Man, I tell you what, this is not a bad episode. I’m excited by this episode. This is a very, very good episode. Loki Season 2, Episode 4, “Heart of the TVA,” and a lot of things happen in it. One of those things is that we finally come full circle. Oh yeah. Ouroboros earns his name today.

What Miss Minutes Knew

The very beginning, the very nose tip, right after the previously on, we join Ravonna Renslayer and Miss Minutes. If you remember, at the end of last episode Miss Minutes promised she knew secrets. She knew things. And one of the things she knew is that Ravonna has been there before.

So she shows her, and it’s really cool, this little teeny miniature they have. I’m very much assuming they filmed it for real, because you could tell the little green screen on it, and everything is teeny tiny because it’s all in camera. It’s this tiny diorama of the entire throne room, and you see the moment we’d only seen before at the very beginning of the first episode, when Loki was going around. We’re going to come back to that too, because this entire episode is looping back to the first episode for us.

“For all time. Always. Ravonna Renslayer, you are quite a marvel. I will be proud to lead with you.”

You get that moment where he’s like, I couldn’t have done this without you. And you get this implication from Miss Minutes that Ravonna, and most of everyone who’s in the TVA, were in He Who Remains’ army. Ravonna specifically was one of his generals, probably the highest ranking general. So he tells her, go ahead, go to the TVA, I’ll be right behind you. I’ll be right behind you, I promise.

As soon as she leaves, he summons Miss Minutes and says it’s time. She’s like, you sure? And he’s like, yeah, it’s time. You go ahead and erase everyone’s memories.

That’s when Ravonna realizes he’s been taking their memories for a while. So she asks Miss Minutes, well, what’s next? And Miss Minutes says to her, we don’t need him. Maybe we never did.

And I was like, wow. I’m telling you, man, it only gets worse. Talk about a bad breakup. Miss Minutes is definitely that.

Victor Timely Meets His Own Face

Then we join Victor. Victor Timely has his first glimpse of the TVA, and it’s an amazing moment. Jonathan Majors plays the role excellently. He really does well looking shocked and awed, so to speak, because he literally shows up in the conference room and right behind him are the giant faces that are his face. How do you deal with that? How do you suddenly walk into a place and you’re like, oh, hi, big giant statue faces of me? I don’t know. I guess it kind of sounds like my favorite dream.

That’s when Mobius, Hunter B-15, Loki and Sylvie show up, and they’re all like, look, we need your help. Everything’s going a little fast for him. He’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And Mobius is like, look, I understand, but we need your help right now. All right, bro, I get it.

Then there’s this moment where Hunter B-15 is talking with the other judge about Dox and her crew. The judge tells her that someone said to her the TVA had to change, and it had to change right now. Dox believes in this institution. That’s why she was willing to go ape nuts in order to save it. She needs her mind changed. And B-15 is like, I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that. She goes, you’ll figure it out. You changed my mind.

And I was like, okay, that’s fair. That’s totally legit.

The Snake Eating Its Own Tail

So then we go downstairs, literally. Loki and Mobius take Victor to meet his hero, Ouroboros. They walk in, they do the introductions, and Ouroboros is like, oh man, I was taught everything I knew about the Loom by a 19th century inventor named Victor Timely. And Victor Timely learned everything he knew about time travel and engineering and whatnot from Ouroboros.

It’s this causal loop that in essence is a snake eating its own tail.

They have a thing set up, and while they’re explaining and talking through it, Victor Timely is walking around. You kind of stop paying attention to them as they’re talking. Really the focus is on Timely, because he’s clearly seeing something they’re not seeing. They’re like, well, we could try to put the thing in, but the problem is it won’t work. And that’s when he goes into his bag and pulls out the thing he said last episode makes time travel possible.

A good friend of mine online pointed out a particular meme to me, and there’s a huge correlation between that little handheld device and Kang’s time chair. So clearly the same thought process, if not the same technology. That’s immediately what they’re trying to do. They’re going to have to figure out how to retrofit that little ball thingy to go inside the other device that Ouroboros had already created.

Who Is Mobius on the Sacred Timeline

Loki and Mobius leave them to that, and there’s a brief exchange with Sylvie getting frustrated, because Mobius is like, who wants to get a piece of pie? And she’s like, oh my God, really? The whole thing is falling apart. And for him that’s just another day at the office.

