Loki Season 2 Episode 6 review: A glorious purpose demands a grand sacrifice

❘ Published: 2023-11-10T06:07:07

Tom Hiddleston in the Loki Season 2 finale

Disney+

Loki Season 2 delivered a grand finale that gave fans a solid ending for the characters they’ve come to know and love.

Loki Season 2 has come to an end has Disney+ just recently premiered the show’s sixth and final action-packed episode.

Throughout the season, we’ve seen Loki and the TVA struggle to fix the Temporal Loom and put the multiverse back together with a lot of bumps along the way.

However, in its finale, Loki Season 2 not only wrapped up its main storyline, but delivered a solid ending to the character arcs we’ve gone attached to since Season 1.

A groundhog day in the multiverse

Episode 6 picks up exactly where the last episode ended with Loki being able to control his time slipping and traveling back to the moment right before the Temporal Loom blew up and destroyed the TVA.

Because of his newfound ability, Loki believes that he can set things right and works with O.B. and crew to get Timely out to the Multiplier so they can expand the Loom’s rings.

At first, this is a pretty solid plan as Loki slips back in time again and again so he can make Timely go faster, but going faster doesn’t seem to the solution.

So, Loki kicks it up a notch and goes back further in time to speed up the process of O.B. meeting Timely and the group coming up the Multiplier plan.

However, even doing this isn’t enough so Loki spends centuries learning everything O.B. knows about physics and engineering so, when he returns to the moment when Timely needs to head to the Multiplier, everything has already been built and calculated so all he has to do is execute the plan.

But, it turns out that even spending centuries working on this plan wasn’t enough as, though group succeeds in expanding the Loom’s rings so the branches can go through, the timelines are duplicating at an infinite rate, which the machine can’t handle.

Loki’s groundhog day in the TVA was pretty fun to watch as he was flexing his time slipping ability, but you do start to feel a lot of dread when the plan continues to fail no matter what he does.

And the final gut punch of learning that the Loom can’t be fixed is so heartbreaking because it means that all of Loki’s hard work and time hopping was for nothing.

Loki’s desperation to save his friends and the multiverses is so palpable in this sequence and that’s why it’s so hard to watch him lose again and again and again.

If you can’t go forward, go back

When it’s revealed that the Temporal Loom can’t be fixed and they’re all doomed, Loki turns to his Plan B: go back to before Sylvie killed He Who Remains.

When he arrives at the end of time, Loki has another series of groundhog day experiences as he tries everything to get Sylvie to not kill He Who Remains, but he continuously fails.

After becoming frustrated and asking He Who Remains why he doesn’t fight back again Sylvie, He Who Remains suddenly pauses time to reveal that he knows about Loki’s time slipping as he predicted it was going to happen.

The two then have a conversation in which He Who Remains explains that he wasn’t actually going to let Sylvie kill him as her decision to do so was just part of his overall plan.

In Season 1, He Who Remains tells Sylvie and Loki that killing him would do nothing but start another huge multiversal war but, at the end of it, he would be right back in his throne at the end of time.

Obviously, this revelation is shocking to Loki as he thought he finally figured out how to save the TVA only to find out the Loom was a failsafe all along and He Who Remains knew it was going to be destroyed along with the TVA.

He Who Remains hammers in to the Loki that there’s only two options: Loki could break the Loom and start a war or he could kill Sylvie and they could protect the Sacred Timeline.

It’s an interesting discussion because, up until this point, we were just dealing with the harmless Timely and He Who Remains was dead.

Learning that Sylvie murdering him and Loki being able to control his time slipping was all part of his plan is incredibly fascinating because it shows how all powerful He Who Remains truly is.

Much like Loki, the audience feels so defeated because there doesn’t seem to be any way out of this mess besides having Loki killing Sylvie, which would go against his entire character arc.

Though Loki seems determined to find another way to fix the multiverse and save his friends, there’s a pit in your stomach when you realize there might not be a way to fix things and He Who Remains may be right.

