After six mind-melting episodes Loki has reached its Season 1 finale–and what a finale it was. Not only did we see the introduction of the MCU’s newest big bad(s) and an answer to the lingering question of how Marvel plans to top a threat like Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet, but we also got some absolutely incredible hints as to where the rest of Phase 4 might be headed. But, like much of the show, things got pretty dense–so we’re going to break things down step by step.
Needless to say, everything from here on out is a Loki Season 1 spoiler, so proceed with caution.
After Loki and Sylvie successfully snuck past Alioth in the Void, they found themselves face to face with an eccentric man who is actually never formally named in the episode. Miss Minutes refers to him as “He Who Remains” (also what he’s called in the credits of the episode), a nod to a semi-obscure character from Marvel Comics who actually did create the TVA. Fans keeping up with MCU casting news will know the truth right off the bat, however. This is Jonathan Majors, who was cast as Kang the Conqueror for the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But even if you weren’t totally sure who Majors is playing, he quickly gives both Loki and Sylvie a rundown of his life, stating that he’s been “called conqueror” among other things–and, well, you get the idea.
Kang’s story in the comics is a bit of a nightmare but thankfully, it seems that the MCU is streamlining and remixing things a bit. In his monologue, Kang explains that he was a scientist on Earth in the 31st century (in the comics he was Nathanial Richards, descendant of Reed Richards–Mr. Fantastic, though it’s not clear if this will be true in the MCU or not as of right now) when he began to understand the existence of the multiverse. Unfortunately, this understanding was also happening to different variants of himself simultaneously and eventually, all the different Kangs began making contact with each other and sharing ideas. This is another concept lifted from the comics, where various Kangs throughout reality and time met and formed a Council and a Collective at different times (this is also why you get versions of Kang who go by totally different names like Immortus at different points and in different stories–but don’t worry too much about that just yet).
Kang explains to Loki and Sylvie that he alone conquered all the variants of himself when fighting began to break out within the collective and, for eons, he’s used the TVA and the timeline he streamlined into one cohesive thread to keep the variants of himself from destroying reality. He’s scripted every moment of everything up to now, and Loki and Sylvie have a choice: They can either take this knowledge they now have and return to doing the righteous work of keeping the timeline pristine and preventing any of the Kang variants from swooping in, or they can decide Kang is a liar and kill him, unleashing the multiverse and an untold number of Kang variants into it.
Naturally, the latter is what ends up happening, much to Loki’s chagrin. Sylvie kills Kang and sends Loki back to the TVA–or so they both believe. Loki runs to find Mobius and B-15, trying to explain the situation to them, only to find that neither of them know who he is.
As the camera pans out, we see that the TVA’s statues of the Time-Keepers have been replaced and instead, there is a giant statue of Kang in the building, indicating that Loki has been sent into another reality’s version of the TVA, where Mobius and B-15 have never encountered him.
And if that wasn’t enough of a cliffhanger for you, we actually have no idea what happened to Sylvie back at the Citadel after she killed Kang, or what happened to Renslayer, who was given some specific reading by Miss Minutes and escaped the TVA to places unknown.
So what does any of this mean? Well, in theory it means that absolutely everything coming out in the MCU from this moment forward can be happening anywhere in the Multiverse. We knew this was obviously the case for the upcoming animated show What If…? Which explores the Watcher viewing different variations on reality, but it’s now also true for things like The Eternals, Shang-Chi, even the Hawkeye show.
We already knew Majors would be taking up the role of Kang in Quantumania, and we obviously understood the Multiverse would be a part of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but now there’s an equal possibility for Majors to show up as a Kang variant in literally any Phase 4 movie or show, on top of any other bonkers alternate reality changes we might see taking place.
Hey, maybe this is why we spotted Abomination fighting Wong cage-match style in that Shang-Chi trailer.
Needless to say, things in the MCU have the potential to get a lot more messy from here on out.
Thankfully, the very brief post-credits scene did confirm that Loki will be returning for a second season, so on the off chance that these consequences are somehow confined to this show and this show only, we will be getting more somewhere down the line either way.
