In the end of Loki Season 2 Episode 5, something surprising happens: Loki’s New Superpower. Yes, in he gains new powers that might change how time travel works in the MCU. Loki Season 2 Episode 4 ending left might have left you worrying about what’s next to come.
The TVA’s Temporal Loom was destroyed, and Loki found himself all alone in a crumbling TVA. It seemed like the end was near. But instead Loki got something unexpected.
What is Loki’s New Superpower?
Loki’s new superpower is re-writing stories by controlling his time-slipping. During the beginning of Loki Season 2, time-slipping is described as a curse for Loki. He doesn’t seem to have control on it and hence keeps slipping in past and present.
In Episode 5, you can see him start time-slipping once again. What is time-slipping, you ask? It’s like jumping through different moments in time. This unique ability gave Loki a glimmer of hope to make things right.
At the end of episode 4, Victor Timely stepped on the Temporal Loom to install the throughout multiplier. But he turned into spaghetti as the radiation was too high. As the Temporal Loom exploded all of Loki’s friends were sent to their original timelines.
Hunter B-15 is a doctor, O.B. is a struggling science fiction author, Casey is the famous Alcatraz escapee Frank Morris, and Agent Mobius is selling jet skis. It’s like a bizarre reunion of alternate lives.
How can Loki control is time-slipping?
Loki Season 2 Episode 5 revolves around him trying to control is time-slipping. This episode makes you feel what Loki is feeling. Oroborus plays a key role in how Loki can control his time-slipping.
At the beginning of the episode, OB asks Loki to focus why he wants to control his time-slipping. Later when Loki reunites with Sylvie both of them get into an argument. Sylvie does not want to help Loki because she wants to lead her life in the branched timeline. When Sylvie asks Loki why he wants to restore the TVA, he reaches the conclusion that he wants his friends back and that he does not want to be alone.
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This is Loki’s fuel and the reason how Loki can control his time-slipping.
However, the scene with Loki and Sylvie is significant as both of them are right. Sylvie points out that both of them are selfish in their own way. Loki realizes this and wants his friends to return their respective timelines. But when Sylvie’s branched timeline starts to unravel from existence, she gets on board with Loki to make things right.
How is Loki’s New Superpower a game changer?
Loki’s new superpower: rewriting stories is a game changer because it breaks all the time travel rules that were previously established in the MCU.
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Here are the two rules that Loki’s New Superpower breaks:
1 – Changing the past does not change the future
After the snap, Rhodey wanted to go in the past and kill Thanos so that the snap would be undone. But according to Bruce Banner, the snap would still exist. Killing Thanos would give rise to a branched timeline from that point onwards.
However, Loki at the end of episode 5 goes exactly where episode 4 ended before the explosion of the temporal loom. It did not create a branched timeline. This means that Loki can travel back in time countless number of times until he gets the outcome what he needs.
This gives Loki a superior edge over Kang.
2 – Rewriting history in real time
Loki went to the past from the present and created a memory in the past with Oroborus. Loki was brought to the TVA from a branched timeline, then he was sent to the void. Then he was sent again into the TVA. This caused him to time-slip.
According to OB, Loki should not have been time-slipping in the TVA. This means that Loki is an anomaly here which enables him to rewrite time. Even rewriting history in real time. Again, this did not create a branched timeline.
How will Loki save the TVA?
Just as Loki realizes that he can control the outcomes by rewriting stories, Loki travels back in time before the Temporal Loom exploded. Hopefully, Victor Timely is also alive, he has not stepped out on the loom yet.
Loki wants to fix the Temporal Loom before it explodes, using the Throughput Multiplier. to stabilize the Loom as was the original plan devised by O.B. and Victor Timely. But instead of sending Victor Timely, this time he will suit up and go outside. It’s possible that he will be able to handle the radiation in a better way.
In addition to that, because Loki can control the outcome, he will keep coming back in time until the loom is able to stabilize. This was also hinted in this Loki sneak peak over here.
You can hear Loki repeating the words ‘again’. Suggesting that the temporal loom explodes several times before Loki can finally fix it.
Despite Loki’s new superpower, the stakes are higher than ever. With time-slipping in his arsenal, Loki has a unique advantage, and it’s sure to play a crucial role in the finale. Loki Season 2’s finale might reveal something new and set the MCU in an entirely new direction.