Kingpin voice: when I was a boy, Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies and shows always had a post-credits scene. Yet in the modern era, that record is spotty, at best. Loki Season 2, Episode 1 “Ouroboros” brought back the tradition with a scene of Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) at McDonald’s. But then, nothing. That is until a little tease in the Loki Episode 5 post-credits.
To be clear, this isn’t a full-on scene or anything, it’s just a short bit of audio. But it does tie into an Easter egg from earlier in the episode. And it tees up Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) extra life, if you will, in the Loki Season 2 finale. It also maybe set up Loki’s death. With that in mind, let’s do a little bit of a recap of how we got there, and then break down that Loki post-credit… Scene? Audio? Whatever.
Loki Season 2, Episode 5 “Science/Fiction” Recap:
Spoilers past this point. After the destruction of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) at the end of last week’s episode, “The Heart of The TVA,” Loki has once again started time-slipping. So no, Loki did not die at the end of Episode 4. Instead, he’s jumping to different branched realities where the main cast members have been returned to who they were before He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) snatched them from their timelines and wiped their minds.
That means Mobius (Owen Wilson) is finally a jet ski salesman at a place called Piranha Powersports in Cleveland in 2022 like he always dreamed of. Casey (Eugene Cordero) is a prisoner at Alcatraz in 1962 and a real-life escapee to boot named Frank Morris. Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) is a pediatrician in New York in 2012. One wonders what happened to her during the Battle of New York in The Avengers, which occurred the same year? Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) is an unsuccessful sci-fi novelist named A.D. Doug in Pasadena in 1994. And Sylvie is back at her McDonald’s.
As Loki jumps to these various timelines, he realizes that he wants to bring them back together because he misses his friends. And then realizes he must bring them back together. All the timelines are spaghetti-ing thanks to the destruction of the TVA’s Loom in the previous episode. What’s the Loom? It is a device that neatly weaves all the timelines into a thick cord of timelines. I don’t get it either, but it is important.
Loki realizes as he watches everyone and everything disappear from existence that he can control hi time-slipping, and in the final moment of the episode jumps back to the TVA before the Loom explodes. Cool!
Where’s Brad Wolfe In Loki Season 2, Episode 5?
One character we don’t check back in with is Brad Wolfe, aka Hunter X-05, who was an actor in a series of films called Zaniac on a branched timeline in Episode 2, “Breaking Brad.” However, we do get to see his impact: as Sylvie and Loki have a heart-to-heart in a bar, there’s an arcade cabinet for the Zaniac arcade game. And that brings us to…
Loki Season 2, Episode 5 Post Credits Explained:
If you sit through the credits for the latest episode, which you should do anyway because a lot of people worked very hard on the show, you’ll hear Brad Wolfe (Rafael Casale) say the following: “You died. Insert your coin, loser.”
Presumably, this is what he says when someone dies in the Zaniac arcade game. We don’t know. However, this not only ties into the end of the episode but tees up (potentially) what the Season 2 finale is all about. Loki — and everyone and everything — died, but now he’s using his extra life. He’s inserted a coin again and is getting to replay the events of the previous episode(s), hopefully to do it right now.
Pure speculation here, but one could assume that Loki won’t crush it the second time through. Instead, we’ll get what in scientific terms is called a “Groundhog Day,” and he’ll continue using his new time-slip controlling powers to go back and “play” through the same events again.
However, there’s one additional thing we should throw out there. In the promo for the final two episodes released by Marvel, you can see Loki, sans bulky suit, wandering out on the bridge outside the TVA to fix their Loom problem. Loki may sacrifice his final life to save the TVA, doing something purely selfless for the first time in his existence. Will Loki die for real in the Loki Season 2 finale? Or insert yet another coin? Stay tuned.
