Click here to see the other poster for this episode.
"Without them, where do I belong?"
After the collapse of the Loom, Loki finds himself timeslipping once again, but this time to his friends' original time periods in the Multiverse, who now don't remember their time at the TVA. With existence in grave danger, Loki must recruit his friends.
Tropes:
- Acronym Confusion: When Loki tells Don that the TVA is gone, he thinks that Loki means "ATV" and tells him that the shop has a few of them upstairs.
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Don only says that his wife is "long gone", but whether that means she left him or passed away isn't revealed.
- Apocalypse How: With the TVA gone, the branch timelines begin dissolving, causing everyone and everything in them to spaghettify.
- Artistic License – Music: A minor case when Sylvie starts a record from the beginning but the song that plays is the last track, not the first.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: While trying (and failing) to convince Don to come with him, A.D. Doug (O.B.'s original self) barges in, having finally finished his TemPad.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Don's introduced ignoring a call from his sons, and then continues lightly chastising them when he gets home. But, even when Loki demonstrates the TemPad's time travel abilites, Don is still reluctant to join precisely because he would miss his sons. The promise of their safety is what Loki ultimately uses to convince Don to join, and Don's first thought is to return home after things start falling apart.Loki: Your boys won't even know you're gone.
Don: Yeah, but I will. - Bait-and-Switch: After Loki relates his time-slipping experiences to A.D. Doug, Doug replies that doing so in a place that doesn't exist isn't scientifically possible... then proceeds to give him fiction-based advice concerning the situation.
- Bedsheet Ladder: There is a ladder made from bedsheets hanging out of a window on the second floor of Don's house, presumably made by his sons.
- Big "NO!": Loki screams this in desperation as he sees everything turn into spaghetti.
- Black Comedy: Doug casually mentions that he quit his job and his wife left him over the nineteen months he spent building the TemPad.
- Brick Joke: While Loki and Sylvie attempt to make sense of things at the bar, a Zaniac arcade game is briefly glimpsed. At the very end of the credits, the viewer hears a Game Over message from the game.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: 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 "[reads] everything he does".
- Call-Back: Loki uses Mobius's "form and function" line about jet skis when Don is trying to sell him one at his home.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: Sylvie refuses to leave her life and help Loki restore the TVA. Shortly after that her home timeline disintegrates into nothingness, and she has to follow him anyway.
- Cassandra Truth: Downplayed. When the TemPad disappears, everyone turns to Frank. The man denies stealing it, up until the moment he's spaghettified.
- Central Theme: Storytelling. The title is based on an argument between Loki and A.D. over the TVA being science or fiction, one of Loki's last lines of the episode is how to change the "story" and Sylvie tells him it's time for him to write his own story.
- Chekhov's Gun: The TVA handbook that Loki was reading before the TVA itself was destroyed. It comes in handy in helping A.D. Doug, O.B.'s self on the timeline, in helping create TemPads he and Loki can use.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends as Loki masters his time-slipping powers and goes back to the moment before Victor Timely goes out to be spaghettified.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: 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 development 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.
- Continuity Nod:
- One of Frank's co-conspirators says that the Alcatraz guards will "gut them like a fish" if they're found — the exact thing that Loki threatened Casey with way back in "Glorious Purpose".
- An arcade game version of the movie Brad starred in can be seen in use when Loki and Sylvie head to a bar to talk about what's happened.
- The spaghettification of the main characters near the end of the episode is shot similarly to the Snap in Avengers: Infinity War, with each member disappearing one by one.
- A.D. Doug (O.B.'s pre-TVA self) shocks Loki to trigger his timeslipping, in the same way that Tony Stark, in The Avengers, shocked Banner as a light-hearted test of his control over becoming the Hulk.
- Cosmic Horror Story: The destruction of the Temporal Loom is a case of this for every branch timeline and the TVA itself. Without its presence to stabilize the flow of time across the multiverse, it is implied that every single alternate reality is doomed to dissolve into a formless mass of unwoven threads. Even more horrifying is the implication that many residents of these timelines will survive just long enough to witness the fabric of reality unraveling all around them before they too are finally spaghettified.
- Creator Cameo:
- Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead show up as Clarence and John Anglin, the two other Alcatraz escapees.
