'Loki' Season 2, Episode 2 Deep Dive
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I haven't come here to make trouble. Then why are you here? This is going to sound strange, but there's been a problem. It's complicated. I've been pulled through time between the past and the present. I was in the past. Just get to the point, Loki. Sylvie, I was in the future and I saw you. The TVA is in danger and you were there. I need to know why. So you see the future now. Cool. It's not something I chose.

Look, as much as I'd love to see the TVA burnt to the ground, I have no intention of going back there. My life's here now, and I'm not running. I'm happy. Explain what I saw then. I don't know. I don't care. It's the future. It's going to happen. Is it? Really? Because that sounds a lot like the future's already been written. And we both know that it hasn't. Not anymore. I made sure of that. Greetings, and welcome to House of R.

a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to Broxton, Oklahoma, the apple pies warm, but also to our new House of R podcast feed. Joining me today, where's the rude boy off to? Where's the fancy lad going to then? Did you lose your tickets to the opera?

It's my house of our co-host for a day, Tony. Wow, hello. Can we just talk for a second about how crazy life is? Can you and I just talk for a second? Okay, Mobius. Yeah, that makes me Brad, I think, which I'm not sure I'm comfortable with in this scenario. But it does mean we're sharing a lovely milkshake and a warm plate of fries, so hard to complain, I guess. Rob?

Hello. Welcome back. Thank you. It's great to be with you. We last podcasted together in depth, deep dive in about Loki season one. We did a couple of the Loki season one pods together. It was an absolute thrill to talk about Loki with you.

We both loved the finale. You said it was one of your, if I recall, five favorite Marvel things ever, season one. Still stands, by the way. I can't say there's been a lot of competition since, but still looking pretty good. When our beloved Joanna Robinson was unable to be here today, caught in a time cube, you know, due to illness,

Lost voice. Book tour scheduling. Joe has a bazillion things going on. We miss Joe dearly. We are sad not to have Joe with us today. Joe is with us in spirit always. But when Joe couldn't make it,

I knew that we had to bring you through the time door so that we could talk about Loki again. So thank you for being here. And thank you to all of the House of Our Heads, all of the bad babies for waiting the extra day. We appreciate it as we got our schedule synced. Appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it. As someone who had some boning up to do to get up to House of Our Speed on this series, which if there was going to be anything, I was going to jump back into this pod feed. Well, this new pod feed, but this pod four, it would be Loki, which as you said, I love dearly.

This story, this execution, these actors, these characters, this stuff means a lot to me, more than I even expected given where we started with season one. But man, I'm so glad season two is back. Okay, I can't wait to hear all of your thoughts on the episode, on the season so far, on where we are with our beloved pals and variants. We have so much to get to today. But before we debate whether recording this podcast is a higher priority than preventing a temporal meltdown,

Which I would say it is. Yeah, I would say so. Seems fair. Some quick programming reminders. I will be back on the House of RFeed on Friday with Benjamin Lindbergh. And we are dipping our toes into The Walking Dead waters. We watched The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon. I was thinking...

What is either starting or ending this week? What would be a good thing to chat about? And I had really lapsed as a Walking Dead viewer over the years. And I was genuinely intrigued. Like, is this a time where you can opt back in? Whereas Ben has watched every second of The Walking Dead that has ever aired. Yeah, just every single second of it. And so that'll be a really fun check-in to do. I'm looking forward to that. Then Joe and I will be back on Monday for our deep dive into Loki season two, episode three.

Things are also popping over on the ringer verse pods. A plenty Ben and Jess are cranking out a new button mash every like three days right now. It is peak video game season and they are on it right now. You can find the anticipated initial impressions of,

of Marvel's Spider-Man 2. This is like the spoiler-free, just the taste, and also their revisitation of Marvel's Spider-Man and Spider-Man Miles Morales. And then they're going to have the full Spider-Man 2 pod breakdown at the top of next week on Monday. So get hyped for that. The Midnight Boys. Pew, pew, pew! See, man? It's been a while for you in the ring of verse, but you're ready. You were right on time with the pew, pew. It's like you never left. They will be with you on Thursday night, Rob.

Instant reaction to episode three. You don't even have to wait. It's going to be right there for you. Incredible. Incredible stuff. And then Jessica will have a splash page video breakdown of that episode heading into the weekend. Rob. Yeah.

What can everybody look for from you on the eve of NBA season here? Anything you want to plug? Group chat? Well, yeah. As you know, we are in the throes of NBA preseason. All that stuff is well and good. Follow us on TheRinger.com. Follow us on TheRingerNBA.com. Group chat, the show that I am a part of, will be going twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays. But I feel like we missed some significant steps. We forgot to tell people.

Subscribe to this podcast. Yeah. Find it. How can I do it? Yeah. Dedicate your life to it. Yeah. Follow all the social channels. Hashtag save Jomie's job. Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, the whole thing. You're right, man. You big on TikTok? Absolutely not. No, not going to happen for me. I've just accepted it. The world is passing me by, but I'm going to cling to my dying social media platforms. But Jomie is there. And that's the important thing. He's there for you in the ringer versus there for you.

You can also send us your emails. Keep them coming. Keep them coming about Loki. Keep them coming about anything. Apple Wars, whatever's on your mind. Sign up with your pickle. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Last programming reminder. It's the same one as always. It's the friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. You might be wondering.

What's going to come up today? We're glad you asked. We're going to talk about the episode of television that you have clicked into this podcast to hear us discuss. That is Loki season two, episode two, Breaking Brad, written by Eric Martin, directed by longtime VFX supervisor Dan DeLue.

Also on the table, anything from the first episode of Loki season two, anything from Loki season one, anything that has ever happened in the MCU and some Marvel Comics canon as well. You have your spoiler warning. You have your programming reminders. Let's quit with the magic and fight fair. It's time to pod.

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or the Peloton app. It's like having your own personal coach with you or right at home in your living room. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at onepeloton.com slash running. Opening snapshot. Steve, I already forgot how moody the new music is. I love it. Okay, Rob, we just want a little taste. We're going to go through every single scene in the episode. We're going to go beat by beat.

But give us that Rob Mahoney and Moose Boosh. How did you feel about episode two? But also, give us a little taste of how you're feeling about season two of Loki so far. I just love this show. And I think this season has been pretty terrific so far. It's so well made. And it hits for me in a way that nothing else in the MCU does. Mostly because it's more interested in self-discovery and the weight of free will than...

I don't know, like, whether Loki's magical powers are stronger than some other character's magical powers. Like, that stuff is ultimately not important, and that appeals to me. But also because of that, there's always interesting things going on under the hood of these episodes. I feel like I can trust the ideas, the arcs, the plot mechanics. Like, all that stuff is really working for me in season two so far. And I really dug this episode. Like, the whole show, it, um...

I don't know. It's a marvel to me, to be honest with you. It's a wonder to me. It is people talking in rooms, this episode especially. And the old Tyrion Lannister. We're back. But you know what? It never, ever feels small. And that is a hell of a thing to pull off. So I love where we're at. And I'm very excited to see where we can go with 3 and beyond. But what did you make of episode 2? I just love listening to it.

listening to you talk about Loki. This is such a treat. Such an absolute treat. I really enjoyed episode two. I liked it more than episode one. I thought it was a stronger overall episode in part because of what you're identifying. I thought that we return in a pretty crucial way to that Tyrion Lannister, great conversations in elegant rooms, substance and heart. There were still plenty of timey-wimey plot mechanics that we'll talk about as we go, certainly. But...

On the whole, I thought this was a really enjoyable second installment. It set the table in an intriguing way for the hunts to come, looking for Miss Minutes, looking for Renslayer, a lot of Tempad McGuffin action. It's Tempad season in this episode. But when we got to these really prolonged conversations between...

Loki and our guy, Brad Wolf, between Loki and Mobius, Loki and Sylvie, Mobius and Brad Wolf, et cetera. I was like, this is what the show is. And I applaud the ambition to do something a little bit different stylistically. I think the fact that this season is more of a, you know, Charles has been talking a lot on Midnight Boys about how much he's enjoying the workplace comedy part.

and framing of this season. And I genuinely think it's a good thing that season two is trying to do something a little bit different in terms of its approach on an episode-by-episode basis. In episode one, it worked a little less well for me, even though I enjoyed episode one quite a bit and was just delighted to be back with our pals on the TVA talking about our human nature and what we're capable of. Yeah.

This episode felt a little more in balance with that new structure and plot approach, but that heartbeat of can people change? What is nature? What is nurture? Who do we need to surround ourselves with in order to think about that at all? That was here at the fore in a way that I consider elemental to what I love about the show. So I'm really excited to go beat by beat and talk about it all with you.

I feel like we're going to need a snack break at some point. We're going to be talking about pie so much, but we'll see. Very pie-heavy episode. Many pie thoughts to come, I can assure you. I hope so. You're a big foodie. You're a big food guy.

I try. I dabble. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you may not be on TikTok, but you are on Instagram posting a lot of gourmet photos of your resplendent meals. So I'm excited for all of your food talk. I can't wait to tell you how much McDonald's I've consumed in the last few weeks. Just cannot wait to tell you. We need to talk about that too. But again, everything in its time. Okay, let's dive deep. London, nowhere better to be, nowhere better to start. 1977, the sacred timeline. Mobius and Loki...

are out looking for Sylvie, Rob. They're tracking a hit on a TemPad that belonged to Hunter X5, quote, before it went dark.

And folks, they are dressed to impress the tuxedo game in this opening scene. We've got bow ties. Brad Wolf is wearing an incredible scarf. Loki is basically in the puffy shirt from Seinfeld, and yet he's making it work. He's pulling it off. We've got a fit watch category. Joe's not here. And so we would never dream of doing a wig watch in Joe's absence, but we will be doing a fit watch later.

Is there anything that you would like to say on the fit front while we're here? I mean, was there any doubt that Loki was going to spring for the ruffles? I feel like it's a perfect character beat, a perfect character moment. And not to jump ahead too far, but just the way this guy buttons and unbuttons his suit jacket with ease. I mean, he was clearly born to wear it.

This was I'm calling this double a Loki like this was the Tom Hiddleston James Bond stretch. This is the tape. This is the audition tape. Honestly, specifically what you referenced like the the one hand unbuttoning of the jacket as he is strutting down an alleyway in pursuit of his foe. Well, plus, I know you guys have been all about Loki's 40 time and the way he's been hoofing it so far this season.

Let me tell you, the chase we're about to get into in this episode is

Our guy is in 1970s men's dress shoes on cobblestone streets and is the fastest human I have ever seen. I could not be more impressed. It was incredible. I really enjoyed the quick back and forth about whether Brad really thought that he was going to be able to escape Loki, who, let's not forget, was raised as a guardian god and is a frost giant of Jotunheim by birth. So...

I'm not surprised that the stride work is there. We've talked a lot about the 40 time. I am now really curious about how low he would perform in some other drills at the combine. Yeah, like a shuttle. What do you think he would excel? Three cone. Because it's a lot about the nimbleness, the quick, responsive movement, thinking on the fly. He's very light on his feet. Our guy, Tom, he's got a bit of a dancer's physique. You could see him really working those cones. Yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Mobius was really trying his best as well. Absolutely. It's all that jet ski living that he doesn't remember coming, coming through in the clutch here. Reflexes, hand-eye coordination.

We get, before we get the chase, we get something interesting, which is that sacred timeline ID. So Sylvie in the Stinger last week, when she appeared in Broxton, we got a branched timeline ID. And here we get the sacred timeline ID. So this is just a helpful thing to know about the season, that we're going to get these markers. And it'll be useful not only for the characters, but for us as viewers to track. Are we on a branch? Are we on the sacred timeline? Especially knowing how many characters, like Docs, are in pursuit of the pruning still.

Knowing whether we're on a branch is going to be an important thing in terms of how safe we feel at any given moment in time. So that was interesting. Instantaneously.

Those dress shoes that you mentioned, they touch down on the pavement. And Loki says, without hesitation, Sylvie's not here. It's too safe. It's not her style. And there were two things that I loved about this. One, I thought this was very sweet, you know, that he thinks truly that he knows her so fully and so well that he would be able to deduce in an instant whether a place felt like something that was like where she would seek refuge.

But of course, the other thing I love about it is that he's wrong. Oh, so wrong. She is in Broxton specifically because like that safety, that normalcy, as he will later see and as we will get to discuss later in the episode, that is precisely what she's after. There's a very interesting arcing thing happening there where over season one,

Sylvie and Loki are just getting closer and closer together, obviously in intimacy and understanding each other, but also like ideologically, right? They're getting on the same page. And then they get to the end of time and they meet He Who Remains and they just bump so hard off each other with Sylvie...

Yeah. I thought if we were going to get Loki and Sylvie bumping so hard off each other in the finale, it was going to be a completely different scene. But sadly, we're still waiting. Not for Disney Plus, but I'm sure available somewhere on the Internet if you so choose. Okay, you really do have to get used to these drops. This is Rob's first exposure to the Steve Albin soundboard. You got to be ready. It's a different life out here on this side of things. But...

With the way that they kind of ricocheted, ideologically speaking, again, off each other, we now see them kind of careening in opposite directions where Loki thinks he knows who Sylvie is and what she wants, but she's moving into a pretty different place. Like, she's kind of gotten the thing she wants, and now it's about figuring out what to do with it. Right, and I think similarly, Loki is moving not only away from Sylvie, but away from

where he was so deeply entrenched for the bulk of season one, which is something that I've really been fascinated tracking in the first two installments of season two. They enter a theater, a theater where Zaniac is premiering. First of all, incredible marquee. I will be procuring this poster at some point. I would also watch. A limo pulls up.

And out pops Hunter X5. He's rocking longer hair, Rob. He's got that scarf on that we mentioned. And he is living lavishly as actor Brad Wolf. Very, very quick. Very quick. Comics canon corner. Brad Wolf, Zaniac, these are comics characters. The gist of the thing you need to know about the comics canon. Who knows how this will come into play, if at all, in the show, but

is that actor Brad Wolf played a serial killer named Zaniac. This was a character that he played. And then he's exposed to radiation from the Manhattan Project. I don't know what's wrong with me or why I'm laughing as I say this. And also bonds with a creature from the Dark Dimension. Shout out the homie Dormammu now and always. Yeah.

