Loki, part 3

"Loki: Season 2", Episodes 1, 2 & 3

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Sophia DiMartino, Ke Huy Quan, Wunmi Mosaku, Eugene Cordero, Jonathan Majors, the voice of Tara Strong, Kate Dickie, Liz Carr, Neil Ellice, Rafael Casal

Yes, I am skipping right to this. I know the next thing was "Guardians of the Galaxy 3", but I don't care. I am picking and choosing what I want to recap and I will consider going back to that one if it proves important later. This is the thing I like most about being a fan writer instead of someone who gets paid to write (although I did get paid to do an essay in this book): I get to choose what I do and do not work on. So there.

Episode 1: Ouroboros

Previously on this series, Loki picked up the tesseract during "Endgame" and branched off into his own series where he was arrested by agents of the Time Variance Authority for not following the Sacred Timeline as maintained by a variant of the new Big Bad who lives...lived...in a citadel at the end of time with a talking holographic clock. Just...watch it. Trust me. You'll want the memories of everything to be fresh going into this. Anyway, Loki variant Sylvie killed Kang Who Remained after kicking Loki through a time door back to the TVA, only it wasn't the same TVA, nobody recognized him and there was a giant statue of Kang replacing the architecture honoring the fictional "timekeepers" everyone believed were making sure things went as they were supposed to until Loki and Sylvie revealed that they were fictional and everybody working for the TVA is a variant whose memory was wiped.

Diandra: We haven't even started and I'm already tired.
Chrissy: Yeah, remember when these things weren't so exhausting?
Diandra: What exactly is exhausting for you? You just show up with alcohol and spend half the time trying to distract me with fic prompts.
Chrissy: Oh, I meant it's exhausting for you. But having to recall every single thing that might be important in the hundreds of hours of this franchise is getting exhausting for everybody.
Emilio: It's also why she does these recaps in the first place.
Diandra: Exactly. Okay, so before we get started, we should probably get something straightened out. You were roleplaying Loki but not Sylvie last time because you thought it would be too confusing, but I'm not sure that was working, so I think you should be both this time. Emilio can be all the Kang variants and I will still be Mobius. Anything else we can evaluate as it comes up.
Emilio: Sounds like a plan.
Chrissy: Yeah, maybe not a good one, but it's a plan.
Diandra: [blows raspberry]

As before, the Marvel title card sequence is the same as always, but all the snippets and the logo itself are green and the heroic fanfare has been replaced by more ominous sounding music. Then we open on a shot of the Kang statue and the music gets REALLY ominous. We pan out from the city sized TVA into that main building where all the action took place before. Specifically, that open hallway Mobius walked Loki down in the first episode. Now Loki is being chased by Mobius and a couple agents. He is stopped by B-15 and a couple more agents who point guns at him. He appeals to Mobius because "you know me." Mobius says he absolutely does not.

Loki apparently spots a close flying vehicle outside and leaps off the balcony. Landing in the back of the flying car makes the driver swerve out of control, smashing part of the Kang statue's face and crashing through the window of the main control room where Casey was just buffing the shiny new floor with the TVA logo on it. Loki flops out of the car onto the floor, groaning like "I am getting too old for this shit." He waves at the people all standing around gawking and says he's fine. Because that's what their primary thought was. The car goes sailing to the ground, the driver shrieking and he runs to check on that, assuring everyone that she's fine too. The giant viewscreen ball hanging over the TVA logo snaps its cable and crashes to the floor, cracking the marble. Loki flops against it for some reason in some odd blocking, then rounds on Casey, who also doesn't recognize him but just got an alert about a level five intruder. He calls security.

Loki starts to protest or something, but then does this thing that I just realized I'm going to have a really hard time describing. Before this season started, I saw fans sharing behind the scenes footage of Tom flailing and making random, wild gestures. Obviously this was all stitched together in editing so that he seems to be in multiple places at once but pausing at any point when it's happening creates these weird mutant creatures with cockeyed limbs and detached skin.

Seriously

When he stops gumbying, he's in the same room but it looks very different. The windows are completely covered now and there's fewer people milling around. But Casey is standing over by the desks and calling Loki's name. Loki staggers toward him, babbling about how he didn't know him a second ago and SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS HAPPENING. He looks down and sees that the floor has the crack in it from the falling monitor, but it looks old now. He asks if it's always been there. Casey says yes, for as long as he remembers. Loki realizes he isn't being pulled between different universes but between points in time. He asks where Mobius and B-15 are. Casey takes a moment to look him up and down, decide not to address the fact that he's dirty and disheveled and has at least one spot of blood on his shirt, and starts walking in the direction he thinks they are. Loki follows, but once he falls off the camera's line of sight he makes a hiccuping/grunting noise and disappears again.

Title card.

Chrissy: I'm interested to see how you describe that before they officially call it "time slipping".
Diandra: Yeah, there are times when I am watching things for the first time that I think "holy shit, how am I gonna describe THAT?" But now that you jumped ahead like that, I can just call it what it is right now. Thank you.
Chrissy: See? I CAN be helpful.
Diandra: Meh.

Mobius and B-15 are looking at the monitor with what used to be the sacred timeline, contained within red boundaries. Except now it's branching all over the place past those red boundaries, which are blinking alarmingly. They talk about what they are supposed to do now that the branches are growing out of control. B-15 thinks they should just let it happen and tell everybody the truth about the TVA. Mobius isn't sure they're ready for that. The lights blink crazily, but the fact that things might be falling apart is NOT gonna derail this conversation about free will. B-15 thinks everybody should be able to return to the lives they had before the TVA took them from it. Mobius isn't sure how they will react to finding out "hey, everything you're doing is wrong and all your gods are dead."

Chrissy: Actually, literally ALL the gods exist in the Marvelsphere, apparently.
Diandra: Not what he meant, but yes.

Casey wanders up just then to say Loki was just looking for them, but...uh...not sure where he went after that. He just...disappeared. And he looked like he was in pain? Mobius tries to use Miss Minutes to find him, but he can't get her up and running. Another hunter cuts into the conversation suddenly and Mobius identifies him expositorily as X-5, who doesn't come down here often. He's flipping through one of Mobius' jet ski magazines and asks if the stuff in here is on the sacred timeline because it looks fun. This prompts Mobius to ramble about how jet skis are just a brand of watercraft that became synonymous with the thing itself, like Kleenex and Hoover (if you're British). X-5 finally has to cut him off because he doesn't actually care. Mobius asks why he brought it up then.

Chrissy: Yeah, this is why you don't ask people about the thing they geek out about.
Emilio: No, this is why you surround yourself with people who geek out about the same things you do.
Diandra: Which is why we are friends.

X-5 ignores the question to announce there's going to be a new judges council now that Renslayer is MIA. This introduces two characters: General Dox and Judge Gamble, who would like to see them in the "war room". Really with these names?

Emilio: Yes.

Mobius and B-15 follow X-5 to the elevator and the doors close seconds before Loki pops screaming back into existence and nearly gives Casey a heart attack. He just asks where Mobius is this time and Casey points him in the direction of the war room. Loki tries to follow and almost catches up to them before time slipping again so Mobius just hears his voice calling and getting abruptly cut off from the end of an empty hall. Mobius and B-15 agree that they need to just tell the judges' council the truth, but Mobius thinks they need to do it "gently". The lights are still flickering occasionally and they don't know why.

The agent who pruned Mobius last season (D something?) comes out of the war room as they reach it and sheepishly apologizes to Mobius. Mobius understands he was just following orders and it should be Renslayer apologizing.

Chrissy: How are you doing with this memory test so far?
Diandra: Who are you? Where am I?
Chrissy: Yeah, that's what I thought.

Somewhere, Loki timeslips back into the hallway, panting. He finds the "war room", but it's empty. He scowls at a bronze mural with five faces of Kang on one wall and we switch to the same room with a different mural (of the time keepers) where the council is listening to a tape of Loki screaming about all the employees of the TVA being variants. Mobius and B-15 are escorted in just as he gets to the part about Sylvie being able to access those memories the TVA erased. The lady at one corner of the table stops the tape and notes that the branches are spreading way past the red line and they gave the order to STOP pruning shit? B-15 says they can explain. Another lady with a thick Scottish accent tells her to do it into the microphone because they want this all on official record.

We snap back to wherever Loki is and he goes to the wall mounted tape player and starts a different recording. "You are quite a marvel," Kang Who Remains' voice smarms. "I will be proud to lead with you. You made a difference in this war. Thank you for being on my team." Loki frowns at the machine, rewinds the tape further. This time the recording begins with Kang saying "for us. For all time," and he is answered by Renslayer. "Always."

Scottish lady asks B-15 who gave them the authority to stop pruning. B-15 says they didn't have time to take this through proper channels and did you miss the part where WE ARE ALL VARIANTS? The other lady, now identified as Judge Gamble, notes that D-90 (right, that's the guy) testified about seeing Renslayer's variant on the timeline. B-15 says yes, they are ALL out there somewhere. Mobius cuts in that the timelines are branching and the sky hasn't fallen, so... X-5 cuts in that he must be looking at a different sky. He points to the giant robot head Sylvie cut off the animatronic "timekeeper", which they have sitting right on the table and yelps that this changes EVERYTHING. General Dox (by process of elimination) snaps that it changes NOTHING. They have to protect the timeline. B-15 laughs that that's what she thinks they're doing. Nah, because to "protect" that one timeline, they've been destroying all the others deemed wrong. Dox doesn't like the way she paints pruning as mass genocide, but hey.

The three women argue for a bit before Gamble snaps at them to stop. "All my life I've always handed down the same verdict," she says. Because that was how the time keepers wanted it. B-15 turns to her and says it's hard to turn your back on everything you believe in, but "the TVA has to change." They can't just go back to pruning things. Gamble realizes she really can do anything now and officially orders cessation of all pruning. And then she does a great job of not reacting at all as Loki screams into existence next to her and half collapses on the table.

Mobius jumps and they run to each other and probably half the fandom expects them to hug or kiss or something, but Loki just grabs his shoulders and babbles about Mobius not recognizing him before and he needs help. General Dox yells a stand down order to get everyone to quiet and the guards to back off. Loki says he found him. Mobius asks who he's talking about and Loki nods at the wall the brass mural was on, frowning as he realizes it has the three "space lizard" time keepers again. He grabs X-5's prune stick and jams it in the wall, burning away the new mural to reveal the old one and yells that this is the man who built this place and abducted them from their lives. And he's coming back. Mobius approaches him like he's a spooked horse and asks him to put the weapon down. Loki keeps babbling about how "she" was going to kill him. Mobius asks if "she" is Sylvie and Dox lights on that name, asking where she is. Loki doesn't know. Mobius starts guiding him away, saying things like 'you're okay now. Calm down.' X-5 grabs his stick back before they leave the room and goes over to General Dox, who presses their foreheads together in a way that suggests they are either lovers or blood relatives and says even if the timekeepers weren't real, their "warnings" were. "We need to know what happened at the end of time. Find Sylvie. She's the reason we're in this mess."

Loki has registered the part where Dox was asking about Sylvie now that they are out in the hall and asks Mobius who that was and what she wants with Sylvie. Mobius tells him not to worry about her and asks if he's okay because last he saw he was facing down a smoke monster. Loki says that was just a "distraction". Or a guard dog. Whatever. Back to that guy whose face is on the wall: they found him in a citadel at the end of time. Mobius asks what happened to Sylvie. Loki doesn't know because he left her there and didn't see what happened next. He whimpers that he needed time to think and it was an impossible choice and the consequences... Mobius grabs his arm and begs him to slow down and try to run that again. Loki pauses and says they found the man behind the curtain. Sorry, the man at the end of time. And he explained in an eleven minute monologue that "freeing the timeline" is just going to bring about a massive war starring many versions of him. "You came to kill the devil," he quotes. "Maybe he was. But maybe he wasn't. She was convinced he was." Mobius, just goes quiet, apparently resigned to ride this out. Loki says they fought and Sylvie kicked him through a time door. Mobius is like 'so she won then.' Loki bristles and says it was a draw.

Chrissy: Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy.
Diandra: I knew it would work better to have you as Sylvie.
Chrissy: Whatever. You just want the easy entertainment of me getting confused about who I am midway through an argument with myself.
Emilio: That too.

