Since season 2 of Loki wrapped up last Thursday, fans have been left with plenty to discuss. Given the ambiguous nature of the God of Mischief's actions and the fact He Who Remains made an unexpected return as the mastermind of pretty much everything we'd seen in this second batch of episodes, it's no wonder there's been at least some confusion.
Talking to Deadline, Loki Head Writer Eric Martin attempted to clear up what we saw in those closing moments. In a form Marvel Studios has officially dubbed "God Loki," the Asgardian destroyed the Time Loom, took all those dying branches, and held them in his grasp on a throne where the Citadel at the End of Time once stood.
So, is he a battery? A prisoner? Or something more?
"Going into Season 2, it felt like an opportunity to bring gravity to the series to step up a level, because we marched up the line and got to the man behind the curtain and the stakes got extremely high at the end of the season. Let’s keep climbing. Let’s keep building that," Martin explains. "The idea was always Loki would finally get his throne when it was the last thing he wanted."
"And like Atlas, he’s burdened with this purpose and his purpose is holding all of time together. He has replaced the Loom. He’s become so powerful that he alone can hold time together."
Well, there you have it. "God Loki" makes a whole lot more sense now! That does, however, mean that Loki will remain inside the tree-like Multiverse for the foreseeable future.
Martin later explained why Loki needed to be taken on such a harrowing journey before he could restore the Multiverse. "The harder the journey, the more valuable the victory," he says. "The more satisfying the conclusion. I wanted to take Loki down 30 miles of rough road, like let’s make this hard."
"Because if we are going to level him up to be this capital G God, he has to earn that. It has to actually be plausible in the way that he is now incredibly knowledgeable, incredibly powerful," Martin continues. "But what time gives us all is wisdom. He’s now incredibly wise. He has lived so much. It felt absolutely necessary to run him through that wringer because of all of that."
In the same interview, executive producer Kevin Wright predictably refused to give anything away about what comes next. However, director Aaron Moorhead did at least shed some light on what became of Rafael Casal's Brad Wolfe.
When we last saw him, he was forced to watch on in horror as Judge Renslayer and Miss Minutes brutally killed his fellow TVA agents. Ravonna was later pruned, of course, while the TVA's mascot got rebooted.
As for Brad, "If you notice in the scene where they’re rebooting Miss Minutes and finding out if she’s a dangerous AI and Mobius is kind of frozen with his coffee cup preoccupied with something? If you look on his desk, beneath the file, you’ll see there’s a jet ski magazine featuring Brad Wolfe," the filmmaker reveals. "You realize that that’s actually what ended up happening to Brad."
Some new spoiler stills from the Loki season 2 finale have also been released which you can check out below.