And the crowd is left silent.
The Season 2 finale of Loki, ‘Glorious Purpose,’ goes beyond what could’ve been imagined for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and fulfills Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) glorious purpose he’s been after. Loki should be labeled as the best Disney+ Marvel show, as it brings everything fans could ask for.
The finale is not only an ending for Season 2 but also the first season as it brings everything together if it is all one season that just had a long break between the first half and the second half. Everything from this episode and the latest season gets tied back to what was happening in Season 1 and within the MCU films.
The opening Marvel logo with the clips from each film starts from the end and rewinds to the beginning to represent Loki’s time slipping with him going back in time during this episode — something that shows just how much attention to detail Marvel has when it comes to its shows and films.
While the questions asked in Episode 5’s review of ‘Science/Fiction’ weren’t answered, it seems that they don’t need to be with how the episode played out to be.
With the montage of Loki trying to get Victor Timely, He Who Remains variant (Jonathan Majors) out to the Temporal Loom faster to help prevent it from blowing up, the first 10 or so minutes show how determined Loki is to keep his friends and prevent disaster now. From this, the viewer gets to revisit some moments from the past season to bring in some of that comedic tension reliever to this intense episode: Loki introducing O.B. (Ke Huy Quan) and Timely, both being the writers of The Time Variance Authority handbook, the model figure does look like Mobius (Owen Wilson) but is actually Timely because he will volunteer, and a few other moments in time replayed this episode making Loki look like he can see the future or read minds to the others in the room.
With centuries passing as Loki memorizes how to do everything differently, and even though it’s less than 20 minutes into the episodes, it actually gets viewers to slightly believe this time will be the one to fix everything and get it right because it exists the clips from the montage and delivers an actual play by play scene. And to Loki’s disappointment, everything continued to go wrong, but it’s not disappointing to the viewer as they now get to timeslip back to the ending of Season 1 with Loki trying and failing to prevent Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) from killing He Who Remains.
The episode introduces more clips combined of Loki replaying a scene over and over again for his end results. Yet there’s something different at play here … foreshadowing and a pause in the montage to raise the stakes.
The conversation Loki and Sylvie have while fighting predicts the ending from her assuming he just wants to take the throne. Then fast forward to He Who Remains pausing the time slip to speak with Loki — a foreshadowing moment spoon-fed to viewers of He Who Remains claiming he keeps the peace by staying on his throne alone. This episode throws hints of Loki taking a thrown at the viewer’s face from the scenes at the end of time to the scene of Loki going back to when Mobius is questioning him about what he wants, and Loki responds with his thrown, the tension only builds to prove how Loki can and will bring these moments to life.
With Loki at the end of time, it’s revealed how powerful he is. Being able to time slip repeatedly without losing his mind, freezing time, and flaunting how he might’ve had interactions with He Who Remains without He Who Remains remembering, Loki grows to make viewers wonder why Marvel waited this long to show all his power because it’s something that needs to be seen. Loki could possibly be more powerful than He Who Remains.
And with ‘Glorious Purpose,’ it’s no wonder Sylvie didn’t have character growth in Season 1 and still ended up killing He Who Remains … It is all part of the timeline to bring Loki to this point in the MCU with a proper ending. It all needs to connect one way or another.
If the scenes at the end of time didn’t prove to fans all the power Loki could have and does have, then everyone was in for a treat when Loki ended up realizing what he needs to do, and let’s just say no one will be second guessing Loki’s powers or what Marvel is capable of when it comes to the new shows and movies.
As Loki creates Yggdrasil (The Tree of Life) from each timeline after he steps out to the Temporal Loom his clothes start to evaporate only to grow his horns and armor. Here, Loki truly finds his glorious purpose and claims the throne for what could be interpreted as him becoming He Who Remains sitting in the abyss alone keeping the peace.
‘Glorious Purpose’ is the perfect ending for Loki overall, not just the show as a whole. As sad as it might be to say goodbye to the character Loki, this should be (and probably is) his ending within the MCU. This show will be one for fans to rewatch over and over again, just like Loki was reliving his life with the time slipping.