And he then becomes the serial killing Zaniac character that he had previously portrayed. He makes energy knives from his hands. Yeah, it's a big who among us. A tale as old as time. Situation. Just because of this initial glimpse of Brad and the Zaniac theater and our guys and their tuxes and all of it, I was curious to ask you how you were enjoying that.

The new settings that we're getting so far in season one, we have this wonderful London stretch to open the second episode. We, of course, have the Broxton, Oklahoma branch timeline McDonald's stretch. We have, you know, complete with Sylvie's absolutely iconic pickup truck. Obviously, we bounced around to new locations in season one. That's always been something that the

that the show affords us, right? We went to the Ren Faire. We went to the Rockscore Superstore. We went to Lamentis. We went to Pompeii, et cetera, et cetera. But it does seem like really bouncing around to new places, new points in time, new locations that are going to give us different costumes, different vibes, different interactions is going to be like central to...

how season two flows. Is that something you've been enjoying so far and something that you're looking forward to seeing more of? Oh, definitely. I mean, it's one of the great joys of time travel shows in general, but I would say the other side of that and where we're different from season one is season one, the transport of quality of those scenes is we're looking for a variant who lives in this place. Yes. Now we're looking for variants who showed up in that place. And as a viewer, like we don't really know how long X5 has been here. Yeah.

inhabiting this life, right? What it seems for us could be years for him. Like, we just know that they're tracking this TemPad trace. I imagine we're going to get similar things down the line when we're searching for Miss Minutes, as we're going to talk about, and, you know, when Victor Timely ultimately factors into this show. Like, we just have no idea what these characters' backgrounds are in that space. And so, coming into these new environments and also not really knowing, like, how...

how much these people are bonded to those spaces. Like, that's part of the fun, too. Yeah, it's a great point. Like, the distinction between, okay, this is somewhere we need to get in and out, set a charge, prune, try not to get killed, versus...

We are either, we are with a character who is seeking to find a life or are in pursuit of a character who has made or rediscovered a life. That is like a fundamental distinction that makes the time we're spending there really different. It's a great point. We hear, we get a little, the only timeframe thing we really get with Brad is that line from the press scrum about, I mean, it's the insights into his dating life. Brad Wolf, big on 1977 TMZ about that meteoric rise to fame. Yeah. But,

The press scrum is not complete until Mobius joins it. This is so funny to me, the way that Brad is making his way through the reporters, then all of a sudden Mobius is there to confront him. Brad basically does his best Thor Ragnarok cosplay. He's like, he's a friend from work. It's fine. Nothing to see here. I'm definitely not freaking out. He offers to get Mobius and Loki a whiskey and

Loki does not want to drink. If it is not as Guardian Mead and or the Figgy Port from the Lamentis Train, he's not going to partake. Mobius really wanted that whiskey. He's like, we're still working. It's fine.

Well, I mean, Mobius, a lot of questionable things happening here. For one, if you're part of this, you can't be part of the scrum and a long term friend of the person you're interviewing. Like a lot of journalistic ethics questions happening here. Do you think Mobius ever took com law or any sort of journalistic ethics class? No, I simply cannot imagine it. But look, if that's what his other timeline life turned out to be, I would love to see that spinoff.

We'll be revisiting later the wonderful mailbag theory we discussed in week one about whether Jack from McDonald's is in fact Mobius. But now I am considering whether like Mobius was one of my classmates at the S.I. Newhouse School of Journalism and Communications. Maybe he's a Syracuse guy. Who knows? Brad dips. And...

We're learning a lot in real time about Brad, but one thing we know to be true immediately is that the only thing bigger than X5's augmented temp pad is his ego. Because B-15 so easily ensnares this doofus into stopping for an autograph, anything for a fan, and then disarms him.

This was so funny to me. He manages to break off what we think based on how it's behaving and how he's using it after as a time twister. But imagine fleeing for your life, fleeing to preserve this thing that you have built and still stopping because someone says, oh my God, it's incredible.

I feel like this is much more of a Mal or Joe situation. You're telling me if a bad baby in desperate need of an autograph reached out to you as you were running down the street for an autograph, you wouldn't stop for them? No, you're right. I probably would. Yeah. I'm like, wow. Say hi. This is incredible. How surreal. How touching. Thank you. And that's how they would mug you of your temp pad, I'm sure. Mobius corners Brad, who implores him.

An impassioned plea here. Come on, Mobius, you're going to ruin my life here. Your life here? We don't get to drill down quite yet on that idea because Loki comes in and he blasts him and the chase is afoot. The score here, one of the great things about Loki always is the Natalie Holt score. It was...

popping during this chase. Aces. Unbelievable. We need to get like a collaboration one day between Natalie Holt and Steve Hallman. That score with the soundboard. I mean, can you imagine? Name a more iconic team of...

Loki lays his trap, Rob, for the rude boy with the fake throng. Plays with his food a bit here. So unsophisticated. You're doing your own stunts now? Disarms him with ease. Takes the time twister away. Brad's whining. You quit with the match. You can fight fair. And Loki literally sighs. There's an incredible amount of sighing from Loki in this episode, but this was my favorite sigh. It's not a fair fight. And...

I shouted aloud, genuinely, Flex, my king. Because it's fun. It's fun to be out of the TVA and see Loki get to use his magic again. But also, I think more than that, it's just fun to see him in a kind of like vintage and classic Loki way.

and strut without being a heinous, villainous monster who is shouting, you mewling quim at Natasha. Like, this is a fun Loki. This is a good Loki in pursuit of things that we can root for. And we get to see that energy from him inside of that context, which I really enjoyed. Totally. And Tom Hiddleston, he really gets to walk, and he does walk such a tightrope on this show between giving us...

the payoffs of what we eventually came to love about Loki, thanks to all that like fast-tracked montage character video development in season one. So he's kind of, he kind of knows what happens to Loki, but he's also very much still that earlier vintage. And he, he relishes on this show in this part, in the mustache twirling parts of Loki a little more than we saw in like certainly Ragnarok or at the beginning of infinity where like he is a different version of that character and him playing with his food here is, is,

A perfect example of that, but really the way he kind of corners Brad with the shadow play is really where it comes out. Okay, I wanted to ask you about the shadow play. Yes. For a couple reasons. First of all, we should note, these are new powers. Like, we have that great stretch in season one where...

Enumerates the differences for the TVA between illusion projection and duplication casting. So we've gotten like some insights there, but I mean, we need to go, we need to go back like literally only mere minutes to see Brad swing the crowbar through a cast. And you get that kind of the signature whoosh of green light. It's not really there. You can think of like Thor throwing something at Loki in Ragnarok and it goes right through him. Right. So to see that,

a projection that he is casting a shadow in this case actually interact with a physical world is new. But I think perhaps even more notably, cause like powers evolving or us getting to glimpse them in new ways is fun. It feels very like a natural progression inside of this show because like we got to see Loki learn how to enchant in season one and really embrace the idea of talking about how Frigga taught him magic. Like it's on his mind, how his powers function and what he could try and maybe learn for the first time.

But the horns, the shadow sprout, the signature iconic Loki horned helmet. And here's my question for you. Was your response to this...

fuck yeah, this is just a purely fun and enjoyable classic bit of Loki iconography. My guy is in a real I can change, but also wear the horns headspace and I support it and I love it. Or did any alarm bells flare for you? Because we associate those horns with Loki's villainous days. Nah, it's honestly just sick. I'm very into it. Look,

Of course there are character concerns, and really it's kind of setting us up for this whole episode, right? Like, in a very subtle way, that Loki still has the horns on. Here is him and his behavior now, and isn't he still kind of villainous? So that we ultimately get to the interrogation scene later in this episode, and even the audience is wondering a little bit what's real and what's act. Right. Which is a great bit of staging. Yes. But also, just like, give me this stylized magic over generic energy blasts.

every day of the week. For sure. It's just more interesting and this is kind of a deranged poll, but I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Not at the pleasure. But there's a very...

I mean, it is what it sounds like. It's all right there on the tin. It's all right there on the title. Yeah. There's a scene in which one of these alien clowns does like a shadow puppet thing to delight some people until the shadow puppet turns into a T-Rex in which it somehow actually eats them. And it felt kind of similar and evocative in that way. This idea of mirage, this idea of illusion, innervation.

interacting with reality, right? Like, Loki creating that kind of magic, that particular kind of manipulation, I think it's just great for his character and it's certainly great in this scene. Right, and I also, I love that and I love the idea that like a shadow, like what is a shadow, right? It's a manifestation of a certain aspect of you, but because we know that Loki is cast

casting and is choosing to convey something like this is something that he's trying to tell somebody about himself. And so there's something really interesting there to parse. I thought it was also interesting that Mobius can't tell

Who the real Loki is. And there's like the plot mechanic aspect of this, like where will that prove relevant later in the season? But of course, much more richly, there's like the symbolic thematic aspect of this. Like, does Mobius know Loki? Does Loki know himself? Do we know Loki? When can we feel confident and comfortable in our read?

on who he is. So this was just an absolutely delightful opening scene that I loved. This is what I'm talking about, though. Like, that level... Like, this is a show that warrants that level of analysis, right? Of the idea of if you really know someone or not. Because those are the ideas the show is playing with. If you do that same exercise with the staging of a scene in Falcon and Winter Soldier, with all due respect to Falcon and Winter Soldier, it's not going to hold up. It's just not created that way. So...

Some of the I'm sure some of the extrapolations are things that we are putting on the show, things that we are seeing in the text, I'm sure, inevitably. Our prerogative as podcasters. You know, it's really what we do here. The show, again, has enough going on in its own head that I think we're hitting close to the mark on a lot of those things because it's really right there on the page. Absolutely. It's definitely inviting that level of assessment. Yeah.

Let's talk about some Tempads, man. It's Tempad time. We're going to go through a few different scenes here that are all in sequence as we pop back to the TVA, all of which center in some way on Tempads. X5's a prisoner now, TVA prisoner. He's in that khaki jumpsuit. He's got the time collar. And Loki is in the most fabulous new coat on top of his TVA garb.

It made me think back so powerfully to one of my favorite exchanges from season one in episode three when Sylvie said, what exactly makes Loki Loki? Loki replied, independence, authority, style. Like, Mobius looks fine, but he's in this just utterly drab brown blazer and Loki pops in with his version. He's adhering, I think,

to the dress code. He's got a brown coat. Yes. Slightly darker brown than Mobius is, you know, a little good cop, bad cop stuff coming. Yeah. A lot of buddy cop action in this episode. So I just thought that was amazing. B15 asks about X5's augmented Tempad. This really sparks the episode long emphasis on the Tempad augmentation. Brad is a gigantic dick here.

Really earning that rude boy nickname and just not helpful at all. So B15 sends Mobius and Loki to consult Obi on the Tempad. And I want all your Obi thoughts. I'll set the stage here to say that they find him on the floor of his workshop talking to himself saying, oh man, I'm good. I will use the word iconic, like the over under for how many times I say iconic per pod is probably set at like 17. And I think most people probably take the over.

Oh man, I'm good. It's Pantheon. It's so funny. Obi, how are you feeling about Obi so far? How are you enjoying your time with this new character? He fits the show like a glove. And a lot of that is the world building. It's the set design. It's his place and all that stuff. But also, I mean, he's like the Willy Wonka of IT professionals. What is not to like about that?

And in particular, this exchange where they have brought him this template, they know that OB is basically trying to do his damnedest to keep the entirety of the time stream intact. And they're like, hey, can you also like fix my phone? Yeah. While you're at it. Yeah. I've got a cracked screen. I can't figure out which of it's giving me two options for the iOS update. Which do I pick? And he basically gives them the equivalent of the like, have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again? And he's right to do it. No,

That easily gives them the, like, do you know how to Google that reply? Which is just perfection. Yeah, I can definitely get into it. Do you think this is a higher priority than preventing a temporal meltdown in their response? No, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Seems prudent. I don't think OBS the bandwidth for all that. Like, let's go, let's depry the Tempad situation. Let's hand it off to another department. Like, clearly he's got other fish to fry. I have great news for you. You don't even need to go to another department. He

has written everything you'll ever need to know

about a Tempad in Chekhov's TVA guidebook, which Joanna and I talked about a lot last week because it was so conspicuous in its prominence. Yeah. And it was even, that was even truer in this episode. It continues to rear its orange head. We are reminded of Obi writing it, of Casey consuming it and memorizing it, of Mobius not really being able to like parse. It seems impenetrable to Mobius when he's trying to read through it in the next scene. And,

Do you want to share any TVA guidebook theories in real time right now? Are you into the idea that I floated in episode one that maybe the TVA guidebook became Miss Minutes? Do you like that theory? Honestly inspired. Thank you. Genuinely inspired. And in the age of audiobooks, you know, what is Miss Minutes but a glorified AI audiobook? Yeah.

I mean, I love this. I love this. We are getting to conspicuous levels of book knots in a way that I don't mind. It is conspicuous, but ultimately within this kind of storytelling, I think it's still pretty elegant. There's always a reason why it is being brought up. It's not just somebody flashing around their copy

Just so. Yes. I think this is truer so far for the TVA guidebook than some of the Tempad stuff, but I agree with you on the guidebook for sure. So there will be a payoff, even if that payoff is, as you and Joe alluded to last time, the three of us purchasing a notebook version of the... Yeah, it's inevitable. Something is... Some seed is being planted. It is either plot or purchase. I'm not sure which one, maybe both, but we'll see where we're headed. As you know, I love merch, so...

I love merch. Upstairs, B-15 swings by Casey's desk and asks about the trace on Renslayer's temp pad. Casey thinks that this is a secret mission. B-15 is like, my guy, why would this be a secret mission? Let me list all of the transgressions that Ramona Renslayer committed in season one.

Whether or not it's a secret mission, it is taking forever because no missed minutes means running these traces by hand. Did the very prominent ink stain on Casey's pen pocket catch your eye here? My eye kept being drawn to this and I was wondering if it was to ensure that we knew which Casey was our Casey, Casey Prime, as we bounce around time later.

