Why Did Loki Prune Himself?

Loki Season 2's most recent episode was a massive one with huge developments — including seemingly killing off a ton of Marvel characters including the He Who Remains variant, Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors) and left the future of not just the TVA but Loki, Sylvie, Mobius and many more up in the air. But while fans are left with tons of questions with just two episodes remaining in the season, the episode did answer one question — who pruned Loki in the season premiere. However, even that one answer has left fans scratching their head as to why. Let's break it down.

Episode 4 loops the story back to a scene from the season premiere, specifically the scene where Loki, who was trying to solve his time slipping issue, had slipped to the future unexpectedly with the clock ticking on what time he had to prune himself and thus, complete the necessary steps to fix his issue. In the premiere, time very nearly runs out, but someone unseen prunes Loki, allowing for the process to work. Episode reveals that the mysterious person doing the pruner is Loki himself — specifically the Loki who had already been successfully pruned and cured of his time slipping and thus allowed to experience time in a linear fashion leading him to that same point again.

Because the Loki of Episode 4 had experienced that moment, he knew exactly what had to be done and took care of it, ensuring his restoration happened. It completes a loop of sorts and allows things to move forward for Loki form there. Is it a little confusing? Of course it is. Anything dealing with time travel, shifting timelines, and anything like that is always a little complicated — just look at the Time Heist from Avengers: Endgame — but in this case it is very much in keeping with how chaotic things were getting at the TVA since the death of He Who Remains and the impending overloading of the Temporal Loom.

Loki Episode 4 Also Answered Another Major Question

Who pruned Loki and why he pruned himself isn't the only burning question that Episode 4 answered. There was another major question from the Season 2 premiere that fans had been eager to find out the answer to: who was on the phone in the hallway in the Season 2 premiere? As it turns out, the person on the other end of that ringing phone was OB (Ke Huy Quan). He was calling to find out what was taking so long as they were running short on time to unlock the door to get to the Temporal Loom. The call also led to the revelation that if OB rebooted the system, they'd be able to use magic, which is something that both Loki and Sylvie emphatically encouraged as it allowed them to have the upper hand in order to retrieve Timely as part of a hail Mary to save the Loom and the timeline. It just unfortunately didn't entirely work out as planned.

What Is Loki Season 2 About?

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.

ComicBook.com's podcast Phase Zero will be recording live episodes every week following Loki season 2's new episodes on Disney+. Each week we will review, breakdown, and discuss the latest installment of the new Marvel series immediately after the episode's conclusion! The new episodes will be broadcast live on the Phase Zero channel on YouTube before being made available on all major podcast platforms. Phase Zero will begin its 5-minute timer to start the live show at 9:45pm ET on Thursday, October 5. You can subscribe to the Phase Zero channel now and turn on notifications to make sure you don't miss the Loki Season 2 bonus episodes!