Episode 2 of "Loki" left us with a pretty big cliffhanger - and after Episode 3, we
have even more questions.
The latest episode definitely gave MCU fans plenty to unpack.
Here's everything about the plot and ending of "Loki" Episode 3, explained.
Surprisingly, the episode doesn't kick things off right from the moment Loki and the Variant
step through the Time Door in RoxxCart - instead, we get the Variant and Hunter C-20, out for
drinks.
The two are drinking margaritas in a supposedly scummy waterfront restaurant, which is all
an elaborate illusion so the Variant can extract information about the TVA from C-20.
As we learn towards the episode's end, this "Inception"-style technique is one of the
Variant's impressive skills that Loki doesn't seem to have - different Loki, different powers.
With this enchanting skill, it makes the Variant a pretty formidable opponent, because how
would anyone know what's real if she can make them believe they're somewhere else just to
get secrets and information out of them?
Anyway, thanks to a sleepy confession from Hunter C-20, the Variant knows that the elevators
that go to the Time Keepers' chamber are behind a set of gold doors.
It's still not clear what she'd do if she came face-to-face with the Space Lizards - the
insinuation is that she'd kill them, but it seems as if her plans go a little deeper than
that.
Before anything about the Variant's plan can be revealed, Loki pulls the villain through
another Time Door before Judge Renslayer can execute them both.
Loki may have saved their lives - but he also stranded the duo in yet another apocalypse.
Because Loki instinctively took the duo to a new place in time, he didn't carefully choose
their destination, hurling them onto the doomed moon of Lamentis-1 in 2077 and draining the
power out of the time-travelling TemPad device in the process.
While this location isn't a well-known cosmic setting in the comics or the MCU like Xandar
or Sakaar, the planet Lamentis is featured in the 2007 "Annihilation Conquest: Prologue"
comics.
Is setting part of "Loki" on Lamentis' moon a small hint that alien baddie Annihilus is
on the way?
Maybe, but at this point it feels more like an Easter Egg than a genuine tease for this
longtime Marvel Comics villain.
As Loki and the Variant arrive, the mining colony and everyone living on the moon is
about to be wiped out by the approaching planet above it, unless they can escape on a nearby
ship.
After some illusion-trickery, the mischievous duo sneak their way onto a train heading for
the evacuation craft, the Ark.
With some time to kill, the terrible twosome chat about their lives and their respective
abilities.
It's arguably the best scene in the episode, because, like Loki's time-therapy conversations
in the first two episodes, it forces the trickster to look at his own life from a different perspective.
Meanwhile, audiences probably didn't expect to hear what the God of Mischief thinks about
love.
We've never seen him in a romantic relationship in the MCU, but it's clear he's got some very
complicated feelings about love - comparing it to a dagger, and noting that it can disappear
in an instant.
Loki also reveals that he's bisexual in this quiet, emotional scene, something later confirmed
by director Kate Herron on Twitter.
Of course, he's already a queer character within Norse mythology and is gender fluid
in the comics - but it's great that the MCU has finally acknowledged this.
Though many assumed that the blonde trickster in "Loki" was Lady Loki, Episode 3 seemed
to reveal that this may not actually be the case at all.
"Are you sure you're a Loki?"
"You're in my way."
"You are my way!"
She constantly berates our trickster for referring to her as a Loki, eventually sniping that
her new alias is Sylvie - a detail that was spoiled in the international credits of Episode
2 a week earlier.
Right about here is where things get complicated.
Sylvie says Loki is "not who [she] is anymore," so it seems like the MCU is making her part
Loki, and part another Marvel character: Enchantress.
In the comics, there's a version of Enchantress amed Sylvie Lushton, who is given Asgardian
abilities by Loki when the Norse gods move Asgard to Oklahoma.
Marvel Studios has always taken the stories and details from the comics and put its own
spin on things for the MCU, so it's entirely possible that Kevin Feige and creator Michael
Waldron have combined Enchantress and Lady Loki into one variant that honors both characters.
However, Sylvie also starts revealing certain puzzle pieces about her life before the events
of the series, explaining that she's been on the run from the TVA for her whole life.
If that's truly the case, then that raises all sorts of questions about where in Loki's
timeline she may have actually come from - if she's truly a Loki variant at all.
But that's not all she revealed.
Perhaps the biggest revelation in the episode comes after the pair of Lokis are thrown off
the train heading to the Ark.
As they traipse across Lamentis, Sylvie explains that the mind of Hunter C-20 was "messed up"
and "clouded," noting that C-20 had to trawl through a memory from hundreds of years ago,
from before she joined the TVA.
So far, viewers have been led to believe that when the Time Keepers created the TVA, they
also created all the agents like Mobius and Hunter C-20 - but apparently that's not the
truth at all.
Sylvie shockingly reveals that everyone in the TVA is a variant, just like herself and
Loki.
So does that mean Mobius is obsessed with jet skis because in his normal timeline he
liked them too?
Which timelines were all the TVA agents from?
How did the Time Keepers assemble them after the Multiverse War into this cosmic bureaucracy?
And just how does Sylvie know all of this?
In "Loki" Episode 2, the series established that time-travelers typically don't have any
effect on an apocalypse event because they're fixed points in time, which means nothing
about it can be changed.
So it does seem a little pointless that Loki and Sylvie attempt to get on the evacuation
ship in the first place.
Obviously they can't just sit on Lamentis and wait to die, but it was only last week
that we watched Loki destroy Mobius' salad to explain just how apocalypse events work.
As such, it was more than just a long shot that Loki and Sylvie would manage to succeed
here.
The Ark was always destined to blow up, so it isn't surprising that the episode left
them facing annihilation in the neon-drenched city.
Sylvie hammers that home when they first land there, noting that of all the apocalyptic
events they could've gone to, "this is the worst one."
So, how will Loki get out of this one?
Well, here's a theory: Lamentis-1 might not be real.
Look at the focus given to Sylvie's enchanting abilities throughout the episode - what if
she's simply put Loki into an illusion in an attempt to get more information out of
him about the TVA?
Sure, it would undercut the entire drama and stakes of this episode, but it would definitely
be an interesting twist.
That said, Sylvie claims the fantasies have to come from the memories of the person she's
enchanting.
"In order to preserve the connection, I have to create a fantasy from their memories."
So, by that logic, she couldn't trap Loki somewhere he's never been, unless this explanation
is also a deception.
At this point, who knows?
Fans will just have to wait to see what happens to Sylvie and Loki next week - new episodes
of "Loki" drop every Wednesday at midnight, Pacific Time, on Disney Plus.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about Loki are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.