Tear Jerker / Loki (2021)

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Season 1

Episode 1: Glorious Purpose

• Mobius shows Loki the "Greatest Hits" of his intended timeline which starts with the events of Thor: The Dark World. Loki is horrified to learn that he was supposed to indirectly cause his beloved mother's death, and being Forced to Watch the recording of her final moments isn't any easier. Still believing that the whole thing is a trick he keeps demanding to know where Frigga is, obviously hoping that she's actually still alive.
  • When Loki, disbelieving and infuriated, threatens to kill Mobius, the latter fires back "Oh, like you killed your mother?!"
    • Loki of all people says absolutely nothing. He simply throws his chair at Mobius' head (who manages to dodge out of the way), and starts stalking towards Mobius, fully intent on murder. Shows that underneath his bravado, his family really is his soft spot.
  • Mobius bluntly telling Loki he wasn't born to be a king, but to instead cause pain, suffering and death and that he's essentially a tool to help other people become better versions of themselves. Yes, he was written to be a villain. But at least with this recruitment, he can potentially be a hero of a different story.
    • Pay close attention to the soundtrack, and you can hear a more sadder version of the Avengers theme. In the original film, it was a moment of triumph, a group of people of different backgrounds coming together to defend Earth. But for Loki, it is a harsh reminder to all his failures.
  • His reaction to himself telling Frigga that she isn't his mother.
  • Loki's Tears of Joy from hearing how much Thor and Odin love and care for him. No matter what he might've claimed or what he did, it's clear Loki never stopped loving his father and brother. Sadly, he couldn't accept that he was loved until it was far too late.
• After temporarily breaking loose and roaming the TVA, Loki returns to the Time Theatre and watches the rest of the presentation Mobius prepared. He's obviously touched by seeing the events of Thor: Ragnarok where Odin and Thor show their affection for him... but then he reaches the opening scene of Avengers: Infinity War and his ultimate fate at Thanos' hand. This last revelation finally breaks through his composure and forces him to admit to Mobius that he doesn't actually enjoy hurting people.
  Loki: I don't enjoy hurting people. I don't... enjoy it. I do it because I have to, because I've had to.
  Mobius: Okay, explain that to me.
  Loki: Because it's part of the illusion. It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak (gestures to himself) to inspire fear.
  Mobius: A desperate play for control. You do know yourself.
  Loki: A villain.
  Mobius: That's not how I see it.
  • Loki witnesses his proper self's last words of "You... will never be... a god." This was meant for Thanos, but Loki could see it as a self-serving affirmation from himself that, deep down, he knows full well that he isn't what he believes he is/wants to present himself as.
  • Loki's file doesn't end immediately when his neck is broken, but after Thor holds his body and starts crying into his chest, implying that was the last thing he felt or was aware of.
  • The second Title Drop of the episode. The first time, it's funny: Loki jumping up onto the nearest rock he can find ("he likes to be tall!") and monologuing to some very confused bystanders who, realistically, don't speak English. This time, he's just watched himself die, futilely, at the hands of Thanos—failing to even land a scratch on the Mad Titan, failing to protect his people and his brother. His tearful Mirthless Laughter before he delivers the line looks like he might slip into Laughing Mad.
  • Made even worse by the fact that he doesn't know a part of Asgard survived, let alone Thor. For all this Loki knows, Thor and all people of Asgard also died since no-one has told him otherwise.
• We also learn many of Loki's criticisms towards mankind and others around are really how he feels on the inside, that he is truly weak and hurt others to feel a false sense of power and control over his life, and that he truly feels helpless which is why he desired to rule for so long. When he attempts to break out of the TVA by retrieving the Tesseract, he learns that they have confiscated countless versions of the Infinity Stones which some of the staff use as paperweights. Think about this, the six most powerful artifacts in the universe and yet they're just seen as rocks by these highly advanced observers and monitors of time, showing just how powerless Loki truly is.
  Mobius: (about the Tesseract) You try to use that?
  Loki: Oh, several times. Even an Infinity Stone is useless here. The TVA is formidable.

