Loki Makes A Big Change to the MCU In Episode 2

Loki episode 2 is streaming on Disney+, and it didn't take long for the show to answer some of the big mysteries of episode 1, and thrown the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe into chaos. That's not all too surprising - after all, this is a Marvel series about the God of Mischief, so the fact that things are spiraling out of control is pretty much on brand. In Loki episode 1 we were introduced to the Time Variance Authority and its mission to preserve the Sacred Timeline - especially from the terrorist attacks of a ruthless variant Loki. In episode 2, the TVA and the two variant Loki's all collide in battle.

Warning: Loki Episode 2 SPOILERS Follow!

Thanks to Loki episode 2, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has just become a multiverse.

In Loki Episode 2, the Avengers: Endgame variant Loki (Tom Hiddleston) gets to work at the TVA, profiling and tracking his own rogue variant, who is assassinating the TVA agents. Loki (who is dubbed "Professor Loki" by Owen Wilson's Mobius) actually makes an inspired deduction: this assassin variant is using cataclysmic events in time as hideouts. Because the cataclysm erases all evidence of witnesses or temporal changes, no variant timeline is created by the variant's presence or actions.

With that discovery, and the sample of chewing gum Mobius picked up from a prior crime scene, the TVA is able to narrow the Loki variant's location to a major hurricane in 2050 Alabama. Mobius and Professor Loki accompany the TVA squad on the mission to apprehend the assassin variant. But things go from bad to worse, quickly.

Final Warning - MAJOR SPOILERS Follow!

The assassin Loki has the drop on the TVA from the moment they enter the 2050 Alabama timeline. Prof. Loki discovers that his counterpart has a charm power to possess people, one body at a time. Even with Prof. Loki's smarts, the variant (who is revealed to be a Lady, just as fans expected) pulls off her plan.

Lady Loki (or Enchantress?) stole a bunch of the TVA's reset charges and synchronized them to be sent to any number of points in history. The resulting mass explosion is too much, too fast, for the TVA to curtail; instead, the Sacred Timeline splinters into an entire tree branch of variant timelines. The one timeline is now many.

The question of now is: Just how permanent will this big change to the MCU be? Marvel fans have been speculating since WandaVision about what big event would open the door to the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse - and eventually the fight in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to balance it. Could Lady Loki's Sacred Timeline attack be it?

There are plenty of implications that this could be a game-changing event in the MCU. Doctor Strange 2 is called "The Multiverse of Madness" for a reason; Spider-Man: No Way Home is rumored to be filled with villains collected from all the various Spider-Man movies, and even the upcoming animated anthology series What If...? could be linked to the fact that Lady Loki opened the door to infinite new possibilities in the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse.

What do you think: will the TVA clean up this mess by the end of Loki? Or was this the event that changes the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a true multiverse?

Loki streams new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.