Recap / Loki Episode 3 "Lamentis"

"...It's a weapon to be wielded far away or up close. You can see yourself in it. It's beautiful. Until it makes you bleed."

Loki has followed Sylvie, the rogue Variant, through the Time Door into the TVA where she attempts to reach the Time Keepers' chambers. They are intercepted by Judge Renslayer, who tries to prune them, prompting Loki to open a Time Door to save them. Unfortunately, they become stranded in the year 2077 on Lamentis-1, a doomed moon colony about to collide with its planet, as Sylvie's TemPad runs out of power. Forced into an uneasy partnership, Loki and Sylvie search for a power source to recharge it. They learn about an "Ark" meant to evacuate wealthy citizens from the moon and decide to head to Shuroo to use it for recharging the TemPad.

During their journey on a train they tricked their way onto, Loki and Sylvie engage in a conversation that leads to discovering more about their similarities and differences, ultimately bringing them closer together. However, their deception is discovered, and Loki is thrown off the train while Sylvie follows, causing the TemPad to break. In need of a new plan, they decide to hijack the Ark before it's destroyed, ensuring that it takes off. Upon arriving in Shuroo, they are met with chaos as poor citizens riot, being denied boarding the Ark. Loki and Sylvie struggle through the crowd and just make it to the Ark’s gate before several meteors crash into it, destroying it and seemingly any chance for them to make it off the moon alive.

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Tropes:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: The episode is set on a planet being showered with meteors as a moon is about to crash into it, as the Lokis fight their way through guards and panicked crowds desperately trying to escape (and it started with them fighting through TVA headquarters). Nonetheless, once Loki and Sylvie board the train to the evacuation Ark, the pace slows down and they relax over drinks for a few quiet hours, reflecting on differing details in their varying lives, and somberly thinking on how both of their homes have been destroyed.
• Air Quotes: Earlier on, Loki calls himself tech-savvy. Later, Sylvie sarcastically repeats it with air quotes when Loki suggests to charge the TemPad with a neon light, since it actually needs a lot more energy than that.
• Alcohol-Induced Stupidity: Loki's idea of relaxing is to get so drunk that he reverts to his TVA uniform and starts a rowdy crowd song in Asgardian. This attracts attention from the guards, who ultimately toss him out a window.
• Alien Sky: The skies of Lamentis-1 have a distinct purple color, which slowly gets darkened as the planet it's about to crash into covers more and more of it.
• All for Nothing:
  • The people trying to get to the Ark, as it'll be destroyed with no survivors, allowing no one to escape.
  • Loki and Sylvie try to get there themselves, first to recharge the TemPad, and then to hijack it so it survives and draws in the TVA after the TemPad breaks. The Ark gets destroyed before they can even get there.
• Ambiguously Human: It's never stated whether the natives of Lamentis are human colonists or the typical MCU Human Aliens. In any case, they are very close to humans, using names like 'Patrice' and having champagne.
• Amusingly Awful Aim: Usually, Loki has Improbable Aiming Skills with his daggers. However, after getting completely drunk on the train, he misses the guard attacking Sylvie by a wide margin and almost hits Sylvie's head instead. She calls him out on it:
  Sylvie: Awful throw!
• Apocalypse Anarchy:
  • The poor of Lamentis-1 devolve into chaotic rioting as the imminent destruction of their world approaches, and they realize that the rich are barring them from the only means of survival.
  • Alluded to by Loki. Sylvie scolds him for getting drunk with the other passengers and losing his disguise. Loki however is unbothered and claims that no one on the train cares because it's the end of the world.
• Apocalypse How: Implied Class X with the moon Lamentis-1 in 2077, as it's on a collision course with the planet it orbits.
• Apocalypse Wow: And boy, all the destruction and the sheer chaos raining down on the city at the end of the episode is underscored with some stunning cinematography and camerawork.
• Bait-and-Switch: The opening of the episode shows the Variant and Hunter C-20 enjoying margaritas and chatting as old friends in a beach café, suggesting that this is a flashback to when they somehow knew each other. When Sylvie suddenly asks about the location of the Time Keepers, the mood shifts and it becomes apparent that this is actually an illusion.
• Bar Brawl: When Loki loses his disguise and the guards find him and Sylvie as stowaways, they fight the two of them in the bar/tavern area of the train.
