This week's episode of Loki kicks off with the Variant inside Roxxcart infiltrating the mind of the TVA agent she kidnapped last week. Creating a surprisingly normal setting of a bar, the villain manages to find out that the Time-Keepers can be reached by using a gold elevator within the Time Variance Authority headquarters. With that, she notices the arrival of Loki and the TVA, and we then jump to her arriving at the TVA shortly after the events of that big cliffhanger.
The God of Mischief isn't far behind, but like him, the Variant can't quite seem to access her powers properly in the TVA. Despite that, she makes short work of those she encounters but soon clashes with Loki after he realises that she can't be reasoned with. It's then Judge Renslayer arrives, but Loki is quick to use the TemPad to escape before they're both pruned from the sacred timeline.
Arriving on Lamentis-1 just hours before it's destroyed by colliding with the planet above, they continue to bicker, and the only way off this rock is with the TemPad that's just run out of juice! There's a surprisingly intimate moment between the two when the Variant tries to enchant Loki, and we learn that she's spent years planning to kill the Time-Keepers. After agreeing to a team-up that will ensure their survival, Loki learns that this female Loki now uses "Sylvie" as her alias (find more on that here), and their attempts to charge the TemPad...well, they don't work too well.
Loki disguises himself as a guard to get them onto a train that's heading for "the ark," a ship that's being used to evacuate the moon. He needs some help from Sylvie, and it's at this point they start getting to know each other a little better. We don't learn much about her beyond the fact her mother died when she was young (Freya, we're assuming) and that, unlike Loki, she learned early on that she was adopted. Sylvie also taught herself magic, and the two ponder the meaning of love. However, while Sylvie sleeps, Loki gets drunk and after a fight with the guards, is thrown from the train. Sylvie follows, but the TemPad has been destroyed. Now, their only hope is to get on the ark and stop it from being destroyed in this timeline.
It's at this point Loki learns a devastating secret about the TVA - we have more details on that for you here - and Sylvie and the agent were shown in a bar together because it was a memory from the girl's past - she's a Variant too, just like all of those who report to the Time-Keeping. They just don't know it. Loki and Sylvie don't get much time to talk before having to fight their way to the ark. A great, action-packed sequence follows, but they're too late: it's destroyed by a piece of the planet above, and the episode ends with Loki gob-smacked and Sylvie walking away. They're trapped on Lamentis-1 with just hours to go before the moon is completely obliterated...