Episode 2: The Variant

• Loki reads about Ragnarok and sees that nearly 10,000 of his people died, causing him to briefly tear up.
• Mobius is fond of jet skis, but has never ridden one because it would cause a nexus event.
• Swallows have gone extinct by 2050.
  • Not only that, but by this point in time, climate change has really started to cause chaos for Earth. This includes some kind of catastrophe in 2048, but scarier still is that because of this, hurricanes are able to reach Category 8 (in the present day, they can only reach Category 5). It's a sad and painful reminder of what could happen to our planet in the near future if we don't do something about it.
• The fact that all those people sheltering from the hurricane in Roxxcart are going to die. Mobius understands this, and gives a stern reprimand and a Death Glare to Hunter D-90 who's being rough with them, who justifies his callousness with the rationalization that "They're all going to die anyways."
  • Even sadder is when Mobius, D-90 and the Minutemen show up to find the alternate Loki, a man (who is likely the store manager) approaches them, asking if they’re the National Guard and if they’ll be evacuated, because there’s kids in there. Mobius can barely bring himself to say no.
  • Listen carefully during this scene. A baby is crying in the background.
• Natural apocalypses like the destruction of Pompeii, Asgard, and the people in the shelter are events with zero variance energy, which means that nothing one does during such a crisis will create a nexus event. Nothing one does matters, because the apocalypse will wipe out everything and everyone in range, and nothing short of stopping the apocalypse itself will matter.

Episode 3: Lamentis

• Continuing on the trend of depressing apocalypses above, Loki and Sylvie find themselves in the year 2077 on a moon that's destined to crash into the planet it's orbiting, dooming everyone on it to die a painful death. Panic and rioting have overtaken the local populace as the poor are left to fend for themselves and the rich are evacuated onto an ark... that promptly explodes at the end of the episode anyway, showing just how futile Loki and Sylvie's attempts to hijack it were.
  • It's only a quick comment made in the midst of pure chaos, but even Loki is appalled that the poor are being so callously left behind to die. Do remember, after all, that he just witnessed (via main timeline Loki's file) how Ragnarok unfolded for Asgard—which involved most likely the same kind of regular people among the Asgardian refugees (also likely among the casualties of Thanos's massacre at the Sanctuary). It probably brought up unsavory memories.
  • During Loki and Sylvie's race to the ship, they duck into an alcove where a family is huddling together. You can hear one of the parents saying "It's going to be alright." but not long after a building crashes down on top of them.
  • After the Ark is destroyed, the people of Lamentis (who had moments before been rioting and attacking the guards in a desperate attempt to get on board) can only look up in stunned silence as their only hope is lost. Even some of the guards fall to their knees in despair.
• Loki tries to make himself look like a woman's husband so they can get past her and charge the Tempad, but it fails because he was too nice to her. And even with that revelation, she still chooses to wait for him rather than try to get to the train for the Ark.
• While our Loki had Frigga as a mother figure to raise him and teach him magic, Sylvie had no such figure in her life, only remembering her mother in small fragments from dreams.
  • Loki's reminiscing about Frigga is tinged with a layer of sadness as it's unlikely he will ever get to see her again and he knows that she was supposed to die shortly after the point where he broke from his timeline.
• Loki and Sylvie get to discuss their love lives, with Sylvie talking about having a relationship waiting for her after her plan against the TVA is finished. When Sylvie presses Loki on if any princess or prince is waiting for a lord of Asgard such as himself, while Loki comments he has had lovers he noticeably doesn't mention who that could be. Anyone who's watched the entire MCU might notice he's never been shown with a Love Interest.
  • Given that Loki is a God of Mischief and lying, Sylvie as a Loki variant may be lying about the "postman" waiting for her. They're both lonely and lying about it.
    Loki: A bit of both. I suspect the same as you, but nothing ever...
    Sylvie: Real?
  • Loki's description of love as being similar to a dagger. On the surface it seems mildly insightful, if a little silly... until one recalls that Loki recently learned that his actions in the Sacred Timeline have either directly or indirectly hurt or killed everyone that he ever loved, and he never managed to find a true partner for himself. Ouch.
• Sylvie reveals that the TVA workers are all Variants who've been brainwashed and had their memories suppressed. They were once people with lives of their own that have been taken away from them. Loki seems to have realised this as he points out that they don't know that they're Variants.
• Loki's song. Despite the fact that it's sung in Norwegian, it's very clearly an actual lament for the home that he left behind and can never see again, due to it having been destroyed.
  • He sings about walking alone in black stormy mountains while a voice in an apple garden calls for him to come home. Said voice is referred to with she/her pronouns, implying that it belongs to Frigga.
• Take a second look at the scene leading up to Loki and Sylvie's ride on the train to get to the Ark. A whole line of poor people are being held to wait on the rich who are given premium access, to the point where guards are carrying their luggage. Once we get inside, the train is immediately in motion. Not only are no poor people shown on board, but the compartment that is displayed is occupied well below its limits, with lots of room available for people to move about, sing, dance.... Those poor people were left behind not because space was scarce, but because they weren't considered worth the effort to save.

