'Loki' finale might've turned 'Endgame' into a huge lie
Loki delivered a phenomenal ending on Wednesday, with the finale revealing who the show’s big villain is. We didn’t just learn who was pulling the TVA’s strings all along in episode 6. We got to see Loki (Tom Hiddleston) complete another redemption arc just as impressive as what we saw in the Avengers movies. But more importantly, the Loki finale explained the multiverse rules for what’s coming next in the MCU. In the process, it made us question everything we had learned in more than a decade of Marvel adventures.
Loki will make you see everything in a completely different light. Even Avengers: Endgame has now drastically changed. Loki turned it into a big “lie” — and that is amazing news. Before we explain the Loki ending and its relationship to Endgame, we’ll give you the customary warning that big spoilers lie ahead.
When looking at the massive revelations in previous Loki episodes, I told you that Loki might have uncovered Marvel’s biggest lie from Endgame: the Infinity Stones are the foundation of reality. They need to exist to keep reality in check. Even after Thanos destroyed them in Endgame, the Stones still exist as cosmic dust.
What the Loki ending tells us
But then came Loki and we found out that TVA agents use the Infinity Stones as paperweights around the office. They have no powers while at the TVA. They’ve been extracted from timelines that might be pruned. We wondered at the time whether some realities lack Infinity Stones because of various Nexus events. We had no idea early in Loki how many realities are contained in the Sacred Timeline.
The Loki ending clarified all the multiverse rules beautifully. The Sacred Timeline is only one. It’s the one the mostly-good version of Kang (Jonathan Majors) allowed to exist. Under his micromanagement of time, the TVA ensured the Sacred Timeline lived on and that no significant branches passed the point of no return. The TVA pruned everything to ensure a particular sequence of events. Even Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) reaching Kang’s office was a carefully orchestrated event. It’s a formidable thing that the two reached Kang’s castle, but it’s all because of Kang’s doing.
