Loki Season 1 Recap

In just a few more days, fans will be burdened with glorious purpose once again when Loki returns for Season 2 on Disney+. As we’ve already seen from previews and teasers for the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe series, the second season of the fan-favorite series will see Loki (Tom Hiddleston) dealing with the fallout from Season 1, which saw Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) kill He Who Remains and se the Multiverse and its various timelines on a dangerous course. With Kang the Conqueror now in the equation and Loki dealing with a variety of new challenges, Season 2 is set to be a wild ride for the God of Mischief.

But how did we get here, exactly? Since it’s been more than two years since we first joined Loki on his timeline jumping adventures, we’re taking a look back at Season 1 of Loki to refresh the memory, get everyone up to speed, and get more excited than ever for Loki’s return. So, grab your TemPad and let’s get caught up on Loki.

Just a note of warning if by some chance you haven’t actually seen the first season of Loki just yet: there will be spoilers from here on out. Proceed accordingly.

Loki begins just after the events of Avengers: Endgame which saw the heroes travel to 2012 to take the Tesseract from their 2012 selves during the Battle of New York. However, things don’t exactly go the way they should and 2012 Loki ends up being able to grab the Tesseract and disappear. He’s soon enough captured by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and brought to their headquarters where we learn the nuts and bolts of what the TVA does. They exist outside of time and are tasked with protecting the “sacred timeline”. What that means is anytime something is “off”, they go to the point in time of that “off” thing — the variant — and fix things, usually by “pruning” the variant from existence and resetting the timeline.

Loki is, very obviously, one of those variants who must be dealt with, but Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson), an agent for the TVA, decides (against the better judgement of his supervisor Ravonnna Renslayer) that they should work with Loki in their pursuit of another, more dangerous variant — a female version of Loki called Sylvie (Sophia di Martino). It’s soon discovered that Sylvie is hiding in apocalypses and when Loki encounters Sylvie, he decides to work with her and try to meet the mysterious Time Keepers who are in charge of the TVA and their methods to make a case for not being pruned out of existence.

As fugitives from the TVA, Loki and Sylvie have some adventures, including notably one to Lamentis-1 in 2077 just as it is about to be destroyed. The pair bond and Sylvie reveals an awful truth to Loki: the TVA agents are all real people who have been taken and had their memories and lives erased. The TVA ends up tracking them down to Lamentis (because of their bond) and they’re rescued, but there are consequences. Mobius begins to learn the truth about the TVA agents being people who have been taken from their lives which leads to Renslayer pruning Mobius as well as for Loki and Sylvie being taken to the Time Keepers. Renslayer is told that she needs to eliminate both of them, but Loki and Sylvie take down the Time Keepers and discover that they aren’t real: they’re androids and, in a moment of being stunned by it all, Renslayer is able to prune Loki.

Loki then discovers what happens to those who have been pruned: they end up in a void at the end of time. He encounters different, previously pruned variants of himself — President Loki, Classic Loki, Boastful Loki, Kid Loki, and even Alligator Loki — who inform him that a creature called Alioth destroys everything in the void. The void also is chock full of Easter Eggs, including a Thanoscopter. They manage to evade Alioth for a bit and the Lokis encounter Mobius and Sylvie elsewhere in the Void. Mobius uses Sylvie’s TemPad to return to the TVA while Sylvie stays behind with Loki as, if they can get past Alioth, they can get to the citadel at the end of time, beyond the void where she can confront who is really behind all of this. And they do manage to do so, albeit with help from Classic Loki who dies in the process.

Once they get to the citadel, Loki and Sylvie encounter He Who Remains. He explains that there was a multiversal war between his own variants and he ended it, destroying the alternate timelines, isolated his own timeline as the sacred one and created the TVA to protect the “sacred timeline” and thus, peace. The mysterious figure offers Loki and Sylvie a choice: they can kill him and thus kick off another devastating multiversal war (and warning them that his variants are far worse than he is) or they can merely replace him, taking his place as the leader of the TVA and maintain the timeline. Loki is swayed by He Who Remains’ story and ends up begging Sylvie not to kill him. But Sylvie isn’t swayed. She sends Loki back to the TVA and kills He Who Remains.

Loki emerges back at the TVA, but nothing is as Loki expected it. He tries to warn Mobius, who has become his friend, and B-15 about He Who Remains and the variants, but they have no idea who he is or what he’s talking about. It’s then that Loki sees something horrifying: the Time Keeper statues that had previously been part of the decor at the TVA are now statutes of He Who Remains or at least his variants.

About Loki Season 2

Marvel Studios fan-favorite Tom Hiddleston stars in Loki Season 2, returning as the titular God of Mischief for another round of time-traveling hijinx on Disney+ on October 6th. Loki is once again joined by Mobius (Owen Wilson) as the two attempt to keep the timelines intact. After the events of Season 1 saw his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) kill He Who Remains and unleash the wrath of Kang the Conqueror upon the Multiverse, Loki must once again embark on an adventure to keep reality from collapsing. Loki was last seen in the post-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where he and Mobius were keeping tabs on one of Kang’s mysterious variants. Loki Season 2 will continue the story of the Multiverse Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Loki Season 2 premieres Thursday, October 5th on Disney+.