We get another hint drop, and I say hint drop because remember the manual. Another Chekhov’s gun situation, where two episodes had passed with the manual being referenced, and of course last episode it was going to be important. Now we’ve had several episodes where someone has pointed out to our boy Mobius, have you even bothered looking on the sacred timeline to see who you are? Are you afraid it’s from a branch, or whatever else? Who he is on the sacred timeline has now come up twice that I can remember, and I’m pretty sure it’s one more time than that.

We have a theory here at the Know-It-All house, and it’s one of two things. Either A, Mobius is going to end up running the entire TVA, because he’s a company man, and it’s literally going to be that he didn’t care who he was on the sacred timeline. Or B, he’s a bad guy on the sacred timeline. We’re going to find out he’s something really bad, and this version of him is the best version of him he could be.

I think I’m okay with either of those things, to be honest. It’s just a very interesting approach that they take.

Dox, Brad, and the Big Orange Cell

We cut to Dox and her crew inside the big orange cell area, and of course Brad is trying to talk his way out. All right, everybody, we don’t have any weapons, we don’t really have the numbers, but I think if we put our heads together and just try to figure this out, we can get out of this room and get back to our lives. And Dox is kind of upset by him.

That’s when B-15 walks in and tries to give a speech. She tells her, I know you care, and if nothing else, you know that I care, so we just need to figure out how to care together, so to speak. Give love and help a chance, or whatever. I don’t know. It’s an interesting moment, because you begin to see Dox is actually listening. Dox herself does very much believe in what the TVA is.

Meanwhile everything’s getting worse. The place is shaking, the Loom is breaking, and it’s not going to end up going well.

The God of Stories

Loki and Sylvie have a conversation in the pie room, I guess we’re going to call it that, and at one point she’s like, so we have to play God. As soon as she said it I went, it’s because you are gods. And my boy got there too. Here you are. Go be the god of mischief or whatever.

A good friend of mine, Chad, online on X, formerly Twitter, he and I have this working theory that Loki is most likely going to become the god of stories. Go do some homework if you’d like to know who the god of stories is. It has to do with the multiversal Avengers and the Exiles and all kinds of other stuff. Trust me when I tell you I’m very interested in seeing his arc and where he goes.

Either that, or I believe firmly Loki’s most likely going to end up dying in this Tom Hiddleston form. Mrs. Know-It-All asked if I thought Sylvie was going to make it, and the bottom line truth is I don’t. I think she’s disposable. But I do believe we’re going to get Lady Loki, the real Lady Loki, which is in essence Tom Hiddleston losing his body. This version of Loki will lose this form and have to be reborn as a female version of itself. In the comics that’s when Loki became a quote unquote good guy, or actually on the fence, whatever, but more than not an anti-hero of some kind. Then eventually becoming Kid Loki, and Kid Loki becomes the god of stories.

I do believe they’d work, because here’s the thing. Hiddleston’s showing the age, man. That’s the same problem a lot of these guys had. They’re starting to show their age, so something’s got to give, and the comics have a built-in reboot system already ready to go. This form of Loki dies, but the essence that makes up Loki gets reborn in a new form. If Loki becomes the god of stories, then there’s every possibility you could see them going to a very special place where formless entities get given new bodies. It’s a long story from the comic books.

And boy, are we getting sweaty or what.

Dox Ain’t the One

Dox is having that conversation with B-15 (“She’s setting in place her plan to control the TVA, but if we work together we can stop her”) when all of a sudden Ravonna shows up with Miss Minutes. Ravonna lays it down and says we need to take over this place, like right now, and everyone here who helps will have a life on the sacred timeline.

I knew immediately, before Dox said anything. I went, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Dox ain’t the one. They’ve already established who Dox’s character is, and sure enough Dox did not disappoint. Dox backs up and is like, uh-uh, I see exactly what’s going on here.

And what do they do? Miss Minutes turns on that machine, the one Loki used to threaten Hunter X-5, and puts all of them in a big cube. They don’t show it, but man, it’s rough. She crushes them. She crushes everybody except for Brad, Hunter X-5, because Brad, oh, he’s such a Brad. He really is. He’s like, all right, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. He’s in.