Loki says he was trying NOT to fight her, he just wanted her to stop trying to kill Him. "I just wish I had tried harder. I wish I'd had more time." Yeah. Hold that thought. Mobius tries to calm him again. "Focus on what we know." Loki points to the artwork on the walls near them depicting the timekeepers forming the sacred timeline in one panel and the war they were preventing in another. He says THAT is what is coming now. And it's possible the man at the end of time was right about the pruning and the preservation of the Sacred Timeline preventing it. "There was no simple choice. No other way." Mobius is starting to catch on and asks if this is the same man whose face he showed them back in the war room. He says yes, he is known as He Who Remains and this is his kingdom, which he built and which he CLAIMS is keeping everybody safe from a war brought about by his own variants. Mobius doesn't remember any of this. Loki reminds him about the memory wiping, which he apparently did more than once because if he's slipping through time instead of parallel universes there was another version of the TVA before this one that didn't work.

Loki starts going back to the war room to explain again, but Mobius stops him because he needs to know how Loki just...appeared like that. Was that where the time door Sylvie kicked him through spat out? He says no, he was in the past of the TVA. Mobius reminds him that there IS no past of the TVA because it exists outside time. Loki shrugs that it must be INSIDE time now because he's seeing its history. They argue for a moment about whether that's possible and Mobius is cut off when Loki timeslips, screaming, right in front of him. He just stares at the spot Loki was in shock. Loki reappears a moment later, twitching, and asks if he just saw that. Mobius says um...yeah. Loki asks what it looks like and Mobius deflects and asks how it FEELS. Loki cracks his neck and blusters that it isn't that bad, really. Mobius is like 'okay, I'm just gonna lie and agree that it's totally not horrifying so I don't alarm you'. He says they need to get him to someone who can help and tries to call Miss Minutes again. Loki stops him, saying she can't be trusted because she was at the end of time too, with HIM. Mobius sighs and decides to take Loki to the "repairs & advancement" department instead.

In the elevator, Loki returns to the argument that they need to worry about He Who Remains here. Mobius thinks figuring out why he can't stay in one place is more important at the moment because "I need a Loki Who Remains." Loki argues that it isn't THAT bad and they don't have time to...and he slips before he can finish the sentence, then comes back looking ragged. Mobius says right, so as I was saying..."I can't keep looking at it 'cause it's horrible." Loki is like 'you said it wasn't!' Mobius says he was lying and it "looks like you're being born or dying or both at the same time."

Chrissy: What kind of childbirth videos did YOU watch?
Diandra: He probably doesn't remember watching ANYONE being born.

Do they get alien birthing videos in the TVA?

Anyway, he says it looks painful. Loki insists he's fine and he can take it.

Chrissy: Hmm, yes, I have a very high pain tolerance. Once this is over, maybe I can show you just how much I can handle if you get my drift. [flinches in anticipation] [pause] Wow. Not even responding anymore?
Diandra: Sorry, what?
Emilio: I think I know that look she just had in her eyes. It's what she gets when a plot bunny takes hold and there's a whole possible fic idea playing out in her head.
Diandra: Shut up. No I didn't.
Chrissy: [squeals and claps hands] My work here is done.
Diandra: Ugh. Why must you always do this?
Chrissy: Because frankly, I found the way you talked about finishing that long "Sherlock" fic distressing. It sounded like you were declaring yourself officially retired as a fanfic writer. I feel like it's my sworn duty as a fellow Fandom Old to keep you from leaving before all of fandom is in the hands of actual children.
Diandra: If there's anything joining fan writer groups has taught me it's that it's too late and fandom is already unrecognizable to me.
Emilio: That's because social media is full of trolls.
Diandra: That's also true.

Mobius asks a lady who has apparently been off camera in the elevator this whole time to verify that it looks terrible and she gulps and averts her eyes.

Chrissy: She's just wondering if maybe she didn't sleep off whatever she consumed last night after all.

They walk through a lunch room past a poster encouraging workers to limit breaks to 17 minutes while Mobius continues prompting Loki to explain things for the audience. This all started when he was kicked through a time door? He says yes and maybe he was able to go into the history of the TVA because Sylvie took the temp pad off He Who Remains. Mobius is like 'are we really going to keep calling him that?' Loki says that's how he was introduced to them. Mobius thinks that's arrogant. Loki thinks it might not be if he actually is the only one remaining of millions of him.

They keep winding through hallways and down to a sublevel until they end up in an eclectic little workshop, which is the domain of a new character. Ke Huy Quan drops down on a swing to his post at the world's messiest desk. He greets Mobius by name like 'oh my god, I haven't seen you in SO long, how's it been?' Mobius, who is probably becoming increasingly distressed by evidence his memory was wiped, fumbles to introduce him to Loki while obviously having no clue who he is. Ke introduces himself as Ouroboros, but "he calls me O.B." Mobius is like 'I do? Okay, sure.'

Chrissy: Isn't it great when our roleplaying assignments are proven totally apt this late in the game?
Diandra: Yes, yes, my memory is shit. We get it. This is why I recap.

OB, completely oblivious to his confusion, asks how long it's been since they saw each other. He stutters that it must be "three or four..." "Four hundred years," OB agrees.

Chrissy: So are they immortal or did Kang Who Remains just make them believe they are?
Diandra: I don't know if anyone is 100% on the answer to that. Although since they're still talking about this brief encounter where nothing memorable happened that most people would forget after, like, two days unless they have perfect recall of everything that ever happened in their life, you might be on to something. Maybe the TVA is like that technology in "Black Mirror" where people can experience decades every minute.
Chrissy: Oh god, now she's referencing ANOTHER sci fi show.
Emilio: Well, she did write that one fic based on a "Black Mirror" episode.
Diandra: Okay, but fun fact: I recently had a conversation with a coworker about something that happened and couldn't remember if it had happened a month or a year ago. I don't think that's something that's just me, because if there's one thing I learned from all my psychology studies it is that the brain is WEIRD.
Chrisssy: Oh, I think we can all agree that yours is at least.

OB says Mobius was his last visitor. Four hundred years ago. Mobius asks how the other guys are doing. "What other guys," OB asks innocently.

Emilio: You can see them too?
Diandra: Okay, I guess Emilio has chosen his roleplay.

Something spits from a pneumatic tube at the other end of the desk and he runs to get it, rambling about how his work orders pile up if he takes a break while he fixes whatever it is and sends it back. He says he doesn't sleep, he just keeps working continuously forever, which...honestly doesn't answer the immortality or illusion thing either way. Mobius says they just have a quick question. OB returns to them, stabs the completed work order on a spike and asks how things are going upstairs. Mobius starts rambling about the time keepers until Loki roars out of existence again. "That! That's what's been happening," he says. OB identifies it as time slipping. Mobius says good, he knows what it is! Can he fix it then? "No. It's impossible to time slip in the TVA." Mobius is like OBVIOUSLY it isn't. "Yeah. I'm having trouble reconciling that," OB mutters.

We flip to some previous iteration of OB without glasses working on that desk as Loki materializes in front of him. He takes a second to reorient and identifies OB by name. "May I call you OB?" OB likes this nickname he's never heard anyone use before, but "do I know you?" Loki babbles that he does in HIS future because they just met about a minute in HIS past and you know what? Time travel is a bitch. He says he's being pulled between points in time, which Past OB identifies for him as time slipping. Except that's not possible to do in the TVA, but he just saw it happen and "I'm having trouble reconciling that."

Spin back to the present and OB is assuring Mobius that it may LOOK like time slipping, but it MUST be something else because he's never ever ever seen that happen before. And then he frowns and says wait, yes he has. That guy that was just here came to him a long, long time ago and he's just remembering it now for some reason. Mobius realizes it's because Loki is in the past talking to him RIGHT NOW and it's changing his memories.

Chrissy: AKA, the time travel phenomenon that isn't possible according to the writers of "Endgame".
Diandra: Yeah. I find it hilarious how insistent some fanboys are in their mansplaining of How Time Travel Works while being completely oblivious to the fact that it works the same way characters powers do. It changes from one movie/comic to the next as needed to service the plot.

OB agrees that that makes perfect sense and must mean time slipping IS possible.

Past OB tells Loki that it would be a lot more "convenient" if they were having this conversation in the future "and THIS were the past." "We were," Loki splutters. "This is the...never mind." They argue a little more about whether time slipping inside the TVA is possible until Loki, exasperated, tries the speculation angle. IF it were possible, how could they hypothetically fix it so it stops? OB says someone in the time he wants to end up in would need a "Temporal Aura Extractor".

Present. Mobius asks if he has one of those. OB cheerfully says no. Wait...

Past. Loki screws around with random objects on the desk while OB builds a temporal extractor. When it's finished, Loki tells him to hang on to it "until my friend Mobius drops by."

Present OB frowns again and says "yes?" He pulls the machine he made a few seconds/hundred years ago out from behind the desk. Mobius asks if he and his friend happened to discuss how to use one of those things. OB says they take it to the Temporal Loom, where it will pull Loki from the time stream. Which could be dangerous because if you spend too much time inside, the temporal energy could just rip your skin right off your body. Of course, that will be a cakewalk compared to Loki, who in the past is shrieking about how he has to "violently rip myself from every thread of time and space?" Past OB says yeah, basically he has to prune himself because that process basically releases things from time. Once he does that, the extractor can pull him into the present. Hopefully. Loki stares at him for a beat, then asks what happens if the extractor doesn't work. "You heard about if you fall into a black hole you turn into spaghetti?" Loki says he hasn't. "Good," OB says uncomfortably. "The less you know about that the better."

Loki time slips back into the present, slamming into Mobius. OB is like 'great! He's back. Good luck with the not turning into spaghetti plan!' Loki says there MUST be another way. OB just smiles and hands him a prune stick. The light on the desk flickers, which he notes has been happening all day. Mobius says yeah, they've been having power surges everywhere. OB turns to him with an ominous expression and says "what did you say?"

Because he has not been privy to recent events, he didn't know they had stopped pruning and the Sacred Timeline is now branching all over the place. He babbles as they walk back through hallways about how that might be the cause of both the power surges and the timeslipping. B-15 joins them as they round a corner and OB says the Temporal Loom is getting overloaded. B-15 is like 'the what now?' OB says it's in the guidebook that every desk at the TVA has a copy of. He pulls his from his pocket. "It's a detailed index of every mechanical classification and maintenance routine in each sector, on every device, and inside every computer program at the TVA," he recites while he throws it blindly into the air behind him and Loki catches it.

Chrissy: I won't even ask how many takes it took to get that right.

And continuing this long shot full of shit that could go wrong and mess up a take (the kind fanboys are weirdly enamored with), he steps aside to open a door before adding that he wrote the guidebook himself. As they move through the door, Mobius asks if this part that's coming off the extractor he's carrying is important. A lightbulb overhead explodes. They all stop moving and the camera slowly pans to an ominous looking red door with a machine thudding somewhere beyond it. The floor in front of it has the somewhat hilarious warning: "DANGER! Temporal radiation levels escalate exponentially beyond this threshold. Likelihood of spaghettification increases 7000%. Proceed with caution." Side note: I am very alarmed that Microsoft Word is able to autocorrect the word spaghettification.

The other side of the door isn't so ominous, unless you consider white operating theater lighting terrifying. OB goes over to a computer station, still rambling about how the Loom controls the TVA by converting "raw time" into a "physical timeline". The light goes down to something more normal as OB and Loki approach the viewing window and OB says it was never designed to accommodate so many branches and yep, it's overloading. The "loom" in the distance looks kind of like an hourglass tipped on it's side, but the input side is larger than the output and there are sparks shooting to the side of it. Mobius looks at the thick layer of dust on the nearest ancient computer monitor and notes that OB doesn't get down here often. OB says Miss Minutes always ensured he didn't have to besides running diagnostics every few centuries. Loki asks how they stop a total meltdown. OB says they would have to prune all those branches. B-15 says no, they're not killing ALL those people. OB says the only alternative is him figuring out how to retrofit it, but they'd have to close the blast doors in the meantime to protect the TVA from it.

Loki realizes this only solves one of the two current problems and asks how they fix the time slipping. OB says once he starts working on the retrofit they won't be able to do the ripping out of all timelines at once thing, so they'd have to do that first. Loki takes a couple trembling breaths and turns the prune stick at his chest. OB is like WAAAAAAAIIIIT a minute, I didn't mean do it RIGHT GODDAMN NOW. They need to get Mobius into position to do his part first. Mobius is distracted, writing "skin?" in the dust on the monitor. OB gets his attention and says he needs to go out there to launch the extractor and get Loki out before he closes the blast doors. He hands Loki a timer that is "synced" with the Loom. He just needs to self prune when it turns green, which will indicate Mobius successfully launched the extractor. Oh, and if he doesn't do it within seconds, he'll be "lost to time forever and Mobius will lose all of his skin."