• BBC Quarry: The first location we get to see of Lamentis-1 is the bottom of a quarry that wouldn't look out of place in Doctor Who, just tinted purple.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Bisha K. Ali, the writer of the episode, revealed that she named the city Shuroo after the Urdu word “شروع” ("the start" or "to start") to symbolize "the start of something new for Loki and Sylvie: a transformation."
  • The Asgardian song that Loki sings is in Norwegian.
  • When Sylvie accuses Loki of being drunk, Loki denies it, claiming instead that he's merely full. "Full" is actually the Norwegian, and thus also the Asgardian, word for "drunk."
• Blind Jump: Loki opens a random Time Door below himself and Sylvie just as Renslayer swings her disintegration-baton at them. He doesn't know the location they end up on.
• Brain Freeze: Sylvie enchants C-20 by creating an illusion that they are in a bar enjoying cold drinks. During their interaction, C-20 experiences brain freeze. Sylvie then provides a ridiculous explanation for brain freeze and persuades C-20 to take another sip from her drink, presenting it as a "test" for her explanation. In truth, she tries to make C-20 reveal the location of the Time Keepers.
  Sylvie: You know what brain freeze is, don't you?
  C-20: Here we go.
  Sylvie: It's when you sip something so cold...
  C-20: Brain freeze associated with coldness... Got it.
  Sylvie: Wait, I'm being serious. So, it permeates the roof of your mouth and it freezes the synapses in your brain. So, your memories are literally frozen in place.
  C-20: That is absolutely not true.
• Brought Down to Badass: Sylvie's enchantment magic doesn't work in the TVA, but she's still good enough to defeat them all hand-to-hand.
• Call-Back: Loki recalls how his mother would turn a flower into a frog to amuse him and promise him he'll learn to do it as well. In Thor: Ragnarok, Loki-as-Odin recalls how he turned his brother Thor into a frog, so he did learn the spell.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Mutually between Sylvie and Loki. Sylvie can't kill Loki because she doesn't know where he's hidden the TemPad, and he can't kill her because he can't charge it.
• Cathartic Scream: Sylvie lets out a scream when Loki pulls out the TemPad and it is completely broken because of his fall, which sends out a green shockwave and cracks the ground near her.
  Loki: Did the, uh, scream make you feel better?
  Sylvie: Yes, it did. You should try it sometime.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Loki and Sylvie stuck on the doomed moon with the ark they were planning to hijack destroyed and no feasible escape within reach.
• Colony Drop: Loki uses the TemPad to drop himself and Sylvie on the moon Lamentis-1 in 2077, half a day before the planet above breaks apart and crashes into the moon.
• Continuity Nod:
  • After getting his daggers back from B-15's locker, there's a shot of Loki twirling them, in a nod to the shot of him doing the same thing in a Missing Trailer Sceneinvoked for Thor: Ragnarok.
  • On the train, Loki downs his drink and throws it at the ground while shouting "Another!"— much like his brother Thor and Volstagg were wont to.
  • Loki tells Sylvie that he is not working for the TVA, but is instead merely a consultant.
  • The exact angle/pose that Loki falls into after being chucked off the train is near-identical to how he fell out of the dimension that Doctor Strange threw him in during Thor: Ragnarok.
  • Sylvie uses her spiked tiara as a weapon like Loki used his spiked helmet as one in Ragnarok.
• Crapsack World: Lamentis-1 is an alien moon on the brink of complete destruction in 2077, where the poorer citizens of the world are left to die an agonizing death while the wealthier ones get to go a place called the Ark to live the rest of their days. The Ark itself is destined to be destroyed and kill everyone on it anyways, which Loki and Sylvie witness firsthand at the episode's end.
• Crazy Enough to Work: After losing the TemPad, Loki reasons that their only way to escape is to make sure the Ark makes it off the moon instead of being destroyed as it's supposed to, so the TVA will respond. However, it turns out to be too crazy to work, as they fail to get to the Ark in time to hijack it.
• Creative Closing Credits: Because of the cliffhanger ending and the somber music, the animation of the text during the credits is removed.
• Deadly Dodging: While fighting the last pair of Minutemen, Sylvie pushes one into the way just as the other one strikes with his baton, resulting in the first guard being disintegrated.
• Designated Girl Fight: When Loki and Sylvie fight the train guards, Sylvie starts off fighting what appears to be the only female guard on the train.
