Spoilers ahoy for the bombshell ending of Loki season 2, episode 4.
Cliffhangers for the sake of cliffhangers can often be the death of creativity, but any self-respecting Marvel Cinematic Universe fan would be lying if they said the wait to find out what happens next following the jaw-dropping conclusion of Loki‘s episode is going to be borderline painful.
Just like that, the entire multiversal playbook has been torn up, ripped to shreds, set on fire, and then stomped on, before being buried and having its location hidden. Everything we thought we knew about where the story is heading went up in smoke, something executive producer Kevin Wright admitted to TotalFilm he was always planning on doing.
“It was something we started learning in season 1. This idea of story acceleration. If the season seems like it’s going to be about fixing that Temporal Loom, what if that just… breaks right in the middle of the season and everything goes wrong?”
Explaining the bold call to plunge the entirety of time and space into utter chaos, Wright elaborated by promising to take the Loki – and by extension the MCU – to some bold and brave new places.
“Not only did it allow us a really great cliffhanger, but where you go after that is totally new territory then. If the first four episodes of season 2 are about things falling apart or not working; choices being made that maybe aren’t the right choices, then the back half can really allow us to go to some, hopefully, profound places.”
He promises that “it’s gonna be new ground,” and the fact we have to wait seven days to find that out for ourselves is flat-out cruel.