It definitely sticks out. It is a very convenient marker for cross-timeline travel. It's also, you know, like, clearly Casey is the level of dweeb who would get the ink stain, but not the level of dweeb that would have the pocket protector, right? That's like OB level is pocket protector. Casey is just, I just got pens in my pocket. And so it, I mean, look, it certainly sticks out. It's quite conspicuous. We got to get my guy a Tide pen. Wow.

They've got to have a Tide pen in one of those drawers that was full of all the Infinity Stones that they were using as paperweights. They've got to have a Tide pen around somewhere. They have to. Casey's got some good news. Not for laundering his garb, but...

on the Tempad front, Renslayer erased her Tempad. Okay, that's unfortunate. But he was able to find out who sent her the last message. So they set off to go find Mobius and Loki to tell them this. And so this brings us to Mobius and Loki who are working to crack the riddle of X5's Tempad. The god of mischief is sitting at a desk with

with a screwdriver working on a little machine as his pal reads a manual. And this is like a true, true, true 10 out of 10 no notes thing for me in the show. Like I love how tactical, how tactile this is. Yes. I love how routine this is. So like there's just something about seeing the God of mischief doing this massive

menial, manual, gumshoe work and labor that is so good and so effective. He could not be genuinely more out of his element here, and yet it feels so right to see him working with Mobius in this way. Did you enjoy this little...

Oh. Framework here? Of course. And I'm totally with you on the tactile nature of the show in general. And really these two scenes kind of highlight and even the ink stain in the pocket kind of highlights it, right? Like this is a very pen and paper, dial and knob, tangible physical space. Yes. And that is brought to,

to beautiful life in the production design of the show, but also without Miss Minutes around. Now it's like everyone has to actually push the buttons for themselves and actually do all the things manually. And we get this explanation about why it's taking so long to find Renslayer. It's like we got to run these traces individually by hand effectively. I love that dynamic of reducing them to their instruments at this stage in the game. Like we have these great sets, like let's make the sets story. Great point. Great point. Love that.

Casey tells them Miss Minutes is helping Renslayer. This not only explains to the characters, you know, last episode, Mobius is like trying to call up Miss Minutes for help, right?

Mismanaged his MIA. Here's why. But it does something else. It triggers Loki's memory. And he tells them about the recording that he heard of the conversation between Renslayer and He Who Remains last episode from the past when he was in the past. He says it sounded like they were partners. Mobius is like, my guy, were you going to mention this? Yeah. When? Fair complaint. It's a great note. It is a valid bit of feedback from

The Loki is so funny. I love their dynamics so much. So this...

coupled with Obi's temporal loom containment door need for Miss Minutes gives us this clear... We have not seen episode three. We don't actually know this, but it gives us this very clear setup for what the next mission is, right? The mission of the week for episode three has got to be... And we get the ping. They get the ping on Ravonna's Tempad toward the end of the episode. Searching for Renslayer, searching for Miss Minutes. That's got to commence in earnest.

Okay, I have to get to one of my nitpicks for the episode. Please. If you'll indulge me for a moment, I'm curious to hear your opinion on this and whether or not you agree. Casey spots the TemPad on their desk. He asks about this rigged device that they're working on. Despite not knowing what a fish was last season and contributing a sounds dumb insight to the grand sprawling Tesseract assessment discourse, Casey

He is certain instantly. He doesn't know what it is for and he offers to look, but he is certain that it is not for blocking the trackers, that that is that cover story from Brad Wolf is a lie. Now, I really like having more Casey in the show.

His sudden tech genius feels a little deus ex casey to me. Now, I think like a lot of it you could say they're chalking it up, including in this episode, to his like TVA guidebook tutelage, right? He's worshiping at the altar of the TVA guidebook. He is paying attention in a way that many members of the TVA aren't. And so he genuinely does know things that they don't and have awareness that they don't. I think that's fine. If you accept that, that's fine.

You could quibble, but I can make my peace with that pretty quickly and talk myself into it pretty quickly. The thing I actually bumped on more is that Mobius and Loki don't ask any follow-up questions. And that just felt a little flat and slightly out of character to me. They don't say, why are you so sure? Or how do you know that? Or can you explain that to me? And they're just not like...

ask no follow-up questions guys they just aren't so i thought that was strange and it's like a little bit indicative of one of the things about season two that feels slightly slightly sub the season one level to me through two episodes did you bump on this at all or not not so much not so much i think it is without question a matter of convenience of getting casey into the story of giving him something to do that kind of makes sense within his capacity at the tva and

I also think there is like a he's book smart but not street smart thing happening. They could explain some of like, oh, I have this very specific lane of knowledge as it relates to my workplace and that is it. For sure. As to whether...

Loki and Mobius should have been asking questions. This I find very explainable, very relatable. And it's if you have ever been sitting around trying to assemble or disassemble something or tinker with something until you figure out how to unbreak it and someone else comes along and says, oh, hey, actually, I can fix that for you. You're like, yes,

Please take it away from me as fast as you can and fix it. 100%. Especially two guys who are thumbing through the guidebook and twirling around their Ikea screwdrivers. They just are so far in over their heads. They are, I think, just ecstatic to have it off their plate. Okay, fair. Fair. You've...

You've provided a read on the situation that I'm willing to embrace. We'll take it. Much like Mobius and Loki are ready to embrace taking a big run at Brad Wolf. It's buddy cop time. They're so hyped for this. Before...

Mobius, Loki, and B-15 enter the time theater where Radwolf awaits. Mobius channels his inner Eric Taylor and offers up what I thought was an exceptional, clear-eyed, full-hearts caliber pregame speech. He says, okay, keep it simple. Where's Docs? Where's Sylvie?

And what did he do to that Tempad? That's all we need to find out. Okay. But of course, Brad knows us and he knows our tactics, but that's what makes for an interesting chess match. Okay. Most of all, Brad's an asshole. So don't let him get under your skin. Okay. This was so wonderful. And just like such a perfect little Mobius moment.

I love the recurring... Also, perfect Coach Taylor there at the end in that he also needs to ultimately follow his own speechifying advice. Of course. Very Coach Taylor move. Absolutely. The recurring tendency to call somebody an asshole made me think of the just kind of an asshole and a bad friend knock on Loki in season one. I just love hearing Mobius say asshole. It's absolutely wonderful. Fantastic. We find Brad inside. Rob.

He's sitting on a stool. He's the picture of tough guy arrogance. Yes. He really knows and believes that he is in charge, that he has nothing to worry about, that he's going to be able to get the upper hand here. Our guy loves an org chart, loves to point out rank, loves to point out protocol. He's like, who Yang and Ahsoka stand.

I'm here to tell you all about it, even though the order fell. Yeah, this is like, that's the thing is like, I'm not sure the org chart applies if the people who are at the top of it were Chuck E. Cheese robots. Maybe tell Brad if he's doing this, like you, that, but also you dipped. So you don't get, you don't work here either. Brad.

You don't get to invoke all of this. No pulling rank anymore. Legendary hypocrisy. Just a tremendous stretch from Brad Wolf in this episode. Really an incredible performance. Wonderful. Mobius asks what Brad was doing on the sacred timeline. And he says, making movies. Life on the big screen, baby. I love this. He concedes very quickly that the tracker blocking gambit was a lie.

Here's the thing about Brad and here's the thing about this scene. Brad may be an asshole. Mobius is correct.

But he is wielding some sound airtight logic. He says to B-15, were you the one blabbering on and on, again, rude, about how we all had lives on the timeline? Well, I went down and got my life. What exactly are you mad at me about? Now, of course, we understand inside of the episode what they're after, right? They need to gain intel from him on Sylvie's whereabouts,

But he's right that ultimately, did he abandon his post? Sure. Is he being a dick? Sure. He did what they championed and maybe what they're afraid to do, which is something that will come up quite soon. What did you think of this initial posture from Brad Wolf? Well, if we can kind of go down a timey-wimey detour for a second. Let's do it. Absolutely. So all the people working at the TVA are variants, right? Yes. Yes.

So when X5 goes down to the sacred timeline and he's taking over somebody's life, I guess like his variance life on the sacred timeline.

This is a thing I think the show has done a genuinely pretty bad job of clarifying for us. Yes. A show that I absolutely love. I agree. And really enjoy. I agree. And people should, you know, it's possible that we're missing something, but I think like not to use this as an excuse if we are missing something, I don't think it should be this hard to like figure out the answer to your question either.

And this is where I was really hanging on that, like, meteoric rise line because it implied, I think, that Brad's acting career was a relatively new thing on the secret timeline. So the TVA members are variants, as you said, of people from the timeline. Okay, so if he's going back, like they're encouraging Mobius to do, to see his life, then that would imply that...

Brad Wolf was there already. Like, that he went back to a point before the branch, before the variant spawning incident. And then there are two Brads? Like, is the other Brad in a closet somewhere? That doesn't make sense, right? 100%. He has a sock in his mouth in a closet somewhere. He's tied up. And we're going to get some great comedy later. So does he go back to the moment...

of the variant spawning? And like, is it like if Loki had gone back to the lobby, right? During the time heist before he picked up the test track, like he's gone back to a key moment and then it's living his life from there. Is that your read on it? Or is he just going back to where, is there another Brad Wolf out there somewhere living a different life? And this is the life that this person

X5 has created, but I don't think that last option tracks thematically with the, like, I have rediscovered and embraced the life that I was meant to be living. I think it has to be that. So it's just a question of the when and the how then, right? And this is where the show is kind of talking out of both sides of its mouth about it, where, you know, Sylvie's whole backstory, right, is the idea that she was this child...

She was taken from her life and her world. And that world was erased. Like her parents, everything she knew was destroyed. That's like the whole point of why the variants have like this tragic station. And so the idea that they can just... Right, they're pruned. So the idea that they can just jump back in and, you know, race jet skis or become movie stars or do whatever it was that Sylvie was meant to do. It just doesn't track with what we've been told about the rest of the show.

I think there's also, this is like a little bit different than the point that you're raising, but it's, it's reminding me of it. So I'll bring it up here while we're on the timey wimey question front. This is, this is the time.

I think it's entirely possible that I think you're a very smart person for me from my perspective like it's just entirely possible that I'm just a fucking idiot and like can't follow this stuff but I disagree be clearer hard disagree okay but continue later not to jump way ahead but like later during the defense against Doc's yes final action stretch of the episode the the the mass bomb to prune the branches at scale

And we get that initial, like, they've already pruned 30% of the branches line. And then they keep pruning from there before they're thwarted. And it's like, well, we know they didn't prune every single branch because Sylvie goes back to Broxton. So some of the branches survived. And in theory, like, more can always sprout from there because that is based on our intro to the TVA in season one. And that, like, animated opening we got from Miss Minutes, like, maybe you were just late for...

for work, right? Remember? Like, the number of things that could spark a variant and then do you hit some sort of, like, what are they trying to do? They're trying to prune the timelines. This is before everything that happened in the finale. Avoid the Nexus event. Maintain the sacred timeline. Well, now everything. Branches aplenty. Okay. There's a difference between branches aplenty and infinite branches and it just should be infinite branches. I slacked our beloved pal and colleague, Zach Graham, and I was like,

I need your help because I have such a vivid memory. Zach is a huge fan of multiverse stories and also is a math genius. But I have such a vivid memory of one of Zach's when we were working on Binge Mode Marvel. One of Zach's notes just like really stuck with me because it had never occurred to me until he brought it up. The famous Doctor Strange 1 in 14 million moment. Zach is like 14 million is just not even close to enough. Oh. Not even close. And I was like, no way. Right, of course. Yeah. So,

This should be, the branches should be infinite. And like, I get that from the TVA's perspective, from Doc's perspective, that's the mission to prune when something pops up. But there is a difference between what popped up on a one-on-one basis. Like, okay, somebody did something. Loki picked up the test track, branch, go prune it. Which again, there would still be more than you could wrap your mind around happening every instant.

But Sylvie stabbing he who remains in the finale, the multiverse cracking open, branches upon plenty, and his cramp point, like when we were talking through, he's like, it's not just branches of plenty. It's each branch that spawns branches, right? And it's exponential, the scale. It just shouldn't be possible to capture on a monitor and to hit 30% and then to go beyond it

It just shouldn't be possible. When the character-driven moments in season one, I think the timey-wimey stuff was tighter in season one, without question. But I think when the character moments are so central, you are able to just simply focus on that more. For sure. Season two is more timey-wimey plot-centric. And so for that stuff to not be totally clear and tracking to us, I think some of it can be, well, let's be patient and they'll explain it over time. That's like the Tempat thing to me.

Like does the multiverse work this way is a little bit different. Like do we understand what it means to go back and find your life? Like that's different. We actually have to have that as a start of your foundation, right?

I think those elements have to be sturdier and ironed out over time. There's some things that are just going to have to be simplified, right? There's no way to display on screen infinite possibilities. That's fine. But telling us that someone has already eliminated 30% of them and is about to maybe get rid of them all, it's like, wait, what? My assumption on that is that we're talking about basically the branches that have spun off to a degree that would require pruning, not just every conceivable branch that has started pruning,

So it's only things that have reached to like, oh, Loki is an alligator, right? Like only these levels of deviance from the timeline that according to the TV rules cannot be accepted. You're right though about like, if the character moments are what matter, that overpowers that stuff. I think what the show also does pretty effectively to counterweight some of the timey-wimey nonsense is,

is it makes us feel the stakes of the multiverse better than anything else in the MCU does right now. And, you know, it's one of those weird quirks of multiversal storytelling where what the audience wants and what the characters want are not always the same thing when you have a multiverse involved. I always think of No Way Home, like the ending of that movie when the fabric of reality is tearing and it's like, oh no, we might get all our favorite villains coming through the multiverse. How terrible, Venom in the MCU, how terrible would that be? Yeah.

Versus in this episode, I think we do get a sense of like, oh, these are lives. These are people. We may not understand every dynamic of who is being snatched from where and how they can replace themselves on the timeline, but it's like people are dying. Yeah.