• Destination Defenestration: During Loki and Sylvie's fight against the guards on the train, Loki kicks a guard right into the window, with enough force to send them flying out of the carriage. Not long after, however, Loki gets caught by two other guards and is thrown out the same window, forcing Sylvie to leap out as well to follow him.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Sylvie asserting her new preferred name and identity, and that she doesn't use the old one any more, is presented very similarly to a transgender person coming out. Her attitude toward her old name is also about as close to it being her deadname as you can get without actually calling it that.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": The Variant insists on not being called Loki, though she reveals she used to go by that name. She goes by "Sylvie" now and likes that name instead.
• Dramatic Sit-Down: When the Ark explodes, one of the guards who was trying to stop Loki and Sylvie falls to his knees in shock.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Loki disguises himself as a guard to get himself and Sylvie aboard the train. Sylvie has to enchant another guard when Loki fails to consider the need for a ticket.
• Drunken Song: After getting drunk on the train, Loki starts singing in a mix of Asgardian and English for the other passengers.
• Duplicate Divergence: Sylvie and Loki are both Variants of "a Loki". However Loki grew up as an Asgardian prince with a loving mother who taught him magic, and was Obliviously Adopted. Sylvie does not remember her mother, knew she was adopted, and was on the run from the TVA pretty much her entire life. While both are sarcastic tricksters, Loki is more cultured, prefers guile, knows more spells, and appears more irresponsible and braggy. Sylvie swears a lot, does not hesitate to use violence, taught herself unusual but limited magic, and appears more mature.
• The Elites Jump Ship: The rich of Lamentis-1 gather on an ark in order to escape the destruction of their world, while leaving the poor behind to die.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Loki reminisces fondly about Frigga during a conversation with Sylvie.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Loki is appalled that the poor, ordinary citizens of Lamentis-1 are being left to die a horrible death, while the rich get premier access to an ark that is supposed to let them escape the destruction.
• Eyebrow Waggle: Sylvie waggles her eyebrows when she asks Loki about his love life.
• Flashback: The episode opens with Sylvie interrogating Hunter C-20 using a mental illusion, moments before Mobius and his team entered the mall in the climax of the previous episode.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At the start of the episode, Hunter C-20 is trapped in an illusion of being at a bar with Sylvie. She then claims to remember the bar but not Sylvie. Even though she isn't sure why she remembers the bar, this still seems an odd thing to say for someone who's apparently known no other life than the TVA. As Sylvie reveals later, C-20 and all the rest of the TVA's agents were not actually created by the Time-Keepers, but are instead repurposed Variants.
  • A bit of Meta foreshadowing regarding Loki and Sylvie's Immortality Bisexuality being revealed is that the opening song is from a LGBT artist, Hayley Kiyoko.
  • "The Variant" has Loki theorize that nothing you do during an apocalypse matters, since everything and everyone within the vicinity tends to die or get destroyed before any meaningful changes take place. Here, Sylvie and Loki's attempts to escape from Lamentis-1 results in just that — their attempt to change history fails, because they can't reach the Ark fast enough to launch it before it gets destroyed.
• For Want Of A Nail: Sylvie shares that her presented gender isn't the only thing different about her and the "main" Loki, as her parents were open from the start about her being adopted.
• Foreshadowing: Honestly, the whole episode is just a massive Ship Tease.
  • When Loki and Sylvie fight outside the elevator at the TVA, we get this exchange.
    Sylvie: You're in my way!
    Loki: You are my way!
  • Then, to escape Renslayer, Loki grabs Sylvie's tempad and takes them to Lamentis-1 by opening a door underneath them... and they land on a bed.
• Giving Them the Strip: A guard in the city grabs Sylvie by her cape as she and Loki attempt to board the Ark, which Sylvie responds to by taking the cape off and using it to smack the guard right into the floor.
• Hammerspace: Loki quickly stashes the TemPad in his personal hammerspace, which keeps Sylvie from simply killing him and retrieving it. Unfortunately it seems that it is not immune to the outside world, as the stored TemPad is destroyed in a tumble.
• Homesickness Hymn: Drunk Loki sings a song about wandering alone in stormy black mountains while a maiden calls for him to come home.
• Hope Spot: Loki and Sylvie manage to fight their way to the gate to the Ark, but it's destroyed before they even get inside.
