have been a creative triumph for director Kate Herron; writers Michael Waldron, Elissa Karasik, Bisha K. Ali, Eric Martin, and Tom Kauffman; and everyone involved. I can’t wait to see where they take us next.

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