Yes. And there is a group of people at the TVA who are trying to figure out an alternative to the system that they knew. And if nothing else, we have the emotional weight of that driving us more so than, oh, on a mechanical level, I totally understand what's going on with the multiverse. Absolutely. That I agree with completely. And I agree with you that in season one, it's not like there weren't questions about what we were seeing or how it was working in season one. I mean, I think we gained a lot of clarity over time. But I remember even the discussion of, okay, well, you know,

and season one came out before No Way Home, but like thinking just in general about that early era of multiversal storytelling in the MCU and like, okay, well, when we use the word variant, like the three Peters, right?

Those are multiversal versions of Peter Parker, right? Yeah. Whereas like Loki, RMCU Loki picking up the Tesseract, that's still, that's the same Loki. He has become a variant of himself and like conversations like that and people trying to wrap their minds around it. People were working through that in real time or then later when we got new information, but that was okay because the absolute wallop of seeing Loki interact with a variant of himself is,

With Sylvie, seeing Loki watch the events of his life and thinking through the ramifications of the things that hadn't even happened to Yep. But we're going to like seeing him interact with classic Loki and having that conversation with classic Loki about how he missed his brother and like our Loki having to think about, well, what if like the one version of us who managed to avoid the Thanos fate?

ended up stepping back out into the open because he missed Thor. Like, that just is such a rich text. And so that other stuff you were just able to say, we'll figure out eventually. I'm...

like 99% still there. I think there are just more moments in season two that were bumping on some of those questions than there were in season one. But if the character and thematic heft and heart is still there and gripping us, which in this exact scene it is, then that's just carries like a, a, a more, um, that's just a weightier thing for us as viewers. So like we get into this, um,

with Brad Wolf and we're getting a little bit of the buddy cop back and forth, you know, answer the question. He's chiming in when Loki's in the lead. But like when Loki says there are lives at stake rather than engaging with the substance of Brad's what are you mad at me about point and Loki and Brad begin to fence and Brad goes for the jugular. It is riveting. Steve, can we hear this clip? There are lives at stake. There are lives at stake.

Oh, you've got some nerve. There are lives at stake. Everyone here knows what you're doing, you know. You're just trying to make up for all the terrible, awful shit you've done in your life, you pathetic little man. Okay, that's enough. No, no, no, no, it's, uh... It's riveting. Keep going, I want to hear more. Good. See, everything you and Sylvie have ever done to try to help has only ever made it worse. Is that right? See, I've read your file.

It's you. You're the problem. Every time we've ever found a you, the problem is you think you're special, but you're not. So it doesn't matter what outfit you put on, play dress up, or what little lies you tell your friends, or even the lies you tell yourself, at the end of the day, you just make everything worse for Mobius, for B-15, for your mother, 'cause that's what you do. You lose. You're a loser. Low key.

Stop trying to be a hero, man. You're a villain. You're good at it. Do that. To borrow from our friend Mobius, did you feel bad for our little ice runt? Oh, man, I thought you were going to ask, do I think Brad Wolf is a Swifty? Like, it's me, I am the problem? Just amending the lyrics? Somebody knew exactly what they were doing with that line. Absolutely sublime. It's hard not to feel bad for our beloved little ice runt here. My goodness, this...

This is real, this is the stuff, Lionel. Territory for me. Like, this speech, this exchange, this scene, I just thought this was perfect. This is, like, vintage Loki centering a conversation on assessing someone's core nature. Like, questioning our capacity as people to fundamentally, truly change. I loved this. And I think the thing that was, like,

The most deft and brilliant about this is it's not just a withering indictment that's going to make us feel bad for our beloved little Aistron. It hits on so many of the story beats from season one that were central to Loki's arc. So he's reminding Loki of his past because he's trying to spark a backslide, right? He's trying to get under his skin. He's trying to make him do something that Loki doesn't want to do. But...

in trying to achieve that, he's actually just reminding Loki and us as viewers of what Loki has already worked through. So let's go through these. There are a few buckets here. The first one, and this is just below the belt beyond the pale stuff from Brad Wolf, Freyja. The gloves are off. This is savage. He brought up Freyja. Can't do it. You mentioned Loki watching his life on Fast Forward in season one. I mean, that's...

where do the waterworks really begin to flow in earnest? The way that he cried and wept seeing her death in season one, his guilt, his shame. The way, though, also that he talked about Frigga with Sylvie on the train in episode three, like explaining how she taught him magic, the way that he said she was the kind of person you'd want to believe in you. Or like a moment where

in Thor the Dark World. Can't go a Loki pod without mentioning Thor the Dark World. God forbid. Where Frigga says, always so perceptive about everyone but yourself. This is like one of the key lines in the history of the Loki canon. So again, Brad thinks that he's trying to utterly destabilize and un-more Loki here. But,

Is Loki going to be sad and guilt ridden and destroyed? Or is he going to think about all of those moments where he found a deeper connection and sense of purpose in reflecting on his mother? It's a great question. I think Brad has a very keen sense of the fact that part of the Loki core text is that he is a huge mama's boy.

And he's just hitting the pressure points, right? You're going to go through the full list of these other kind of themes he touches here, but I think he's just rapid fire hitting all these different kind of emotional pressure points just to see what happens. But ultimately, this whole exchange is very like Loki as Mindhunter. The swiftness with which the interrogation flips on Loki and then flips on Mobius when he comes up to bat. Brad is just playing a different game than these guys are at this particular point in the story. Yeah.

Brad had his tweet thread ready. It's just incredible stuff from him. This idea of like shaking off the insecurity that Loki is a loser and also that Loki is a villain. There were a lot of central exchanges about these ideas in season one, including right at the beginning of the season. On the loser front, we got that, it's funny for someone born to rule, you sure do lose a lot. You might even say it's in your nature, Barb from...

And Loki's like, didn't work out for the last guy. Said that to me. Shout out, Phil Coulson. We miss you now and always. On the villain front, like you're building inside of the premiere of the show last season to desperate play for control. You do know yourself a villain. That's not how I see it in that. I don't enjoy hurting people. I don't enjoy it. Really emotional breakdown at the end, all of which builds toward the

the bridge that they build in this friendship in the fourth episode when Mobius calls back to those earlier exchanges and says to Loki, you could be whoever, whatever you want to be, even someone good. I mean, just in case anyone ever told you different, referring, of course, to himself. So, like...

This is exactly at the heart. Bradwell is just a few minutes away from telling Loki that he needs therapy. It's like this was Loki's therapy. These conversations with Mobius and with Sylvie in season one, this is where he worked through the trauma and the insecurity that had defined his life and came out stronger on the other side.

Brad stopped reading the file too early. I mean, but clearly he loves season one. You know, clearly he was plugged in on all the mechanics, all the themes of season one. I think he loved the Infinity Saga. I think maybe that's true. But I do love him preying on the insecurity of Loki too. Not just because it's well explored in season one, but to me, like tonally speaking, it's something different than we get anywhere else in the Marvel stuff right now that Loki isn't

an arrogant genius. He's not a super soldier. He's not perfect. He's just like a little old orphan wrestling with who he really is. And that's in all the stories, right? Every variation we have seen of him in the MCU so far is wrestling with those things. And so, again, pretty good pressure point to push down on pretty hard. Yes, there's a reason that when Mobius put him in the time loop, time prison in season one, the thing that he kept reliving was Sif,

telling him, I hope you know you deserve to be alone and you always will be. Like that genuine fear and doubt that he is worth the love and appreciation that he sees other people give to each other all the time. Making up for the bad shit that he did. This was one of my favorite parts of this because...

This is one of the areas where Brad is actually right. This is why Loki is doing this. And he, Brad is trying to make that a weakness. And for Loki, that's a source of strength. Like one of the really powerful and poignant moments of season one came in episode five when Loki said to Sylvie,

I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother, my home. I know what I did and I know why I did it. And that's not who I am anymore. OK, I won't let you down. Like every time he tries to be there. Yes, it's because of how he feels about her. But it's also because he is genuinely trying to prove to her and to himself that he's not that person anymore.

Him flipping, Brad flipping the Loki, like your ledger is dripping with red on him in this moment. Yes. Just brutal stuff. He is really brutal stuff. Miscalculated. Like he's, he's arming just practically Loki with ammo for future scenes, right? He's setting up the cube torment with like, well, yeah, I'm a villain. Remember? Look at all the awful shit I did. Remember? But he's just like basically playing the greatest hits ever.

reminder set of all of the progress that Loki's made in all of the ways that he has grown, which was just tremendous. So Loki doesn't say that, of course. He's not like, ha, let me tell you how much progress I've made. He laughs, he leans in, and even though he's deploying it here as a tactic and he's trying to weaponize Brad's view of him against him in order to like break through Brad's resolve, he's like,

He does voice the thing that ultimately on some level, despite all of the growth, despite the arc, we're always a little bit afraid that we will hear Loki say it again. Right. And that maybe we will hit a point one day where he means it again and believes it again. It's the real me. A loser. Always have been, always will be. And perhaps I've been holding something back. Perhaps I've just been biding my time.

Don't want to backslide. This is great. Like, this is just good fucking writing. Like, the dual use of, again, you're getting all this emotional exposition for the audience, for the show, like, and it doesn't feel like an info dump. It feels like something organic to the scene. And at the same time, you're getting all these beats from Brad that,

Where he seems like he's in control, Brad does, but he also betrays the fact that he's kind of scared of Loki. We get this great shot where when Loki's walking towards him, the way Loki is kind of leaning over Brad and Brad is craning backwards...

And it's the kind of shot that just so clearly illustrates perspective and power and tension. And we'll get it later when Loki walks into a room or does something. Actually, it might be in this part of the scene when he's approaching and Brad is kind of shooting side eyes at Mobius and B-15. Like, are you going to do something? Are you going to stop him? So he has the therapy line at the end of the day. Yeah. He's too obsessed with her. Yeah.

I mean, which is great. Incredible line. But he does give up the game a little bit that maybe he is more afraid of Loki than he lets on. You're so right. He's actually really working from the Loki pre-season one breakthrough playbook, a desperate attempt at control, right? It's a cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. But if it's a trick, if it's an attempt at control, it means you know on some level that you don't have it, that you're not in control. Speaking of not being in control...

It's Mobius's turn. And there's a lot of heavy shit here, but we do get an all-time zinger before we get into the heavy shit, and I would love to hear it, Steve. I got a little tense. Hey, you want to hear a good one? Knock, knock. Who's there? Brad. Brad who? That's Shelfis.

This is just absolutely hysterical. I'm not sure. Loki's my favorite, obviously, but I'm not sure there's a character I enjoy watching more than Mobius. This is so funny. He's so good. And the Owen Wilson charm offensive is just hitting on all cylinders right now. His face, his expression when he says that showbiz. Oh my God. Incredible. He tries to leverage this fear of being forgotten against Brad. Brad is not in the mood to comply with this

Listen, you give us what we want, we'll make sure you can get back to that life that you're not forgotten. And he turns the tables on Mobius. He says, the TVA is not your real home.

Mobius isn't even your real name. Well, it's what I answer to. Do you have any idea what kind of life you might have left behind? Who might be waiting for you back there? I mean, do you care? You know they took us. You know they took our lives and you're still here. He calls him a nowhere man and then Mobius slaps him in the face. Very satisfying to watch. Again, it is hard to argue with Brad here. We are going to talk about this question of why Mobius doesn't

Want to go back why he is afraid, what is on his mind here in a minute, because this comes up in the next scene between Loki and Mobius. We'll just talk about all of our reads on that there. But we've got to get some pie, Rob, in order to break this down. Oh, we absolutely do. To the pie cave. You're walking in front. I'm just following you. They storm off to the lower levels. They wind up in basically a key lime pie dispensary. They have no idea how they got there.

Some of the best conversations from season one happened in a cafe. So it's like, we're back with our boys sitting in a cafe as they talk about the meaning of life. Couldn't be happier. I am thrilled.

Big pie episode, as you noted earlier, we've got this, we've got the apple pie at McDonald's. I want to know how you felt about the way this key lime pie looked and the way that Owen Wilson and Tom Hiddleston approached pretending to eat the pie. They had very different tactics here, which I thought was absolutely hysterical. And also, I would just love to know how you feel about key lime pie. One, not a key lime pie fan.

I would think of all the infinite possibilities of the universe, you could do better than wall-to-wall keyline Pi. But before we get to Pi, let's rewind to the format. We have this beautiful automat. Incredible. How do we not have an all-Pi automat at our office, Mal? And can we get on that? Let's pass the suggestion along. Daniel? Daniel?

I think it's the only way to go. Absolutely. Our office downtown is very close to Grand Central Market in downtown LA where Fat and Flour Pie Shop is.

the most sensational key lime pie that you could ever have in your life. I'm going to sway you on the key lime pie front next time you're in LA. We're going to get a slice of key lime pie, a fat flower, and you're going to be converted. You will. We'll get it, but can we also get like a coconut cream backup pie just in case the key lime pie is trash? We can get every pie. All the pie. I'm on board as long as their key lime pie is not this color green. This was distressing. This particular hue of green and also the...

thickness like something just seemed off in terms of the texture it looked like a jello mold to me and i love jello my i'm not sure if you know this about me rob my bat mitzvah theme was jello what and every table was a different flavor and my my head table was lime because lime jello was my favorite when i was a kid but i don't want my key lime pie to look like

Lime Jell-O. I don't. This was all wrong. Can we unpack some of that for a second? How did we arrive at Jell-O as your bat mitzvah theme? So it was just a thing I really loved and I wanted a theme. I will say the whole the planning phase was it was condensed and compressed and kind of accelerated because we had sort of decided very late in the game to do it.

And so just thought, what do I love? Jello. Wouldn't this be fun? Wouldn't this be weird? Wouldn't this be an honest reflection of myself and the things that matter to me?

And, you know, a lot of people did like T-shirts for their giveaways. And I gave out I gave away boxer shorts. And there was like an illustration of a jello mold on the ass cheek. And it said I wiggled and jiggled my way through Mallory's bottom. It's fun. The little graphic design like moved when you walked. It's great stuff. In fucking credible. Thanks, man. Yeah. Honestly, this is this is what a beautiful story.