• Hostage Situation: Sylvie holds her sword to Loki’s chest and threatens to kill him if Judge Renslayer comes any closer, but Renslayer has no problem letting her kill Loki.
• Ice-Cream Koan: Loki attempts to use a dagger as a metaphor for love after his drunken performance for Sylvie. The latter is understandably confused and lampshades that it makes little sense. It was made the official tagline of the episode, however.
• Immune to Mind Control: Sylvie is unable to enchant Loki, who claims that his mind is too strong to be enchanted.
• Improvised Weapon: Overlaps with Weaponized Headgear when Sylvie uses her horned tiara in the Bar Brawl.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: When Loki's rough landing breaks the TemPad, he tries to suggest that they could repair it. Almost instantly, the pad crumbles into its component parts.
• Internal Reveal: Sylvie was seemingly unaware of the magic dampening aspect of the TVA headquarters, only realizing it when she tries and fails to mind control one of the Minutemen.
• It's What I Do: Loki's justification when Sylvie calls him out for getting drunk and having their cover blown:
  Sylvie: You're a clown. You got drunk on the train.
  Loki: I'm hedonistic. That's what I do.
• Just Before the End: Loki and Sylvie get stuck on a moon colony, Lamentis-1, 12 hours before its planet crashes into it and kills everyone. It is raining meteors and the society is crumbling. The rich attempt to escape on a spaceship, the Ark, leaving the poor to their doom, but the Ark explodes before it can launch.
• Kill the Poor: Lamentis-1's solution to avoid overcrowding on the Ark is to allow the wealthier folks to purchase tickets aboard while leaving the desperate and enraged poor to die on the moon that they're abandoning. It comes to bite them in the ass hard by the episode's end, as the rich elite all end up being obliterated by a meteor smashing into the Ark, leaving the poor alive (if only for a little while longer).
• Laser-Guided Karma: The wealthy citizens of Lamentis-1 get hit with this in the final moments of the episode. They were all trying to escape the moon on the Ark, in the process callously leaving the poorer citizens behind to die a horrible death. But then the Ark is destroyed by a meteor, killing them all.
• Left the Background Music On: Hayley Kiyoko's "Demons" plays with the Marvel Studios opening logo, and then the scene cuts to a bar, with the song playing diegetically over the speakers in the bar.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Sylvie traps Hunter C-20 in an illusion of the two at a bar while interrogating her on how to find the Time-Keepers. This mechanism is also how her enchantment magic works, trapping the victim in an illusion while she controls their body.
• Made of Iron: Near the end, Loki and Sylvie are both caught in the blast of a meteor. Though briefly stunned and disoriented, it does no lasting damage.
• Meaningful Name: The moon that Loki and Sylvie land on is called "Lamentis-1". A "lament" is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, fitting for a colony about to be destroyed.
• Metaphorgotten: Loki tries to explain his definition of love to Sylvie by comparing it to a dagger, but quickly forgets what the point he's trying to make is. Doesn't help that he's still drunk.
  Loki: Love is a dagger. It's a weapon to be wielded far away or up close. You can see yourself in it. It's beautiful. Until it makes you bleed. But ultimately, when you reach for it...
  Sylvie: [tries to take the dagger which disintegrates] It isn't real.
  Loki: Yeah.
  Sylvie: "Love is an imaginary dagger".
  Loki: Doesn't make sense, does it?
  Sylvie: No. Terrible metaphor.
  Loki: Damn. I thought I had something there.
• Mind over Matter: Loki catches a whole building with telekinesis when it almost falls on him and Sylvie, then puts it back into place. This is notably a far stronger use of telekinesis than we've seen from him before, prompting much speculation.
• Missing Steps Plan: Sylvie calls out Loki's plan, or rather lack thereof, when he manages to get them on the train:
  Sylvie: FYI, that wasn't even a plan.
  Loki: Oh, really?
  Sylvie: Plans have multiple steps. Dressing as a guard and getting on a train is just doing a thing.
• Mood Whiplash: Sylvie wakes up on the train to a drunk Loki singing a jaunty tune with the chorus, "When she sings, she sings 'Come home.'", with the entire compartment either clapping, singing, or playing along. He then calls for quiet just before he sings a very soft, melancholy tune in Norwegian about wandering alone in inhospitable mountains away from home, which he knows has been lost forever. Then he breaks back into the original festival song, and invites Sylvie to join in.