- Season 2 cinematographer Isaac Bauman portrays a customer at Don's shop who is interested in dirt bikes.
- Credits Gag: The episode's end credits have the letters of the staff's names falling out of place and the lines surrounding them branching and in disarray, mirroring the repercussions of the Loom's destruction.
- Crisis Makes Perfect: 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 consciously 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.
- Didn't Think This Through: 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 book's barcode doesn't scan and the cashier sees his picture on the cover.
- Diegetic Switch: "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" continues playing on the soundtrack even as Sylvie watches the record itself spaghettify.
- Double Meaning: Loki excuses his sudden disappearance from Don's workplace by stating that he was under a "time crunch".
- Dramatic Irony: After his talk with Sylvie, Loki decides to disband the group, stating that they'll be fine without the TVA. In bursts Sylvie, who tells Loki that the branches are dying.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Loki realizes that the question isn't "Why", "How" or "What" that allows him to control his timeslipping. It's "Who".
- Foreshadowing:
- As the TVA becomes spaghettified, the last monitor to remain says that a failsafe has been activated. It's not until the next episode that the meaning behind this is fully understood.
- 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.
- Freedom from Choice: 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 points out that they never had the choice to "join" the TVA in the first place, and claims that they're better off now as having to make a choice between a normal life and the TVA could lead to a lifetime of regret.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The names of B-15's and O.B.'s counterparts can be found early with a pause button.
- Dr. Willis' name is sewn onto her lab coat, and the credits briefly show her badge, revealing that her first name is Verity. The clinic may also be named after her family as the coat reveals it is the Roger Willis Children's Clinic, who is Verity's father in the comics.
- It's possible to make out "A.D. Doug, Ph.D" in the about the author blurb of The Zartan Contingent when he's trying to buy it at the bookstore. It's much more clearly visible on the stacks of The Sons of Yoren in his workshop.
- Funny Background Event:
- Loki timeslips back to Don's dealership in front of an inflatable tube man, whose wild movements mimic Loki's own as he finishes manifesting.
- While Loki tries to convince Don to come with them to save the TVA, A.D. is struggling with his prototype TemPad and the Time Door in the background.
- Futile Hand Reach: When the record shop keeper, Lyle realizes that everything around is disintegrating, he runs to Sylvie, screams her name to warn her and reaches out his hand to her. She tries to grab it, but it turns into strands of matter in her palms.
- Genre Savvy: While A.D. is scientifically literate enough to comprehend all of the Quantum Mechanics Loki is explaining to him, he's also a fiction-writer and is open to the idea that Loki's time skipping is an 11th-Hour Superpower controlled by a mix of Character Development and The Power of Friendship, something he's proven right about at the end of the episode.
- Historical Domain Character: It's revealed that Casey is in fact Frank Lee Morris
, one of the only three inmates to escape Alcatraz. - Hope Spot: Once Sylvie decides to join Loki's group, they attempt to extract everyone's temporal aura to get to the TVA... only the prototype TemPad disappears. As they argue with Frank about him stealing it, Frank suddenly spaghettifies. Then, one by one, Loki's friends all do the same, ending with Sylvie. However, this is subverted when Loki manages to control his timeslipping.
- Hourglass Plot: At the beginning of the episode, Loki is completely alone and has no control over his life as he is violently hurtled across time and space against his will. TVA, the place he considered a "home" of sorts, is gone. Sylvie is in full control and enjoying herself, surrounded by people she is on friendly terms with, such as the bartender and the record shop keeper. By the end of the episode, Loki has mastered the ability to travel through time and space, and is back at the TVA with his friends, ready to rewrite his story. While Sylvie's home timeline with all the people she knew has been destroyed, and as the song goes, "she ain't got nothing at all".
- I Can't Do This by Myself: Loki tells Sylvie that he cannot undo the destruction of the Time Loom and give his friends the choice to return to the TVA without her.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: It's revealed why O.B. understands the fantastical science of the TVA so well and engineered its tech: he was a sci-fi writer in his original timeline, as well as a theoretical physicist at CalTech.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: After Sylvie witnesses Loki almost-timeslip in front of her, she tells him that she'll buy him a drink with a shocked expression on her face.