Episode 4: The Nexus Event

• The opening flashback reveals that Sylvie was picked up by the TVA as a young child while she was minding her own business and playing with her toys. She was then put through the same processing that Loki was in the first episode before snatching Renslayer's TemPad and escaping. She then spent the rest of her life on the run as everywhere she went, she caused a Nexus event that drew the Hunters' attention, and could only grow up in "the ends of a thousand worlds". As an extra kicker, once she's back in TVA custody, she asks Renslayer what it was that finally made the TVA decide to pick her up all those years ago. Renslayer claims she doesn't even remember.
  • It's implied that with Sylvie knowing she's adopted at a young age and showing that she's very compassionate, her "crime" would have been that she was going to be a well-adjusted and kind person.
  • It's also worth noting that while Lokis tend towards the gender-fluid, the vast majority, including Sacred Timeline Loki, primarily present as male. Sylvie is the only one that we know of who presents exclusively as female. The other implication is that this was the moment when she perhaps settled on presenting as female for the rest of her life.
• Hunter B-15 still looks shaken after being enchanted by Sylvie. She asks Mobius if Loki said anything, and Mobius answers that Loki told him the TVA has been lying to him, clearly not believing it. B-15 goes to Sylvie and it looks as if she wants to prune her for messing with her mind, but instead she opens a Time Door to the 2050 hurricane to talk to Sylvie about what is going on with her. Sylvie reveals the truth about the TVA and tells B-15 that what she saw was a memory of her past life. B-15 asks Sylvie to show it her again, and starts crying.
  B-15: I looked happy!
  [Sylvie nods]
• The TVA traps Loki in a prison that forces him to relive one of his worst memories over and over again: A cruel prank gone wrong where Lady Sif beats him up after he cut off a chunk of her hair. After going through countless loops of this scenario, Loki gives a seemingly heartfelt apology to Sif, admitting the reason he did it was because he's desperate for any sort of attention and terrified of being alone. Sif finally seems to calm down and helps Loki stand up... before coldly reaffirming he will always be alone and storming off. This memory is likely the moment Loki realized even in his "prime" as prince of Asgard he was still trapped in Thor's shadow, friendless and distrusted by everyone.
  Sif: You conniving, craven...
  Loki: Sif. Sif.
  Sif: ...pathetic worm.
  Loki: Please, please, no more. Please, I beg you. I'm a horrible person. I get it. I really am. I cut off your hair because I thought it'd be funny and it's not. I crave attention because I'm a narcissist. And I suppose it's... It's because I'm scared of being alone.
  (Sif helps him to his feet)
  Sif: You are alone, and you always will be.
  • To drive the knife in even further, when "Sif" first walks in Loki is actually happy to see her. Even back in Thor they didn't seem to get along but this is the first person from his old life he's seen since learning that Asgard was destroyed. He finally gets to see a familiar face but it just ends up being a reminder of how he struggled to fit in and kept hurting people.
• Renslayer had C-20 Killed to Uphold the Masquerade. She had just started to rediscover her life, and now it's gone.
• After Mobius manages to steal Renslayer's TemPad he looks over the debriefing of the Roxxcart Disaster where C-20 is being interrogated. When he realizes that Loki was telling the truth, the once snarky but stern Mobius is utterly wrought with betrayal and heartbreak upon closing the TemPad.
• After some further questioning, Mobius finally accepts the truth that he's a Variant and stands up to Renslayer who immediately prunes him. The Mobius we've come to know over the last few episodes is, apparently, gone in just a few seconds. Though given that it's revealed that Loki survived being pruned by Renslayer, it can be safe to assume that there's a glimmer of hope that Mobius could be alive, too.
  • Mobius' last words are an answer to Renslayer asking him where he'd go if he could go to any time and place he wanted. His answer is that he'd go home, even though he doesn't know where or when it is.
  • Renslayer also looks genuinely distraught at having to prune who she likely considered to be a close friend and "her favourite analyst". She appears to genuinely mean it earlier in the episode when she tells him how much the TVA and his friendship mean to her, which makes it that much worse that she prunes him anyway.
  • Loki is so shocked by Mobius' pruning that he barely resists when the Minutemen drag him off to the Time Keepers. He even looks like he’s about to cry for a few moments.
• At the end of the episode, Loki is about to tell Sylvie that he loves her, something he notes is very new for him, but Renslayer sneaks up behind him and prunes him too. While The Stinger reveals he's still alive somewhere, for a horrible moment the audience is left with the possibility that Loki is dead again.
  • Although the audience sees Loki in the credits scene, Sylvie has no reason not to think that Loki, the only person she seems to have ever formed a connection with since being taken by the Time Keepers, is gone forever.
  • Just the look on Sylvie's face as she watches Loki "vaporizing" in front of her, revealing that Ravonna has pruned him. First, Ravonna "arrests" Sylvie as a child, and then seemingly killed off the one other person she has had a positive relationship with in a long while. (The fact that the end title sequence is subsequently scored to Brenda Lee's "If You Love Me"^note a melodious metaphorical expression of You Are Worth Hell, I Want My Beloved to Be Happy or Star-Crossed Lovers, depending how you read it just hammers home the emotional weight of it). The angry look on Sylvie's face afterwards makes it clear that everything Ravonna and the TVA have done to her was personal.

