Loki season 2 showed us the end of the MCU – but what did we really see?

It’s time for more Asgardian tricks with the God of Mischief. Loki is back for a second season, and things are already getting intense. Marvel Studios hit the ground running, raising the stakes for their exciting season premiere. We saw more time travel, new characters (Hi O.B.!), and the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it. If that last point alarms you, it’s worth noting that things aren’t always what they seem. The Disney+ streaming series loves to keep us on our toes, and like Loki himself, the scripts can be tricky.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. If you want to know more about our trip to the future, keep reading after the spoiler warning.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Loki season 2 premiere!

What Loki saw in the future

Loki is having a bit of a time problem. Throughout the season premiere, the God of Mischief finds himself randomly phasing to different points in the timeline. This is pretty inconvenient, since there are lots of important things to take care of, like stabilizing the Time Loom. This is an urgent matter, since the collapse of the Time Loom would mean the end of the TVA – oh, and every branch of reality in the MCU.

Like I said, it’s a really bad time for Loki to be phasing around the timeline.

During one of Loki’s involuntary time-warps, the trickster finds himself in the future. Loki is distressed to see the TVA almost deserted, as alarms ring in the background. The few people Loki does spot are frantically running as if their lives depended on it. A voice on a loudspeaker warns everyone to evacuate. As if things weren’t eerie enough, a display screen indicates that the Time Loom is about to collapse. As we just established, this is a very bad thing.

Loki wanders the halls of the TVA, trying to make sense of this dark future. As he walks through an eerily deserted corridor, he hears a phone ringing. Before Loki can answer the call, an elevator door is pulled open, and Sylvie emerges. “There you are,” Sylvie says. Before Loki can respond to his variant, he finds himself overcome with pain. His body begins to phase back to the present, where he helps Mobius and O.B. fix the problem with the Time Loom.

What does it all mean?

Loki’s trip to the future sets up a lot of questions.

• How far in the future was he? A week? A decade?
• Why is everyone evacuating the TVA?
• Who was on the other end of the phone?
• What happened to the Time Loom?
• What is Sylvie’s role in all of this?

Popverse doesn’t have the TVA’s technology, so we can’t exactly go into the future to find these answers. Instead, we’re going to give our best guess.

Sylvie has plenty of reasons to be mad at the TVA, which makes her a likely suspect for their current state. It’s possible she did something to the Time Loom, causing the alarm to go off, and everyone to evacuate. This would answer a few of the questions.

Here’s an interesting twist – I think Loki is helping her. By Loki, I mean the Loki of the future (writing about time travel can be weird). It’s hard to read Sylvie’s tone when she greets Loki, but she doesn’t seem distressed to see him. Perhaps this is a plan they hatched together.

But why would Loki help destroy the TVA? This seems odd, since he’s trying to save it in the season premiere. It might have something to do with Kang. The villain or one of his variants might have taken over the TVA. Or maybe Loki grew tired of their chronological bureaucracy and decided to burn the whole thing down.

Wouldn’t that mean destroying all of time? In theory, but maybe Loki and Sylvie have a backup plan. Maybe the Sacred Timeline will correct itself and gain autonomy without the Time Loom and the TVA. Or maybe everyone is in deep trouble.

With all of that in mind, I think Future-Loki is on the other end of the phone. It’s clear he and Sylvie got separated, and so perhaps he’s calling to find her. Don’t forget, both of them are unable to use their magic in the TVA.

When is this happening? My best bet is the season finale. In other words, we could be mere weeks from the end of time, and the end of the MCU (at least until The Marvels comes out).

This adds some extra suspense to the season. We don’t know when this moment is coming, which makes it feel like a ticking timebomb. Where will this all lead, and what did Loki really see?

Time will tell.

Confused? Here's how to watch Loki's MCU journey in order.