The race to save the TVA kept on rolling tonight with the third episode of the second season of Marvel’s Loki on Disney+. After last week’s episode concluded with a devastating attack on most of the new branch timelines, Loki and the crew shift their focus to stopping a temporal meltdown and saving the TVA.
The third episode, titled “1893,” opens with Renslayer arriving in Chicago in 1868 on the sacred timeline. After some brief searching, she finds Miss Minutes, who set up this meeting according to a plan created by He Who Remains. She tells Renslayer to drop a package in a nearby window. When Renslayer asks what’s in it for her, Miss Minutes informs her that when He Who Remains is back on top of the TVA, the two of them will be right by his side.
We then see a young boy working on something in his home when a package is dropped in the window. The boy opens the package to find the TVA guidebook. Clearly, this is a young variant of He Who Remains. But if he is finding out about the TVA this way, and the TVA guidebook was written by O.B., then didn’t O.B. technically create the TVA? That’s some time travel shenanigans we simply don’t have time to get into right now.
Back at the TVA, Loki, Mobius, B-15, Casey and O.B. continue to scramble for an answer to the imminent temporal meltdown. Remember, last week O.B. learned that they need either He Who Remains or Miss Minutes in order to open the blast doors so O.B. can implement his plan to stop the meltdown. Evidently, the destruction of all but a few of those branch timelines was not enough to cool off the Temporal Loom. I suppose more and more branch timeline are constantly being created which is still causing the issue.
After some back and forth and some more O.B. hilarity, they finally decide they need to find Renslayer in order to get to Miss Minutes. Loki and Mobius arrive in Chicago in 1868 and Mobius explains that they also got a hit on Resnlayer’s TemPad for the same spot in 1893. They decide to jump ahead 25 years and search for them there. Interestingly, when they arrive, the caption lets us know they are now in a branched timeline. It seems delivering the TVA guidebook to He Who Remains created a new timeline.
Mobius lets us and Loki know that they are now at the Chicago World’s Fair. They question why Renslayer would have gone to 1868 first, before going off to look for them. They overhear a paper boy barking a story about a “ghost clock” and decide to grab a paper, which of course has a picture of Miss Minutes on the front page.
In one of the funniest moments of the episode, they come across an exhibit on Norse mythology, with wooden statues of Thor, Odin and… you guessed it, Balder. Loki complains about the statue and specifically questions Balder’s inclusion before Mobius refers to him as Balder the Brave. Balder is a character in the Marvel comics and he’s another brother of Thor and Loki.
As they continue their search, Loki notices a sign for “Victor Timely’s Astounding Temporal Marvels.” They take that as a, well as a sign, and decide to investigate further. Interestingly, the sign also mentions a singer names Ferdinand Lang. The last time we saw He Who Remains, or Kang or any variant there of, was in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which of course follows Scott Lang. It’s probably nothing, but Marvel doesn’t typically deal in coincidence.
We see Renslayer enter a hall, talking to Miss Minutes in her bag. Loki and Mobius enter the same hall and spot Renslayer but don’t engage. After a moment, the lights go out and Victor Timely takes the stage with what looks like the Temporal Loom. This is now the post-credits from Quantumania, in which Loki realizes Timely is He Who Remains.
Timely gives a presentation of what he confirms to be the Temporal Loom. He explains how it works to a crowd of skeptical but interested people. He doesn’t speak with nearly the level of confidence we saw from He Who Remains in last season’s finale, because it appears he has not yet become that man.
After his presentation, several people swarm Timely regarding buying the Temporal Loom. Renslayer also gets to him and says she wants to speak with him. Meanwhile, Loki and Mobius realize they have much better chances of getting Timely to help them than Renslayer and Miss Minutes and they try to get to him as well. Timely starts a bidding war for the Loom and sells it to one of the men who hand him a stack of cash. Timely slips some cash under the hat of a man at the bar and places his hand on his shoulder before taking his leave. Does he have some kind of relationship with this mystery man?
Renslayer, Loki and Mobius all catch up with Timely outside before a man interrupts to complain about another of Timely’s inventions. And he’s only the first, as the man who purchased the Loom corners him with a bunch of goons and starts a chase. Timely tricks them all onto a ferris wheel to get away.
Mobius takes a call from B-15 who explains they got a hit on a TemPad right near them. Loki gets a hold of Timely but is interrupted by Sylvie who wants to immediately kill Timely just like she did to He Who Remains.She and Loki go back and forth, Loki protecting Timely. After some tense conversation, most of which Timely understands because he has the TVA guidebook, Sylvie unleashes a surge of power that sends Loki and Timely flying. Renslayer gets to him first and unleashes Miss Minutes, who becomes a giant ghost to distract the crowd.
Timely takes Renslayer to an office and explains they need to get to his lab before he can go with them back to the TVA. They once again escape the angry business man as well as Loki and Mobius and get on a boat. As they talk, Timely learns that Renslayer and Miss Minutes were the ones who delivered the TVA guidebook to them.He explains to them his latest invention is what he needs to get to save the Loom and the TVA. Renslayer mentions a partnership between them and Miss Minutes smirks.
Later, while Renslayer sleeps, Timely casts her overboard in a lifeboat and Miss Minutes explains it had to be done because she used the word “partnership.” Back in his lab, Timely scrambles to grab his inventions and Miss Minutes begins to tell him about He Who Remains. As she talks she gets more and more intense and makes it clear she wishes He Who Remains would have created a body for her. Frightened, Timely locks her back in her housing device.
Renslayer emerges out of the shadow with a prototype of a time stick and threatens Timely. Loki and Mobius arrive just in time to save him. They try to talk Renslayer out of pruning Timely and their conversation gets interrupted by Sylvie. The variant approaches Timely with her weapon and has a chance to kill him but Timely manages to talk her out of it by explaining that he can make his own choices, something she fought for the entire first season. She lets Mobius and Loki take Timely through a time door, leaving her alone with Renslayer.
Sylvie threatens her former foe and Renslayer tells her to just kill her already. Instead, Sylvie opens a time door and kicks Renslayer though it. We then see her arrive at the end of time, where He Who Remains’ body is still sitting in his chair as his fortress crumbles around him. Renslayer lets Miss Minutes out again and she points out that it was foolish of Timely to make an enemy out of her because she knows all his secrets. Miss Minutes wraps up the episode with a tease of a bombshell: she knows a big secret that’s going to make Renslayer “real angry.” Kang and Renslayer have had a long, complicated relationship in the comics, going from enemies, to lovers, to allies and back to enemies. It’s unclear just yet what this secret might be, but I would guess we’re about to be in one of those “enemies” phases.
This was another fun-yet-intense episode of Marvel’s Loki. It will be very interesting to see what happens with Timely being brought to the TVA. Is he really who he says he is? Or has he been playing everyone all this time? And what will happen when he meets O.B.? A war is taking shape and it’s not even entirely clear just yet who will be on which side.
The second season of Marvel’s Loki is now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes coming every Thursday night.