Chrissy: Right. No pressure then.

He says they've got an hour. Something cracks the view window from outside and he corrects that they have five minutes. As OB goes to get set up, a hunter (D-90 again? I don't know, they all look alike) stumbles in to announce that Dox and her men are raiding the armory. Loki concludes that they're going after Sylvie because that's their only lead. He starts to walk out of the room and Mobius cuts him off like THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. FOCUS. B-15 offers to handle the Dox situation for them and wishes them luck before vacating.

Loki starts the "if I don't make it" song and dance with Mobius. Mobius assures him he will, but Loki forges ahead and still doesn't get to the end of whatever instructions he intended to give before time slipping. The prune stick clatters to the floor and Mobius picks it up and whispers "he'll make it back," to himself.

Loki ends up in an empty version of the control room. Something is beeping and the window is completely gated. He finds the word "skin" still written in the dust on a monitor and concludes he's in the future.

Emilio: So the good news is the plan is bound to work, right?
Diandra: Unless it's only one version of the future and something could still go catastrophically wrong to change it.

He realizes he's no longer holding the stick and runs off to...find one? I'm starting to think a lot of this episode especially was written as an excuse for Tom to get paid for just doing his cardio ON camera.

Past. OB is strapping Mobius into a big space suit connected to a long tube. He warns Mobius that out past the doors, the temporal radiation will "age" away this suit. Move quickly, launch the extractor and get back as soon as OB tells him to and he'll be fine. Mobius asks how he's supposed to move quickly in this thing. OB tells him he'll have to find a way before the blast doors close and he's locked out there where he will "get very old and all your skin will peel away and you will die." Mobius belatedly notices a crack in the suit helmet and OB fixes it in a way that would make Mark Watney proud: by slapping a piece of duct tape on it.

Chrissy: You remembered that name without even looking it up? I'm starting to think your memory isn't BAD so much as it is HIGHLY selective.
Emilio: You didn't get that from the last "Star Trek" recap where she kept referencing specific episodes from multiple series?
Chrissy: Right. I suppose not everything makes it to long term storage. Only so much space in the mind palace.
Diandra: Really? A "Sherlock" reference now?
Emilio: That's what started this whole roleplay thing, isn't it? The fact that you ARE Sherlock?
Diandra: Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out if that's a compliment or not.

OB goes out the sort of airlock door, a red light overhead spins and the blast door opens. Mobius makes his way down a long walkway like he's walking against a strong wind that occasionally threatens to blow him right back and rips parts of his suit away.

Future. A woman announces over the PA that everyone should proceed to the nearest "Time Door evacuation point" because they have a code 1127. Loki is still running around in search of a prune stick.

Mobius gets to a giant ball and plugs the extractor in, punching some buttons on a panel.

Future. The main Sacred Timeline monitor shows a chaos of branches on the left of the "loom" hourglass and one wobbly line on the right, accompanied by a flashing red "loom critical". Loki, who somehow still has the timer if not the prune stick (plot convenience, that), checks the light that's still red and keeps running in search of a stick.

Mobius smacks the ball thingy a couple times and it shoots the extractor attached to a line into the loom.

Loki comes to a hallway as the light on the timer turns green. A phone rings at the end of the hall.

OB tells Mobius he needs to close the blast doors and he should really get out of there if he doesn't want to die. Mobius argues that they need to give Loki a little more time.

Loki finds the phone in a corner next to an elevator that is being pried open manually.

OB hovers a hand over a big red button and starts counting back from five, but gets stuck on three. Mobius yells that he just needs some more time and OB whispers "sorry" and slaps the button. The big heavy doors start rolling closed. OB tells him he needs to give up and try to get back, accepting that Loki is lost to time now. Mobius starts clomping back down the walkway and OB mutters to himself that he won't make it.

The person prying the elevator doors open turns out to be Sylvie, except her hair is longer now. She pants "there you are" when she sees Loki. Someone prunes Loki from behind, but we don't see who.

And in the "present", there's a flash of light at the end of the cord where the extractor landed and Loki comes shooting out of the loom, screaming, colliding with Mobius and sending them both through the blast doors before they close. Loki crawls out from under Mobius, whose suit seems to be smoldering still, and mutters that they need to find Sylvie.

Chrissy: Please ignore the fact that I literally just rolled you off of me and immediately talked about my ex.
Diandra: Yeah, I figured you were thinking about her the whole time.
Emilio: Ex?
Diandra: Thank you for choosing that part to focus on, Emilio. Yeah, there was an article about the fact that the focus shifted from whatever romantic subplot they were doing last season because the broader story of this season didn't leave time for it, but one of the writers described them seeing each other again as running into an ex.
Chrissy: I mean, we all knew it wasn't going to work out in the long run. You were just the Getaway Car.
Diandra: .........................really? You're going to make me regret making you Sylvie already?
Chrissy: I regret nothing.

Elsewhere, B-15 and D-90 pass a whole line of agents headed through a time door. Dox pauses to stare at her for a moment and B-15 asks for the audiences benefit after she goes through the door if this is all just for Sylvie. D-90 mutters that he doesn't buy that and we smash to credits.

Mid credits, we see Sylvie as we left her last season step through a time door in the middle of a field in Oklahoma. The chyron says it is 1982 and specifically a branched timeline in Broxton, which yes, is where New Asgard is in the comics but that seems to be no more than an Easter egg here. She wanders into a McDonald's in town, where a babyfaced child working the counter asks what she would like. She babbles about possum and rats and "something that's already dead, and nothing with a face." He starts listing the most popular menu items while she tunes him out and scans the faces in the restaurant. "I wanna try everything," she says wistfully and the poor kid in the background tries to figure out what that means while we return to credits.

Chrissy: Yeah, I don't mean food, honey. Although I COULD eat that cute couple over there if you know what I mean.
Diandra: Yep, you're going to make me regret this.

Episode 2: Breaking Brad (no, really, that's the title. Cute, writers. Real cute)

The previouslies are starting to include stuff that happened last season. Specifically Renslayer going after the Lokis and Loki stopping Sylvie from killing He Who Remains...initially, before getting shoved through the time door.

I forget if this only happened in one episode or all of them, but while the Marvel logo is running all the clips of previous movies, the clip of Tony snapping with the gauntlet switches abruptly to a shot of Miss Minutes. A lot of people read WAY too much into that.

Chrissy: They just REALLY want to undo his death and/or find a way to bring Robert Downey Jr. back.
Diandra: Yeah, weirdly in any way but having him as part of the Illuminati in the 838 universe where they wanted Tom Cruise for some reason.
Emilio: You're still on that?
Diandra: Sorry, I'm just...perpetually baffled by this fandom.

We come back to London in 1977 of the sacred timeline, where Mobius and Loki step out of a time door wearing suits. "Thoughts," Mobius asks.

Chrissy: Yes, when are you going to comment on how gorgeous I look dressed like this?
Diandra: Impressive. You managed to get your overheated thought process in WHILE also roleplaying the target of your lust.
Chrissy: ...............
Diandra: [sigh] Yes, we all know you're pretty. Would it kill you to pay ME a compliment once in a while?

Loki declares that Sylvie isn't here. Mobius doesn't know how he is so sure of that literally two seconds after arriving. Loki says it doesn't "feel right". It's "too safe" a location for someone accustomed to hiding in apocalypses, I guess. Mobius suggests maybe she has changed tactics now because they got a hit on X-5s temp pad that leads here. Loki suggests that if the temp pad "went dark" immediately after that, she must have gotten him. Mobius agrees, but says this is their only lead since both Dox and her boy toy (or whatever he is) are unresponsive.

They come to a movie premiere where X-5, now Brad Wolfe, is arriving at a red carpet in a limo. Loki helpfully exposits that he's an actor now. Mobius suggests maybe it's a cover? Yeah, nope. Brad is schmoozing and preening in front of reporters and women in general. Mobius gets at the end of the line of reporters and asks if the movie premiering is going to get a sequel. Brad hugs him and tells whoever cares that he used to work with this guy. He tries to slip away, BSing that they need to catch up sometime and runs right into Loki, who grabs him by the arm so he doesn't escape. They ask what he's doing here. He seems to sober a little and says yeah, he can catch them up on what's going on here, but they should have drinks first. He goes to get "whiskies" and immediately to the surprise of nobody starts running away. Loki and Mobius go separate directions.

Out in the alley, Brad pulls out his temp pad. A lady follows, valley girling that she just loves him and can she get an autograph? He turns and...it's B-15. [Sidenote: I will talk about this more extensively in the next episode, I'm sure, but the light is so bad here that the first time I saw this I thought it was some random black lady and Loki had shapeshifted]. They grapple for the temp pad. She gets it as Mobius arrives and chases Brad out onto the street and back into another alley. Brad yells that they're "ruining my life here." A burst of green energy knocks him down and Loki unbuttons his coat as he menaces down the alley toward him like he means business now.

Chrissy: nnnmfffggghhhhhh...[incoherent growling]
Diandra: Okay, you can get back into character any time now.
Chrissy: ngggggghhhh...I'd like to get into that-
Diandra: CHRIS!
Chrissy: What?
Diandra: Recap!
Chrissy: What about it?
Diandra: Little help here, Emilio?
Emilio: Nah, this is more fun.

Brad gets back up and starts running through alleyways, Loki giving chase like seriously what's with all the running? Brad is stopped by running face first into a locked gate. Loki asks if he really thought he could outrun him. Brad says yes, actually, pulls the temp pad and warps away. Except he doesn't get far and just ends up on a street with a bunch of rough characters who are like 'you got a pretty mouth.' He grabs a pipe and takes a swing at them, but there's too many of them. One guy keeps coming at him and the pipe swings right through him with a burst of green. Loki appears behind him and mutters that this is really "unsophisticated." Brad pulls out the temp pad and Loki magic whips it out of his hand and across the alley. Brad snaps at him to cut that out and "fight fair." He runs around a couple of the projections and flat into Loki again, who sighs that it isn't exactly a fair fight, is it?

Brad runs in another direction, into Loki again. He does it a couple times until he's backed against a wall with three Lokis menacing toward him, their shadows all forming horns and responding to the copy whose eyes are glowing green, reaching out to grab Brad by the arms. Mobius shows up and Brad yelps that he didn't do ANYTHING wrong here. Mobius asks why he ran then. Then he mutters to the Loki controlling the shadows that the "shadow play" is "a little over the top, don't you think?"

Chrissy: I will remind you of that question later when I show you the fun way I can use it.
Diandra: Yeah, you would, wouldn't you?

A different Loki responds that he didn't think so and the other two copies disappear.

Title card.

Chrissy: You don't have to play the damsel in distress, if that's your hang up. You can just watch while I play with myselves.
Diandra: ......you're just going to keep going until I respond, aren't you?
Chrissy: AHA! Emilio was right! I saw it in your eyes when you hesitated there. The plot bunnies are biting!
Diandra: That's not a plot bunny. You just appealed to my specific form of asexual kink and my lizard brain was going 'that sounds kind of hot actually. File that for later.'
Emilio: What if it was someone else playing damsel in distress? Like...another magic user?
Diandra: Why are you still prompting her?
Chrissy: Yes! It wouldn't even have to actually BE him. I could probably make a projection speak like a Brit pretending to be German pretending to be American who struggles with vowel sounds.
Diandra: I hate you both.
Emilio: No, you don't.
Chrissy: But seriously, he's always been able to do this and people just discovered the concept of selfcest two years ago?

We need to stop referencing this.

B-15 and D-90 drag Brad/X-5 into the TVA where they are met by Mobius and Loki, the latter of which makes a snarky comment on how good he looks in a prison jumpsuit. "It's tighter than you think it's gonna be, isn't it," he asks, gesturing at his neck, so specifically referring to the collar. And I say this because...

Emilio: That's what she said.
Diandra: Just couldn't resist, could you?
Emilio: Sorry.
Chrissy: No, but that actually isn't totally off topic since they had to redesign the Loki costume originally to hide Tom's not at all family friendly bulge. I imagine this onesie is the one costume that couldn't possibly present that problem.
Diandra: [sigh] Of course you remember that.

Brad sneers that he'll make sure Loki's collar is looser next time he needs it.

Chrissy: Absolutely not. Were you not paying attention to that discussion about how much I can take? I will TELL YOU when I can't handle it.
Diandra: .............the whole recap is going to be like this, isn't it?
Chrissy: You knew what you were getting into.