Thank you. You know, I love pie. I love jello. I love dessert. I love baked goods. I think it's clear that both Loki and Tom Hiddleston don't. I can't say I actually know what Tom Hiddleston's dessert preferences are, but I would say it's apparent that he was not digging this. Owen Wilson was doing the work here. He was taking full heaping spoonfuls. Tom Hiddleston just kept moving his spoon around.

around the whipped cream and like gently licking a little bit of whipped cream off the spoon and that was it. Oh yeah. And it made me think back to the exchange in season one. Like, do you... This was about the kablooey. Do you have candy on Asgard? Yeah, grapes and nuts. No wonder you're so bitter. Like...

Grapes and nuts are delicious, but that's not candy. So what sort of confection has been a part of Loki's life? I really, I have so many questions after seeing his response to the key lime pie. The way he said it is after he said it was really good. He looked so pained.

So pain. No Paul Hollywood handshakes. No Hollywood handshakes for Loki on the pie. No Mary Berry scrummies from Tom Hiddleston on the pie. But I am positive that some bad baby out there has already clipped Loki licks his sport clean dot gif. Like that is going to make the rounds. I know how this goes. It's a matter of time. You're a gif guy, not a gif guy. Interesting. I'm a gif guy. Yeah. Interesting. Do you think some of your variants say gif?

undoubtedly. And I pruned all of them. They're gone. They're gone now. But yeah, Tom Hiddleston, whipped cream only, did not touch his pie throughout this entire scene. He did, however, showcase a rather elegant Chelsea boot. You know, really, really strong posture, cross leg. Like, look at me. Look at me in my full TVA regalia.

The way that we get such a great look when he is standing, first leaning against the McDonald's porch and then standing as Sylvie sits on the bed of her truck. Flawless. Just the whole fit. Drip Lord. Absolutely. Add it to the moniker list. God of Mischief. Prince of Lies. Odin's son. Drip Lord.

Before we move on from the pie, tell me if I'm reading too much into this scene. Because you talked about Loki coming from a world of fruits and nuts as desserts and how that would kind of inform your perspective. There is something about the conversation that they are about to have about Mobius not wanting to visit the version of the life he could have had that kind of ties into I'm eating this shitty key lime pie and I'm telling myself that it's great.

versus Loki as someone who's like, I've been out there. I have seen shit. I've been across the universe. I know this is not good. No, absolutely not. Satisfaction is not in his nature. You know? Surrender's not in mine. Yeah, what a great Thor the Dark Lord. Can't go more than 30 minutes without referencing it. I love it. Yeah, I think you're right. Like what routine...

What level of samey mediocrity do you need to talk yourself into to go about your day? And even if we think back to like the conversations from the first episode of this season,

about what Mobius remembers and doesn't remember, forget his real life, about his time at the TVA. Like, he's like, how did we get here? Where are we? Well, how many times has he sat in that room and had a piece of pie and had a conversation with somebody before that he can't even recall? Like, this isn't a life. It's a thing he's clinging onto out of fear, which is a very human, relatable thing. And we get a quite moving exchange with, we get a moving opening. Loki's really concerned. He's like,

are you okay? I've never seen you like this. He's worried about his friend. This was beautiful. He is seeking, before we get to the heart of it again, we get some interesting comedy, some dark comedy here. He is seeking to find common ground as Mobius is inhaling this pie and opening up by talking about the battle in New York. Steve, can we hear this? It happens. You know, sometimes a rage builds up and you just gotta let it out.

You remember that time? I was so angry with my father and my brother, I went down to Earth and I held the whole of New York City hostage with an alien army, tried to use the Mind Stone on Tony Stark, and it didn't work. So I threw him off the building. I mean, let me tell you something, it wasn't tactical. Yeah. I lost it. Sometimes our emotions get the better of us. You can say that again.

I was like, I was in hysterics watching this. The absolute gall of Loki to say this. Incredible. This gave me real Anakin in episode five of Ahsoka. Is that what this is about?

energy it's like yes that's what this is about Loki all the people who will never get to have even a mediocre slice of key lime pie because of your alien invasion that's what this is about plus it is just amazing that like the battle of New York is the source of all of Tony Stark's deepest traumas throughout the MCU and for Loki it was like I had a cranky afternoon you know that right there that's the end game who among us you know shit with dad

This was unbelievable. Just incredible. Okay, so he hand waves the invasion of New York. We've all been there. And then he gets to X5's question. He gets to what Brad was asking about Mobius' life on the timeline. Aren't you curious? Mobius insists he's not. That it's not his life. That this is. And not only that this is, but that he's glad. That he's glad the TVA kidnapped him and put him here eating this shitty pie. Look, Loki says.

I understand. I get it. You know, you might think twice in case it's something bad. And Mobius jumps in and says, or something good, something bad I can handle. What if it's something good? You think I want to have that rattling around in here? Of course not. Sure. That what if it's something good, Rob, shattered me. This was just like the scene with X5 and then this conversation with Loki about this idea with Mobius.

really hit this admission here that he's afraid to know what he had because that means definitionally knowing what he doesn't have, right? What he's missing, what he has missed, what he might not be able to ever really truly get back. Like, how do you go through your day if you know what else might be waiting for you? Joanna and I have been doing Doctor Who pods. For Joe, it's a rewatch. For me, it's my first watch.

And this gave me such powerful Rose Tyler energy with the ninth doctor and Rose sitting there at the cafe with Jackie and Mickey and saying, but it was, it was a better life. And like, once she has seen that, um,

she can't go back to the way things were, to what her day had been in the cafe with the pie, going about the time theater shenanigans. Like when your eyes have been open, either in Rose's case to the possibility of the universe or in the opposite way here, this gets back to your earlier point about like the small intimate nature and how actually like almost unbelievably big and vast that can feel in its profundity. Like, how do you go back? It made me think too of like,

Maybe think a little bit of Cap, of our guy Steve Rogers. And we build toward the culmination of his journey. And I thought maybe I should try some of that life Tony was telling me to get. How did that work out for you? It was beautiful. Once you see that, once you get to experience it, how could you spend your time any other way? And this was just heartbreaking to see Mobius work through this. This is how I know we are so fucking back.

Like all the timey-wimey stuff we brought up, we're like, how does it work? How do you plug back in? When you put these two in a room or you put Loki and Sylvie in a room, I just don't, I really don't care so much about the mechanics of any of it. And when we're digging around like this,

This is the meat of the show. This is what drives it. This is what makes it interesting. Those kinds of like mental hurdles and how you could possibly come back from that sort of knowledge and what it, what it is that makes Loki want it and what it is that makes Mobius not. I think it's just, it's just such an interesting way to put two people we really like and two people who are working together kind of not across purposes, but across perspectives. Let me, let me ask you a question about this. I, I, I, I loved this conversation. I love this scene. This was,

There are a lot of really heart-rending moments in the episode. This Mobius one was probably top of the list for me. I was really moved by this and deeply saddened by it.

How are you reconciling? Joe and I talked about this a little bit with a different thing in episode one where Mobius seems to be in a different place in season two than he was in season one in a couple key respects. So what we talked about last week was that, you know, his conversation with B-15, like, you think people are going to be ready to hear that? Is not where we left him in season one when he was in a burn it to the ground thanks for the spark place with the TVA. And this is...

This is another example of this because in episode four of season one, before he's pruned, Mobius and Ravonna have a really intense exchange in the hallway when he says, you know where I'd go if I could go anywhere, wherever it is I'm really from.

Yeah, wherever I had a life before the TVA came along, maybe I had a jet ski. That's what I'd like to do, just riding around on my jet ski. And she says, prune him, and they do. So my question is, how are you reading this shift in?

in Mobius's disposition and preference and outlook and goal? Is it like, did something actually change fundamentally? Is this something with the writing and structure of the show in terms of where they want the character to be because then he has to work through something new? Or are you viewing this as, okay, well, this is like the most relatable thing in the world.

You want something, but then you're actually like really afraid to try to go get it because it's hard, because it's scary. Is this more of a fear-driven backslide to you rather than like a disconnect in where the character was season to season? I don't see it as too much of a disconnect. I think it's a couple of things. One, some of it is the difference in

kind of interpreting where Mobius is and why he's saying the things that he's saying versus taking everything he says at face value. Like that Ravonna line's a great example. To me, he's not really saying like, I wish I could go back to where I was. He's saying, I fucking know what's going on. Right. And I'm sick. I know what you did. I know what you're all doing. I'm sick of this. Like I'm over this whole situation more so than actually wanting to go back to that place.

I think there are probably some line-to-line inconsistencies, inevitably. But to me, I think some of it can probably be attributed to

What he has learned in the opening episodes of this show, especially as we left him at what happened with the giant cloud, right? That was the end of his knowledge of Loki season one. Yeah. So even him knowing what he who remains had to say from Loki and the fact that, oh, the universe is in an even greater level of chaos than we might have understood. We knew the TVA was fake, but there is another...

dimension beyond that happening here of everything is now spiraling out of control. And so when he says things like, how are they going to take our messaging around this particular point? I think it's probably understand that he's a little shook up. And so I think some of it is that some of it is probably just season to season inconsistency. Some of it is just like,

less differences in opinion and more just differences in the texture of how he's expressing those opinions. Yeah. And there's also some level of projection, right? Because when he's like, you know, all your gods are dead and like, this is actually what's going on. Well, he's had his version of having to face that and grapple with it. And it would be

I love that episode for confrontation between Mobius and Rensselaer and that stand he makes because it's such a stark indication of what not only like, as you noted, what he has learned and gleaned and embraced, but of the choice he has made, right? To side with Loki, to side with Sylvie, to try to fight for something different. Well, now you're confronting the reality of what that means, not only for you, but for everybody around you. What does it feel like? What...

How does it change the fabric of the, forget the rhythm of your day, the fabric of your existence, everything you know to be true. So you can genuinely feel a desire to know and look and see while also as like a very rational, practical person like Mobius is,

being really daunted by the prospect of having to actually do that directly. Like, welcoming that unpredictability into your life. I mean, Mobius is a creature of habit, right? Mobius is...

a man of routine and rhythm and the same outfit every day. And he sat and he had his whiskey and he talked to Ravonna and he commented on her trophies and everything that has happened to him since. Everything that has happened since Loki came into the TVA has been a disruption of that norm. And that's ultimately a good thing, right? That's his great awakening. Those are the scales coming off of his eyes. But if it were easy for him, that would actually be odd.

right? It should be daunting. It should be something that he has to work through. So this is a, this is a, whether it's like a disconnect or just a backside and a rewind and we have to watch him work through it. I'm ultimately glad that we get to see him work through it in this season because it'll be a really rich journey to take with him. And maybe ultimately the way to think of it is like kind of as a, as a slight pivot, right? Between the interrogation scene and this, this conversation, um,

We're broadening out the themes of Loki season one of what is it that makes a Loki a Loki? And now it's what is it that makes any of us who we are, right? People who have free will, people who don't have free will, people who get free will, who are the people, the TVA, are they the lives that they know or the lives that they never knew that they even had? Right.

I think it's so telling that we're kind of shifting in that direction and broadening our scope. And we still ask a lot of questions about what makes Loki tick, but so much of these scenes, emotionally speaking, are driven by what makes Mobius himself and what he wants. Which we have to have because if Mobius is this relationship that we love, the dynamic between Loki and Sylvie, the dynamic between Loki and Mobius, like for that to continue, it's been riveting for us. Like genuinely one of the master strokes of the MCU to date.

For that to continue to work, we have to be as invested in their journeys as we are in Loki's. And so that requires that level of introspection and interrogation or the trepidation to look in for them as well. It's a really fun thing to get to spend time in this way with Mobius too. It's just an incredible character. They can't work through it all in one episode, Rob. They can't work through it all in one conversation. They've got to shift back. I know. We've got four episodes ahead of us still. They've got to shift back to X5 and Sylvie and...

They deduce that if he found her, a few things must be true. She didn't realize it because she would have bounced. And he didn't tell anyone because then other people would know. And why didn't he tell anyone? Because he wanted to live his life on the timeline. He wants more time to be Brad Wolf. Who wouldn't? So funny. They need Brad to admit this. They need him to lead them to Sylvie. And Mobius says to Loki, well, come on.

you're the god of mischief right and the look on loki's face here the way that he tilts his head to the side and smiles with like the purest look of love and genuine gratitude like this was a cute little quick moment but it was a real like you actually see me clearly moment between the two of them that i just adored just bros seeing bros you know it really warms the heart oh man

This episode is brought to you by Experian. I don't know if you've ever looked in your subscriptions on your phone and noticed that you had like four or five subscriptions. Maybe you didn't realize you were still paying for, or maybe you got some email for something and you're like, I thought I canceled that. Well, this is what happens. These days, anyone could be missing out on savings from subscriptions they've totally forgotten about. It's not just the ones you forgot to get rid of. It's the ones that they have better deals.

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Estimated savings of one plus cancellation. Paid membership with connected payment accounts required. See Experian.com for details. Hey y'all, Marci Martin here with a little Tampax story. One time I went on vacation in the Bahamas with some friends and of course I got my period.

I didn't want anything to stop me from living my best life on my trip. So I was like, why not be brave and try Tampax? Before that, I really just thought tampons were for adults, and I definitely thought they'd be uncomfortable. Guess what, y'all? They really aren't. It might take a few tries, but once it's in right, you shouldn't feel it, which is great. For a better way to period, just add Tampax. Speaking of bros, we've got another bonding session. It's time for Super Guidebook Bros.

We are going to break Brad. We're going to torture Brad. We're going to get to that. But because we cut between scenes, let's actually just take the OB and Casey and B-15 stuff in a chunk here, and then we'll take all of the Brad stuff together. We go to the temporal loom. It is very like...

toddler throwing noodles all over the room. Energy from the loom. It's like, you know, my hair on a humid day. Things are really out of hand. The score is very dramatic. And OB is trying to type his keystrokes in. They fail. Access denied. Invalid temporal aura. Oh, no. So then later, after the Brad torment, B15 brings Casey down to help OB and they find OB shouting,

We're all going to die. And it is not the kind of positive workplace energy that I am looking for out of Opie. But also, he's not wrong. Over a long enough timeline, we are all going to die now. It's been hundreds of years since he had seen another person until Mobius and Loki popped down. So, I mean, he's had a good run, honestly. Yeah, he has. Very productive. Very, very productive.