- Insane Troll Logic: Downplayed, but A.D. Doug suggests that, since Loki was time traveling in a place that has no time, trying to get back to a place that doesn't exist would be equally possible. Lampshaded by both parties:Loki: Doesn't sound like science.
A.D. Doug: No. But it does sound like fiction. - In Spite of a Nail: 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 Ourobouros.
- Ironic Echo Cut: When Loki timeslips to A.D., he says that what he is about to tell him will be hard to believe. Cut to A.D. after Loki brought him up to speed saying "Of course I believe you!"
- Logo Joke: The LOKI show logo has different music in this episode, and also shows all the letters suddenly blinking out, representing what's happening to time itself.
- Mental Time Travel: Once Loki is in control of his time-slipping, his mind appears to take the place of his past self rather than physically moving there.
- Meta Fiction:
- A.D. is a science fiction author, the episode's title is "Science / Fiction", and Loki discusses with A.D. the difference between the two — science is about "how" and "what", while fiction is about "why". Turns out, Loki's "why" is "who".
- Characters in the episode constantly mull over the question of who controls the narrative. When Loki meets Sylvie and she does not react the way he expected, he notes that this is not how he thought "the scene would play out". Sylvie later urges him to "write his own story", and in the end Loki who mastered timeslipping declares that he can "rewrite" it.
- Mistaken for Insane: Loki initially leaves the impression of being an insane stalker to Don when he approaches him at his home. Loki awkwardly denies it when Don jokingly asks him if he followed him home, then calls Don "Mobius", insists that they are friends and blocks his path when Don attempts to leave. Don is about to defend himself with a wrench when A.D. arrives through a Time Door, after which Don starts to believe Loki.
- Mythology Gag:
- Certain aspects of this episode (including the Central Theme as noted above) seem to suggest that Loki is taking his God of Stories persona from the comics.
- Dr. Willis' lab coat shows she's working at the Roger Willis Children's Clinic. Roger Willis features in a single The Mighty Thor storyline in the '80s. His daughter, Verity, however, is introduced in Loki: Agent of Asgard and plays a major role in Loki being reborn as the God of Stories.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sylvie killed He Who Remains to give everyone free will and was flippant about the ensuing destruction of the TVA. 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.
- No Antagonist: Loki notably doesn't have any villains to contend with in this episode. Instead, the focus is solely on his race to prevent complete multiversal collapse and gain control of his time-slipping.
- Not Me This Time: After the TemPad disappears, Loki accuses Frank of stealing it, given his previous comments about using it to commit bank heists, but he honestly denies it.
- Oh, Crap!: Sylvie quickly realizes that Loki's fears about all of time collapsing 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.
- Orbital Shot: When Sylvie visits a record store and reality starts to crumble, the camera looks down from the ceiling and rotates around the vinyl record that is spinning at a different speed, with strands of spaghettified matter also whirling around on their own.
- Origins Episode: In this episode, Loki learns the backstory of Mobius, O.B., Casey and B-15.
- Plaster Cast Doodling: Dr. Willis (B-15) writes "don't climb trees" on the arm cast of her young patient.
- The Power of Friendship: The key to controlling Loki's time-slipping lies in him focusing his energy on the people he wants to be around.
- Putting the Band Back Together: Doug reasons that getting Loki's group in one place will allow them to use their combined temporal aura to pinpoint the moment in time where the TVA still exists and return to it. It doesn't pan out because the universe falls apart almost immediately after the group has finally come together.
- Race Lift:
- The original identity of Casey — played by Filipino-American Eugene Cordero — is revealed to be Frank Lee Morris, who is/was white in Real Life.
- The orginal identity of B-15 — played by Nigerian-British actress Wunmi Mosaku — is revealed to be Verity Willis, who's white in the comics.
- The Reveal: This episode reveals the former lives of some the members of the TVA.
- Mobius was a jet ski salesman named Don from 2022 Cleveland, Ohio who was also a struggling single father of two sons.
- Casey was Frank Lee Morris, one of the three prisoners who managed to escape from Alcatraz on the night of June 11–12, 1962.
- Hunter B-15 was a pediatrician named Dr. Verity Willis from 2012 New York City.