B-15 tries to get back to the point. She holds up the temp pad he was using and asks what he did to it. He says he added some colorful buttons and YOU'RE WELCOME. She's like 'you know we're going to make you tell us if you found Sylvie, right?' He scoffs and some other agents manhandle him through a doorway as B-15 assures them that he WILL talk. She hands the temp pad to Mobius with instructions to have OB look at it.

So back down in OB's mess of an office, Loki and Mobius find him sitting on the floor behind the desk tinkering with a device. Loki asks how the fixing of the loom is going. OB says he's working on this "retrofit device" that will hopefully accommodate all the new branches now. Mobius asks if he could take a look at the temp pad. OB takes it and asks if it's a "higher priority than preventing a Temporal meltdown". Both Loki and Mobius immediately say no, absolutely not. OB shrugs and says everything they need to know about it is in that manual he wrote anyway and hands them back a copy with the temp pad before returning to his device tinkering.

B-15 finds Casey among the work stations and asks if he's gotten a hit on Renslayer's temp pad. Casey gets fidgety and whispers that that's supposed to be a SECRET mission, isn't it? B-15 cocks her head and quickly runs down all the crimes Renslayer committed in case anyone forgot. She killed C-20, tried to kill Mobius, "threw me in Time Jail and tried to take over the TVA." So, you know...running a trace to figure out where she might be now is totally normal, actually. Casey is like 'oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. But we don't have anything because Miss Minutes is down and we're all doing things the hard way and "it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack." But he WAS able to figure out who sent the last message to her pad.

But before he can give a name we switch to Mobius' desk, where Loki is trying to open the temp pad while Mobius reads the directions and they argue about whether they're even doing it right or on the right page of the manual or...

Chrissy: Yeah, as I recall, Thor was the one having this problem, not me. I'm good at finding the right buttons.
Diandra: Ah, shit. I forgot that was a thing.
Chrissy: I can probably still show you my dark passage later if you're interested.
Emilio: [fit of giggling]
Diandra: I'm glad somebody is enjoying this.

Loki thinks he can help Mobius focus by reminding him that if they can't figure this thing out, the whole place is going to be destroyed.

Chrissy: Hmm, no, that's probably just going to make you more tense, isn't it? Maybe if we found a quiet corner somewhere and I helped you relieve that tension?
Diandra: Is the fact that this show is nearing the end and you KNOW how it ends making you kick into overdrive or something?
Chrissy: Maybe.

B-15 shoves Casey in front of them so he can tell them what he just told her. "Miss Minutes is helping Renslayer," he says. This prompts Loki to remember the recording he heard in the previous iteration of the War Room between Renslayer and He Who Remains. "It sounded like they were partners." Mobius asks where Renslayer and the evil clock are now. Uh...still don't know. Casey watches Loki manipulating parts of the temp pad and asks what it is. Mobius and Loki explain that it's a temp pad X-5 somehow rigged to supposedly block tracking. Casey says that's not what it's doing and takes it, saying he can figure out what it's doing, but the modifications definitely are not blocking trace. Loki and Mobius decide they need to "take a run at" Brad.

Outside the interrogation room, Mobius tries to coach Loki and B-15 to "keep it simple" and focus on certain questions and remember that he's an asshole who will DEFINITELY try to get under your skin, LOKI.

Chrissy: What are you looking at me for? You ALL get under my skin. You're a very annoying species.

Brad starts mocking Loki the minute they enter the room, reminding him that he "outranks" him and doesn't even work here so what authority does he have for anything here? Mobius asks what he was doing on the sacred timeline. He says he was just making movies and minding his own business actually. Loki takes out the temp pad and asks what he did to it. He tries the tracker block explanation again, but they know that's not what it does now. He goes back to the 'none of you have authority to hold me here' argument. B-15 says she doesn't NEED approval to arrest a hunter gone AWOL. He reminds her that SHE is the one who was talking about their lives on the timeline and now she's mad that he went to live in his for a while? "There are lives at stake," Loki argues. Brad thinks it's hilarious that the guy who orchestrated an attack on Earth that prompted the formation of the Avengers is making that argument. Or, as he phrases it: "you're just trying to make up for all the terrible, awful shit you've done in your life, you pathetic little man."

Loki takes a deep breath while Mobius tries to cut Brad off like 'I TOLD YOU HE'D DO THIS.' Loki says no, this is good. Keep talking. I wanna hear it. Brad says everything he and Sylvie have been doing to "help" has only made things worse. "See, I've read your file. It's you. You're the problem."

Chrissy: Yes, everyone can agree on that. Hi. I'm the problem. It's me. It must be exhausting always rooting for the antihero.
Diandra: [loud groan]
Emilio: We should have made this a drinking game.
Diandra: Ugh. Are you trying to get me in trouble with his fanbase?
Chrissy: If there's anything we learned from your time in the "Sherlock" fandom, it's that you don't need any help pissing off rabid fangirls.
Diandra: Was that...supposed to be reassuring, or...
Emilio: Sarcasm is her love language.
Chrissy: Thanks, Emilio. But seriously, I thought we talked about you not caring what the insufferable tweens threatening to take over all of fandom think. It's not like I'm doing it to be mean or anything. Obviously I love him. But it was RIGHT THERE. I can't just ignore it!
Emilio: And weren't you the one calling Cumberbatch a giant flaming pussy, like, repeatedly?
Diandra: That was an accident I couldn't have seen coming and I've apologized for it at least three times now. But whatever. Point taken. Thank you, memory keeper, you can let that one go any time.
Emilio: Nope.

Brad says Loki thinks he's special, but every version of him is the same and they ALL just make things worse. "For Mobius. For B-15. For your mother." Loki starts looking particularly murderous at that last one, of course. Brad keeps pushing, saying he always loses and should just stop trying to be a hero already because he will ALWAYS be a villain. "And you're good at it. Do that." Loki laughs in a way that can only be described as an evil cackle and thanks him for that. Because he's right of course. He nods at Mobius and says "he knows. It's the real me." Both Mobius and B-15 look nervous as he keeps talking about how he's been holding back while ramping up the crazy eyes. He starts menacing toward Brad, still rambling about biding his time, waiting for the PERFECT OPPORTUNITY and Brad looks at the others like 'he's got that look he had when he was ripping that guy's eye out. Are you just gonna stand there?!' "...so I can do terrible, awful things to you," he finishes.

Chrissy: [opens mouth]
Diandra: YOU VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE YES WE KNOW.
Chrissy: I was just going to ask if I could get that sound clip.
Emilio: I can help you with that.
Chrissy: I love you. Hey, maybe we can pair it with a clip of Khan offering to "destroy you" and feed Diandra's plot bunnies.
Diandra: I'm pretty sure there's already some Loki/Khan crossovers out there somewhere, but why would I need to use Khan when Doctor Strange is already...shit, why am I falling for this?
Chrissy: HA! Got ya!
Diandra: I already wrote this fic!
Chrissy: Yeah, so it shouldn't be that difficult to do another.
Diandra: [makes several aborted attempts at speech] AUGH! [leans into microphone recording session and switches to PA lady voice] We are experiencing some technical difficulties. Please stand by while we find our way back to the recap. Thank you.

Loki suggests they try ONE more time and leans in until Brad starts leaning backward out of his chair. "Where. Is. Sylvie?" Brad regains his confidence that Loki is just putting on a show and sneers that Loki is "too obsessed" with her and in desperate need of therapy because it's WEIRD. Mobius pulls Loki away from him and Brad is like 'yes! That's right!' "Control your little pet, Mobius."

Chrissy: Ha. Cute. As if he EVER could.
Diandra: Hey, remember when I had a collar on you and I punished you for running away by putting you in a time loop where you were repeatedly kneed in the groin by an angry woman?
Chrissy: Right. That's probably why I remember calling you "daddy".
Diandra: No, you insisted on doing that despite me REPEATEDLY begging you not to.

Mobius tries to get this thing back on track, kindly telling Brad that those people back on the timeline could forget he ever existed unless he answers their questions so they can put him back. Brad is like 'you think I believe that's an option?' Mobius promises he will do it. Brad laughs and says he would have made a great actor. Mobius blushes and says he's just an analyst. Brad reminds him that he isn't. None of them are whatever they are at the TVA. "None of this is real." They had whole other lives they were ripped from. Does he even know who he was before? Mobius insists he doesn't care. "You know they took our lives and you're still here," Brad presses. "You need to wake up." He yells that they are NOTHING here, even the one who actually remembers who he was before, until Mobius snaps and slaps him. Loki rushes to drag him out of the room.

Loki follows Mobius downstairs through all those winding hallways asking if he's okay and what just happened. Mobius insists that was a "tactical" response and Brad definitely DID NOT get under his skin or anything. Although he clearly rattled Loki, so. Loki says he's never seen Mobius like this and "it's okay, I'm not judging." Mobius keeps saying he's FINE, damnit and then they emerge in the "automat" room and he asks where the hell they are. Loki says he was just following him.

Chrissy: Because I'm being a good little pet so daddy can reward me later.
Diandra: Oh, hell no. We're not doing this.

Mobius whines that HE was following LOKI, which Loki points out can't be right because he was in front in that narrow hallway.

Chrissy: You must be distracted if you didn't even notice the fact that you couldn't even SEE my ass.

The "automat" is a self serve cafeteria, so Loki offers to get Mobius a slice of pie. Mobius asks for key lime and I suddenly understand why Facebook was advertising Loki themed key lime coffee to me the week this episode aired.

Chrissy: Again, streaming shows don't "air", but more importantly I feel I should note that you actually did buy that coffee because I saw the bag on your kitchen counter.
Diandra: Yeah, I also bought the two Indiana Jones themed coffees they had. Clearly I am very suggestible.
Emilio: That would be the other reason Chrissy keeps prompting you with fic ideas during these things.
Chrissy: So, how is the coffee?
Diandra: Meh. At least the artwork on the bag is cool.

Mobius pulls a very artificial jello looking bright green pie slice out of a fridge cubby and they sit at a table in the empty cafeteria eating. Mobius declares it "really good" in dialogue that seems to only exist for the weirdest cross marketing campaign I've ever seen. [ETA: I'm still seeing these ads in my feed]. Then he admits that Loki was right, that wasn't a tactical move back there. He just lost it. Loki reassures him that these sort of things happen. Like the time "I was so angry with my father and my brother I went down to Earth and I held the whole of New York City hostage with an alien army. Tried to use the mind stone on Tony Stark. It didn't work, so I threw him off the building."

Chrissy: Sorry, which of us defeated Thanos again? And which of us got his pretty little neck broken trying to double cross him?
Diandra: ........
Emilio: .........
Chrissy: Oh, right, I'm both of them. Ahem. I'm sure I could have done it if I had ALL the infinity stones too, but I try not to rely so heavily on props.
Chrissy: Says the person who had performance issues with his glow stick. I'm always up for another round though if you wanna try again.
Diandra: Okay, let's move on before this gets really weird.
Emilio: Too late.
Chrissy: No, we are never, ever, ever getting back together.
Diandra: .....did you just...
Emilio: [laughing] yep!

Anyway. Loki says that wasn't tactical either. He just "lost it".

Chrissy: See how you do when that cocky son of a bitch is laughing about your performance issues.
Diandra: Yes, well, there are other ways to prove your manhood, Loki.
Chrissy: ...wait, who are you right now?
Diandra: The shipper who is finally understanding the surge in FrostIron fics.
Chrissy: Really? Only now?

Loki gently redirects to the topic of why what Brad said set Mobius off. Has he considered visiting wherever he came from on the timeline?

Diandra: Isn't that a thing that was only even possible recently as far as anyone knew? You know, since you destroyed everything of the branch after you removed the variant that spawned it? See, this is why I found myself asking recently where the fuck Steve brought those three infinity stones back to. If Loki taking the tesseract prompted the TVA to come in and burn that branch, where could he have returned the two other stones they had already collected to?
Chrissy: .......oh, honey. We really need to have a long discussion sometime about you putting too much thought into these things.