Episode 5: Journey into Mystery

• Classic Loki, when revealing his backstory to Loki of how he became a Variant, admits that he was able to fake his death and survive in isolation for a long time, but ultimately grew lonely and wanted to find out if anyone missed him, and especially wanted to see Thor again. Unfortunately, just as he was planning to escape the planet he was on to do so, that was when the TVA swooped in and arrested him.
  • At the part where Classic admits that he missed his brother, Loki looks somber, implying that he misses Thor, too. Later, he has a solemn look on his face when telling Sylvie about how he betrayed everyone who ever loved him, including his father and brother. He clearly deeply regrets his actions and wishes he could see his family again, while knowing it's likely not possible to return to the life he had.
  • While drifting through space, Classic Loki had come to the realization that everywhere he went he caused pain to those around him so he removed himself from the equation to spare those he cared for any more harm.
• Boastful Loki betraying the group in an attempt to claim Kid Loki's throne. You thought they were chums, telling each other stories in Kid Loki's base. You thought they were allies, all working together to survive in a temporal dumping ground. No, not Boastful Loki at least. He reveals the base's location just so he can sit on Kid Loki's throne.
• After escaping the Loki brawl, Classic Loki curses the Loki variants for being unable to change and are just doomed to be "broken" forever (including himself).
  • Kid Loki even expresses genuine sadness at Classic Loki's point, even sounding on the verge of tears. Every time a Loki tries to fix themselves, they're sent away by the TVA to die at the hands of Alioth. He likely implies that, after killing Thor as he proclaimed earlier, he tried to make amends for his mistakes, just like the other Lokis, but was taken away at a young age, just like Sylvie.
• Classic Loki sacrifices himself by conjuring an illusion of Asgard to distract Alioth from Loki and Sylvie. Unable to escape, Classic Loki accepts his fate with a grin and laugh before Alioth eats him and leaves his horned helmet behind.
  Classic Loki: [with a smile on his face] Glorious purpose!
  • Classic Loki must be several millennia old at this point, yet he still remembers Asgard in such vivid detail, that he can conjure up a full-scale illusion of it. It really shows how much Loki loved his homeland, and how homesick this version of him must've felt by the end of his self-isolation.
  • What makes it even sadder is that presumably, he was hoping that he would get to see his family again after all these years; that his last thoughts were that he would be taken to Valhalla for defying the fates that all other Lokis had gone through; that for once in his life, he did something selfless. This is punctuated with the music being an arrangement of "Ride of the Valkyries", where valkyries descend from the heavens to take the souls of warriors who died a noble death to a peaceful afterlife.
  • If you notice, Classic Loki even sheds a tear as the laughter starts.
• When Ravonna asks if Sylvie has any good memories, Sylvie considers before saying that she has only one, really. After that, she makes up her mind and prunes herself by dramatically leaning back and stabbing herself in the chest in the way Juliet usually does it in theater plays. She had Ravonna's TemPad and could have escaped and made a new plan if she wished to, but apparently she did not.
• Loki still Can't Spit It Out regarding his feelings towards Sylvie. Sylvie herself can't articulate her feelings towards him either due to how she had grown up, which leads to them both awkwardly dancing around the issue.