Casey's absolutely overcome. He is overcome when he realizes that he is meeting the Ouroboros of TVA guidebook fame. You've read it? Opie says, read it? I've practically memorized it. This is just so cute. Casey asks Opie to sign it. Yeah, this is, this whole exchange is, It is a basically line for line reading of me with my MCU book next time I see Joe. You know, just sign next to your picture. Read it.

Memorized it. Practically memorized it by now. Every detail, every ticket. Order your book now. Order it. Wonderful, wonderful read. Just fantastic. Shout out Joe and Dave and Gavin. The best. P15. She's not saying this about MCU, the reign of Marvel Studios, but she is saying this about the moment between Casey and Obi in the guidebook. She's like, can we focus on the we're all going to die thing that Obi was saying a second ago, please?

Can I get your attention again? And he tells them, Obi is trying to apply a retrofit device, Rob, but he can't open the containment doors. The only person who can, he says, is the person who designed it with a live scan of his temporal aura. Well, here's the problem. He remains as gone and Miss Minutes isn't here to override it. So Casey states the presumed plot of episode three. We have to convince rogue artificial intelligence to come back to work.

Yeah, as a workplace leader yourself, how would you convince a rogue artificial intelligence to come back to work? What's the sell to miss minutes? I don't know if I want miss minutes to come back to work. Even if the fate of the multiverse is at stake here and the temporal loom is about to explode, I was not digging the...

Miss Minutes energy. I don't want Miss Minutes as my cubicle mate. No, thank you. It's a pass. But as a viewer, I'm very much looking forward to mask off creepy-ass Miss Minutes returning to the TVA. I cannot wait for that. I can't wait. Yeah, going two episodes without Ravonna and Miss Minutes is a little bit of... Are you surprised by that at all? Or does that feel right in terms of pacing?

It does feel a little right. I mean, you want to give them something to chase after. You want to give these early relationships some time. And honestly, we need to get to know Brad, right? We need to get to know some other characters you're plugging into these spots. And I think those have been successful to varying degrees, but I do love Brad. I think that's probably been the cherry on top of the show so far in terms of new characterization. Okay, you heard it from Rob. Eat shit, Miss Minutes. Brad Wolf is here. Kick rocks.

All right, speaking of Brad, it's time to torture Brad. It's time to break Brad. Great episode name, wonderful stuff. We go back to Brad and he is resting on the floor grates. I don't know what it was about this overhead shot. I loved this. I think it gave me...

Maybe like yellow jackets, honeycomb, like beehive visual corollary vibes. But there was something about it that I just love so much. And just Brad's like eye roll when Loki walks in. I mean, this was just an absolute sublime, sublime way to start. We are here with the...

The plot that Mobius and Loki have worked up. I loved hearing Mobius later refer to this machine as the gizmo when he's threatening Brad in front of the McDonald's with a return. Time cube atmosphere time here. Brad is like on to them right away. He sniffs out that this is a gimmick, right? This is cute. Which one of you came up with this little script? But they still managed to dupe him, which was part of the great achievement here. Loki locks the door. I would like to ask you if you understood why...

this made sense or worked would a prison door lock from the inside is my first question like if so what is just stopping brad from getting up walking over and opening it and then as a famed hunter which we know he is overpowering the minute men outside and then if it locks on the outside and not the inside that wouldn't brad who worked at the tvs x5 know that

There is no explanation. Okay, I was like, what am I missing here? So the only way I can think of to explain why the door would lock from the inside, a prison door would lock from the inside, would be that...

Maybe the room he's in is not a cell. It's just an empty room that they have chosen to put him in for holding for whatever reason. I don't think we've got enough explanation to say that that's true. And they certainly seem to suggest that he's in a holding cell of a fairly official capacity and it looks consistent with the holding cells we've seen.

Maybe every time he tried to get up to go to the door, they zapped his time collar. I guess that's, that's possible. Maybe it all happened in another scene off screen. Well, as to why he's not overpowering them, I think that is like, he's projecting confidence and power by not trying to escape, right? Like him laying on the ground. I'm not worried about you. Exactly. I think that's all pretty consistent, but like why he would believe this whole ruse about the door being locked from the inside of a cell he knows as well as anyone having conducted many such interrogations. Uh,

Yeah, I don't know about that one. Absolutely hilarious. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, which is just like we are instantly smitten and wooed. Can we just talk about the design of the gizmo for a second here of the time cube machine? Like this was a commercial vacuum cleaner.

It's like vacuum cleaner meets Ghostbusters meets Stranger Things meets like on and on and on and on the list goes. It's just wonderful. Again, Joe and I talked for a while in episode one about

The production design and the sets and like all of these choices that they make. And it's just another great example. Like the controller, it doesn't need to be as big and cumbersome as it is, but that's just perfect. It's a perfect choice. Like they shouldn't have to plug in quite so many hoses, but they do. And that's wonderful. It's just, it's yeah. It's like y'all have talked about how star, what makes star Wars clothes, star Wars clothes. They don't have zippers. Yeah.

Everything in this is just like, throw a hose on it. You know, like, put a giant hose connecting this suit to the wall. The back of the space suit. Great stuff. Oh, everything. You know, not enough hoses out there. Loki, surrounded by hoses, is ready to enact a mischief as Mobius pretends to watch in horror through the window of the door. Just a brutal stretch here for our guy, Brad Wolf. He's like, really sorry about what I said about your mom. Mom.

I've been in a lot of these rooms. Yeah, I know that the time cube is that color because of all of the bodily excretions that leak out of you in terror as you're being tormented. Please don't put me in there. The moment when Brad says, you could kill me with that, and Loki says, could I? After the cube crushing. Excellent. This was just electric. Like,

The way that the show works to remind us of what Loki is capable of and has done, but in this totally different context, is just really, really, really riveting to watch. The way that he is, again, just playing with his prey here. This is exciting. Oh, sorry. That's only made it smaller. He's kicking the cube around him. So funny. After that line, he follows with what I can only describe as the teeth-clenched emoji. Just like, oh, sorry. Yes.

Fantastic. Steve, our wonderful producer, Steve Allman, went on the record on Midnight Boys that he wanted some actual bone crushing. He felt that we needed to see the torture result in some bodily harm for Brad Wolf. I'm wondering, are you Team Steve on this one? Yeah, I think the level of box he was put in, I would describe as basic economy on an airline flight. That's just my day-to-day existence trying to fly around this country of ours. So he could be compressed a little smaller.

Still room for like a tablet, you know? You can listen to podcasts with ease and comfort. Gets a complimentary drink in there. It's too kind for torture. He's got a tomato juice. Interesting moment where Loki reminds us of the bond between Docs and X-Five. And how likely it seems that a decorated field officer like X-Five would just bail. He says, you and Docs, I don't buy it. Yeah.

Doxon, this sweet baby boy who may or may not be breastfeeding. I don't buy it either. The forehead nuzzle and the breastfeeding. No way. The old sweet Robin Aaron. So what do you think? Like this line felt like an intentional way to remind us of the closeness that we had witnessed between them in episode one. We don't know a lot about their dynamic. We don't know anything about their history. But when you hear something like this, like, are you thinking...

they are in cahoots still together somehow that despite the life that Brad has rediscovered and chosen to live, that he is still team docs in some capacity or has he left genuinely all of the docs agenda behind?

I think he's bailed. I think he set out with the agenda. And then, you know, there was some actually decent, like, paving of this road being done in the first episode when B-15 is telling him, like, you had a life on the timeline and you had a life on the timeline. You can see him kind of, like, wander off in thought, like, about what that might be. And so the idea that he gets down on the ground and figures out, oh, I could be Brad Wolf. I can be pruning Bridget Bardot. Oh my god.

I think just like that, he's out of there. Oh, man. I think it was as simple as that. So you're just like firmly in the...

in the he wants more time to be Brad Wolf who won Mobius Loki's face. I love it. He just wants to get the round of applause at the end of the Zaniac premiere. He's very excited about the sequel. He's happy to offer you a ticket. He's not offering Mobius a ticket, but he is offering Sylvie and Loki a ticket to the sequel. Great stuff. All right, he cracks. He cracks. He caves. Doesn't want to actually crack and cave inside of the time cube, and so he cracks. He says, I did find Sylvie. Found her before I bailed.

She has a new life. He tells them that she is on a branch and they decide to sit out, but they're not going to take Brad's word for it. He's going to show them. They bring him to the Golden Arches. The branch timeline, Broxton, Oklahoma, 1982. Brad is...

extremely shifty. When Mobius asks why, Mobius is like, what is going on with you? Like, even in the context of a time prisoner who was just tormented inside of a time cube, you're acting odd. What is going on? And Brad's like, oh, I just, you know, I'm not super keen on seeing a Varian who killed 400 of our colleagues, which is like a decent, it's not the real answer, but like a decent cover, honestly. It's like, yeah, thank you for the reminder of the legions that Sylvie killed.

Loki's really protecting his heart as he is mustering up the courage to walk in. He says, I have to find out what she knows. So he's like putting on this air and this is partially true, right? But he's really leading with this mission centric framing, not I am here to find and hopefully sway the love of my life to be with me again. It's just like, it's the mission. You were my mission. He's got stuff to do. You know, he's just taking care of business out here. Yeah.

Rob, the facade lasts about, I don't know, four and a half seconds because he walks in.

He sees her at the register and his face, the only word I could think of was it droops. It really does. His eyes pool, his face falls. I was in tears. This was so heart-wrenching seeing him look at her. At the same time, you can see Sylvie's guard go up as soon as she sees him. She has gone from her comfortable, this is my life space to...

this fucking guy is walking through my door. There's sadness and despair for him and there's like real anger and resentment and bitterness and guardedness like you're saying from her. I thought it was a really another like quick little thing. The show does the quick little thing so well where we hear her call Bill your orders up and he says he thanks her by name. Thank you Sylvie. So like just these little things that indicate this is the rhythm of her day. Like these are the interactions that make up her routine in her life. She has made a home here and

When Loki walks toward her and the way that he has to like build the courage to just say hi, to just ask, can we talk? And the most she'll give him is my breaks in five and then blows past him when he is outside waiting. Talk fast. I don't have a lot of time here. It's a quick lunch break. Quick one.

The old Bobby B. Quick one. Well, here's a statement. And you can tell me whether this says more about Loki the show or the larger project of Marvel television. But I felt more in this moment watching Loki walk into a McDonald's and see, you know, seeing his cross-gendered variant self from across the floor than during any moment of any other Marvel show.

And this is, it's just all the road we've taken to get here, all the buildup between these two characters. This was incredible. I think Sylvie is just such an incredible creation in this world. And we can dig into that in greater depth later. You're right, though. It just hits. A moment like this just hits. And it hits you right in the chest. It's two people looking at each other across a fast food dining room, and it is, it absolutely hits.

floors us. Like, it just floors us. And the way that she blows by him outside, his posture against the porch, the way that she opens the bed of her pickup truck and sits, like, everything, the way he stands, the body language, the crossed arms, like, there's so much

There's the visual incongruity of seeing Loki in this setting, which is just very rich and amazing. Like Sylvie has managed to really find the sense of belonging and comfort and he looks so out of place. And so then you feel like, oh my God, we want them to work their way back toward each other. But like you said earlier, they're just moving further and further away from each other and all of these different aspects. And.

And the show captures that in just a glance, in a word, in the way that people sit, in the way that they look at each other as they talk. Like, it's just really incredible. And we hear, this was the opening clip that we chose for today's episode, the beginning of this exchange Loki's talking about. I can see the future now. She's like, congrats. It was so funny. Withering stuff. That's real cool. That's real cool. I am not impressed.

I saw you there at the TVA. I need to know why. I need to know what it means. It's the future, he says. It's going to happen. Is it really? Because that sounds a lot like the future's already been written and we both know that it hasn't. Not anymore. I made sure of that. So this question of what's fixed, what is in motion, what did these characters directly do to ensure that? Sylvie reminding Loki and us of the free will centric logic that drove Loki

the first season for her, but also crucially for him is really important here. Like you could pick any of dozens of lines from the first season, but I'll offer up one from the very first episode, which is now you all parade about as if you're the divine arbiters of power in the universe. This is Loki to Mobius. We are, you're not. My choices are my own.

own. Like this was the driving propulsive force for this character. This was the thing that he was rebelling against. This is what they build toward in the eye, I paved the way interaction with he who remains at the end, the harrowing, harrowing moment where they have to confront the

what it means if that's true what it means for every moment of their life to that point what it means for everything they might do moving forward and so like we're gonna listen now that the second half of this exchange and then we'll talk about all of this together but the return to like centering this aspect of free will and like the point you made beautifully earlier about how they have moved in different directions when this was a guiding shared pursuit for them in season one is feels really important steve can we can we hear the other half of this

Enchant me. You can see what I saw. I don't want to see it. I want nothing to do with this. I have no answers for you. Sylvia, if you and I don't work together on this, I can't guarantee that you can allow any of this will be here. Oh, you have some nerve coming here with your TVA bullshit. This is bigger than the TVA. This is about everything. You like it here? You like this place? You've made a home?

If what he who remains said is true, the TVA is the only defense. And if what I saw of you is true, then there's nothing to stand between this world and utter destruction. Without the TVA, all of this, everything is gone. Tell me everything you think and everything you feel. The free will of it all. The way that I loved Sylvie calling him out on his hypocrisy here. Oh, yeah. Right? With the TVA.