Loki asks if he's curious at all about the life he was supposed to be living. Mobius says no, not really, because it isn't HIS life and he doesn't play "what if" games with thoughts about what it might have been. "The TVA is the only life I've ever known. I like it." Loki acknowledges that it might be daunting to think about because it could always be worse. Mobius thinks it would be worse if it was BETTER actually, because who wants to learn that they could have had a better life if they weren't kidnapped by an agency for disrupting the "correct" flow of time? Loki is like 'yeah, okay, never mind,' and licks his...is that a spork? Brushing that moment aside, he says X-5/Brad is never going to talk to them. Mobius thinks he will, they just need to find the right angle. He says the guy was "really good at his job" here at the TVA, so why would he be spending all that time down there NOT finding the woman he was sent to find? Loki says Sylvie is really good at hiding, having done it her whole life. They play a little "what if" to reconstruct a likely scenario. He had a rigged temp pad. He must have found her, but decided he would rather live his stolen life than go back to the TVA to turn her in. "He's the only one who knows where Sylvie is," Loki concludes. Mobius reminds him he is the god of mischief, so he should be able to find a way to make him talk, right?

Chrissy: Yeaaaaaaahhhh, um...he wasn't wrong about my plans turning to shit though. They usually do.
Diandra: Still don't want to talk about the horse thing?
Chrissy: Why is that always the only story from that pantheon you seem to remember? What IS it with you and mpreg?

Meanwhile. OB is headed into the Loom control center while the PA system lady warns that the Loom is unstable and somebody needs to do something about it immediately. We peak behind the gate that is down now to see all the threads on the one side of the hour glass seeming to break that end. OB plugs the device into a terminal, taps a couple buttons on a keyboard and gets a buzzing error noise in response. He tries again and the lights all go out and the screen says access is denied because "invalid temporal aura".

Brad is laying on the floor of the cell when Loki enters, alone, and completely neglects to close the door behind him. Brad asks if he's ready for round two then. Loki says he needs to get a few things off his chest. Brad cranes his neck in a way that makes it clear Loki is standing over him and asks if he's going to try "hardball tactics" this time.

Chrissy: Interesting that you're thinking of balls right now when you have a clear view of my crotch.
Emilio: Are they hard though?
Diandra: Oh, jesus, STOP.

There's a creaking noise and we watch from Brad's upside down perspective as Loki helps Mobius get a machine over the threshold. Brad, clearly recognizing it, asks where B-15 is. Mobius says she's not gonna be involved in this one. Brad blusters that they really think he believes they're going to torture him. "You are getting desperate." Loki says he isn't wrong, actually, while he plugs the machine in. Because this is their last option. "This is cute. Which one of you came up with this little script," Brad sasses.

Mobius keeps rambling about Brad leaving them no choice and Loki interrupts him to note that they're missing the controller. Mobius sighs and goes to get that. Loki locks the cell door behind him and says actually there IS another option and he "wrote a little script of my own." Mobius bangs on the door and yells for him to stop this. Oh, and he does have the controller: a comically large thing that couldn't possibly have not been noticeable sticking out of his pocket. He says great, now to ask some questions. Did Brad find Sylvie and where is she? "Simple question really, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy ourselves as we go along."

Chrissy: Remember what I said earlier about our choices of roleplay being validated now?
Diandra: [heavy sigh] yes.
Chrissy: My go-to safeword is "Ragnarok", but I will also accept "red".
Diandra: [groan]

He starts messing with the machine like he's not sure it's actually on or not and Brad laughs because "you have no idea how to work that thing."

Chrissy: Pfft. Not reading the directions makes it more exciting.

Loki shrugs that he's a villain, remember, and pulls a cord to start it like it's a lawn mower. Outside, Mobius yells that this is NOT the sort of mischief he meant and "Loki, you are NOT a villain!" The machine whirs to life and Brad starts backing away while apologizing for the things he said earlier, particularly about his mother. He yells at the door for Mobius to get his ass in here NOW. Mobius yells back that it's locked. Brad tells Loki to put that controller down because he doesn't know what he's doing over there. Loki is like 'and that's gonna stop me?' He asks what this button does and presses it. An amber colored box forms over the stool Brad was sitting on, shrinks it and disappears. Loki laughs, says there's a sort of "learning curve" with this thing, isn't there? Brad sneers that he could KILL him with that thing. Loki perks up like 'really now? There's a thought that would never have occurred to me. Thanks!' An amber box forms around Brad and Brad tries not to shit himself. He orders Loki to turn it off. Loki is like 'is that this button?' and shrinks the box horizontally. Brad says he doesn't know where Dox et. al are. Loki shrinks the box vertically and Brad has to crouch. He growls that he DOESN'T KNOW, OKAY? Loki is like 'oh, you are a good actor, aren't you? So convincing!'

Brad keeps repeating that he doesn't know anything and they didn't tell him what the plan was and DON'T PUSH THAT BUTTON. He says he lied because he was SUPPOSED to be looking for Sylvie, but he "bailed". "What's the penalty for a highly decorated field officer abandoning his mission," Loki asks. "You and Dox? I don't buy it." The box shrinks again and Brad starts yelping that he went to take back his life down there because "none of this is real!" Loki is like 'oh, well, then this won't hurt if you're not real, will it?' The box shrinks some more and Loki prompts Brad, who is starting to look like a contortionist, to just tell him where Sylvie is. Brad shrieks that she's down there living her new life too and Loki releases the box, causing him to crash to the floor. "There we go. Got there in the end."

Chrissy: I pride myself on always "getting there".
Diandra: Isn't the goal of your job to get the other guy "there"?
Chrissy: ............how do you write kinky porn when you're like this? Seriously, how?
Diandra: Who needs first hand experience when I have friends like you to overshare things I really didn't need to know?

Loki stands over him while he pants that he really did "bail", but AFTER he found her on a branch off the timeline. Mobius opens the door and enters and Loki is like 'your plan worked great, honey!' Brad grumbles that that was all part of the plan and asks if they'll let him go if he tells them where Sylvie is. Mobius says he's not going to TELL them. He's going to SHOW them.

Loom control. B-15 brings Casey into the control center because she thinks he might be able to help. From somewhere, OB shrieks "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

Chrissy: Well, at least you're not panicking or anything.

He runs up the stairs, repeating that statement, notices Casey and shakes his hand. "Oh, hey. Nice to meet you. We're all gonna die!"

Diandra: Yes, we really do have the role plays right.
Emilio: Why do I feel like that isn't a compliment?
Diandra: Just an observation.

B-15 asks what he means by that. He says the blast doors won't open. Casey asks if he tried the "C-12 bypass pathway". OB says it won't work. And he would know because he wrote it. Casey gets a starstruck look and pulls out his copy of the guidebook. "You're...Ouroboros?" He says he's practically memorized the guidebook and OMG such a fan, could you sign my copy? OB cheerfully reaches to do so and B-15 is like 'can we get back to the part where you said we're all gonna die here?' OB says right, the blast doors are locked and can only be opened by a live scan of the original designer's temporal aura. Note all the qualifiers there. The problem with this is that the designer was He Who Remains, who is dead in the citadel at the end of time. He says they could get Miss Minutes to override, but...well... Casey concludes they need to "convince a rogue artificial intelligence to come back to work?" OB says they need to do it fast because those growing branches are taking them ever closer to total meltdown.

Oklahoma, 1982. Brad, Mobius and Loki step out of a time door under a McDonald's sign. Getting really brazen with the product placement, huh? Mobius threatens to put him right back in that cube with Loki at the controls if he's wasting their time here. Brad says she is DEFINITELY in there and they should go find her while he heads back. Mobius asks why he's being so skittish. It's like he's afraid of her or something. Brad is like 'uh...yeah. She killed 400 of us. Aren't you?'

So, inside, Sylvie is handling orders when she looks up to find Loki, Mobius and Brad standing in the doorway and her face falls. Loki slowly approaches the counter while Brad tries to get Mobius to retreat again. Mobius says he's not going anywhere until he gets some apple pie.

Chrissy: Are we sure he isn't a variant of Dean Winchester?
Diandra: Who?
Chrissy: Oh, honey. We really need to get you to watch that show.

Loki goes up to the counter and he and Sylvie do the awkward running into your ex song and dance while sappy music plays across the soundtrack. She snaps at him to order or something because she doesn't have time for this. He asks if they can talk somewhere. She says she'll have her break in five minutes and stomps away. Five minutes later, he meets her out front where she tells him around a mouthful of food to talk fast. She climbs up to sit on the tailgate of another product placement: a Ford Ranger. He acknowledges he's the last person she wants to see, but...

Chrissy: Even though *I* should be the one that's bitter after you tried to take my head off because I wouldn't go along with your plan.

He tells her about the bouncing around in time thing and when he was in the future he saw her. "The TVA is in danger and you were there and I need to know why." She's like 'oh, you see the future now, Nostradamus? Isn't that special?' Yeah, as happy as she is to hear that her original plan of burning the TVA down is on track, she doesn't really want to see it happen personally. She's perfectly happy living this quaint little human life here and never stepping in that building again. He argues that it was the FUTURE he saw, so it IS going to happen. She thinks she killed the whole concept of predetermination when she killed Kang Who Remains. He offers to let her read his memories and see what he did. She doesn't want to. He argues that if they don't work together, this whole place that she considers home now may stop existing, but she just talks right over him that he has the NERVE to come to her about this. He snaps that this is bigger than the TVA because if what HWR says is true, it is the last line of defense against a time war that will destroy everything.

Inside, Mobius is gushing about his apple pie and Brad is fretting over whatever is going on outside. "What is happening? It's like they're going over every detail of their relationship that's ever happened."

Chrissy: No, that wouldn't take long.

Mobius thinks there's a lot to "unpack" when "you're basically in a relationship with yourself."

Chrissy: I mean, people think it's easier because I know what I like, right? No. No, it just ends up being a lot of 'dear god, am I really THIS annoying?' or 'how can you be this stupid?' and 'you managed to make every single wrong decision possible, how are you still alive?'
Emilio: [whispering] Is she playing one of them or just being herself?
Diandra: I don't know anymore.

Brad says anyway, he brought them to Sylvie, so that's his end of the bargain covered. Now they just need to send him back to the Sacred Timeline.

Mobius wants to ramble about how weird life is. One minute, you're snapping and torturing a guy and the next you're buying him a shake. Brad mutters that he's NOT forgiven, but takes a drink because hey, free food. Mobius offers to talk about that movie they were at the premier of. Brad just tells him to get tickets and see it, then asks why Mobius didn't just get the food to go. Mobius questions why he's so eager to get out of the restaurant. Is it some sort of set up? Is something going to happen? Brad sucks down the rest of his shake and insists there is no set up, but he still looks twitchy.

Outside, Sylvie puts the tailgate back up and starts heading back inside. Loki says "you'll give everyone free will and walk away?" She points out that uh, yeah, that's generally the way free will works. He asks what she plans to do when his variants start showing up. She shrugs that she killed one and it seemed to work, so she'll probably just keep doing that. Mobius comes out with Brad in tow and says he needs to tell them something. Brad says they need to talk back at the TVA because if they stay here, they're all gonna die. And not just them, but all the people walking past them in the parking lot right now. Sylvie loses patience and just enchants him, seeing all the reset charges stuffed in bags that were carried through during that last scene of the previous episode. We know that's what it is because we get a repeat of the odd line that "this" was all just to hunt down Sylvie. She tells Mobius and Loki that they're planning to bomb every branch off the Sacred Timeline. She changes into her leather Loki outfit, albeit with her coat still covering it.

Back at the TVA, a door opens and Brad is shoved through. B-15 asks Mobius over the link what happened. He says Dox wasn't going after Sylvie, she's just pruning ALL the branches. This revelation comes after they have already noticed "targets" forming on the main screen and branches peeling back. She orders everyone to start tracking the reset charges.

Meanwhile, Sylvie, Loki and Mobius are in the room Sylvie saw in Brad's memories. Hunters/Minutemen are going in and out of time doors using modified temp pads, which Mobius realizes is what happened to Brad's. B-15 tells Mobius they've killed billions already and he needs to get Dox NOW. Loki says he'll "distract" them while they take out the control panel they have the temp pads attached to.

Chrissy: Why is my job always just "distract them"?
Diandra: Because it's the one thing you can't mess up? You know...that's probably what Thanos had him doing with the alien attack all along.

They all run in and fight and after Sylvie takes out one of the controls, Dox yells that they've been compromised and everybody should just "set off what you can."

B-15 asks if they can neutralize the charges. Casey says they could if they knew the location, but there's too many of them for that, so he's gonna call OB.

Emilio: Funny how you suddenly need the character you didn't even mention at all last season every five minutes now.
Diandra: Yeah, that's...generally how these things work.

The Lokis are fighting minutemen with pointy objects and blasts of green energy while Mobius prune sticks the control panels with the rigged temp pads. They get down to the last of it and Sylvie says "don't overthink it", grabs Loki's hand and they send a blast of green energy that knocks out everything and everybody that's left.

