With two years between seasons, we don’t blame you if you’ve forgotten what happened at the conclusion of Loki Season 1. So with the second season of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series arriving on Disney+ this October, I’m here to help you catch up with a guide to how Loki Season 1 ended.
What Happened in Marvel’s Loki Season 1
I won’t cover every single event in Loki Season 1, but there are a few things you’ll need to know for the conclusion to make sense. The series began where Avengers: Endgame left off, with an alternate version of Loki escaping with the Cosmic Cube. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s “main” Loki still died at the hands of Thanos, but thanks to the Avengers’ temporal meddling, this second version of Loki was unleashed upon the universe.
Only, not for long. He was captured by the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organisation that protects the one “sacred” timeline. They do this by destroying any branching timelines and capturing or eliminating alternate individuals, known as “variants.” Loki was labelled as one such variant.
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After a little soul searching, witnessing how his original self lived and died, Loki agreed to work with the TVA to capture Sylvie, a female version of himself. Her mission was to find out who was truly behind the TVA. Loki eventually teamed up with her, and with help from TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius, they uncovered the truth.
The MCU series revealed that everyone who worked at the TVA was a variant, most of whom had been mind-wiped, while the Time Keepers, who were the supposed leaders of the TVA, were robots. The person behind the TVA was, instead, actually He Who Remains, a variant of Kang the Conqueror, the big bad for the MCU’s current slate of projects. Upon learning the truth, Ravonna Renslayer, a major figure in the TVA, walked away from the group.
How Season 1 of the Loki MCU Show Ended
The ending for Loki Season 1 set up the MCU’s journey into the multiverse in a big way. He Who Remains explained that there once was a multiverse, but he destroyed it because different universes went to war with each other, usually under the command of his alternate selves. He gave Loki and Sylvie the opportunity to take over his role as guardian of the one timeline. Loki considered it, but Sylvie killed him. This led to the creation of multiple branching realities, and thus a new multiverse.
Sylvie stayed in He Who Remains’ fortress and threw Loki back to the TVA. However, upon his return, Loki discovered that the statues of the Time Keepers that had previously been at the TVA had been replaced with a version of Kang the Conqueror. Additionally, neither Mobius nor Hunter B-15, one of Loki’s other allies in the series, recognised him. It’s there, confused and in a TVA entirely unlike the one he knew, that Loki Season 1 left the God of Mischief.
