It feels appropriate that the title of Season 2 Episode 6, “Glorious Purpose,” is borrowed from Season 1 Episode 1, which is the best way to conclude Loki’s journey across the two-season arc. Funny enough, the Marvel Studios title card plays as usual; however, for this episode, it plays in reverse, alluding to the events in Episode 6 of Loki playing god with time through time-slipping.
Aside from the clever way Marvel Studios chose to introduce us to the final episode, we’ve taken the time to divulge Loki’s latest exploits in Episode 6 of Loki. As we will discuss significant plot points and reveals, this is officially a SPOILER ALERT for Loki S2 Episode 6, “Glorious Purpose.”
“We Die With The Dying. We’re Born With The Dead”
Loki is running out of time to save the TVA from the explosion of the Temporal Loom and destroying the Sacred Timeline and its branches, but it doesn’t come easy, as the God of Mischief finds out. Despite replaying the events from Episode 4, albeit from multiple perspectives, where the Temporal Loom collapsed, and Victor Timely gets eviscerated by Temporal Radiation, he realized that it would take him at least centuries to learn everything regarding engineering, mechanics, and physics to adjust the Throughput Multiplier.
Time's up. ⏰
— Loki (@LokiOfficial) November 10, 2023
The #Loki Season 2 finale is now streaming on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/zoJ1Q7eCC7
Using his time-slipping ability to travel across time to learn, he returned to the TVA before Timely had his Temporal Aura scanned and eventually loaded the Multiplier into the launcher to restore the Loom. While Timely succeeded in this feat and thus did not get turned into spaghetti, the Loom overloads due to the surplus of timelines duplicating, and it collapsed.
Realizing that it was always intended for the Loom to collapse, Timely stated that this event would always happen as it was never meant to accommodate the mass growth of the multiverse. Knowing that the core of the problem is He Who Remains, he travels back to the moment before Sylvie killed He Who Remains at the Citadel at the End of Time.
Trying to convince Sylvie that removing He Who Remains will result in the Temporal Loom’s implosion, Loki gets dealt the harsh reality of choosing between Sylvie or He Who Remains. This scene gets replayed multiple times and from different perspectives until He Who Remains explains his actual plans.
Explaining how he allowed Loki to maneuver his way through time-slipping; of course, as he watched by, he certainly wasn’t going to allow Sylvie to kill him time and time and time again, much to the dismay of Loki. As the pair discuss the issues regarding the Temporal Loom and that Timely’s initial analysis of a scaling problem to be false, He Who Remains reveals that the Loom was a failsafe, which, when overloaded, deletes the duplicated timelines except the Sacred Timeline.
This makes the TVA’s destruction mere “collateral damage,” which He Who Remains can always rebuild; he also stated that his variants are out there with too many for Loki to stop. He comes to the solution that he can rewrite time (changing the equation) by destroying the Loom, which comes at the loss of losing everyone he’s encountered and befriended.
Now tasked with killing Sylvie or He Who Remains, he receives some advice from Mobius, replaying a scene from Season 1 Episode 1’s episode that he must keep in sight of the bigger picture. Finally understanding what his “glorious purpose” had been the entire time, he time-slips back to speak with Sylvie to reveal his plans to replace He Who Remains with something “better.”
Knowing what needs to be done, he destroys the Temporal Loom launcher before bonding himself with the dying branches, thus creating the Multiverse Tree resembling Yggdrasil and him at its core. Things resumed at the TVA as Hunter B-15 and Mobius discussed the variants of He Who Remains, including the one Ant-Man encountered in Quantumania, which he alluded was “handled,” he informs her that he’s leaving the TVA to live out his life on one of the branched timelines; Ravonna Renslayer comes face-to-face with Alioth in the Void as Loki assumes his new role overseeing the Sacred Timeline and the multiverse.
Throughout 12 episodes, one cannot state how Loki has become one of the best-developed characters in the MCU despite its minor shortcomings. This season has significantly crafted a lasting note for the character, which has been masterfully played by Tom Hiddleston since 2011, across multiple films and the two-season series.
The future of the multiverse now rests at his feet as we continue adventuring into a realm marred by one controversy after the next; this series should be the beacon of light for Marvel Studios on how a multi-season approach to their forthcoming shows should be implemented. It’s no wonder the season’s directors, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, were given much confidence following Moon Knight to helm Marvel Studios’ upcoming project, Daredevil: Born Again, which starkly contrasts with Moon Knight and Loki.
But with the TVA now tasked with targeting every Kang variant across the multiverse, the future of this character remains a mystery, especially with rumors and theories of the character being replaced or defeated by a highly requested villain worthy to succeed: Doctor Doom. In the meantime, as Marvel Studios toil away on remedying this situation, many fans are hoping that the time and effort that went into Loki Season 2 will be replicated with other shows, especially with the next few series, including What If Season 2 and Echo coming up in a few months.
For now and always, this season is undoubtedly one of the best the studio has put out since WandaVision and Loki Season 1; only time will tell what the future holds for the MCU. Nevertheless, all roads have been paved for the next time we’re likely to see the newly crowned God of Stories, which may be Avengers: Kang Dynasty, and we’ll be sure to update audiences on the latest developments and guides on everything relating to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
All Loki Season 1 and 2 episodes are now available to stream on Disney+.