• More than Mind Control: While using her mind control to interrogate C-20, Sylvie has to keep putting the pressure on because C-20 keeps pushing back.
• Nature Versus Nurture: Loki and Sylvie learn that despite their common origins they had very different upbringings. Loki was raised as a royal and had a loving mother who taught him magic, so he is more cultured yet entitled and childish, and has a more diverse skill set. Sylvie had to take care about herself from a young age and has been on the run for too long, so she is a no-nonsense survivor and is a bit rough around the edges, and knows a single (but useful) magic skill that she taught herself. Moreover, Sylvie's parents in Asgard never hid that she was adopted, so she never had the shocking moment Loki did when he only found out as an adult (which was his Start of Darkness). Both Loki and Sylvie are chaotic and snarky Knife Nuts.
• Neon City: The Ark that Loki and Sylvie attempt to hijack is situated in the middle of a sprawling, crowded, futuristic city, with neon lights and paint decorating it. As revealed in behind the scenes videos, most of this actually was a very large physical set, not CGI.
• No-Sell: Sylvie's enchantment magic fails to work on Loki, who attributes it to his strong mind. She herself later admits that there's a spectrum of effectiveness: for most people it's effortless, a little more effort on strong-minded people like the Hunters — in those hard cases she has to create enchantments based on their memories to manipulate them. Still, she's apparently never met someone before who was so strong-minded that they simply shrugged off her attempt at enchantment without batting an eye.
• Not Bad: Sylvie says this when Loki shows her the firework magic that his mother taught him.
• Numbered Homeworld: The moon that Loki and Sylvie are stranded in is called "Lamentis-1".
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Sylvie has a small one when she tries to enchant a Minuteman and realizes that her magic won't work inside the TVA.
  • She has a much bigger one when she realizes that Loki's sent them both to Lamentis-1, which is about to suffer the worst apocalypse that she saved on the TemPad.
• The Oner: The scene when Loki and Sylvie try to get to the Ark is shot in one long take. The scene was actually shot in multiple takes, just stitched together to look like one shot.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Loki takes the form of an old lady's husband in an attempt to gain her trust. When he tries to flatter her, she ends up blasting him away, because her real husband never said anything that nice to her.
• Perfect Disguise, Terrible Acting: Loki's disguise as a guard on Lamentis is flawless, but his acting fails so baldly that Sylvie has to enchant a guard so that their disguise isn't exposed.
• Properly Paranoid: As Loki is drunkenly singing to the passengers, Sylvie notices a shifty man leaving the car. Loki doesn't see the problem, until the man comes back with several guards who are suspicious of the rowdy passenger. Loki directly asks Sylvie why she's so paranoid all the time, and she bluntly points out it's because she's spent most of her life on the run from "time police" who are literally "omniscient fascists".
• Queer Colors: In the scene where Loki and Sylvie confirm that they are bisexual, the lighting has a distinct pink, purple, and blue mix.
• Reforged into a Minion: According to Sylvie, all TVA employees are this, not artificial constructs of the Time-Keepers as they claimed. They were previously Variants, like Loki and Sylvie, but had their memories suppressed and were given a new identity as part of the TVA.
• The Reveal: Sylvie reveals that the TVA employees aren't creations of the Time-Keepers. They're former Variants, having their memories suppressed and given new identities.
• Serenade Your Lover: During Loki's Drunken Song, there is a slow and gentle verse about a "fair maiden" during which Loki looks at Sylvie, foreshadowing his growing feelings for her.
• Shapeshifters Do It for a Change: Loki is a shapeshifter who mentions that he is bisexual. Sylvie asks if there's a would-be princess or prince that's caught Loki's eye in the past. He confirms "a bit of both", and she doesn't object when he suggests that the same may be true of her.
• Shell-Shock Silence: Happens briefly with Loki and Sylvie, as a stray meteor from the falling planet crashes right in front of them, causing a large explosion that throws them a few meters back.
• Ship Tease: In one of their first shots together, Sylvie leans over to enchant Loki, and their silhouettes form a heart.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: This is a fairly serious episode, and as such, Mobius is nowhere to be found.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Most of the episode is spent on them trying to escape their inevitable doom, first by recharging their TemPad, then by getting to the Ark. However, just as they are about to board said Ark, a meteor hits it, seemingly leaving them for dead.