We fast forward right to Mobius and their minutemen sending a collared Dox and her men through a door to the TVA. He calls Loki over and they follow. After a minute, Sylvie follows. All the main characters watch branches recede on the Sacred Timeline monitor and B-15 cries over all those lives lost. Something beeps and Casey says he just got a hit on Renslayer's temp pad. While the rest of them are looking at that, Loki goes back to face a very angry Sylvie. He apologizes that there was nothing they could do. "The TVA is the problem," she hisses. "It's broken. It's rotten." She opens a time door and says she's going to see if her newfound home even still exists. Loki begs her to stay but she closes the door before he can even finish the sentence. So he just wanders back over and puts a hand on Mobius' shoulder.

Sylvie's branch. Sylvie is sitting on the hood of her truck after her shift ends. The kid from the first scene with her comes out and asks if she's okay and if she'll be back tomorrow. She says yes on both counts, identifies him as "Jack" and asks if his mom is coming to pick him up. He says yes, he'll be fine.

Diandra: Okay, here's the thing. That dialogue was so unnecessary to the main storyline that it's totally understandable that fans were spinning theories as to who he is and how he might be important later after the episode aired.
Emilio: Again with the "aired".
Diandra: Dropped. Became available. Whatever. My point is that we have become too accustomed, I think, to every little detail mattering. Which is why they were SO pissed off about the Ralph Boner thing that was just an in joke.
Chrissy: That and the fact that they just like their little headcanons better than anything that is actually happening in universe.
Diandra: Or could happen. My favorite take on all the excited fan theories about what Secret Wars would look like was "have you people even read those comics? Because from what you're describing, I suspect you just saw the cover and have no idea what it's actually about."
Chrissy: Well, it IS possible many of them can't read. Judging by the incoherent drivel they produce with a keyboard anyway.

Sylvie holds up the temp pad, which is the more all encompassing one she took from He Who Remains, it lights up and we go to credits.

There is no mid/end credit scene on this or any of the other episodes that I can recall.

Chrissy: Can we go back to what you said a couple minutes ago about Thanos using Loki as a distraction?
Diandra: Yeah, I mean...we've been talking about how there was obviously something else going on there that we only got vague hints about, likely because nobody knew if it would go anywhere at the time. Or maybe just because there have been multiple writers and they don't always use exactly the same playbook. But we know Loki was probably planning to double cross Thanos and get the tesseract for himself or something. Or was that just what he said in fic?
Emilio: That's what he said in YOUR fic. I assume you got that from somewhere canon.
Diandra: How kind of you to assume that and not that I just forgot what was canon and what was fanon. Anyway. Why send a completely unpredictable yutz WITH one of the all important stones to collect another stone? Either he didn't know who he was working with here or he thought sending the god of chaos in to distract the superpowered earthlings would buy him time or keep them from figuring out what he was doing for a while. From a storytelling standpoint, of course, Loki attacking New York was what prompted the formation of the Avengers. And I think we talked in one of the "What If" episodes about how changing him would change that critical point in universe. Which...would explain how the alternate 838 with him as sorcerer supreme didn't have the Avengers...
Chrissy: Uh...what now?
Diandra: Nothing. Let's go to the next episode, shall we?

Episode 3:

Chrissy: No, wait, were you just brainstorming a fic?
Diandra: [grumble] No, I was worldbuilding the one I already started.
Chrissy: The one you...excuse me?
Diandra: Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to finish it now, but it's the "Multiverse of Madness" AU you wouldn't shut up about while we were writing that recap.
Chrissy: [squeals happily and claps her hands]
Emilio: And again, this is why she keeps doing this.
Diandra: Can we get back to the recap now?
Chrissy: Okay, but we are DEFINITELY talking about this later.
Diandra: [sigh]

Episode 3: 1893 (or: In a Time Before Descent Lighting)

The previouslies are all very focused on Kang variants and the fact that the only one who can repair the loom is He Who Remains because he built it. It also includes a reminder that Renslayer and Miss Minutes are MIA and a scene I don't remember of them talking about whoever created the TVA being in danger.

The theme that accompanies the Marvel logo is played on an old timey piano this time to clue you in to the time frame if you didn't get it from the episode title.

Except it's even further back initially. Renslayer emerges from a time door in Chicago, 1868, Sacred Timeline. She mutters to herself that this can't be right and wanders down a street until Miss Minutes calls to her from inside a barn. Renslayer hisses that she was supposed to be going somewhere IMPORTANT. Miss Minutes is like 'oh, quit whining and tell me if you brought the thing I asked you to'. Renslayer pulls out a book wrapped in brown paper. Miss Minutes points to a window across the alley and says the important person she needs to meet, "the one at the end of time" says her Super Important Mission is to get that book inside that window. Renslayer squints at her like 'seriously?' but Miss Minutes insists this plan is going to protect time itself. Renslayer asks why he didn't do it himself if it was so important. Miss Minutes says because he's dead and uh...he didn't know that would happen when he put the plan in motion. Someone rides by on a horse and Renslayer hisses at Miss Minutes to hide because a brightly colored hologram is kind of conspicuous in this environment. Miss Minutes changes her color scheme to black and white and asks if that's better.

Chrissy: It wasn't the colors that were a problem, sweetie.

Renslayer asks what's in it for her. Miss Minutes spins some bullshit about both of them being by his side once he reclaims his rightful place as head of the TVA.

In the room across the street, a little black boy is conducting some sort of science experiment when the book falls through the open window. He doesn't see Renslayer as she is long gone before he reaches it. He unwraps the book, which turns out to be a copy of that TVA manual everybody has been waving around this season.

The theme accompanying the title card is far more cinematic this time around. I like it.

Back at the TVA, Casey is working at a computer in Loom control with Loki and OB hovering over him. Loki asks how they're supposed to get in. OB repeats that he doesn't know HOW to now that the creator who locked it with his temporal aura is dead. And they're running out of time because while Dox may have pruned a bunch of branches, they're all growing back already. They need to "increase the diameter of the Loom's intake ring" to accept the "knot of unrefined time".

Chrissy: [opens mouth]
Diandra: Yes, we ALL KNOW WHAT THIS MAKES YOU THINK OF. Don't say it.
Chrissy: I was just going to say that you should start referring to this plan as Project Omega Heat.
Diandra: [groan] That only makes sense in fanfiction circles. Also, gross.

Loki decides this needs to be explained in simpler terms, so OB makes a tiny circle with his fingers, then a big circle with his hands and says they need to expand the Loom's capacity.

Chrissy: Just trust me, it will get REALLY messy if we don't do it properly before we try to ram that knot through.
Diandra: [bangs head on desk with a loud groan]
Emilio: I mean...she's not wrong.

Okay, weird sexual imagery Chrissy is trying to evoke aside...failure to expand the Loom will result in the TVA being destroyed and, as he keeps saying: "we're all gonna die." Mobius suggests hacking the system. OB gets excited, thinking he knows how to actually do that and Mobius has to explain he meant that as a question. OB says no, they can't then and they're ALL GONNA DIE.

Chrissy: You need to calm down.
Emilio: You're being too loud.
Diandra: I have no idea what's going on.
Chrissy: You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace...
Emilio: ...and control your urges to scream about all the people you hate 'cause shade never made anybody less GAY.
Diandra: Oh. [heavy sigh]

From the other side of the room, Casey asks if Miss Minutes can access the Loom. OB says yeah, probably, since she has admin privileges for the entire TVA, but Mobius groans that that doesn't matter because she's still AWOL. There's some alarming creaking noises outside and Loki suggests they find her soon. B-15 and Casey decide it would make sense if they followed the hit they got from Renslayer's temp pad since that was the last person Miss Minutes contacted. Mobius mutters about how fun it will be facing the woman who tried to kill them both. Loki suggests she may have gotten it "out of her system" by now.

Emilio: Ah, nope. Murder never gets old.
Diandra: You know...from anyone else that would be a giant red flag, but...

So Loki and Mobius emerge from a time door in that old west location in 1868 while Mobius exposits that they got a temp pad hit going from 1868 to 1893 in this same spot. Loki wonders why someone would go to the same location twice.

Chrissy: I mean, I know why THOR kept going back to the same insignificant little planet, but...

Mobius doesn't know because it doesn't coincide with any major historic events or anything. The Chicago fire was in 1871. He shrugs and they go around the corner through a time door to 1893 when the world's fair was in town and Mobius remembers that there WERE significant things happening at this location in THIS time. This and HH Holmes, the man some believe may have been Jack the Ripper, for a couple.

Chrissy: Wait...what?
Diandra: Ask my dad sometime when you have an hour to spare.
Chrissy: But...Jack the Ripper was British.
Diandra: No, he wasn't. The crimes were committed in England, but eye witnesses said he had a "foreign" accent that might have been American. Also, if you're wondering why the Ripper stories always get tangled up in Sherlock Holmes lore (aside from the fact that Doyle was writing those stories right around this time), witnesses also said he wore a deerstalker.
Chrissy: Aaaaaaaand now I understand how you would know so much.

Loki agrees that this destination in timespace makes a lot more sense, but does that mean it was the original destination and the pit stop 25 years earlier was a mistake? Mobius says no, Renslayer doesn't make those kind of mistakes, especially if Miss Minutes is helping her. They debate how they're supposed to find either of them in this crowd for a minute before a paper boy shouting a headline about a "ghost clock" passes them. Mobius fishes out a coin to buy a paper and the article is accompanied by a sketch of something that looks like Miss Minutes as a terrifying monster.

Flash forward to sometime later when Mobius is arguing that the pit stop to get some cracker jack was TOO necessary. Loki grumbles that it tastes like ash, which...doesn't everything to an immortal? Or is that just vampires?

Chrissy: You can't keep yelling at me for talking about vampires if you're gonna say stuff like THAT.
Emilio: Vampires exist in the Marvel universe too.
Diandra: Yes, I know. And somehow they are always tied to Doctor Strange.
Emilio: Because Dracula was a sorcerer/magician/whatever.
Chrissy: I have an idea for a fic.
Diandra: [groan] And that's why I try to avoid this.

Loki asks if they're done sightseeing now. Mobius argues that he isn't, it's just that they have different METHODS. "You're a man of action, which is fine. I take a more slow, deliberate, cerebral approach because I see everything. I notice everything." Loki snots that he hasn't noticed that cracker jack stuck to his chin.

Chrissy: I would offer to get that for you without using my hands, but this stuff really is revolting. And also you're kind of annoying me right now.
Diandra: Oh, you love me.
Chrissy: By the way, that description is totally BS covering the fact that you're very easily distracted, particularly when food is involved.
Diandra: Which is not unlike a description of a cute, cuddly golden retriever, so again: you love me.

They come to a building with pillars carved to look like Odin, Thor and Balder and Loki grumbles about humans reducing a whole culture to a "crass generalization". Mobius teases that he's just mad they left him out. Loki says no, but also grumbles about the inclusion of Balder because "nobody's even heard of him."

Emilio: So yes, he's jealous.
Chrissy: Also possibly meta because if I remember correctly Balder was virtually interchangeable with another guy and both were easily absorbed into Jesus when Christianity took over.

Mobius says he forgets sometimes that the Norse mythology is real in this universe and Loki is part of it. He pats Loki's arm and walks away. "Thor's not that tall," Loki snots before following him.

Mobius is listing the places the "ghost clock" has been spotted according to the article that they haven't checked yet, but Loki points out a sign advertising "Victor Timely's astounding temporal marvels".

Inside, somewhere, Renslayer is telling her bag that no, she will not be letting Miss Minutes out because everyone will panic. In the background, Loki and Mobius enter. Mobius spots her over by the stage where a band is playing polka and starts in that direction. Loki stops him because they don't want her seeing them coming.

And then the lights go out, the stage resets and if you saw the post credit scene in "Quantumania", you got a preview of this next part. Mobius perks up at the sight of a miniature of the temporal loom on stage. Loki stops breathing when Kang variant Victor Timely comes on stage to ramble about time in a bizarre speech pattern worth of Shatner. He hisses at Mobius that THAT is He Who Remains. They argue about whether he poses any danger to anyone at the MOMENT while Victor rambles on about harnessing time as a form of energy. He points to the device, which he does identify as a temporal loom and says it "inverts the temporal decay of the electricity flowing through it, lowering its entropy and gathering it into fine threads of..."

Emilio: Reversed polarity?

"...power! Which it then weaves into elegant ropes of..."

Chrissy: Plot.