Replace the bigger picture with something better

After revisiting his Season 1 encounter with He Who Remains, Loki time slips back to when he was first arrested by the TVA to speak with Mobius.

He asks Mobius how they, the TVA, chooses who lives and who dies, and how they deal with the fall out of those deicisons.

In a roundabout way, Mobius tells him that he needs to keep the bigger picture in mind and that purpose “is more burden than glory,” which is a callback to Loki’s signature catchphrase of always having a “glorious purpose.”

Through his conversation with Mobius, it seems like Loki is coming to terms with the idea that he has to kill Sylvie in order to save everyone but, of course, he can’t do that without talking to her first.

So, he time slips again back to where the group was at the end of Episode 5 and takes the two of them out of time so they can talk.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki and Sophia Di Martino as Sylvie

Sylvie quickly figures out what Loki needs to do in order to preserve the TVA and the Sacred Timeline, but challenges him by asking why he would want to save a world where no one has any real free will.

She gives Loki the idea that sometimes things need to be destroyed instead of allowing them to continue hurting everything around it.

Both Sylvie and Mobius kind of act like Loki’s angel and devil on his shoulder because they’re both attacking this problem in similar but different ways.

While it’s true that you should consider the bigger picture as, in the grand scheme of things, it does matter more than individuals, but you shouldn’t allow a system that’s corrupt to thrive just because it seems like the only option.

At the end of the day, these two ideas can co-exist if you’re willing to make some sacrifices to achieve both, which is how we get into the final act.

A hero is born and a throne is won

In what is truly one of the most epic sequences in the MCU, Loki decides to break the Loom as a whole, but replace it with a powerful entity: himself.

Loki walked down the long ramp towards the Loom and shed his TVA-style suit only for it to be replaced with his trademark cape and horn crown.

With some flicks of the wrist and godly magic, Loki takes hold of the dying branches that exploded from the Loom and breathes life into them as he takes a seat on his new golden throne at the end of time.

Instead of the multiverse branches going through a Loom machine, Loki combined the branches into a Time Tree that he sits in the middle of as he watches over the multiverses.

It turns out one of our predictions came true as the MCU’s Loki is no longer the God of Mischief, but the God of Stories.

With his ability to manipulate time, Loki is now one of the most powerful beings within the MCU as he presides over everything that has, is, and will occur throughout the multiverses.

His sacrifice to become the God of Stories was his way of saving his friends and the TVA as there is no longer a Sacred Timeline; everyone has the free will to go wherever and whenever they please.

After spending thousands of years trying to find a glorious purpose, it turns out Loki’s true purpose was to give himself to the concept of time and become the protector of the multiverse for all time always.

Loki Season 2 Episode 6 score: 5 /5 stars

It’s safe to say that Loki Season 2 delivered one of the most epic and satisfying endings for any Marvel show.

Watching Loki, who started in the MCU as a fully fledged villain, sacrifice himself to become the protector of the multiverses is such a great end to his character arc.

Though this probably won’t be the last time we see Loki as his new position will make him a great asset in the upcoming Avengers’ films, it was still nice to see him get the ending he truly deserved.

The entire season did a fantastic job leading up to this one moment as it consistently told time and time again that things couldn’t remain the way there were.

The TVA’s practices were unethical and He Who Remains’ way of controlling the multiverse was downright evil.

Having Loki step up and stay true to his morals while also taking his place on a throne he made, not stole is the best ending for this series.

Plus, the season finale really highlighted how far Loki has come as a character as he isolated himself for all time, which is something he told Sylvie he feared, but he did it so he could save the people he loves.

Even if the show doesn’t come back for Season, at least we can rest knowing Mobius, Sylvie, the TVA, and even Loki in a way are finally free.

Loki Season 2 Episodes 1-6 are now streaming on Disney Plus, which you can sign up for here. You can check out our other coverage below: