A lot of fans may have been left more than a little confused by this week’s episode of Loki, but it’s become abundantly clear already that the trickster’s time traveling solo series has the potential to change the Marvel Cinematic Universe forever, something that was long since teased by creator and lead writer Michael Waldron.
The stinger saw the rogue variant revealed to be a female version of Asgard’s God of Mischief, confirming Sophia Di Martino in the role that those following the series from the beginning had expected her to play for months. However, the credits may have given the game away that she’s actually portraying another Marvel Comics character altogether, which is hardly going to make things any less difficult to follow.
That being said, the smart money has now been firmly placed on Richard E. Grant’s mystery role being that of an older Loki, who may well end up being exposed as the real big bad and rogue variant at a later date. For the moment, though, the multiverse is poised to explode after the events of episode 2, and eagle-eyed fans were quick to spot a nod to Black Widow’s fate in Avengers: Endgame.
After the climactic standoff where Lady Loki launched a temporal attack, we saw changes being made to the Sacred Timeline, one of which involved Vormir on April 23rd, 2301. While that’s a couple of centuries removed from when Gamora and Natasha Romanoff met their respective demises during their adventures with the Soul Stone, the reference might still sting for some MCU enthusiasts, as well as reinforcing the notion that nowhere in space and time is safe from the changes that Loki could be making to the mythology at large.