Warning! This article contains major spoilers for Loki season 2 episode 4. If you've yet to catch up, and don't want to know anything that happens, turn back now!
So far, the titular God of Mischief's mission throughout Loki season 2 has been simple: stop the timeline-refining Temporal Loom, which has been malfunctioning ever since Sylvie killed He Who Remains, from blowing up and destroying, well, everything. At the end of episode four, though, he and his pals... failed.
While Loki has never been a hero in the conventional sense, seeing him not manage to save the day is kind of shocking... and it's even more so when you remind yourself that there are two more episodes to go before the Marvel show's second chapter has concluded.
"It was something we started learning in season 1," executive producer Kevin Wright tells GamesRadar+, when we ask why they felt it important to pull the rug out from the audience so early on. "This idea of story acceleration. If the season seems like it's going to be about fixing that Temporal Loom, what if that just... breaks right in the middle of the season and everything goes wrong?
"Not only did it allow us a really great cliffhanger, but where you go after that is totally new territory then," he says. "If the first four episodes of season 2 are about things falling apart or not working; choices being made that maybe aren't the right choices, then the back half can really allow us to go to some, hopefully, profound places."
Wright goes on to say that to "earn" the crazy moment, head writer Eric Martin and his team felt a sense of duty to drag the character drama into "dire straits" territory beforehand. "It's gonna be new ground," he promises us, going forward.
What actually happened at the end of Loki season 2 episode 4?
Our Loki season 2 episode 4 recap breaks down all that happens in the latest installment, but when it comes to just the ending, well... let's attempt to explain it briefly...
To try and fix the Temporal Loom, O.B. enlists the help of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Mobius (Owen Wilson) and unlikely ally Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors). To enact his plan, Loki and Sylvie must use their magic to temporarily deactivate Miss Minutes in order for him to reboot the TVA's system. Later, Sylvie enchants Brad (Rafael Casal) and forces him to prune Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). With the duo offline and apprehended, the gang then manage to open the door to the Loom.
Timely offers to don a space suit, head into the Loom, and use his Throughput Multiplier to fix it, which suggests he' more of a standup guy that the others first though and that he probably won't turn out to be a He Who Remains-esque big bad after all. So far, so good. But the second O.B. exposes him to the Loom's continuously branching timelines, Timely's body is ripped apart into spaghetti-like pieces.
With their hopes of fixing the Loom in time suddenly dashed, Loki, Mobius, O.B., Sylvie, Casey, and B-15 look on in horror, as the Loom buckles under the pressure of all the branched timelines and explodes.
Is Victor Timely really dead?
Well, it's safe to say things aren't looking great for Timely going into episode 5. While you could argue that none of our characters seem particularly safe right now, what with the "utter destruction" and all that, Timely is the only one we actually saw die in episode 4. So for now, it seems only right that we assume he's a goner.
Pair the fact that he essentially turned into the human equivalent of a Cheestring before our very eyes with the fact that producer Kevin Wright has previously teased "exciting" things from Renslayer, and director Dan DeLeeuw assured us we've not been introduced to the "definitive Kang" yet, we're willing to wager that Timely was nothing more than a villainous red herring. (It's also worth noting that Renslayer is currently pruned, and therefore out of action, too, however...)
With all that said, Loki is a show that concerns itself with timelines and multiverses, and if superhero history has taught us anything, it's that no character is ever truly gone when those things are in the mix. We'll just have to wait and see what the rest of season 2 has in store for us...
Loki season 2 is streaming now on Disney Plus. Ensure you don't miss an episode with our Loki season 2 release schedule guide. For more on the show, check out our deep-dives on:
- Loki season 2 guide
- When does Loki season 2 take place on the Marvel timeline?
- Loki season 1 recap
- How to watch the Marvel movies in order
- Marvel phase 5
- Upcoming Marvel movies and shows
- Victor Timely comic book history explained
- He Who Remains comic book history explained
- The Time Variance Authority comic book history explained
- Mobius comic book history explained
- Sylvie comic book history explained
- Loki season 2 episode 1 post-credits scene explained
- What is time-slipping?
- All the differences between comic book Loki and show Loki
- Loki season 2 episode 2 recap and Easter eggs
- What’s Sylvie holding at the end of episode 2?
- Brad Wolfe isn't the Zaniac fans know from the comics
- What is the Zaniac in Marvel Comics?