Well, for one, just after everything that they've been through together and after where they left off in their fight at the end of time and how much that was about trust and connection and ambition about who they were to each other, for Loki to show up and be like, hey, I need your help on a thing from work, my guy deserves to be called out, right? He 100% deserves to be called out. But I'll say this, like,

He and Sylvie were not obviously totally on the same page when it came to the unbridled freedom of the universe. Like that is a, that is a terrifying proposition and it is presented as such in season one. Like this is, this is something you need to reckon with. And I think Loki is so daunted by that idea in that moment. And Sylvie,

in Loki fashion, is like the one who is burdened with glorious purpose. And she's like, I know exactly what I want and I accomplished it and I achieved it. And now you're going around with the fascistic assholes who have been chasing me my entire life trying to do what exactly? I think she's pretty right to feel betrayed in this moment. Absolutely. And I think we're on a knife's edge with Loki here because in...

last week's episode in the season two premiere he was really in the same place that he was in the finale of like i just need more time like she seems so sure and i'm not and so like that is valid it's a big thing but at the end of the day like you know we we will cut back in and talk about the mobius x5 conversation then you go in the inside of the flow of the episode you go back outside and you hear loki say you're just gonna give everyone free will and walk away and sylvie says

that's the way it works. You're welcome. And it's like, yeah. And Loki, everything that he's weighing and the time that he wants to have to be able to weigh it is one thing. But at the end of the day, like the character in season one who said only order,

No chaos? It sounds boring. Like, his fear, there's the logic behind the fear. There's the rationality that guides the fear, right? The desire that he has to fend off the many kings, the multiversal war of all of he who remains as variants is reasonable, right? We're like, yeah, take the time to think about how we could maybe avoid that. But

Whether or not he is, there are divisions inside of the TVA and Loki and Mobius and B-15 are working toward one version of order. And like General Dox is working toward a prune-tastic charge-splosion. At the end of the day, if Loki is seeking any version, and this is Sylvie's point, and this is how I feel about it,

and I love this tension between the characters and inside of the episodes and the season so far, if he is seeking any version of...

controlled, sanctioned, manicured, managed, monitored free will, then definitionally, it's not free will. And it doesn't matter if it's under He Who Remains' hand or Doc's hand or Loki's hand. Like, Loki seeking to be the one to control other people's decisions is Avengers, I'm standing on the stairs giving you my villain speech. Yeah. Shit from him, right? So, like...

This, I'm so eager to see how he works through this or whether he does and moves back toward Sylvie, because that is like what I'm hoping for. But I think it's fascinating that even though we understand like logically, rationally, practically the reasons that he's in this space, emotionally, philosophically, existentially, right?

We have to be opposed. We have to feel opposed to the thing that he's saying. Like we have to be team Sylvie on this, right? Well, Sylvie has a great plan, which is if the Kang show up, kill him. Just kill him.

easy. Flawless plan, flawless logic. I've seen the release slate for the rest of Phase 5 and Phase 6 and I am on it. This is what we do. I'm sure. Kang Dynasty is a title. Yes, your words are coming, but I'm confident that this will go well. Well, so not only does Sylvie have the moral high ground of wanting free will for people, she has a plan

As far as I can tell, this new version of the TVA doesn't really have a plan. Like the TVA's only real move to this point has been we prune the timelines to keep the multiverse quote unquote stable.

That was it. That was all they had. And so as we're going to get to in the rest of this episode, their ultimate failings in countering Dox and what Dox is trying to do and all the other hunters. What other cards do they have to play? Because they seem intent on like, okay, how can we have this more...

you know, morally sound version of the fascistic governance we had before. That's the thing. It's like, is there a morally sound version of it? You retrofit the loom. Like you work to make sure that everybody inside the TVA is preserving the branches instead of putting them at the end of the day, like the inherent existence of this institution is like noxious and foul and wrong and stems from a desire that's like unnatural and unholy.

Oh, man. What a great show. Incredible stuff. I have no idea how the TVA is going to salvage any of it, but I suspect that's kind of the point that we're going to reckon with is that this is a thing that is beyond saving. And that's why it's headed toward its foretold demise with some of the foreshadowing. Yes, I think so. We do have some french fries to eat and milkshakes to drink before then. We cut back inside where Mobius and X5 are...

While Mobius is enjoying the meal, Brad is very preoccupied. I would like to share with you what is my favorite line of the season so far. Please. It is Mobius absolutely mainlining his McDonald's saying, I thought you were setting us up for an ambush. Hell, you were just setting us up for a great meal. Thank you.

And Mobius is clearly the kind of guy who eats his apple pie first. And I don't agree with that approach, but I love that for him. Do you think it's because he wanted it while it was like nice and warm? Well, this... He did say he was not leaving until he went in and got the apple pie. So maybe he's just really very pie forward. He's leaving hot fries on the tray to eat the hot pie. You simply cannot do it. Simply cannot. Did you get McDonald's after watching episode one, Stinger, and then again after watching episode two?

I did not. I did. I'm not surprised by this. I can't. I'm so susceptible to stimuli. I was like, this looks fucking delicious. And then I got some and I was like, you know what? It is. Well, let me follow up on this point because I know you are, let's say, a prolific DoorDash customer. Yes. Did you get your McDonald's delivered to you? I did. I did. In light of this apple pie fry conversation. Yeah.

You getting McDonald's french fries delivered to you. I assume you got french fries. Of course. Large fry. So I've had a couple... I've had more than one McDonald's order recently. Sure. One time I got a double cheeseburger, double bacon cheeseburger, and then the other time I got the two cheeseburger meal. So slight variance, but ultimately you've got your double cheeseburger or your two cheeseburgers. Large fry. McNuggets. Yeah. Soda. I did orange soda one time and root beer one time. And then I got...

A sundae with hot fudge, an apple pie, and a McFlurry. I saved the McFlurry for the next day. I have two main objections with this overall smorgasbord you've laid out. Okay. Both as they relate to you getting these things delivered to you. Yeah. You got an ice cream sundae delivered to you. It held up great. It was in great shape. I put it in the freezer while I was eating my meal, and when I was ready for it, it was in pristine condition. Yeah.

That doesn't bode well for what the contents of that ice cream, but I accept whatever's happening there as part of the process of McDonald's. It's a very quick delivery. Very quick. See, this is the thing. The French fries to me, getting French McDonald's French fries delivered to you and not eating them as quickly as humanly possible. I ate them right away. Immediately. And they were piping hot. In the bag, in that person's car. Piping hot. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I think you've committed DoorDash malpractice. This is gross negligence to me. I stand behind. I stand behind it.

How could you possibly defend yourself and the french fries you've allowed to turn soggy? They were not soggy. They were the texture, the consistency, the heat level. They were perfect. As Steve knows, because I sent him a picture of my meal, I put some fresh cracked pepper on top of them. They were wonderful. You're judging them up. I can tell you. I know what I'm getting for dinner tonight after this conversation. Yeah.

I'm going to text you about the picture later. Actually, I have some pizza waiting for me. Maybe tomorrow. Why not both? Why not both? We're just talking about this on Zoom with Steve.

When Mobius is enjoying this meal, he and Brad are watching Sylvie and Loki through the front window of a McDonald's, and they have a lot of thoughts. God, it's weird. They're just absent. They're like, I have so many thoughts and so many questions. This feels wrong. I don't want to look, but I can't look away. It's one of those. Mobius has a classic. They say opposites attract. No. No.

No. Wonderful stuff. Calls back to his seismic narcissist assessment of the situation in season one. You referenced this moment earlier. Absolutely delightful little instant here where he's reflecting on the oddity and wonder of life. You know, he's like, a few minutes ago, Brad, I was torturing you. Look at us. Now here we are enjoying a meal like gentlemen. So great. He tries to bond by asking Brad about his movie.

Rob, I would like to ask you, is Zaniac scary? What did you learn about Zaniac? It's not scary. It's an elevated thriller. It's cinema. Marty, eat your heart out. This is cinema. This was like...

This wasn't even a Marty sub tweet. This was just at Marty. Just a tweet? Yeah. Just a tweet. It's cinema. The giant smile on Owen Wilson's face as he said, it looks scary. He's just the best. He's a national treasure. Truly. Truly, truly, truly is. He does start to realize though, I think it was the anxious swirl of the shake for Brad that really, like Mobius could no longer ignore. That'll do it.

something is going on with the jumpiness, with the eagerness to leave here that is about more than just Sylvie. And so he takes Brad outside to tell Sylvie and Loki what the fuck is going on. It's a very tough moment for the woman in the orange shirt who is specifically called out as being on the brink of imminent death. She's gonna die. She's gonna die. She's gonna die. Brutal. Brutal. Man.

Sylvie and Chance him gets right to it. Seize the docs branch bomb plan. And then we go into easily, I think uncontroversially the weakest part of the episode, which was, it's a great Marvel tradition at this point, you know, kind of shitty action scenes shoehorned into, into an otherwise. It is. It is a proud tradition though. Let's, let's not forget. This was one of the great achievements of season one of Loki that they avoided this in the finale. Um,

The staging of this scene, the kind of convoluted exposition about what we're learning in real time about the time doors and the charges and the temp pads, all connected to the central controller. We already talked earlier about the 30% of the branches. It's go time. We get this like, our mission is compromised. Set off what you can. We're too late. Finish it. Stretch from docks that was...

Not super compelling on the, like, where are we moving general docs on the Marvel villain packing scale here. But Sylvie and Loki do hold hands. They grasp hands, much as they did when they were enchanting Elioth in season one. You know, stronger together. Don't overthink it, Sylvie says. And they send a...

marooch-esque plume of green gas toward the time Norris to disarm the remaining charges. They have docs in custody. We do hear from D90 that some of her loyalists escaped. So that sets up the prospect that some of her followers are still out there who are trying to enact or continue this plan. This is the thing for me, and it's

you know, whatever kind of action set piece you want to put into these shows to, you know, drum up some interest, like get a little adrenaline flowing, like whatever purpose you think they're serving, um,

You could take this scene out and say that they got there too late and you have the same result, same end point, and probably a more resonant execution if they aren't able to do anything about it. So I don't even know why they get there in time to like, bing, bang, boom, energy blast, hold hands, stabby, stabby, arrest some people. Like, what are we doing? Why are we doing any of this? Stabby, stabby.

Stabby, stabby. Oh, boy. Do you think that's how it was specified in the script? I'm reading from the script, yeah. You've got pages? Yeah, I got the pages. Sylvie follows Mobius and Loki through the time door back to the TVA, where they watch in horror as these branches disappear. V15 says, those are people. Those are lives.

Sylvie's face really hardens in resolve here. Now, again, she goes back to the Broxton branch. It's not everything that she unlocked undone. It's not everything. And more branches will continue to unfurl from here, but...

She is deeply dismayed by what has happened here and by the company that Loki is keeping. And as Casey gets that ping on Ravonna's Tempad and that subsequent mission is kind of unlocking, here's the next quest. Sylvie and Loki have a very fraught exchange. She says, is this the best you lot could do?

He says there was nothing we could do. Some defense, she says. The TVA is the problem. It's broken. It's rotten. I'm going home if it's still there. And he tries to stop her. He says, please don't. It's harder. But before he can finish his sentence, she's gone. And then he's just alone.

And devastated, as he says the last bit, which is to stay. It's harder to stay. And so while the action set piece here left something to be desired, this moment was really good. Like, I thought this was a really revealing moment for Loki, actually. The it's harder to stay idea, like the TVA stuff that we are much more Team Sylveon than Team Loki on at the moment. He's talking himself into it.

We just discussed like the fear that he's feeling about the many he who remains variants and the threat of multiversal war and everything. But he's talking himself into this as much to find new purpose and new meaning inside of new structure and new belonging as anything, it seems. They're both right in a way. You know, like obviously Sylvia is right about the flaws of the TVA and about how she feels in this moment. Like,

Why would she think that this organization that captured and pursued her her entire life, how could that possibly be anything but bad? And after the way season one wrapped up for Loki to then just like join them and shrug his shoulders and say there was nothing we could do when all these timelines like hers once did get pruned. She's right to get a little pissed, quite pissed, I should say.

He he's also not wrong to say like it's harder to build something than to destroy something. Yes. And it's it's clear that they have a greater mission here and lots of noble ambitions as far as like trying to set things right, trying to give the people of the TVA a chance to have a real life, trying to not prune all these timelines. They don't know how to do any of it yet.

But the way that they're bumped up against each other in that way, again, bumped up against each other in that way, where neither of them is necessarily wrong, I think is part of what makes Loki great. It's part of what makes Sylvie such a brilliant, uncompromising character. She comes by her stubbornness really honestly.

And it plays well in these moments. It's a great point. Like the fact that she, the substance of her argument and her position is something that we are inclined to support and champion. Does it mean ultimately that her utter inflexibility and like the unyielding way in which she approaches everything is like productive. Ultimately, Daniel, Daniel linked up in his wonderful episode breakdown on the ringer.com. What a great website. A Tom Hilston podcast.

interview with Marvel.com, conducted pre-strike, of course. And there were like a couple really interesting quotes from Hiddleston in that piece about this idea in particular. He was looking for meaning in the wrong places. And now I think he's found a way of giving himself purpose, which is to try to reorganize, to help Mobius and Hunter be 15 in the TVA. And then later,

If season one was about self-awareness and self-acceptance, season two is about taking responsibility and trying to find a new purpose. Maybe there's more burden and less glory in the purpose this time. So that's a really interesting idea. Like there could, the thing that is driving him might be actually really well-intentioned, right? It's harder to stay. I love the way you put that. It's harder to build than to destroy. Right.

the things that are motivating that intention don't necessarily mean it's the right decision, but they might be noble instincts. And that's true for both characters. And they're in completely different places. So like, how do they bridge that

divide and work their way back toward each other ultimately. It's a great place to be a couple episodes into the season. Absolutely. And it's the big difference in having... It's a reason why Loki as a show works. It's the difference between being a time travel show that has some relationships in it versus a human emotional show that has time travel stuff in it. And these two are the central tension of the show. They are always going to be, so long as it's structured in this way,

I think it really works for them and in part works for Loki as a character because you're right that he's reaching for something that he thinks is noble, but you also can't separate it from Loki.

the villainous Loki who does want to run shit, right? Like, there is a part of him formatively that is still there and we are constantly wrestling with, including all throughout this episode. Is he the villain still? Does he still have a streak of that, an instinct of that, an inclination of that? Or is it all just an act from this point forward? Well, and I think, like...