Episode 6: For All Time. Always.

• Ravonna and Mobius' argument. They clearly care about each other, but things have gone too far for them to truly reconcile—all those years of friendship, and now they're on opposite sides. Ravonna's in tears as she accuses Mobius of betraying her, and while much less overtly emotional, Mobius is obviously equally hurt.
• He Who Remains may be far from a nice person, but you can't help but feel a little sorry for how tired he is of life. Not to mention how his Alliance of Alternates went south.
• Loki and Sylvie fighting each other. Sylvie desperately wants to get the revenge she craved since she was a little girl, but Loki can't let her kill He Who Remains because of the consequences this might unleash. When Sylvie tearfully asks why they don't agree on this despite both being Loki variants, Loki answers that it's because she can't trust anyone and he can't be trusted.
  • When Sylvie questions whether everything between them has been a lie so that Loki could get his throne, Loki looks absolutely heartbroken.
    Loki: Really? That's what you think of me. After all this time?
• Still reeling from the shock of all the sudden revelations and his "break-up" with Sylvie, Loki goes to find Mobius in the TVA archives, only to find out that his first and possibly only friend he has no longer remembers him, if he’s even the same Mobius that he knew in the first place.
  Mobius: You're an analyst, right? What division are you from?
  Loki: What? What are you talking about?
  Mobius: Who are you? What's your name?
  • Really, the fact that Loki finally let himself be emotionally vulnerable enough to openly care for and trust Mobius and Sylvie, only to lose them both. One chose her revenge over him, and the other one either doesn't remember him, or this Mobius is part of a different timeline that Loki is now trapped in, far from the only person he has openly called 'friend'. The poor man needs a hug.
  • In retrospect, one might wonder if it's precisely this kind of thing (or at least something similar ages ago) was the reason why Sacred Timeline Loki insisted to Thor he should let go of Jane (which of course he sadly did):
    "Say goodbye. ... This day, the next, a hundred years, it's nothing. It's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready. The only woman whose love you've prized will be snatched from you."
  • Loki's overall reaction to the revelations he just learned of is damn near heartbreaking: The man he just met has literally orchestrated everything that has happened in the MCU thus far, and it was all in an effort to prevent countless, evil versions of himself from ever existing. Just the mere thought of someone more wicked than He Who Remains showing up terrifies Loki, to such an intense extent that he's left a sobbing, nervous wreck barely able to form a coherent sentence, desperate to warn his friend of the approaching danger. Even facing certain death at the hands of Thanos (both as a victim and a witness) didn't elicit such a reaction out of him. Then he realizes his friend has no idea who he is. Then he looks out the TVA library balcony and sees a statue of Kang the Conqueror. It's already too late.
• After spending the entire season of getting her revenge on TVA, when Sylvie kills He Who Remains, she collapses to her knees crying, as killing him didn't bring her the satisfactory conclusion she was hoping for and she has also ruined the only meaningful connection in her life for a hollow victory.

