Warning! Spoilers for Loki episode 2, "The Variant."
Loki episode 2 reveals Lady Loki – the variant wreaking havoc on the TVA – and her plan to destroy the Sacred Timeline. The character’s true motivations haven’t yet been revealed, but there are enough clues through the first two episodes of the show to give a good idea of what exactly Lady Loki is after, and why she wants to do it. She’s already well on her way to dismantling the Sacred Timeline and taking down the Time-Keepers, which could have major ramifications for the MCU as a whole.
At the end of Loki episode 1, Mobius reveals to Loki that the variant he’s hunting is in fact another version of the trickster god. A scene then plays of a hooded figure ambushing and decimating a squad of TVA hunters, stealing their reset charge in the process. Episode 2 spends most of its runtime chasing after this mysterious new Loki, revealing that they’ve been using apocalyptic events in the Sacred Timeline to hide in plain sight from the TVA. After tracking the variant down to 2050 Alabama, she reveals herself as Lady Loki, a modified version of the character from the Marvel comics, taunts the other, main Loki, and uses the TVA’s own equipment to set off dozens of reset charges across the Sacred Timeline.
It’s clear that Lady Loki’s intentions are chaotic and destructive, but there’s clearly more going on than simply madness for the sake of madness. Precious little is known at this point about her origin or true motivations. However, some clues have already revealed themselves. Here’s everything we know about Lady Loki’s plan to destroy the Sacred Timeline, her connection to the Time-Keepers, and what it all could mean for the MCU.
Clearly, Lady Loki has been preparing for her bombing run on the Sacred Timeline for some time. The climax of Loki episode 2 reveals that she’s collected a frightening number of reset charges, and after stealing a TVA device that lets her summon time doors, she’s able to send them all to different moments in time and space to detonate, causing numerous nexus events and threatening the stability of the Sacred Timeline. She also, thanks to the TVA hunter she kidnapped, apparently knows the secret location of the Time-Keepers themselves.
What does all of that mean? In all likelihood, Lady Loki is undertaking a multi-pronged operation to completely eradicate the Time-Keepers’ control over the universe. By destabilizing the Sacred Timeline, she’s weakened the TVA’s ability to monitor and manipulate events, spread their resources thin (while also taking down numerous hunter squads), and created a brilliant diversion for whatever the next phase of her plan might be. Since she now knows where the Time-Keepers are, it seems likely that she’ll use the chaos of her attack as a cover to orchestrate her next strike on the Time-Keepers themselves. If she’s able to find them and defeat them, or even incapacitate them briefly, their entire membrane of control – including the TVA itself – could crumble.
So why does Lady Loki have it out so bad for the Time-Keepers? There are a few possible reasons. The first and most obvious is, simply, chaos. As the God of Mischief, Lady Loki might object strongly to the idea that all events in all eras are predetermined. The main Loki makes this same complaint to Mobius several times in episode 2, claiming that a perfectly ordered and predictable universe is boring. It’s also possible that Lady Loki is as villainous as the TVA believes, and that she wants to claim the Time-Keepers’ power for herself, becoming the dominant master of the universe via temporal control.
However, it’s also possible that Lady Loki might not be as much of a villain as the TVA has led Loki to believe. Yes, she’s killed many TVA agents, and some civilians, so she’s clearly not a paragon of virtue. But she may be hurting people for the same reason Loki said he hurts people in episode 1 – because sometimes he believes he has to. The Time-Keepers are mysterious, invisible, and their story as told by the TVA is full of holes. There’s no proof of the multiverse war that reportedly almost destroyed reality, and there’s no explanation of where the Time-Keepers came from, or how they managed to create a single timeline. Some theories hold that the Time-Keepers are actually the villains of the show and that their control over time and space is much more malicious than many in the TVA realize. If that’s true, Lady Loki’s vendetta could actually be somewhat noble, a crusade against tyrannical rulers who have restricted all freedom in the universe.
Lady Loki taunts the protagonist Loki repeatedly during the climax sequence of episode 2, but after sending off the reset charges and escaping through a time door, she leaves the portal open just long enough for Loki to follow her. As soon as he leaps through, the time door closes, stopping Mobius and his TVA squad from pursuing the two variants. That suggests that Lady Loki wanted Loki to follow her and that he might have a role to play in her larger plan. It could be that she’s only using him as a pawn and that her leaving the time door open is part of some greater deception. Or it’s possible that she bought his story about wanting to overthrow the Time-Keepers and truly wants him as an ally. Maybe there’s a whole Loki army forming, arming themselves to take down the TVA. Or maybe Lady Loki just forgot to close the time door. Right now, it’s unclear.
According to the TVA’s educational videos, the Sacred Timeline was the end of the MCU multiverse. That means that if the Sacred Timeline were undone by creating multiple unfixable nexus events, it could recreate the multiverse. It’s possible that Lady Loki’s ultimate end goal is to do just that – reform the multiverse by dismantling the Time-Keepers and the TVA, thereby freeing the MCU of its singular, predictable story. That could make a lot of sense for a god bent on causing mischief and chaos, but it would also make a lot of sense for the MCU as a franchise. Reestablishing a concrete multiverse would allow for Marvel to bring in the X-Men, and countless other alternate realities and storylines from the comics. And since Loki writer Michael Waldron is also the writer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seems likely that the Sacred Timeline won’t exactly be in great shape by the end of the show.
Loki releases new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.
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