Tom Hiddleston's time as Loki seemingly came to an abrupt end in Avengers: Infinity War when the God of Mischief was throttled by Thanos. However, that wasn't the last we saw of the villain, as an alternate timeline version of the character returned in Avengers: Endgame.
Thanks to Earth's Mightiest Heroes playing around with time-travel, Loki was able to escape with the Tesseract, and that's where we pick up with him in the Loki TV series coming to Disney+ early next month.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hiddleston admitted that he believed Infinity War was it for him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "It felt very, very final, and I thought, 'Okay, that's it. This is Loki's final bow and a conclusive end to the Odinson saga.'"
When shooting on Endgame rolled around, the actor still hadn't been told what the plans was for his character, and you'd best believe he had some questions. "Where'd he go? When does he go? How does he get there? These are all questions I remember asking on the day, and then not being given any answers." Marvel Studios kept him in the dark, and the answer didn't come until 2018 when Infinity War hit theaters and he was told a solo series was in the works.
"I probably should not have been surprised, but I was," the actor says. "But only because Infinity War had felt so final."
Kevin Feige adds, "[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the '70s. I think the notion that we had left this hanging loose end with Loki gave us the in for what a Loki series could be. So by the time [Endgame] came out, we did know where it was going."
Now, all eyes will be on Loki when his series premieres next month and the God of Mischief finds himself forced to work for the Time Variance Authority. We're bound to get some answers when it comes to what it means for this version of Loki to be in the MCU again (not having experienced the events of Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok, he was never redeemed for his villainous past).
Loki premieres on Disney+ on June 9.