• Shout-Out: The two soldiers who ask for tickets are called Hudson and Hicks.
• Sickening "Crunch!": There is a crunching sound when Sylvie twists a Minuteman's arm, and when Loki twists a guard's arm on the train.
• Skewed Priorities: You'd think that Lamentis-1 would save the bulk of its population by building multiple Arks, instead of allowing just the wealthier folks to purchase tickets aboard just one Ark. The Ark itself proves to be a moot point, as its occupants all end up being obliterated by a meteor smashing into the Ark, leaving the rest of the moon's doomed population alive (if only for a little while longer).
• Slobs vs. Snobs: A bulk of the personality clashes between Loki and Sylvie is also colored by this — what with Loki being only-recently a royal prince (as well as the commander of Thanos's Chitauri force) expecting things to always go his way — and Sylvie (having been practically a Street Urchin since her escape) always adamant to get what she wants before she loses the opportunity to.
• Spotting the Thread: In the opening scene, Sylvie uses C-20's memory of a tropical bar to create an illusion where they're apparently best friends having drinks together. As the scene goes on, C-20 realizes that, while she remembers the location, she doesn't remember Sylvie being with her. Sylvie just shifts the illusion slightly and gets the information she wants.
• Stunned Silence: The riotous crowd immediately becomes quiet, aside from one person yelling out a despairing "No!", when the Ark that was the only way of getting off Lamentis-1 is destroyed.
• Suddenly Sober: After Loki awakens Sylvie by drunkenly partying, singing a song in Norwegian for her and subsequently making a bad metaphor about love and a dagger, he becomes sober enough to fight the train guards that come to apprehend them both rather soon afterwards.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: After Loki accidentally transports him and Sylvie into a moon about to collide with its planet, and Sylvie's TemPad runs out of power, Loki and Sylvie — who moments ago are attempting to kill each other — have no choice but to work with each other to find a way to recharge the TemPad and escape their impending doom.
• Thematic Theme Tune:
  • Hayley Kiyoko's "Demons" — a song about someone who is either losing their mind, depressed, or questioning their sense of reality — plays in the Cold Open where Hunter C-20 is being trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine made out of her memories.
  • Bonnie Guitar's cover of Ned Miller's "Dark Moon", a song about the Moon losing its light, lost loves, and plans that don't go as expected, closes out the episode — which ends with Loki and Sylvie's plan to escape failing and the Lamentis-1 moon becoming very close to colliding with the planet that it orbits.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Said verbatim by Sylvie, as she and Loki walk towards the Ark, surrounded by guards, fire, and rioting citizens who aren't allowed to board.
• Trojan Prisoner: While dressed as one of the guards, Loki holds Sylvie's arm behind her back and tells one of the guards that he has orders "from the top" to get Sylvie on the train.
• Umbrella Drink: Sylvie and Hunter C-20's margaritas in C-20's memory/fantasy have umbrellas in them.
• Understatement: Loki gets thrown off the train which was his and Sylvie's transport to the Ark, the only way they could recharge the TempPad and escape the apocalypse. His comment:
  Loki: Well, that's not ideal.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Sylvie's enchantment magic is impressive enough that Loki bugs her for an explanation of how it works, but it's the only magic that she was able to teach herself. Loki, having been formally taught by Frigga, is a far more capable magician, and Sylvie has no means of countering his powers.
• Weaponized Headgear: Sylvie uses her horned tiara as a weapon against the train guards.
• Weapon Twirling: Once he gets his daggers back, Loki flips them this way before confronting Sylvie.
• We Need a Distraction: Sylvie's plan to bomb the timeline was merely to draw off the majority of the TVA's agents so she could sneak inside and reach the Time-Keepers.
• Wham Line: Sylvie mentions that she had to dig back in C-20's memory to find a memory from before she worked for the TVA. She then confirms that the employees are actually Variants, just like her and Loki.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The situation on Lamentis-1 and what Loki and Sylvie deal with there is a mixture of When Worlds Collide and Snowpiercer.
• Willing Channeler: Loki jokingly proposes that Sylvie could enchant him and walk his body to Shuroo while he gets some rest.
• You Can't Fight Fate: In the end, Loki and Sylvie's attempts to hijack the Ark and escape from Lamentis-1 prove to be futile, as the Ark is pummeled by meteors before they can even get past the gate.

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