Loki Season 2 Episode 4 Solves An Episode 1 Mystery, But What The Heck Is Going On?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Loki."

We're in the endgame now. Okay, the current situation in "Loki" maybe isn't quite as existential as the Thanos-induced Blip at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War" but, in a way, it sure feels like it. Episode 4 is perhaps the wackiest and most revelatory hour of season 2 thus far, throwing all sorts of chaos at the wall and not even waiting around long enough to see what sticks before moving on to the next thing. It's as if the writers challenged themselves to outdo their own timeline-traveling hijinks from last week, which pit Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) against Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) in a race to win over the alliance of Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors, whose performance continues to be a distraction). Now, viewers must contend with paradoxical time loops, a steadily disassembling Time Variance Authority thanks to the Temporal Loom breakdown, a deadly coup attempt by Renslayer and her lackeys, and, oh yeah, the shocking demise of Victor Timely and a cliffhanger spelling certain doom for all of our heroes.

But other than all that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

So much happens in rapid succession towards the end of the episode, in fact, that it's probably worth pausing and taking a breath to run down the list of timeline-shattering events and mysteries solved — and to explain some of the more confusing aspects of what exactly went down, in all honesty. Having had to hold my tongue about all of this for weeks since writing my non-spoilery "Loki" review for /Film, I'm just relieved that the rest of the world has finally caught up to these developments. Let's start with the biggest reveal.

Trust nobody, people — not even yourself. Remember back in the season 2 premiere, when the TVA was first threatening to fall apart all around Loki and Mobius? On top of the dysfunctional Temporal Loom, Loki was still contending with that pesky case of "time slipping" (which, oddly enough, nobody's even referenced ever since). Loki put a stop to that with the help of Ke Hey Quan's Ouroboros, who came up with a precisely mapped plan for Loki to prune himself at the right moment so that Mobius could yank him right out of the Temporal Loom and set things right again. He did just that ... but not before Loki was helped along the way when an unseen assailant stepped in and pruned him just in time (another event that, weirdly, nobody has even brought up once in the subsequent episodes).

Well, we've finally got an answer to that loose thread, however confounding it may be.

As Renslayer and the traitorous Hunter X-5 (Rafael Casal) wreak havoc while Miss Minutes locks everyone out of the TVA digitally, Loki finds himself in a startlingly similar predicament. Previously, his time slipping brought him to an undetermined future in the TVA where he encountered a ringing telephone and Sylvie trapped in an elevator. This time, he re-experiences those events from his future self's perspective (which is really his present-day self, of course, but we'll stop there before this gets too confusing) when he comes face-to-back with ... himself. Having picked up a time stick earlier, he knows exactly what to do with it and promptly prunes his past self. Thus, a time loop was born!

It's all treated a little too matter-of-factly for such a major event if you ask me, but that's one mystery solved for now.

We love seeing villains get their comeuppances, don't we, folks? After spending most of season 1 under the guise of an innocuous little TVA mascot, the finale revealed that the Miss Minutes hologram/AI had been in cahoots with He Who Remains all along. Season 2 upped the ante even further, adding on the subsequent layer that she's been violently in love with He Who Remains and is now playing the role of a spurned lover. Now having revealed the depths of her former beau's mind-wiping deception to Renslayer, the two have teamed up to exact vengeance upon Victor Timely and the TVA as a whole. With a pitch-perfect "Jurassic Park" reference, Miss Minutes renders every TemPad obsolete as she takes over the TVA, until Ouroboros comes up with yet another plan to reboot the system.

Initially mistaking this for another power surge, Miss Minutes quickly realizes she's being locked out herself and taken offline. Realizing she only has a few seconds left, she desperately delivers one last message to Victor — not another heartfelt pronouncement of her love, but a chilling delivery that, "You'll never be him." And just like that, her hologram goes blank with a pair of cartoonish X's over her eyes and is subsequently restored to her original programming as nothing more than a clock. When she winks out of existence, it's unclear if she's truly dead or simply reverted to a more innocent version of herself, but that's nothing compared to the fate awaiting Renslayer.

While all this is going down, X-5 abruptly enters the room and grabs hold of Renslayer. Not knowing that he's been enchanted by Sylvie, Renslayer is too slow to react and is promptly pruned, likely doomed to the same Void seen in season 1.

Oh, Victor, you flew too close to the sun and paid the ultimate price. Okay, maybe that's a little uncharitable, since he actually volunteers to do a very selfless and brave act to save a bunch of strangers he's known for ... a couple of hours, tops? Unfortunately, not even Ouroboros could've anticipated the disastrous consequences that follow. With all the scientific experimenting done and everyone gathered in front of the Temporal Loom, there's nothing left to do but open the blast doors and install the new addition to the Loom. Victor's expertise convinces everyone to let him be the one to suit up and venture into the nasty radiation, but he only makes it a few steps before getting promptly shredded. (Remember what Ouroboros said back in the premiere about black holes and spaghettification?)

It's a completely shocking cliffhanger to leave viewers on, reflected by how Ouroboros, Mobius, Loki, and Sylvie can do nothing but gawk in horror at what just happened and await their imminent doom. Without the crucial part that Victor was meant to install, the Loom spectacularly implodes and all seems utterly lost. Game over, nice effort, but it was all for naught. Right?

With two whole episodes left in the season, we're going to go ahead and assume it's not quite as simple as that. Rather than death by radiation, could the Council of Kangs have somehow intervened with Victor Timely at the last moment? Are there more timeline shenanigans that Loki and Mobius can attempt to avert the TVA's total destruction? Does Ouroboros have another trick or two up his sleeve? These questions will surely be answered throughout the next two weeks. New episodes of "Loki" stream on Disney+ every Thursday.