Loki Season 2 Episode 5 Finally Reveals Mobius' Alternate Life, Raises More Questions
This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Loki."
Brad was onto something after all. Rafael Casal's TVA agent Hunter X-05 spent most of his screen time in the season premiere of "Loki" yelling about a jet ski sales catalog, and it turns out his idea about what the Time Variance Authority staff's lives on the timeline might look like wasn't just wild guesses. In the latest episode, we finally get a look at the life one version of Mobius (Owen Wilson) led before he became a part of the company, and it's surprisingly sweet — and, perhaps unsurprisingly, jet ski-related.
Mobius, AKA Don, enters the scene in "Science/Fiction" triumphantly straddled on a jet ski, but he's not actually on a watercraft adventure. Instead, he's a jet ski salesman living in Cleveland, Ohio in 2022, trying to talk people into expensive purchases while buttering them up with donuts and small talk. It sounds sad, but Owen Wilson characters are pretty much endearing by default, so Don's life outside the TVA actually comes across as nice — if shockingly normal.
We learn a bit more about Don as the episode unfolds. He's a single dad who once had a wife, though in classic Disney Channel show fashion, it's unclear if she died or left. Don's two kids, Kevin and Sean, are a handful in the funniest way possible. In their brief screen time, we learn that the two love to scatter toys everywhere and call their dad at work, that Kevin is a budding pyromaniac (and maybe a kleptomaniac too), and that Sean is the responsible one — but just barely. At the very least, he's willing to help manage his brother's behavior if it means he'll get a pet snake.
Are we in paradox territory?
The latest episode of "Loki" gives some answers about Mobius' life, which he previously insisted he never had outside of the TVA, but it also raises more questions. If Mobius was at one point just a normal guy, how did he end up with his current job? He seems to have had it for hundreds of years: did he eventually forget Don's family, or were they somehow wiped from his memory or kept from him in the first place? The same is true for the rest of the time-protecting crew featured in this episode, none of whom go by their agent names outside the TVA. O.B. (Ke Huy Quan) seems to know everything, so how did he not know there's a timeline branch where he's a sci-fi author?
"Loki" has been playing fast and loose with its science this season, so any attempt to parse through the timeline math here might be futile. But it's worth noting that until now, we've been told He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) is the one who brought everyone to the TVA, and Sylvie (Sophia di Martino) still believes it's him who controlled their fate. Loki (Tom Hiddleston), on the other hand, has an inkling that there's some element of choice involved here, and since he was able to stop the spaghettification of all his friends at episode's end through sheer force of will, he might be right.
Hopefully, all will become clear in the season finale of "Loki," but personally, I'm wondering if we're headed for a paradoxical catch-22 situation. Perhaps the TVA chose these agents because they chose it after Loki met them in their branch timelines. He Who Remains could have something to do with it, but maybe this random assortment of people only matters because Loki says they did — because they already meant something to him.
This random group might not be so random
If that is the case, life-and-death circumstances — or something in that TVA handbook no one ever reads — could lead Don and the others to agree to join the TVA, lose their memories, and start playing the roles they seemed to have originated decades or even centuries before viewers (and Loki) first met them. Does it make sense? Not entirely, but then again, not everything in this season of "Loki" has made sense. A paradox would be an emotionally satisfying conclusion, though, as it would mean each person did have free will at one point, just like Loki told Sylvie. Unfortunately, though, viewers can't forget the lives we've seen these people lead, and Don in particular has a lot to lose if he becomes Mobius.
If He Who Remains chose this team, like Sylvie thinks he did, it seems more possible that they'd be able to get back to their non-TVA lives somehow. But why would he have chosen them in the first place? As we see in this episode, each character possesses a uniquely helpful trait: Don has a knack for amiable persuasion, Frank has the ability to get out of any sticky situation, Dr. Morris provides compassionate care, and Dr. A.D. Doug has a highly scientific imagination. Combine these qualities with Sylvie's realism and Loki's optimism (and, you know, godly abilities) and this may just be the perfect group to handle whatever comes next. What that is, we can't say for certain, but like all of life's mysteries, it'll be easier to face with friends — which Loki finally truly has.
New episodes of "Loki" stream Thursdays on Disney+.