Season 2

Episode 2: Breaking Brad

• Loki assumes that Mobius doesn't want to know anything about his life before the TVA because it might be something bad. Mobius, however, tells him it's the opposite: he could handle having been a terrible person, but knowing he lived a good life would would be worse because he would know what he lost.
• When General Dox initiates a mass bombing of the branching timelines everyone in the TVA control room is frozen in abject horror and despair as trillions of lives are snuffed out unable to do anything about it.
  B-15: Those were people...Those were lives...
• Sylvie angrily abandons Loki as she's now more convinced TVA can't reformed, despite Loki's pleading.
  Loki: Please don't! It's harder... [after Sylvie is already gone] to stay.
• Sylvie's obvious contentment at working a minimum wage job flipping burgers over a hot stove with a paper hat. Sylvie's life has been such a living hell that this is her version of heaven.

Episode 3: 1893

• Sylvie's trauma being brought right back up to the surface upon seeing Timely, made worse that Loki is again standing in her way of killing him and defending the TVA.
  • She is close to crying when she argues with Loki over why she has to kill Victor, and when she throws a powerful double-Hand Blast at them. She doesn't want to hurt Loki, and as she tells him she doesn't get any joy out of killing Victor either. But with everything that has happened to her and her massive distrust of the TVA, this is the only way she knows how to deal with He Who Remains's variants.
  • Sylvie's realization that by killing Victor, she would rob him of his free will to become a better person than He Who Remains. You can tell that it is very difficult for her to make the choice to let Loki and Mobius take him back to the TVA, and she asks them with a shaking voice not to make her regret this.

Episode 4: Heart of the TVA

• Loki recalls Thor's banishment from Asgard to Sylvie, bringing up the fact that he thought his brother's change of heart was weakness. It's clear from his tone and expression he regrets this and wishes he could take it back.
• Just as Victor succeeds in getting D-90 to relax a bit despite the TVA crumbling around them, X-5/Brad prunes D-90.
• Victor's demise is at once heartrending and horrifying. After his preceding screentime raised the possibility that he was stringing along Loki and the TVA with a bumbling conman persona, Victor proves himself to be exactly as he presents: a stuttering, disorganized, but well-meaning and respectful man who is in way over his head and yet wishes to help all the same. With the TVA minutes away from destruction due to the destabilizing containment system for the timelines, Victor volunteers to step outside into the irradiated platform that nearly killed Mobius in a less dangerous state because he's the only one who could make repairs on the fly if something goes wrong. Loki, who had just volunteered himself, accepts this and steps aside while Victor mutters "Time to be brave" to himself over and over as he descends the stairs, puts on the suit, and hoists the device. Every second counts, and as the blast doors open, Victor begins running out as fast as he can - and then almost immediately spaghettifies as Ouroboros warned could happen, screaming in immense pain all the while before disappearing completely, leaving only the device to fall uselessly to the ground. That's how his story would've ended, if not for following events...
• The heroes losing all hope after Victor's death. They thought they had a fighting chance, and in another MCU work, they would have won, but life was cruel this time and took that away.

Episode 5: Science/Fiction

• The concise but affecting Trauma Conga Line that Loki goes through at the start of the episode: First, Loki seemingly survives the Loom's explosion only to discover that everyone else has disappeared from the TVA. Then, as he roams the halls of the abandoned TVA, he can only react in frustration as he discovers his time-slipping has returned. Finally, he makes it to the main room of the TVA to find a mysterious individual perusing the guide book... Only to realize minutes later that it was his future self, and no one is coming to help him.
  Past Loki: Hello?
  [Past Loki slips away. A long Beat.]
  Loki: Hello...
• Mobius's backstory of him being a jet ski salesman and being a father, in regards to how the original Mobius didn't want to search for his past in fears of it actually being a happy life. It also makes his remark on how he wanted to learn who originally made him a TVA agent in Season 1 much harsher.
• B-15 used to be a caretaker in her past life. It's now more than clear why she was so broken up when Sylvie first showed her this life: she spent her days happily healing children as a pediatrician, and the TVA had robbed her of this so she would be their enforcer. She was a healer. They turned her into a scary black woman.
• O.B., formerly named A.D. Doug, was a very unsuccessful science fiction writer in his past life, to the point where he was resorting to pretending his books were part of the stock of a bookstore until his picture was discovered on the back covers and the storeowner forces him to leave with all the copies he tried to sneak onto the shelves. And in the 18 to 19 months he spent recreating a TemPad, he offhandedly mentions that his wife had left him and took the kids.
• Loki is forced to admit to Sylvie that he's using the rebuilding of the TVA as an excuse because he's afraid of losing everyone he loves again.
  Loki: I want the TVA back...I want my friends back. I don't want to be alone. But without them, where do I belong?
  • That for all his character growth through the series Loki is still ultimately unsure of who he actually is without others.
  • It also implies he never had friends on Asgard, aside from his brother Thor and Frigga.
• The almost Sudden Downer Ending when everyone gets spaghettified while Loki watches in despair, hearing the last words of everyone around him. Whether it's OB's disbelief that this is happening, Mobius running back to his sons in vain, Sylvie despondently stating there's nowhere to run to, Loki essentially has a Freak Out from losing everyone. Thankfully, this also has him tap into his time-slipping.
  • The way Loki is trying to grab onto those spaghetti noodles is akin to Tony Stark clutching his hand when he realizes that it's covered in the dust that was once Peter Parker.

