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"We're in a shark tank. Alioth is the shark."
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Episode 1: Glorious Purpose
- The end of the episode, where we get a glimpse of The Variant luring a team of Minutemen to their death. The Minutemen arrive on scene in the 1800s to find a futuristic artifact in the middle of a field. One of the Minutemen smells oil and assumes someone went back in time to try and get rich off of it. The audience then gets a glimpse of The Variant standing out in the field wearing a cloak, before slowly lifting a lit lantern and dropping it – igniting the oil soaking the field. Hunter U-92 desperately tries to get to the reset charge his team planted before he's suddenly pulled away off-screen, all set to the sound of his teammates screaming as they burn alive. It definitely goes on the list as one of the most violent deaths in the MCU.
- As Loki waits in line for his turn to see the judge, another Variant who refused to take a ticket is casually vaporized by the soldier at the front desk, as though his life were no more significant than that of a bug on a windshield. A harsh, but effective way of showing that the TVA is not screwing around when it comes to maintaining The Sacred Timeline.
Episode 2: The Variant
- The opening shot of the Roxxcart scene, where we witness an entire town slowly being swallowed by the storm surges caused by the hurricane. Added to that, the fact that in the future, hurricanes can reach Category 8.
- The prediction of how bad climate change gets in general. The next few decades are full of one terrible climate disaster after another. Plus a supervolcano eruption for good measure.
Episode 3: Lamentis
- This episode sees Loki and Sylvie land on a moon that's about to crash into a planet, dooming everyone on it to certain death. There's meteorites and explosions everywhere, and pandemonium and violence reign in the streets as the poor everyman workers are left behind to face extinction while the rich are given premier access to an evacuation ark... which then promptly explodes anyway.
Episode 4: The Nexus Event
- We see Sylvie's abduction as a child. She is alone in her room, playing, and she is kidnapped and subjected to the same treatment Loki got in the first episode. Where it was somewhat comical then, it is much less so now. Making it even worse is that Sylvie wasn’t even doing anything in particular. For all intents and purposes, her apparent crime was existing.
- The Time Cells. The TVA use advanced technology to put their victims in an endless loop, replaying their worst memories on repeat without any means to escape. While Loki being beaten and humiliated over and over again is Played for Laughs, the experience itself is chilling and is in fact Cold-Blooded Torture, feeling like something you’d see in Black Mirror.
- Whatever place Loki ends up being transported to after being pruned eerily resembles a post-apocalyptic New York with overgrown plant life and ruined skyscrapers — one can even see the destroyed Avengers tower in the background.
- All the employees at the TVA are variants. Mobius is always pining after jetskis he can never ride because once upon a time he was a blasé surfer dude and some part of him remembers that. All the TVA employees have their own quiet little And I Must Scream buried inside themselves.
Episode 5: Journey into Mystery
- You thought all timeline branches and variants pruned just cease to exist? Think again. That is the purpose of the Void, the place at the very end of time where the future has yet to be written by the TVA. Since branches and variants can't actually be wiped out, they are instead moved to the Void which basically acts like a giant time abyss garbage dump. And once you're there, you're trapped with no way out. From then on, you have to scavenge up what resources you can find and hide as best you can from the outside. And if that wasn't bad enough, you also have to deal with surviving variants who might be a little less than cordial with you. And then there's...
- Alioth. Picture an enormous living storm that scours the world in search of any poor soul that happens to appear in its vicinity with no clue what happened to them. It then attacks its victim by surrounding them in a thick purple cloud that immediately decays them until nothing is left in all but an instant. Now imagine that creature has a giant glowing face that looks like a bear's skull, and you have this monstrosity.
- To elaborate: Alioth is, as Sylvie puts it, a guard dog for the mastermind of the TVA. Any and all variants who are pruned are sent to the Void where they are expected to be killed by this beast. If you ever encounter it, your best bet is to just run like hell and hope it gets bored of you. Otherwise, there's no escape.
- In the following episode, we learn Alioth was born from tears in reality from the first Multiversal War, and has devoured entire universes before He Who Remains weaponized him to end it. This thing is basically the MCU's version of Azathoth.
- Even after learning that she was duped, Renslayer still apparently believes that the TVA is in the right, and wants to protect her unknown masters from Sylvie. That is what you call a fanatical Knight Templar.
- After getting his hand bitten off by Alligator Loki, President Loki raises it to show the entire stump with exposed flesh and all. There’s even a small splash of blood when President Loki rips Alligator Loki off of him. It's shockingly gory for the usually-PG-13 MCU.
Episode 6: For All Time. Always.
- Loki and Sylvie enter the castle and it's completely empty. As they start to walk through the halls, Miss Minutes suddenly pops up in an effective Jump Scare. Her chirpy Southern Belle demeanor is suddenly a lot creepier for how out of place it is in such a spooky environment, especially with the shrunken pupils and evil grin she has when she first appears. The result feels like something out of Five Nights at Freddy's.
- He Who Remains is himself a fairly harmless Non-Action Big Bad on his own. But this, which he himself lampshades, begs the question: if this is the variant who was benevolent enough to want to maintain a proper timeline, then what the hell is a bad variant who wants to rule it all like? The ending gives us a rather terrifying peek at the answer: Loki returns to the TVA, trying to warn Mobius of the war that is coming. His voice is shaky with every passing word, letting us know that this entire threat of "countless different versions of a very dangerous person" has left him completely scared. Unfortunately for Loki, Mobius doesn't recognize him, so Loki looks over to where the statues of the Time-Keepers once stood. Instead, he can only see one lone statue bearing the likeness of He Who Remains clad in a distinctive set of armor. He's too late. Kang the Conqueror is here.
