We’re in the endgame now with the penultimate episode of Loki Season 2, “Science/Fiction”. After the last episode ended with the temporal loom doing the big explode, we were all left wondering what could happen next. Would we get a time loop episode? Maybe everyone would be flung across the timeline? Or perhaps everyone was sent to the Bahamas for some chill vibes? Besides answering this burning question, this episode also gave us new versions of characters and had Loki himself become something more. But enough with the foreplay, let’s start with a quick breakdown.

Time-Slipping All Over the Place

We start this episode right where the last one left off, with the temporal loom exploding. After zooming out from Loki’s beautiful face, we see that everyone else is gone. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) begins to power-walk through the TVA for answers but instead discovers his time-slipping has returned (pesky thing, that is). After he does a loop and says hello to himself, the TVA turns into temporal spaghetti. Luckily, Loki glitches out and escapes before he too, becomes spaghetti. And with that, the TVA is no more (not really, but we’ll circle back to that). Loki is thrown to various points in time and different timelines at random. This is where we finally get to see who the members of the TVA would be if they weren’t plucked from the timeline. Casey (Eugene Cordero) is a criminal escaping Alcatraz, Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) is a children’s doctor, O. B. (Ke Huy Quan) is a flailing sci-fi author who buys his own book (that was hard to watch), and Mobius (Owen Wilson) is finally back in his element as a single dad who sells jet skis (or personal watercraft).

The next chunk of the episode involves Loki going to each of these people and convincing them to join him so that he can use their temporal aura to travel back in time to when the TVA wasn’t a bowl of spaghetti (this show has a lot of science jargon, doesn’t it). The last person Loki goes to grab is Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), who remembers everything, unlike the others. The two have a surprisingly deep talk about how they’re both selfish (*gasp* say it ain’t so). After which, Sylvie refuses to help, and Loki returns to the others dejected. That is until Sylvie arrives after witnessing the timeline she was in being erased.

It’s a little late, though, because the timeline they’re in also begins to spaghettify. All seems lost until Loki comes in clutch and figures out how to control his time-slipping. With this newfound power under control, Loki travels back to before the loom exploded, where the episode ends (these cliff-hangers are testing my patience). Overall, it was an enjoyable penultimate episode that moved the story forward while giving Loki some well-deserved focus and development.

Old Faces, New Lives

One of my favourite aspects of this episode was seeing the characters we’ve been with the entire season in a completely different way. It was already revealed in Season 1 that all of the people at the TVA were variants and had lives before they were taken, and now we get to see just what those lives were. Some weren’t all that shocking, like Hunter B-15 being a children’s doctor or O. B. being a scientist/writer (even if his book wasn’t selling very well. I’ll buy all of them to cheer him up, though). What was shocking, however, is that Casey was in Alcatraz prison, of all places. Who would’ve guessed that the nerdy and shy admin Casey would be a bank robber and was imprisoned (not me, that’s for sure). The most wholesome character, though, has to go to Mobius, who’s now a personal watercraft salesman. Even though he couldn’t make a sale, he’s just so excited about watercraft and will take any chance to try and convince others as well.

One person who hadn’t changed a bit was Sylvie, which led to an interesting conversation between herself and Loki. Sylvie didn’t lose her memories like the others (possibly because of He Who Remains’ (Jonathan Majors) TemPad, but that’s just a theory) and is content to leave everything the way it is. This also means Sylvie has achieved her goal of a multiverse with complete freedom, even if she doesn’t yet know of the consequences. It was interesting to see this once ultra-determined god being content with living a peaceful life, which made it all the more depressing when her timeline was turned into spaghetti. Her joining back up with Loki and the others also wasn’t out of character at all for her because I would bet any amount of money that she just wants her timeline back (which is fair enough).

The God of Stories

One character that I’ve neglected up until now is the titular Loki. I had some concerns about Loki’s importance in his own series based on the last few episodes, but Episode 5 has eliminated all of them. Not only is Loki the driving force behind this episode’s story, but he has also been given a spiffy new ability. Loki’s development was the main focus of this episode. Everything that happened served to push Loki towards the realisation that he needs his friends (which is a far cry from the start of the series).

We see him frantically try to get Casey to remember him. He puts so much faith in O. B. to help figure things out. He even makes himself a little more presentable before he talks to Mobius. This all came to a head in the chat with Sylvie, where he said he wanted his friends back. It was a nice moment that showed just how far he’s come. This also led to him controlling his time-slipping, making him essentially a god of time now. With his new time-slipping powers, Loki is set to not only be at the centre of the final episode but also ready to be a significant player in the MCU in the future.

“Science/Fiction” was an excellent penultimate episode for Loki Season 2. While not action-packed, the new takes on old characters were very cool. The character development was on point for both Loki and Sylvie, and I’m more curious than ever to see how their story progresses (just no more self-love incest, please). With the final episode next up, I’m more excited than ever to see how they close out the season.

Have you seen the latest episode of Loki? What did you think? Do you want a personal watercraft? Let us know in the comments where we can talk about how Loki is a time god now.