A Sprint From Here to the End

Oh my God, it’s intense. From this point to the end it’s a sprint.

Mobius shows Victor that they have a cocoa machine, and Victor’s fascinated by the cocoa machine. Then X-5 shows up, vaporizes one of the other hunters, and he’s like, you’re going to come with me. He takes Timely back to Ravonna and Miss Minutes, and Ravonna and Miss Minutes are like, we ain’t hearing nothing you’ve got to say. They’re literally like two ex-girlfriends who’ve met and are going after their dude. And sure enough he’s like, ladies, I think you’re going to like what I have to say, and he begins to explain to them the situation and what they need.

Then you finally have the moment. We cut to a different Loki, and you know because he’s not wearing the jacket. We’ve finally reached the moment from episode one.

Miss Minutes starts locking the whole place down. Nobody can get anywhere with their TemPads, the elevators are shutting down. Sylvie’s stuck in the elevator, she manages to hack through it, and she’s going up, but the door won’t open, so she’s prying it open. The other Loki is there on the other side. And our current timeline Tom Hiddleston Loki comes around the corner, sees the scenario, he’s holding the baton, and he’s like, oh man. He turns it on, slowly creeps up, and just at the time he’s supposed to, he vaporizes himself. Which, you remember from the first episode, sends him back to the Loom thing, which allows him to reboot and get better and be able to get to this point.

That’s when the phone rings, and you find out things are getting really bad.

“You’ll Never Be Him”

Back in the meeting room, Ravonna’s got Victor Timely and he’s explaining everything. That’s when Miss Minutes starts breaking. Someone’s trying to reboot the system. Oh yeah, that dirty little so and so. She’s like, they’re taking me offline, and she’s glitching out, and she says, wait, wait, Victor, I have to tell you something.

She can’t not do the little jab. Oh, we’ve all known those exes. She literally says, you’ll never be him, and disappears. Then she reboots briefly into the original little time clock, and she’s like, hi, I’m Miss Minutes, would you like to play a game? And then she finally disintegrates.

That’s when Ravonna sends X-5. She’s like, you go find him right now. Oh, did I fail to mention? Rebooting the system and bringing Miss Minutes offline also makes magic allowed in the TVA.

Yeah, man. So X-5 faces off against Loki, and just as he’s about to fight him, Sylvie grabs him by the head and you see his eyes turn green. A second later they all walk in, and X-5, bam, hits Ravonna, disintegrates her. Obviously she’s sent to the end of time or whatever else, so she’s going to be back where the tower thing is.

The End of All Things

So finally they have the plan ready to go, as best they can. Victor puts on the suit. He decides he’s the one who’s got to go. They open up the doors, and he doesn’t last a second. He becomes ribbons, like Mr. Fantastic in Multiverse of Madness. It was not a pretty sight. It was rough.

Now, I have a theory. Time is very cyclical, they’ve already established that, it’s very Ouroboros. I think the minute he unraveled, he unraveled and possibly, with his knowledge, became energy, became knowledge, became something. Somehow, I believe, Victor Timely has been scattered across all the different timelines that are out there, and thus has given birth to all the Kangs eventually, and the Victors, and He Who Remains, and everything.

That’s my own theory. Nobody supports this. No leaks have come out about it. That’s my theory.

And that’s the end of all things. The Loom explodes. The fire at the end of time burns the place to the ground as far as we can see. Then it’s black, it’s dark, and you’re back with the credits.

Yeah, man.

The Verdict

Loki Season 2, Episode 4 is a 10 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index, and it’s my first 10 out of 10.

This episode knocked my socks off, man. It blew me away with its consistency. I’m a time travel whore. I love that stuff. I’m a big Doctor Who fan. I thought Endgame got it right. I’m telling you, I’m not going to fight it. I liked everything, from Miss Minutes eating it to all the gruesomeness that happened off screen.

Maybe it’s got to do with the fact that it’s Loki, a character I knew. But I’m ready, man. Next week is the penultimate episode and I can’t wait to see it. Let’s see what comes next.

Let me know what you thought of the episode. Did you enjoy it as much as I did, or am I missing something? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.