"...voltage." He summarizes that it transforms chaos into order.

Diandra: We mentioned before that the whole premise of the show was "take an organization whose sole function is to create order and throw the God of Chaos into it", right?
Emilio: It is.

Anyway, the conclusion is that with the wattage Edison needs to run a bulb and his loom, he can power all of Chicago.

Emilio: Or maybe make a black hole that will swallow the planet. I'm not sure yet.

Some guy in the audience is loudly skeptical that his little demonstration on stage can translate to power on THAT scale. He uncovers some generators or whatever and cranks a wheel to send electricity through everything while he rambles about achieving anything you can dream and everything we call science fiction can become just...science. Ropes of energy spark from the loom wildly, much like they are at the TVA in the future and he stands in the middle of it theatrically welcoming the audience to the "future" like the mad scientist Mary Shelley warned them about. The audience applauds like they're not at all worried about the dangerous looking sparks shooting behind him.

Emilio: Meh, it's fine. I've only burned down the lab a couple times. But you might want to check on my variant in the 1950s. He's definitely not okay.
Diandra: Yeah, I...didn't see that show.

Mobius tells Loki they need to bring him back to the TVA. Loki thinks he's crazy if he thinks bringing an unpredictable variant into the TVA is a good idea.

Diandra: [singing] Oh, isn't it ironic? Don't you think?
Chrissy: Okay, I'm going to allow that because it's totally appropriate, but...you know all the songs we've been quoting so far were by the same person, right?
Diandra: How dumb do you think I am? I'm just...not a walking repository of song lyrics, so I can only come up with the stuff that gets regular radio play. And this was, as you said, appropriate.

Mobius is less concerned about possible repercussion issues than he is with the problem they have RIGHT NOW and He Who Remains' aura can possibly fix that one.

Victor Kang gets off the stage and runs right into Renslayer, who asks to talk to him about his future. They are interrupted by a caricature of a man who wants to express further skepticism about the device. Victor's stutter gets more pronounced now that he isn't reciting a script and he explains that it's a prototype, but he does have several interested potential investors. But the guy is apparently an Edison: he wants to go into "partnership" wherein Victor hands over the patent rights and he actually makes it, slaps his name on it and gets all credit for inventing it probably. Victor says no thanks and walks away, running into another guy who offers to buy it. He gets on a stool and announces he will be taking all formal bids now. The second guy offers $500. The first guy comes back and they start a bidding war until the first guy offers $1000 and Victor takes it. Then he surreptitiously slides some of the money he is handed to the second guy as he was clearly a plant.

Meanwhile, Loki and Mobius try to get across the room, but are held up when Loki runs face first into a guy who has to be seven feet tall and basically challenges him to a duel, slapping the hat off his head. "Gently," Mobius mutters behind him.

Chrissy: I don't see how invoking THAT memory is relevant to this particular situation.

Loki just makes the guy disappear in a flash of green and Mobius tries to pass it off as a magic act that was totally staged before they slip away.

Renslayer asks Miss Minutes if she's SURE this is the guy who will become He Who Remains. From her purse, Miss Minutes says she's just following HIS plan and they can make SURE he follows the right path.

She chases Victor outside the building, repeating that they need to talk. Loki and Mobius arrive shortly after to "discuss a little business venture". Mobius calls Renslayer by name and Victor realizes they all know each other. "Unfortunately," Mobius says.

A "councilman" sidelines Victor to demand his money back for some trousers that were supposed to make him taller and he argues again that they are a prototype and he can try to adjust them next week. As the guy walks away Loki declares what is becoming increasingly apparent: that Victor is a con artist.

Chrissy: Specifically a confidence TRICKSTER, which...takes one to know one.
Diandra: And yet you can't see why I would be willing to take a chance on him? Or are you just jealous because you're afraid he will replace you?
Chrissy: Pffffffftttt, as if he could replace me. Wait...could he?
Emilio: That answer might have to wait for the result of a court case.
Chrissy: Or just public opinion on it. Both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were blackballed.
Diandra: Yeah, I've basically avoided both of those cases as much as is possible to do, but...what little I've heard makes Jonathan Majors sound more plausibly guilty. And the fact that all the armchair commentators defending him can't see the red flags familiar to anyone who has known a victim of abuse is distressing.

Victor says he just has ideas that are ahead of his time and he's waiting for technology to catch up. And then we realize why he was so eager to get away because the guy who bought his device catches up, yelling about it being a "fake" and he runs.

While he's losing that guy, B-15 calls Mobius. He says they found a variant of He Who Remains and they can use him to unlock the loom. B-15 says okay, um...great, but the reason we called is because we're getting a "really weird temp pad reading" about ten feet from him right now.

Loki catches up to Victor and Sylvie the Weird Temp Pad Reading arrives just then to wave a dagger at both of them. She shoves them both into a Ferris wheel car and snarls at Loki that she intends to FINISH the job this time.

Even though it was in the previouslies, Sylvie reminds the audience (and Loki) that she said she would kill any variant of He Who Remains just like she killed the original. Victor cowers behind Loki, who argues that they NEED him to stop the destruction of the TVA.

Chrissy: Which was the other thing we BOTH wanted, so I don't know how you think that's going to get through to me.

Victor realizes this "TVA" thing sounds familiar and pulls out that copy of the manual Renslayer gave him years ago to verify this is what Loki is talking about. Sylvie tries to take advantage of the distraction to take another swing at him. Loki gets between them again and reminds Sylvie that if the TVA is destroyed, that branch she's living on peacefully right now (and rightfully wants to return to) will cease to exist too. They NEED Victor to fix it.

On the ground, Renslayer asks why the hell Mobius let Sylvie follow him here. Mobius asks how she's so sure Sylvie was following HIM. He tries to reason with her then, saying not talking to him clearly isn't going well, so why doesn't she just tell him what she's doing? She sniffs that he CHOSE Loki over her and now he wants to "play the teamwork card"?

Chrissy: Again with the jealousy.
Diandra: I love you all equally.
Chrissy: How very "parent of multiple children" of you. Can we revisit the Daddy thing?
Diandra: Ugh! No!

He hisses that the TVA is in full meltdown, "he" seems to be the key to fixing it and we could use your help even though YOU TRIED TO KILL ME. Renslayer spits that there is no "we" anymore after everything.

Emilio: I know Chrissy already used this one, but We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together!
Diandra: Oh, you're Renslayer now too. Yeah, that makes sense. Ahem. All I wanted was to break your walls, but all you ever did was wreck me!
Chrissy: ............um..........Dee?
Diandra: That wasn't Taylor, was it?
Emilio: No, that was Miley Cyrus.
Diandra: The daughter of the guy who sang Achy Breaky Heart?
Chrissy: Oh my god, you just explained everything AND dated yourself.

Sylvie remembers she doesn't need to rely on knives and levitates Victor and pins him to the wall of the car before snarling at Loki that stopping the destruction of the TVA and "fixing it" are completely different things. Working with a variant of He Who Remains will accomplish neither. He snots that her stabbing things isn't going to solve any problems either.

Chrissy: Yeah, I always thought that instinct to solve everything with knives and stabbing was very telling, but I never expected YOU to acknowledge that.
Chrissy: I can't help it if this version of me only has a fraction of the powers I do in the comics!
Diandra: Yeah, now I remember why we made Emilio play Sylvie.
Chrissy: Well, I don't feel the need to compensate for anything because some annoying human made fun of my performance issues!
Chrissy: Hey, there's probably a variant of me somewhere in London right now if you want to have another go. Calls himself Sherlock.
Diandra: Oh, dear god what is happening here?
Emilio: I think she's writing the ultimate crossover idea.
Chrissy: If only I knew a writer who could flesh it out...
Diandra: [groan]

Sylvie asks if Loki thinks she really WANTS to do this. She magics the TVA manual into his hand and asks where he thinks it came from. "If you and the TVA hadn't messed with him, he'd have remained harmless."

Emilio: Mostly harmless.
Diandra: Of course we always come back to that reference.

She says THEY weaponized him. Specifically, Renslayer sent him on this path that wasn't originally how things were supposed to go for him and now they want to bring "the thief of all free will" back to the TVA. Loki yells that he JUST met this man and had never heard the name Victor Timely until today. But maybe she's right and they should just throw him off the ferris wheel right now.

Emilio: Uh...I'm right here? Please don't?

But the TVA is protecting a lot of lives and they NEED him, so...he breaks Sylvie's magic hold so Victor falls to the floor. She growls that he hasn't "got a clue" and makes a run for Victor. Victor runs screaming in the other direction and Loki stays in the middle trying to keep them apart. Victor notices just then that the angry guy who bought the faulty device is in the next car and is making gestures like he's gonna slit Victor's throat the first chance he gets.

Sylvie notes that this all a very familiar situation and the car arrives on the platform as both Loki's are powering up, hands surrounded by green energy. The doors open behind Victor and Sylvie blasts both him and Loki out of the car. Renslayer and Mobius respectively run to help them up. The angry buyer loudly pushes his way through the crowd. Renslayer lets Miss Minutes out of her bag and she expands to nearly the size of the ferris wheel and the crowd starts screaming and scattering. In the chaos, Renslayer and Victor escape. Sylvie finds Loki, waves her cutlass at him and hisses "this is on you."

Chrissy: Oh, yes. I tried to prevent you from murdering the guy before he even became He Who Remains and possibly destroying all of spacetime. Clearly I am the problem here.
Chrissy: I would tell you to go fuck yourself, but I think we all know you would enjoy that.

Mobius arrives with the best transportation he could find: a tandem bike. He pats the back seat pointedly. Loki looks at the bike and Mobius for a moment and declares "absolutely not." We cut away before Mobius can try to argue.

Diandra: Is it because you need to be in control? You can't ride in the back?
Chrissy: [long pause, lips twitching]
Diandra: I'm going to regret this, aren't I?
Chrissy: No, I was just going to say, I prefer the things I straddle to be sentient.
Diandra: So if and when I find a jet ski I can count on a no on that too?
Chrissy: Eh...that's at least motorized, which might do in a pinch.
Diandra: It's a BIKE. Why are we sexualizing a thing kids use?
Chrissy: I'm not. Last I checked, children can't (or shouldn't be) operating jet skis. Or motorcycles for that matter and don't even PRETEND those don't make up a whole subgenre of kinks.

Renslayer and Victor end up at his...shack? Workhouse? Whatever. He invites her to sit on one of his inventions and NO CHRISSY WE'RE NOT DOING THAT AGAIN.

Chrissy: Hmpf.
Emilio: That's okay, because I'm playing both of those characters, so...
Diandra: [groan]

He shows her the button that controls the temperature in the chair's cushion, going all the way down to forty degrees (obviously Fahrenheit).

Emilio: Wouldn't you want the seat to WARM, not cool?
Diandra: In the 1800s with all those layers of clothing, I'm sure warmth wasn't a problem.

He pops open a refrigerated compartment that contains some sort of drinkable liquid and invites her to touch the bottle to verify it is, in fact, cold. All he actually says, though, is "touch it", which explains...

Emilio: [opens mouth]
Chrissy: No, I'm pretty sure suggestions of sexual harassment from a character with Jonathan Majors' face is a line we don't want to cross.
Emilio: I was just going to ask if rape whistles had been invented yet, but yeah.

They have a moment that seems to perturb Miss Minutes, who suddenly cuts in to ask how they liked her little performance back there. Victor applauds her and stutters that it was "marvelous" if "a bit creepy". He asks Renslayer if the "apparition" is her helper or something. Miss Minutes bristles that she is a "fully conscious and sentient" AI with a name and everything, thank you very much. He bows to her and addresses her as MADEMOISELLE Minutes, declaring her "singular". She purrs in a disturbingly seductive tone that he is too, "or at least, you will be." He asks Renslayer what she's talking about. Renslayer is like 'yeah...we're not going into the whole time travel thing right now.' He says SOMEONE should really tell him what is going on here. "A long time ago...far from now..." Renslayer begins.

Emilio: There was a kid named Anakin...
Diandra: No.

