History Recap / LokiEpisode11ScienceFiction

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: In contrast to the shop keeper, Lyle who is running and shouting, Sylvie looks more surprised than terrified of the reality unraveling around her, and carefully watches this new apocalypse before opening the time door and slowly walking away. Since she grew up in apocalypses and escaped untold number of them, for her it is just Tuesday.

* UpTheRealRabbitHole: The major point of debate between Loki and Sylvie is whether the TVA or the ordinary life is more "real," and BothSidesHaveAPoint. Loki tells Don that Mobius is his "real name" and is intent on restoring the TVA. When he shares his plan with Sylvie, she argues that after the destruction of the TVA Don and the rest are now "back in their real lives", and it is better for them this way. He sulkily agrees with her and returns to A.D.Doug's place alone to announce it to the rest only for her to change her mind and follow him.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: A.D. Doug tries to make his books seem more impressive than they are by placing his own book in the bookstore and buying it. The ruse is immediately discovered when the barcode reader doesn't scan and the cashier sees his picture.

* CallBack:
** Loki uses Mobius's "form and function" line about jet skis when Don is trying to sell him one at his home.
** The first thing Casey as Frank says is "They're gonna gut us like fish." Seems that he used to know what a fish is before becoming part of the TVA.

** A.D. Doug (O.B.'s pre-[=TVA=] self) shocks Loki to trigger his timeslipping, in the same way that Tony Stark, in ''Film/TheAvengers2012'', shocked Banner as a light-hearted test of his control over becoming the Hulk.

* CrisisMakesPerfect: After the explosion of the Loom, Loki begins timeslipping again. In the middle of the episode, A.D. Doug notes that while doing so Loki always ends up around the people he needs. He urges Loki to conciously control this ability, but Loki comically fails to do so. In the end, Loki watches his friends disintegrate one by one, with Sylvie the last one to go, until Loki is left alone in the crumbling timeline. He then jumps further and further back in time thrice in a row, and declares that he attained control over timeslipping.

* FreakOut: Loki has one after seeing everyone spaghettified and having to hear their last words echoing in his mind.

* InSpiteOfANail: While everyone else's occupations are radically different from what they used to do as their old TVA selves, A.D. Doug is a scientist just like Ouroburos.

** Dr. Willis' lab coat shows she's working at the Roger Willis Children's Clinic. Roger Willis features in a single ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'' storyline in the 80s. His daughter, Verity, however, is introduced in ''ComicBook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'' and plays a major role in Loki being reborn as the God of Stories.

** O.B. was A.D. Doug, an unsuccessful science fiction writer and theoretical physicist at [=CalTech=] from 1994 (to 1995/1996 after building his [=TemPad=] for nineteen months) Pasadena, California.

* ButHeSoundsHandsome: When attempting to buy his own book from the bookstore, A.D. Doug says that the author is "one of the greats" and that he "[[FromACertainPointOfView [reads] everything he does]]".

* CreatorCameo: Directors Creator/JustinBenson and Creator/AaronMoorhead show up as Clarence and John Anglin, the two other Alcatraz escapees.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Shortly before Loki appears to talk to her, Sylvie's meal from [=McDonald’s=] dissolves just like everything in the TVA. This foreshadows that the branched timeline she set up a life will soon fall apart, and the other timelines will suffer the same fate.

%%* WholePlotReference: Loki's journey between multiple timelines to put the team back together to avert the dissolution of all branch timelines is very similar to Atreyu's search for anyone who can help avert Fantasia's destruction by the Nothing in ''Literature/TheNeverendingStory''

* TeleportationRescue: Possibly. When Loki awakens in the TVA, the PA system mentions the activation of a failsafe and the entire facility has been emptied. Since Loki finds his friends on branched timelines, the implication is that the TVA automatically booted all its staff back to their timelines with complimentary memory wipes, though it's not precisely clear if the TVA or the Loom explosion is responsible for that because the nature of the failsafe goes unexplained. The fact that Sylvie is on her adopted timeline, Loki is simply time slipping again, and both remember everything further muddles the issue, though WordOfGod states it's because they're "gods" and the normal rules don't apply to them.

* TeleportationRescue: Possibly. When Loki awakens in the TVA, the PA system mentions the activation of a failsafe and the entire facility has been emptied. Since Loki finds his friends on branched timelines, the implication is that the TVA automatically booted all its staff back to their timelines with complimentary memory wipes, though it's not precisely clear if the TVA or the Loom explosion is responsible for that because the nature of the failsafe goes unexplained. The fact that Sylvie is on her adopted timeline and remembers everything further muddles the issue, though she could have simply used her [=TemPad=] to escape at the last moment.

* StrugglingSingleMother: It's revealed that Mobius, or Don as he was known then, was a single father who had trouble reining in his sons.

* OhCrap: Sylvie quickly realizes that Loki's fears about the TVA needing to survive to save all of time are ''entirely correct'' when she sees the record shop she's in start to spaghettify around her. Downplayed, as she still has He Who Remains' [=TemPad=] which lets her effortlessly escape the situation, only to fall victim to it a few minutes later when the decay catches up to the branch Loki is on.

* FreedomFromChoice: Loki points out that the TVA agents who returned to the timeline and lost their memories have been deprived of the choice to be in the TVA. Sylvie claims that they're better off that way as having to make a choice between a normal life and the TVA could lead to a lifetime of regret.

* StrugglingSingleFather: It's revealed that Mobius, or Don as he was known then, was a single father who had trouble reining in his sons.

** The first thing Casey as Frank say is "They're gonna gut us like fish." Seems that he used to know what a fish is before becoming part of the TVA.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Sylvie is flippant about the destruction of the TVA and thinks Loki's zeal to save it is more a selfish desire to have somewhere he belongs. Then time itself starts falling apart and she's now too late to do anything about it. Fortunately, this ends up being the kick in the pants Loki needs to get his time-slipping under control, providing an alternate solution.

* SourceMusic: Sylvie listens to the beginning of Music/TheVelvetUnderground's "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" in a record shop.