- 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.
- Say My Name: When reality starts to collapse, the record shop keeper, Lyle shouts Sylvie's name at the top of his lungs to warn her before he himself vanishes into nothingness.
- Sci Fi Ghetto: Discussed In-Universe. A.D.Doug is a writer who attempts to make others read his Sci-Fi novels by secretly putting them on the shelves inside a book store and pretending to buy them. When the store keeper catches him red-handed, they have the following exchange:Book store manager: I told you to stop putting your sci-fi books on our shelves.
A.D.Doug: Science fiction is a well-respected and thought-provoking genre.
Book store manager: Nobody buys it here. - Secretly Selfish: Sylvie gets Loki to admit that he isn't only trying to save the TVA because he believes it's necessary and to give his friends the choice to go back if they want to, but because he misses them and he feels its existence and the friends he made there have made him a better person, and doesn't know what he'd do without them.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Once he's able to control his timeslipping, Loki jumps back to the moment before Victor attempts to repair the Loom, prepared to make sure things go right this time.
- The Slow Path: Loki is initially surprised A.D. was able to make a TemPad so quickly, having only given him the schematics a few minutes earlier from his perspective before he timeslipped to Don's house. A.D. then reveals it actually took him 18 months and cost him his wife and job; since he can travel through time now, he simply popped over to Loki's present once he was finished.
- Source Music:
- When Sylvie enters the record shop after leaving Loki in the bar, Rose Royce's "Love don't live here anymore" is playing inside, an obvious nod to their broken relationship.
- Sylvie listens to the beginning of The Velvet Underground's "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" in the same record shop. The song both underscores Sylvie's mood and comments on what happens — everything literally turns into nothingness.
- Stable Time Loop:
- A very short one occurs in the beginning of the episode. Loki timeslips inside the TVA, heads to the control room, and sees someone reading a TVA manual. He calls out "Hello?", and is yanked back to his original point. Loki goes back to the control room, finds a manual, and begins reading it, at which point himself from a few minutes earlier comes in, says "Hello?", and vanishes.
- Loki gives A.D. Doug (O.B.'s previous identity) a starter to create the TemPads by giving him his future self's book.
- Sticky Fingers: As soon as Frank gets to A.D. Doug's place, he immediately steals a device laying around even though Frank has no clue what it is and if it can be of use.
- The Stinger: An audio-only example occurs at the very end of the credits; in which the Zaniac arcade machine at the bar Sylvie frequents tells the player they died and that they need to insert more coins to continue playing.
- Struggling Single Mother: It's revealed that Mobius, or Don, as is his real name, was a single father who had trouble reining in his sons.
- Sudden Downer Ending: Narrowly averted. As the timeline collapses, taking the group Loki had built with it, the situation looks hopeless... until Loki finds the emotional motivation necessary to control his time-slipping.
- Surprisingly Normal Backstory: It turns out that Mobius was once an ordinary guy named Don who lived in suburbia as a single father of two sons and worked as a jet ski salesman.
- Teleportation Rescue: 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 Word of God states it's because they're "gods" and the normal rules don't apply to them.
- Title Drop: The title is derived from the genre of A.D. Doug's book.
- Token Evil Teammate: Downplayed, since he doesn't get to do anything evil, but Frank/Casey is definitely the least moral member of Loki's crew, even asking A.D. if he can use the TemPad to rob a bank. It should be expected, since he was a real criminal and was, in fact, a convicted bank burglar.
- Unstuck in Time: Loki once again starts erratically jumping between the past and present, only now the ability is stronger and enables him to bounce between branch timelines and locations. With some effort (and after A.D points out that he already seemed to have some level of unconscious control over it), Loki is able to control where he goes, upgrading it to Mental Time Travel.
- Up the Real Rabbit Hole: The major point of debate between Loki and Sylvie is whether the TVA or the ordinary life is more "real," and Both Sides Have a Point. 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.
- Vertigo Effect: There is a dolly zoom when Loki timeslips to Don's workplace for the first time.
- You Know What They Say: Don says this to a customer when he tells him he is not interested in a jet ski and is actually looking for a dirt bike:Don: Well, they say the personal watercraft is kind of the thinking man's dirt bike.