Episode 6: Glorious Purpose

• Loki literally spends centuries studying physics, mechanics, and the rest to be on OB's level, and finally succeeds in helping Victor expand the Loom... but soon the group realizes that the Loom will never be able to scale to handle an infinite multiverse. What's worse is that when Loki speaks to He Who Remains, the latter confirms he knew he'd go through everything up to this point, and knew he'd fail to the point he'd return to their confrontation. Loki wasted centuries of time and life, pretty much spending it alone as he desperately tried again and again to try to succeed, and it was All for Nothing.
  Loki: (bitterly) What a waste of time.
• He Who Remains seems genuinely convinced his plan is the only way to prevent a war that will end all of space and time, and is indeed hopeful Loki will join him so he won't truly be alone. Thankfully, Loki is a Determinator and figures out how to Take a Third Option, but it makes you realize that even if he's more caustic and crafty than he initially appears, He Who Remains really doesn't see any other path forward than the one he's on.
  He Who Remains: Um... But the Loom prevents a brutal war where nothing survives, Loki. Not even the Sacred Timeline.
• Loki timeslips back to his Time Theatre conversation with Mobius from the first episode. During their conversation Mobius tells a story about a Hunter who was sent to prune a Variant that would be responsible for 5,000 deaths. On learning that the Variant was a small child, the Hunter couldn't bring himself to do it, forcing his partner to step in and prune them. Loki immediately realizes that Mobius was the Hunter, and Renslayer was the partner who stepped in.
  Loki: How do you live with it?
  Mobius: Scar tissue.
• Loki's Glorious Purpose has come. To sacrifice himself to stop the Temporal Loom from destroying all but The Sacred Timeline, becoming the next He Who Remains and guarding the end of time all alone.
  • When Loki realizes what he has to do, he starts to tear up and quietly makes his way down to the Loom. Mobius and Sylvie realize that something is wrong and follow him but Loki locks them out and tearfully says goodbye to them, using the same words he said to his father right before seemingly dying.
    Loki: For you. For all of us.
  • To emphasize Loki's famous line of "burdened with glorious purpose", this purpose is a glorious one, but the burden is completely heavy, where he is completely alone, unable to be with his loved ones ever again, watching over them from countless of timelines on a throne at the end of the world. No subjects to rule over, no family, no friends. Just him. For all eternity. His god attire notably isn't fancy at all, with none of the gold trimmings it originally had, as it emphasizes the "burden" he places on himself. To seal the deal, the last shot of the entire series is the Broken Smile present on his face, stemming from the sacrifice he made to save everyone.
  • Loki tries to briefly activate one of the branches with his powers, then lets it go to see if it will sustain itself without him. It dies. Only then does Loki fully commit himself to a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Throughout the show, Loki has said his biggest fear is being alone. Despite his efforts, that's exactly what happens in the end. Though the ending of What If…? season 2 implies that he may not be completely alone after all.
• Mobius’s decision to leave the TVA, given that it’s obviously a result of his grief over Loki’s disappearance and the newfound knowledge of his life on the Sacred Timeline.
  Mobius: You think the TVA’s gonna miss a tired, washed-up old analyst with a heart of gold?
  B-15: I know one or two who will.

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