One of the most impactful moments of season one and of the season one finale was that, like, I don't want the throne. I just want you to be okay moment. Yeah. And it's meaningful in so many ways, right? Because it shows this immense amount of progress on the front that you're talking about here. But also, like...

We feel like overcome with emotions seeing Loki get to that point because it does represent such a seismic evolution for him. We love a character on an arc. Shout out, Joe. We miss you.

Loki wanting Sylvie to be okay, Loki not wanting the throne, doesn't mean that he wants her to be okay in the way that she wants to be okay. Or that they have the same idea of what it means to be okay, right? And so, like, that's just... There's, like, a level of complexity there in the choices that the show makes for the individual arcs and the shared arcs that I think is really rare. Like, it's just... It shouldn't actually be simple or easy or tidy for these people to...

Yeah. It just shouldn't. So this is ultimately much more not only dramatically compelling, but truer. Like it feels truer to who they are that it would be a difficult thing for them to find not a common ground that's like transient and springs up from some urgent need, but is like lasting, is permanent, is like foundational to whatever they can build moving forward. Yeah.

I really, I hope it works out for those two. I do too. I think a lot about the architecture of this show, like the storytelling architecture of this show. Like if Sylvie never existed and it was just a buddy cop, Loki, Mobius, workplace comedy, trying to write the timeline. Like if he was kind of the touch point, Mobius was for everything, would it still work? I think it would. But for me, and those parts sing, like those scenes are great.

Those actors have an incredible amount of chemistry together. It really, really works. The Sylvie stuff is where the juice is. And it's what elevates this show. I mean, for one, God forbid Marvel tell a story with any kind of like romance or longing or yearning in it, like in itself, a rare thing. But those two performances, like Tom Hiddleston and Sofia DiMartino,

they're electric together and their characters are so well written. Sylvie for me is one of the best, like late stage Marvel creations. I'm trying to think of the last character has been introduced to, I would put on her level. Like I think she's the best character they've introduced since civil war question mark. Wow. End game maybe. Um,

Although honorable mention, Lila the Otter. You know, she was pretty chill. It's still too painful. It's very painful. Too painful. But that's kind of like where I'm at with this character. There's great villains who have a one-dimensional perspective. There's great supporting heroes who you like because of their costuming or their flair or the actor who plays them.

This is the real deal. Like, this is a real character. And it's one that has been somehow positioned counterweight to one of the most beloved performances in the MCU. And the fact that they pulled that off... How do you do that? It's hard to think of, like, a taller order than go toe-to-toe with Tom Hiddleston's Loki. Bar to bar. Extremely tough. And for us to sit here on the other side and say, Loki is basically wrong in all of these scenes, and yet...

we're driving the bus on getting them back together, on them having scenes together. Honestly, I don't care. They can fight. They can do whatever. As long as they're on the screen together, I'm fine with it. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. They're not on the screen together at the end of the episode. They both have fascinating final moments. So at the TVA, did you notice this? Loki walks back and everything

It is frozen. Everybody is frozen. I thought very like intriguingly, but also conspicuously, like we were meant to notice that they were standing still in a way that is not natural. And Mobius moves a bit when Loki touches him, but everyone else is like embedded in amber. Like you don't see any time cubes, but they might as well be like locked in them.

it really gave you the sense that he was walking through like a dollhouse or like a chess board, somebody else's pieces on each square, like that really heightened that like, can he even see the game that he is inside of with clarity sensation? And then the contrasting visual of Sylvie back in Broxton on the hood of her truck out in the open air, uh,

as free as can be in theory, but after her, is your mom going to pick you up, conversation with Jack from McDonald's, who we'll talk about more in a minute, in Theory Corner, what's the thing that she reaches for? It's the temp pad. It's he who remains his temp pad, which activates in her hand. What did you make of this last glimpse of each of them in this episode? I mean, I think it's a wonderful contrast. I think you're right to pinpoint the,

the facade, the fakeness, the artifice of the TVA as being part of that. Like, I think there is an emotional weight happening there that we talked about earlier. Like, all these people have just died. Right. And the point of the new TVA is that we are reckoning with what we're doing and what is happening. Right. Like, what the reality of pruning looks like. Right. And also that for Loki himself, like, time has stopped because Sylvie has left again. Oh,

100%. Yeah. And so you have like, again, the emotional weight of the room. You have time stopping for Loki because the person he's chasing after is not there. You have this

dollhouse effect, which I think is a great way to put it, of this place that is not real, that does not exist, as Brad would tell, like, you know, none of this is real, right? This is not a real place. And yet they are trying to do things that have real consequences. And to juxtapose that with as real as shit gets, which is laying on the hood of a pickup truck, blasting Janis Joplin. That's a whole ass mood board right there. Sure is. God bless. And a great one. I love it. Incredible final.

moment in the episode. And because our guy Jack is there, it's a great time to go to Theory Corner. Now that's spooky. Scary. Genuinely unsettling from Steve.

Okay. We have, we had some theories this week. We have a couple of things we're going to hit on Theory Corner today. The first one is want to check in with you on this. Is Jack from McDonald's Mobius question. We got, if anyone didn't hear the first pod, first of all, go back and listen to it. It's right there waiting for you on your house of our feed, follow on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We got a brilliant email from bad baby Lauren who presented the theory that the McDonald's manager, Jack, and in this episode we learn is Mobius and that we will learn at some point that this was Mobius's life. This Joanna or this email on the first spot. I was like stunned. I thought this was so brilliant. Um,

Lauren pointed out like the uniform with the tie and these visual parallels, the hips on the hands, like a lot of physical similarity for a lot of it. Rob, the way that Mobius inhales the McDonald's in this episode, the way he's like, I simply will not leave until I get that fucking McDonald's pie. More fodder here for this theory. Like, where are you on this? Do you like this? Are you into it? Do you think that this is true? Yeah.

Give us your read. It's definitely more fodder, but I think more importantly, we're moving into conspicuous amount of screen time territory for Jack. It's one thing to have a name, but like when you keep popping up and your main characters keep like interacting with you in ways where they're like expressing interest about you, like, are you getting home okay? A whole conversation about whether your mom is coming to pick you up. Yeah. Yeah.

There's something going on there. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, this feels like the leader in the clubhouse. Like, I can't think of a reason he would be important other than because he is in some way Mobius or related to Mobius. I don't know exactly what the mechanics of it would be. But, you know, Roger Ebert has this great, like, law of economy of characters where if someone keeps showing up, it's like they must be important. I think if Jack, I mean, if he shows up in one more episode, he basically is Mobius as far as I'm concerned. Yeah.

Oh, man. I miss the most important part of this, though, which is you and Joe, and you talked about this previously. Yeah. Joe brought up, you know, this is Oklahoma, Brockston, Oklahoma. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Rob, please chime in. Regional expert. Yeah, Owen Wilson from Dallas, Texas, where I'm from. Yes. Joe referred to Texas and Oklahoma as kissing cousins, to which I will say...

Excuse me? Yeah, baby. Yeah, no. Excuse me? Yeah. No, we simply cannot allow it. If Owen Wilson, one of our great Texans, has been plotted as a native Oklahoman in this show... It's a betrayal. I'm going to have some thoughts about that. Yeah, it's a betrayal. I hope it's true, but it better not be true. Did you ever think that you would hear...

Red River rivalry talk on a House of R Loki pod like you got in that segment last week. What a time. What a time. The sports ball talk on House of R is always my favorite part. It's been a real treat lately. Genuinely wonderful. Just a delight. You had something that you wanted to hit on Theory Corner. Yes. I wanted to talk about OB. Please. And in particular, these theories floating around about...

His somewhat mysterious and ominous nature in the way he's presented in the show. I'm fully on board with the idea that you and Joe floated last week, that he is maybe a founding member of the TVA in some capacity. That we're going to get a statue reveal. It feels like he and seemingly Ravonna, their memories have been wiped, but they were there from the start. But I think moreover, there's an extra textual thing here that I can't get out of my head, which is Kiwe Kwan.

His first role after winning an Oscar is not just this. It's not just tech guy who fixes your timey-wimey bullshit. I would be legitimately shocked if

If there were not some kind of turn for him. And I think the one that makes the most sense is one that he is not fully aware of. Because at this point, we've seen him in enough scenes where he's by himself. And he's expressing concern about, oh, Mobius isn't going to make it back. Oh, Loki's not going to make it in time. Things you would never say aloud to yourself if you're secretly a villain. Yeah.

So I think he doesn't know exactly who he is, but there is no question in my mind a big, big OB reveal is headed our way. Yeah, I agree. That's exactly where I am. We are going to get some sort of reveal that will shake him and shake us, but he cannot currently be in possession of those facts and have the awareness of that history because it just wouldn't track with what we're

seeing from him. I mean, I guess it's possible that over those hundreds of years of no sleep and visitors, he worked his way toward a totally charming and genial, just, you know, love to be a part of a team. Isn't it great to be a part of a team place? But that seems unlikely. It seems more likely that he just doesn't recall how he may be. Yeah, I think so. But it's going to be so interesting if that is the case to see, like, because he does remember writing the TVA guidebook.

for example. So like, what's the timeline of that? Or like, what was he not only be like allowed to remember, but what was it important for him to remember? And then what was maybe like obscured or blocked off in some way. It's fascinating. Great character. Just wonderful to have him in the show. We, I'm springing this on you in real time, but while we're on theory corner, do you have a theory from the first episode of who you think pruned Loki? Yeah.

Well, so I had to kind of redirect because the first time I watched it, I thought Sylvie pruned Loki. And then it becomes clear it's like someone from behind him. Yeah. Thematically speaking, it has to be Loki. Yeah. It has to be Loki. Yeah. But...

Maybe in referencing the interview you talked about with Hiddleston, if this season isn't about self-discovery so much, if it is about responsibility, then it's plausible that someone else could be responsible for the downfall. Maybe that's OB, right? Maybe that's someone who was a founding member of the TVA who's feeling a sense of responsibility for what happened to it. Rebelling against the realization of what they helped to foster. A lot of interesting possibilities. Definitely so.

Okay. Anything else you want to hit on Theory Corner? No, I think we did it. Okay. Easter eggs. We'll just do one each. Okay. Did you have a favorite Easter egg from this episode? I do. At the beginning of the episode, when Loki and Amobius are chasing Brad, and they finally pin him against the brick wall with all the shadow play, there is giant graffiti on the wall. Okay.

in what I will only choose to interpret as a message to Kevin Feige and the greater Marvel machine. And it reads, less is enough. Incredible. Let's all take it to heart. Maybe not on House of R. Maybe that's not the thing to say on, you know, two and a half hours into this podcast, but less sometimes is enough. That's a pretty...

It's pretty like contained runtime and by some of the recent standards. Mine is also from that opening scene. We got a Kingo movie poster. We run past, we stroll past one of our favorite Eternals. You know, we're not often given reason to think about the Eternals in the MCU these days, but here goes one. And that was nice.

The less said, the better on that front. We're not doing wig watch, Rob, as we said. I was like really eager to get a full rundown of Joanna's Sylvie Mullet thoughts and some thoughts on Brad's new longer hair, but we'll get all of that later. So that's something to look forward to. But we are going to do Fit Watch TM with Rob Mahoney. TM. Can't see into the future. I'm not a witch. No? Why'd you dress like one? Great stuff, Steve. You're the best. Rob.

What was your fit of the week? Lots of great candidates in this episode. Amazing jackets, amazing collars, amazing footwear. I don't know that we ever got past the high point, though, of Brad's open collar movie premiere white scarf look. Tremendous. Absolutely tremendous. And you can see how the Bridget Bardot rumors started. You know, you can get behind it.

It's an amazing look for Brad Wolf. It really is. The scarf was sensational. With apologies to the scarf, with apologies to the tuxedos, with apologies to my runner-up, which was the way Sylvie rocked that McDonald's uniform, which I just thought was astonishing. It has to be the new Loki coat for me. Not only that rich shade of brown, the form-fitting nature of the coat, it is one specific thing that puts it over the edge.

The thickness and lushness of those lapels. I have never seen anything like it. And they have never been more popped, right? This is the real time collar is whatever kind of collar that Loki has going on popping at any given point in time. Incredible. Well, maybe that collar will inspire your selection for our final category of the day. It's the Netflix subtitle award. Rob, if this episode had Netflix subtitles, what would it be?

I'm going to go with Mobius Sporks enthusiastically. I was hoping we could go like both men Spork enthusiastically, but Loki is not really into the whole situation. It's kind of working more for one of them than the other, which is a tragic thing. I'm glad you mentioned that because this is also the moment I chose for my subtitle selection. I admire your economy. Here's a 500 word version of your pick. Let's hear it.

God of mischief and prince of lies, half-heartedly, unconvincingly, pretends to eat jello mold-esque key lime pie slice, duping Mobius with, it is, sham reply as brows furrow unconvincingly and whipped cream distends wetly. It is.

It always distends wetly. Always distends wetly here in the Netflix subtitle award. I'm imagining the screenshot and the amount of space on the screen that that subtitle is taking off. I'm not even seeing the whipped cream anymore. It's tough if you're watching on your phone or your laptop with a subtitle that long. It is tough. It's true. Rob, that's it. We did it. We made a podcast. Any other thoughts on this episode, on this season? I have abs... My head has been emptied. I have none. I have no thoughts left.

This was wonderful. Thank you for joining today. This was such a treat. You're the best. Really appreciate you being here with us today. Thank you. Thank you to our favorite timekeepers as well. Steve Allman for producing this episode. Arjuna Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode. And Jomi Adeneron for his work on the social for this episode.

Remember, head back into the ringerverse for a new button mash waiting for you right now to get you ready for the impending Spidey release. On Thursday night, the Midnight Boys will have their instant reaction to Loki episode three. Jess will have a splash page video breakdown of episode three for you heading into the weekend. Ben and I will be here on House of R at the end of the week.

Friday for some walking dead talk. And then Joe and I will be back with you on Monday for our Loki episode three deep dive. You can find all of Rob's beautiful writing and all of Rob's beautiful podcasting on the ringer NBA show on the ringer.com. What a great website. We'll be back with you soon until then. Remember it's not a podcast. It's an elevator. All right.