A version of him created, will create, whatever time travel lingo makes sense here, the Time Variance Authority. Unfortunately, two variants of a Norse trickster god killed him at the end of time, creating all sorts of timelines that he had formerly been keeping in check, partly because it meant many versions of HIM. He gets stuck on the fact that he created the TVA he's read about. Miss Minutes babbles about how this must be so much to take in and he says no, he always imagined his future self to be something like that. Renslayer is like 'okay, but did you just hear me say you were murdered?' She clutches his hand and vows to keep him safe. Miss Minutes very obviously makes a face and sniffs haughtily. She gets between them and tells him he created HER long before the TVA and Renslayer. They "worked together" at the end of time and she just wants to make sure he becomes the "great man" he was meant to be. Renslayer tells him her actual name - which you'll recall is Ravonna - and says she's just trying to restore the TVA. Because they have a device not unlike the one he was using on that stage that needs fixing and they need him to do that. Victor says yeah, that "wizard" said pretty much the same thing. "Why aren't the two of you in cahoots with him and his butler?"

Chrissy: Okay, first of all...what is it with you humans and calling us all wizards? And second...you know, I'm actually okay with the butler thing.
Diandra: You would be. Makes it sound like I am your servant.
Chrissy: [creepy/seductive tone] I can make you kneel.

Chrissy: Also? SPLOOSH.

Ravonna says those guys can't be trusted. Miss Minutes is like 'yeah, remember what she said about Norse variants?' Except she knows more than Ravonna and specifically says Loki only "helped" the variant that actually killed his variant. Victor points out that he was trying to HELP just now. Ravonna says yeah, he switches loyalties a lot. "It's a well-documented behavioral trait."

Chrissy: Ahem. Yeah. Should we revisit the conversation in the last episode about him being a villain?
Diandra: Yeah, I believe we've already talked at length about the function of the trickster god and how they are never really The Villains, but often the antagonists. See also: coyote in every single Native American myth. Loki isn't a villain. And he is never the hero either, although I'm sure he is in his own mind. He's just...a morally grey opportunist chaotic neutral trickster god.
Chrissy: Which is why last time you were talking about casting Tom as your morally grey hot mess of an original character in your "Sherlock" fic. I assume this is the sort of template you're using in this "Multiverse of Madness" fic you're doing now?
Diandra: ...............ugh. You're not letting that go, are you?
Chrissy: A fic I prompted during a recap? Yeah, not a chance.

Someone bangs on the door and Victor starts his escape through the window. Ravonna splutters that he doesn't want to know who it is first?

Emilio: I think we've established that it's unlikely anyone trying to find me is a FRIEND.

Ravonna thinks they should use a time door. Miss Minutes hisses that they can TRACE that. Ravonna thinks it doesn't matter if they just go right to the TVA through it. Victor says he's not going anywhere until he has his "latest prototype" which is in his lab across the lake. That lake presumably being Lake Michigan, which makes his further explanation that he only sells wares in Chicago while his lab is in Wisconsin baffling. Because surely you don't have to be from the Midwest to know that if you leave Illinois and cross Lake Michigan, you end up in...uh...Michigan. Not that there isn't at least one lake in the nearly SIXTY MILES between Chicago and the Wisconsin state line, but I don't know that any of them would be considered "The Lake" and did I mention the sixty miles?

Pictured: flyover country not worth knowing the geography of

Anyway. Victor shoves Ravonna through the window and jumps out just as Loki and Mobius round the corner. Not that I could tell that's who it was the first time I saw it because the scenes away from the carnival lights outdoors are just as dark as everyone complained "Wakanda Forever" was and insisted "The Eternals" wasn't. Some slapstick old timey chase music starts up and Loki and Mobius run right into that angry investor, who calls them "rat bags". This time, instead of begging Loki to stay cool, Mobius just sighs and says "go ahead". Loki cocks his head, says "I beg your pardon," and we cut to a side street where we see the guys running away from a blast of green energy while yelping that they've changed their minds and he can have the con artist. Loki runs down the street toward the camera and we follow him around a couple corners until he meets up with Mobius again. Mobius says they'll have to get B-15 to run a trace. They leave and a panel opens in a nearby wall, Victor and Ravonna poking their heads out.

Cut to them boarding a steamboat, with him asking for the "usual accommodations". So yeah, I guess it does make sense that it would be faster to take a boat than a carriage or possibly even a train, but you're basically hugging the coast the whole way, not crossing. Given that the "goofs" section of IMDb for this episode notes that the fair in the distance is on the wrong side of the boat if they're supposed to be going North, I'm going to guess The Powers That Be for this show really don't know where any of this is.

Miss Minutes sits on the railing watching creepily as they talk about Victor's work on manipulating Time. He flips through a book where he says he keeps "everything I ever imagined". He says she might recognize it as a TVA guidebook, which some mysterious person gave him when he was a child. He's perceptive enough to catch a Look from her that tells him SHE was the mysterious person and Miss Minutes gets huffy because SHE was just the courier. "We both know whose plan it was." He heads off a possible fight at the pass, saying it doesn't matter, he thanks WHOEVER did it because it changed the course of his life.

Chrissy: That would have been the point, yes.

He has always chosen to think of it as a private correspondence between himself and the brilliant, visionary author Ouroboros.

Chrissy: Here's where Emilio's instinct to play both of these characters probably makes some sort of sense.
Emilio: Although it also makes me look like my own fanboy.
Diandra: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens when they are on screen together.

He points to one drawing in the book and says it's his most important "discovery": a throughput multiplier. Which is probably what they need, right? He gives her an origami flower made from what looks like a map and she murmurs that she's "starting to see the man you'll become."

Emilio: Oh, sorry. These pants are...[adjusts self] Is that better?
Chrissy: ............don't look at me. You're Renslayer too, aren't you? And possibly the clock if you're playing all the bad guys.
Emilio: Ah, right. So, are you a virgin then? Because we probably have time to take care of THAT before we dock.
Diandra: Not if the writers are thinking it's a twenty minute boat ride across a lake.
Chrissy: Um...sweetie? I know you're asexual, but...uh...
Diandra: Have you seen what they're wearing? It would take that long just to undo buttons.
Emilio: That's probably true.

He reaches for her hand and she says she has "high hopes for this partnership". His face falls a little and he lets go. The clock smiles smugly.

Cut to her sleeping in a lifeboat that is suddenly cut loose and crashes to the water. Miss Minutes assures Victor he had no choice with the way she was talking about partnership and all and they wave as the boat continues on, leaving her in its wake. She grabs the oars and strains to follow.

Victor arrives at his lab and activates Miss Minutes via whatever device as she probably instructed him to. He bustles around gathering papers while she murmurs that he reminds her of Him because he's so brilliant. Look at all this stuff. He picks up a device from a desk and identifies it as the "culmination of my life's...work." He flips a sort of cover and a bunch of dials inside spin. Miss Minutes gushes about how smart he is and he puts the device in his bag with all the papers, announcing that they can go now. She asks what the rush is. He says he thought they had to get to the TVA. You know, to save it. Miss Minutes thinks maybe they should "lay low" for a while, actually. And then she plays the jealousy card, turning back to her modern color scheme and musing about her fear that he liked Ravonna better than her and is there a sketch of her in that journal? He says um...no? Maybe later? She starts rambling about how he created her before the TVA or even the Multiversal War to have someone to play chess with.

Emilio: Chess. Yes. That's all I made an AI for. Mmmhmm.

But he knew she could be so much more, so he gave her sentience and the ability to rewrite her own programming. Although they still played chess every night and talked and talked and are you GETTING WHERE THIS IS GOING YET? He concludes that she is a loyal friend.

Emilio: In the sense that Achilles and Patroclus were totally just cousins, sure.

She takes some offense because they spent "eons" together, through the war and everything that came after it. But he never EVER gave her a body for some reason.

Emilio: Because I wouldn't have gotten anything else done after that.
Chrissy: [applauds] Yep, we made the right role play choices.

He says that wasn't really HIM though...was it? But she's fully immersed in her ramblings about what they could have been if she had a body.

Emilio: [makes a crude gesture]
Diandra: Yes, we get it.

She says they could have "led" together. He stammers that that's something he doesn't know how to do.

Chrissy: Yeah, we're getting that sense.
Diandra: It's easy. Just like riding a bike. [looks pointedly at Chrissy]
Chrissy: Oh, we ALL know how proficient I am at bike riding, Mobi, I'm just holding out for a ten speed.
Diandra: ................I regret everything.
Chrissy: And by "ten speed" I mean Stephen. Though that might have to be a variant because I doubt the one that isn't Sorcerer Supreme could keep up with me.
Diandra: No, I'm not getting sucked into this fanfic.
Chrissy: You keep saying that and then you end up writing the fic, like, two years later anyway.

She keeps talking about how he flat out refused to do it because he wanted to keep her as his "thing". "Your computer. Your toy."

Emilio: Ahem. Yes.

She morphs into a somewhat more human face (but not really) and attaches herself to one of the mannequins in the lab as she says she could have been his "girl". He grabs for her remote and she yelps that she loves him and he needs her and DON'T PUSH THAT BUTTON. He does and she disappears.

Ravonna arrives just then to ask if that was a lover's tiff. Victor gasps "thank god you're here," like he wasn't the one who tried to ditch her. She fires up a very large prune stick that she apparently found at the back of the lab because he babbles that it's a dangerous, unstable prototype. He tries to apologize for leaving her behind and she snaps that she doesn't care because it was He Who Remains who sent her on this mission and "from now on I'M the one in charge." She prunes the nearest mannequin and asks if they're "clear".

Emilio: Hang on...might need a minute to get the blood back up into my brain...

He sits down just as Loki and Mobius burst through the door and order her to stand down because they need him. Mobius calls her "Von" and tries to reason: is this the "free will" she was looking for? He says she has lost her way and she laughs that he would DARE talk to her like that "after all those years of doing your dirty work" which is apparently how she defines cleaning up after him and making the choices he's too wishy washy to make. She rambles about making the welfare of the TVA more important to her humanity. Loki starts building up green energy while Mobius tries to change tactics and talk about the bigger picture. The prune stick sparks and Victor squeaks in alarm. She snaps that he has NO IDEA what it takes to keep that place running, which is why it started crumbling the second she left. She's been keeping it stable for "eons". "All that matters is order versus chaos. I'm order." A blast of green energy comes from the other side of the room, knocking everything over because chaos is going to be represented in this analogy by Sylvie formerly known as Loki Variant. She pulls her dagger and menaces toward Victor, who just whimpers that he hasn't done anything.

Chrissy: New to time travel and variants, are you?

She says he WILL. He says that's not him and she doesn't actually know him. "You don't know the heart I have...beating in my ch-ch-chest." Her face crumples and she snaps at somebody to get him out of here.

Mobius opens a time door and instructs him to go through it. They go to follow and she snaps "don't make me regret this" at Loki. "And leave her to me." They are totally fine with this arrangement now and leave her alone with Renslayer. "I suppose I've been a box you've been wanting to tic for a long time," Renslayer says.

Chrissy: Well, actually, I wanted to kill you, but I suppose we could have some fun first, yes.
Diandra: Oh, what the...
Emilio: Ooo, I like this plot bunny. Just give me twenty minutes to undo all these buttons...

Sylvie flips the dagger around and rams the handle into Ravonna's stomach. Ravonna staggers and gasps and then tells her to just get it over with if she's going to kill her then.

Chrissy: Nope. I'm going to take my time. Really draw it out. Maybe make you beg me a couple more times.

Sylvie says she's starting to realize that this obsession and increasingly graphic fantasies she imagines for how she would kill her when she got the chance isn't healthy. "It's power for you, isn't it? That's what you want. A seat at the end of time. Well. Be careful what you wish for." She opens a time door with He Who Remains' temp pad and kicks her through it.

Ravonna ends up in the citadel at the end of time, which is in the process of crumbling around He Who Remain's corpse, still slumped in the chair where Sylvie left him. He is decomposed enough that he's only sort of recognizable. She activates Miss Minutes because I guess she grabbed that control pad at some point there and Miss Minutes finishes whatever sentence she was saying before with "...love you" before looking around and realizing where they are now. Ravonna hisses that she "had him under control" until Miss Minutes decided to "sabotage" her and made them look like "fools". "Well," Miss Minutes says coldly. "It was foolish of him to make an enemy out of someone who knows all his secrets." Speaking of which, she knows a doozy about Ravonna, but if she tells her it's gonna make her REAL angry.

And on that cliffhanger...sort of...we smash to credits.

Emilio: Can we go back to that last plot bunny?
Diandra: [sigh] I'm pretty sure there's just as much Sylvie/Ravonna femslash as there is Loki/Mobius slash and if the goal is to goad me into writing EITHER of those things, that's a non-starter, so.
Chrissy: Yeah, apparently she can only be prompted to pair Loki with one of the Sherlocks.
Diandra: [instinctively] Or both. [pause] Wait...what?
Chrissy: [evil cackle]
Diandra: I hate you so much.