Julian Recaps: Marvel’s Streak of Bleak Cliffhangers Continue in Loki S02 Episode 4

Whoo boy! What did I just witness at the end? All right. I don’t know about everyone else on the internet right now but episode four of Loki Season Two was the craziest thing Marvel has done yet. It may sound like I’m exaggerating but as soon as I get to the conclusion of this episode, you’ll see what I mean. Right then, starting from the beginning what happened?

Episode Four Heart of the TVA opens at the Citadel at the End of Time with Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) revealing to Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu-Mbatha Raw) that she led He Who Remains’ (Jonathan Majors) armies during the Multiversal War. To her horror, it is also revealed that He Who Remains ordered Miss Minutes to wipe her memories along with many other people who followed her. The cartoon clock proposes to Renslayer that they should take over the TVA themselves. 

Meanwhile, Victor Timely (also played by Jonathan Majors) enters the TVA with Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Mobius (Owen Wilson), Hunter B-15 (Wumni Mosaku), and Sylvie (Sophie Di Martino) following close behind. They manage to get him and O.B. (Ke Huy Quan), and Casey (Eugene Cordero) to brainstorm how to fix the Temporal Loom on the verge of destruction. Sylvie is still somewhat not convinced that Timely is ever going to help and that he should be killed along with the entire TVA. Loki still tells her that the TVA despite all the flaws in the system is the best chance of defense against multiversal collapse. 

Hunter X-05 aka Brad Wolfe (Rafel Casal) and General Dox (Katie Dickie) was being approached by Hunter B-15 to join the new TVA under Judge Gamble (Liz Carr) and protect it from Renslayer. Their decision was left up in the air until Renslayer and Miss Minutes came with their offer to join her to put the TVA back to the original state of pruning everything back into order. Dox and her loyalists refuse except Brad who wants to continue living his movie star life on the Sacred Timeline. She and her loyalists get squished into oblivion as Renslayer begins locking out all the TemPads and re-gaining control with her next goal is capturing Timely again.

Wolf ends up capturing Timely after he helps O.B., and the gang complete a Throughput Multiplier that will fix the Temporal Loom completely. Loki and Sylvie go to rescue Timely, while O.B., Mobius, B-15, and Casey return to the room holding the deteriorating Temporal Loom. Sylvie ends up enchanting Wolfe to prune Renslayer, with O.B. completely shutting off Miss Minutes permanently, allowing them to continue their goal with less interference. Timely nominates himself to use the Throughput Multiplier to fix the Loom. Unfortunately, Timely gets killed as the temporal radiation levels are too high turning him into spaghetti. The gang looks outward in horror as the Loom erupts into a cosmic nuclear explosion with the screen glitching out and fading to black.

Whew…erm. That’s probably the darkest thing Marvel has done yet since the ending of Avengers: Infinity War. This cliffhanger was what brought me back into the show. I understand there are two episodes left but how are they going to get out of this one? On the flip side, this feels like a test run for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, the third Doctor Strange movie, and Avengers: Secret Wars regarding showcasing incursions since “The Multiverse Saga” revolves around total cosmic oblivion. We might end up seeing incursions happening on screen shortly, not counting name drops and walking in the aftermath of one in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Yeah…some dark stuff is coming our way in the MCU.

Loki S02 Episode Four Heart of the TVA is a decent episode with a cliffhanger that will eventually get resolved in the last two episodes, but serve as what kind of cosmic horrors await audiences for the future of the MCU.