Loki Season 2 often felt more like a whimsical setting for Marvel’s next big crossover event than an extra-dimensional character study of its eponymous trickster god. However, in the first episode, “Loki’s” made it clear that for all the timeline jumping and timey-wimey feeling, it was always a story in which Loki finally discovered his true destiny after several lifetimes of not knowing who or what he wanted to be.
There’s a solemn finality to the way Loki’s second season comes to an end, making it feel like it’s both the conclusion of the series and a sign of a major, lasting change that will have far-reaching consequences for Marvel’s cinematic universe. From one perspective, it’s hard to see this season’s finale – “Glorious Purpose” – as a wholly satisfying conclusion that ties together all of Loki’s mysterious threads regarding the Time Variance Agency, Kang, and Loki’s colleagues.
But if you look at the finale as Loki’s way of laying out some of the big ideas first hinted at in the series premiere (which this episode takes its name from), “Glorious Purpose” acts as a stunning addition to this chapter of Loki’s life, and it opens up a whole new world of possibilities for what comes next.
This review contains spoilers for the first season of Loki. You can find our first review here.
Owen Wilson as Mobius, Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, Eugene Cordero as Casey, Sophia Di Martino as Sylvie, Ke Huy Quan as OB and Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Wonder
The first season of Loki largely focused on Loki (Tom Hiddleston) himself as he embarked on extradimensional journeys of alternative self-discovery. But the series’ second season has felt much more like an ensemble show, trying to highlight what keeps the likes of Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosako) going, even if it seems as if reality itself were falling apart.
Season 1 revealed He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) as the true cause of much of the chaos threatening the larger MCU, and established that his death would mean the end of all things. But there was no reality in which Sylvie (Sophia DiMartino) would rest until she had gotten revenge on He Who Remains for orchestrating her apocalyptic upbringing, and Loki couldn’t bring himself to stop her – partly, because they are variants of each other. but also because they seem to be in something that vaguely resembles love.
After the Kang variants of He Who Remains made their big debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it initially seemed like Loki’s second season was building toward a future that the villain was either hiding or from which he knew nothing about. This was especially true when this season introduced a brilliant, bumbling, and technically limited Kang variant named Victor Timely, whose altruism made him seem like the only version of Kang capable of saving the TVA, without obvious ones having ulterior motives.
More than his uncanny resemblance to Kang and He Who Stays, it was his connection to eccentric TVA technician Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) that made “Timely” such a fascinating part of this season. Although Timely was destined to become a Kang – the next big bad in the MCU – Loki portrayed Timely and Ouroboros as two brilliant minds who spoke to each other across time, space and different realities in ways that shouldn’t have been possible .
Jonathan Majors as Victor Timely. Wonder
The question of how the studies of a 19th-century earthbound Timely could have led directly to Ouroboros writing the TVA guidebook (which then traveled back through time and initially gave a young Timely the inspiration to pursue his inventions) raised the question interesting possibility that the two of them are connected more deeply and existentially. Loki spent much of the first season making it clear that despite their physical differences and unique backgrounds, there was an undeniable kind of kinship between Loki and Sylvie, indicating that they were both different expressions of similar core experiences, such as feeling , being outside your own family.
In recent episodes, Loki’s second season almost seemed to suggest that this kind of relationship could also exist between Timely and Oroboros, which would have been a notable blow in itself, but especially given the rumors of Marvel pursuing a Kang recast The majors are considering ‘ legal problems. But instead of moving on to a new Kang, or even bringing Kang into the fold in any major capacity, “Glorious Purpose” instead goes out with a bang designed to remind you whose series this has always been, to hell with the tentpoles to come. Film.
Narrative shows the way “Glorious Purpose” zooms in on Loki – who can now control his time shift to jump back and forth at will – as he slowly realizes that there is no way to save all the branching timelines, and the Temporal Loom conveys the truth of what He Who Remains told him in Season 1. No matter how many jumps Loki makes to specific moments in the timeline where his actions could change fate and make the impossible possible, reality begins to unravel just moments after his arrival.
In both seasons, Hiddleston has given some of his best performances as Marvel’s God of Mischief, but there’s something extra special about Loki and Sylvie’s reunion at the End of Time, where he stops them from killing He Who Remains feels different. The episode’s repetition of the same scenes from slightly different perspectives quickly weakens the momentum from the sequences in which Loki and the gang fight to send Timely to save the Loom. But every time Loki tries to stop Sylvie from killing whoever remains at the end of time, it becomes increasingly clear that “Glorious Purpose” drives home the futility of trying to change the perspective of someone who that doesn’t want to be changed.
Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Wonder
“Glorious Purpose” also highlights that Sylvie was very direct and consistent in expressing her desire to live on in her days after killing He Who Remains, even if that meant it would only take a short time for everything to happen ceased to exist in their new reality. But rather than portraying Sylvie in a nihilistic light, “Glorious Purpose” upholds her determination and is a kind of mirror for Loki to see how he too can choose to follow his heart, even though he knows it’s his may not succeed.
While the idea that Ouroboros might be a Kang variant is a nice idea, “Glorious Purpose” follows Timely down the gangway and tries to save the Temporal Loom so many times that it looks like Majors will have a little longer could be there. But in the context of Loki, there doesn’t seem to be a scenario where Timely is the one to save the day, because again, this is Loki’s story.
As subtle as this season has been in exploring the nature of free will, it has clearly done its best not to give the impression that Loki, an Asgardian god, might be better suited than Timely, a human man to pull together on a spacewalk to improve a piece of machinery. But when “Glorious Purpose” manages to live up to its name and give Loki his big hero moment, it lands despite its abruptness because it so forcefully expresses Loki’s self-declared desire to protect his friends and his fear of it Being alone.
This season featured significantly fewer quirky Loki variants than the first, but “Glorious Purpose” makes up for the lack of Richard E. Grant’s classic Loki by having Loki stomp down the gangway to magically contain the Temporal Loom’s explosion. In a time where Marvel’s VFX output has been wildly inconsistent, it’s a joy to see Loki go big with a transformation sequence against the backdrop of a glowing, dying multiverse full of decaying timelines and absolutely nail it. It’s a bit hard to understand exactly what’s going on and why Loki is suddenly able to pull off a feat so massive that you’d almost expect to see it in a movie. But it’s beautiful and its general meaning is pretty simple.
The new multiverse with Loki at the center. Wonder
“Glorious Purpose” finds that Loki has apparently become a new kind of Time Keeper, taking every timeline in the multiverse and weaving them together on the ruins of the throne of He Who Abides at the end of time. The finale doesn’t make it clear what role Loki – whose magic is what brings the timelines back to life – plays in their continued existence, beyond acting as a nexus that connects them all. But as it returns to a TVA now focused on keeping tabs on all the Kang variants scattered across the Multiverse (Lokiverse), it seems like this will be a big part of the MCU’s new normal, at least for a while.
There are plenty of reminders in this episode that everything that’s happened this season will inevitably lead to the outbreak of a war that none of Loki’s characters – except He Who Remains – want to be drawn into. But instead of hyping the next Marvel project, “Glorious Purpose” delves into Mobius and Sylvie to emphasize how their freedom, for now, is inextricably tied to Loki’s sacrifice.