Our variance thus far: On the run from the TVA, Loki and Sylvie are trapped in an apocalyptic event with no hope of escape. Meanwhile, Mobius and the minute men search for the missing variants. Spoilers ahead!

Two variants walk into a bar… well, get accidentally dropped onto an apocalyptic moon. A joke like that can’t end well, right? Especially when your plan to take out the TVA can no longer come to fruition. While they are waiting for their impending doom, Sylvie confides snippets of her backstory to Loki. She was taken by TVA minute men when she was just a child playing with toys—we don’t know exactly how long ago, but Ravonna Renslayer was a hunter at the time, and not a judge. But before little Sylvie can be pruned, she steals Ravonna’s tempad and disappears.

For years (decades? centuries?), Sylvie lived inside apocalypses as she hid from TVA agents and planned her revenge. Unable to be reunited with her family for fear of causing a noted nexus event, this Loki variant has been alone with her anger for the majority of her life. And for the first time, both she and Loki are not alone as they face their fate.

The two of them touch briefly as the planet above begins to crash into the moon, and far away at the TVA a disturbance is noted in the sacred timeline. Something about the two Lokis has caused a nexus event, and the TVA is quick to recapture them before the moon is obliterated.

Back at headquarters, Mobius is visibly frustrated with Loki. Not only does he not understand what the source of the sudden nexus event was, it would seem that he feels like Loki abandoned him when he chose to run after Sylvie at the end of episode two. (Did Mobius make a friend??) To try to “break” Loki, Mobius tries a version of good cop/bad cop by 1) trapping Loki in a time loop where he is forced to relive a scene from his past wherein Lady Sif is angry with him for cutting her hair; and then 2) trying to have a provoking conversation to get a rise out of Loki. The former is a great nod to the mythology, with heartbreaking elements of Loki being forced to listen to a comrade tell him repeatedly that he deserves to be alone. The latter is a callback to episode one, when Mobius said things to Loki that we later learned he doesn’t truly believe—when they first met, he told Loki he was destined to cause pain, and now he calls him the universe’s biggest narcissist who has fallen in love with himself (i.e. Sylvie).

Equally frustrated, Loki tells Mobius the great secret he learned about the TVA: that everyone within it is a variant, and not created by the Time Keepers as Mobius believes. At the same time, Hunter B-15 asks Sylvie to show her what she had seen when temporarily bewitched at Roxxcart, so Sylvie does—she accesses B-15’s memories from her former life on Earth, revealing that B-15 is a variant as well.

Mobius doesn’t seem to believe Loki at first, but is starting to doubt some things about Ravonna—particularly the sudden death of Hunter C-20 after her rescue from Roxxcart. Ravonna says C-20 took a turn for the worse and died, but Mobius doesn’t see how this is possible as she seemed fine when he saw her last. With Loki’s words ringing in his ears, he swaps his tempad with Ravonna’s to gain access to C-20’s file. To his shock, he finds a video wherein she is explaining to interrogators that they are all variants, just like she is.

Mobius frees Loki from his time loop (and mentions that he could be anything he wants to be, even a good person) and the two are aim to escape together with Sylvie. But before they can even form a full plan, Ravonna finds them and has Mobius pruned.

Dejected at the loss of someone he’s grown to trust and care for, Loki is silent as he and Sylvie are taken before the Time Keepers. The mysterious creatures sit in floating chairs high above the ground, and don’t appear to be doing the hard work that Mobius thought they were. As they are about to pass judgement on the two Lokis, Hunter B-15 intervenes by deactivating the variant collars. Able to fight back, Loki and Sylvie kill the guards and knock out Ravonna. Sylvie beheads one of the Time Keepers, and they realize that these supposedly all knowing and all powerful being are just androids. Wizard of Oz, anyone?

In the quiet moment after the struggle, Loki appears to come to terms with something. He takes Sylvie by the shoulders and says that he needs to tell her something…something that is new to him. And naturally, because this is Marvel and they like to make us cry, Ravonna prunes him from behind, like the coward she is. Despite her rage at the loss of…well, herself, Sylvie chooses not to kill Ravonna but instead use her to get information on whatever is actually going on behind the curtains of the TVA.

Oh, but don’t worry. Our favorite god of mischief isn’t actually dead. He never is, because that’s part of what makes a Loki a Loki. In a mid-credits scene, Loki comes to in a crumbled, dystopia-esque New York and is greeted by three other Loki variants.

Welcome to the Lokiverse.

What comes next?

“What comes next” seems like such a simple phrase, but it’s one that has taken the internet by storm since this episode’s premiere.

What we know: regardless of whether Loki and Sylvie’s relationship is meant to be read as romantic, it is definitely a metaphor for Loki learning to love himself. Similarly, whether the new Lokis are meant to be variants from the sacred timeline or alternate universe versions of Loki, they are all together and all alive, proving that Lokis never really die. This leads me to believe that Loki was going to tell Sylvie that they don’t deserve to be alone, or miserable, or at the mercy of others. They have each other now, and deserve companionship and camaraderie and love as much as anyone else. (Both of these things could also explain what caused the nexus event on Lamentis—two Lokis learning to care about themselves/others, and/or Lokis are not supposed to resign themselves to die.)

What we don’t know: honestly, there are so many fantastic theories out there based on the possibilities of what we don’t know that I’m hesitant to throw my two cents into the mix as well. I highly recommend watching videos from TikTok creators like jstoobs, straw_hat_goofy, and lyanamacaluso to name a few. They have some amazing ideas about what we might see in the final two episodes of Loki.

As for me, I just hope we get to see Mobius in this pocket dimension (Battleworld??) with Loki. And get that man a jet ski!

Loki airs on Wednesdays only on Disney Plus.