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Loki Episode 2.05: Science/Fiction

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"Science/Fiction" is the fifth episode of season two of Loki.

Loki traverses dying timelines in an attempt to find his friends, but Reality is not what it seems.

Plot[]

Following the explosion of the Temporal Loom, Loki found himself still alive in the abandoned TVA. As Loki wandered the halls, much to his displeasure, he began time slipping again, briefly encountering a version of himself that was reading the Time Variance Authority Official Handbook. Returned to the abandoned TVA, Loki began reading the handbook before his time slipping past self entered and vanished. As everything around him began to spaghettify, Loki time slipped away with the handbook while the display of the Temporal Loom flashed a message that fail safe mode had been initiated.

On the Alcatraz of a branched timeline in 1962, Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin perform an escape. Time slipping into the middle of the escape, Loki recognized Frank as his friend Casey, but Frank had no idea who Loki was again. After much mutual confusion, Loki time slipped away again. Loki time slipped for a moment to McDonald's, Pirahna Powersports and the TVA's Time Theater before appearing on a branched timeline in New York City in 2012 where he was briefly spotted by pediatrician Dr. Willis - Hunter B-15 before she was abducted by the TVA - who had just finished treating a little girl's broken arm. In the 2022 Cleveland, Ohio of another branched timeline, Don - a single father with two sons - attempted to sell a jet ski to a potential customer without success. Loki recognized Don as Mobius M. Mobius, but much like Casey, Don had no idea who Loki was or anything about the TVA.

In a book store in Pasadena, California in 1994 of another branched timeline, Dr. A.D. Doug, PhD - Ouroboros before he was abducted by the TVA - attempted to put his book The Zartan Contingent on the shelves, much to the annoyance of the manager as the store didn't sell science fiction. When Doug returned home, he was approached by Loki and, unlike Loki's other friends, believed him and was excited that it was like one of his characters coming to life and needing his help. Loki was at first disappointed to learn that Doug was a writer before Doug revealed that he was also a theoretical physics teacher and scientist, although writing was his true passion.

While Loki wanted to go back to before the Temporal Loom melted down, Doug explained that since Loki time traveled in a place that had no time, something that was impossible, him time traveling to a place that no longer existed should be equally impossible and thus something that Loki might be able to do. However, Loki had to first learn how to control his time slipping which Doug believed wasn't random because Loki kept ending up around exactly the people that he was looking for. Loki's time slipping was also evolving because Loki was now moving around in space as well as time and Doug compared it to being a better version of a TemPad. Doug suggested that it was about why rather than what or how and Loki explained that his why was that if he couldn't save the TVA from being destroyed, there would be nothing to protect against what was coming. However, Loki's humorous attempts to control his time slipping failed and he decided to focus on using science to get to the TVA. As Loki had briefly appeared in the Time Theater, Doug suggested that the time and place Loki wanted still existed, but he just didn't know where to look for it. Doug's solution was to get the band back together: gather everyone who had been with Loki when the Temporal Loom melted down and use their collective temporal aura unique to that moment in time to figure out the coordinates to get back to that moment. Although they lacked the needed TemPad, Loki provided Doug with the handbook to build one before suddenly time slipping away.

Loki reappeared outside of Don's house where Loki witnessed his friend struggling with his children Kevin and Sean. Recognizing Loki as the customer from before, Don offered to sell him one of Don's two jet skis, and Loki recalled Mobius' fascination with jet skis and the possibility of owning them. However, Don was dubious about Loki's story about the TVA and Don being Mobius, thinking that Loki was just insane until Doug emerged from a Time Door in front of them, having spent 19 months building a TemPad, losing his wife, home and job in the process. Using the Time Door, Loki and Doug showed Don the truth by taking him back in time by a few minutes to witness the start of Loki and Don's conversation with each other. After Loki promised that he could bring Don back to any point in time so that Kevin and Sean wouldn't even know that he was gone and explained that his children were in danger too, Don finally agreed to help, acknowledging that Mobius was a pretty cool name. Loki then successfully recruited Dr. Willis and Frank into their mission and brought them back to Doug's new home which had the appearance of a more primitive version of O.B.'s office at the TVA.

As Sylvie finished her shift at McDonald's, Loki approached her, only to discover much to his surprise and relief that Sylvie remembered everything, including the explosion. At a bar, Loki explained how everyone's lives were reset to before the TVA which Sylvie saw as a good thing as they were back in their real lives. Loki in turn wondered how many would've chosen to stay at the TVA given the choice, suggesting that they could finally be given the choice that He Who Remains took away from them. However, Sylvie was uninterested in anything but enjoying her new life and got Loki to finally admit what he truly wanted: to have his friends back and to not be alone. An emotional Loki wondered where he belonged without his friends and Sylvie urged him to write his own story like everyone else was doing now. However, after Loki's departure, Sylvie witnessed her timeline spaghettifying like Victor Timely while visiting a records store and barely escaped in time using He Who Remains' TemPad.

Impatient to return to his life, Frank expressed an interest in the TemPad and the possibilities that it held for his criminal activities while Dr. Willis enjoyed Doug's books and Don unsuccessfully tried to sell her a jet ski. Upon his return, a despondent Loki ordered his friends to go back to their lives where they belonged. However, Sylvie arrived with the news that everything was falling apart, and the branches were dying. With everyone present, Doug attempted to enact their plan, only to discover the TemPad missing. Although Frank was accused of stealing it, he was proven to be innocent as the timeline and everyone in it began breaking down as reality came to an end. His friends' words running through his head, Loki desperately grasped at the strings of reality before suddenly time slipping back to moments earlier as he was about to disintegrate himself.

Loki managed to send himself back in time to Sylvie's arrival, having finally figured out how to control his time slipping: rather than it being about where, when, or why, it was about who. Loki declared that he could rewrite the story and, focusing on O.B., time slipped back to the TVA, appearing next to O.B. before the explosion.

Cast[]

Continuity and References to the Marvel Cinematic Universe[]

Trivia[]

  • The original identities of Loki's friends from the TVA are revealed:
    • Casey is Frank Morris, a bank robber who is famous for escaping from Alcatraz in 1962.
    • Hunter B-15 is a pediatrician named Verity Willis from 2012 New York City.
    • Mobius M. Mobius is Don, a jet ski salesman and single father of two sons from 2022 Cleveland, Ohio. Don also owns two jet skis, something that Mobius had shown an interest in. In "The Nexus Event," after Mobius had learned that he was a variant, Mobius wondered if he had possibly owned some jet skis before being taken by the TVA.
    • Ouroboros is Dr. A.D. Doug, PhD, a failed science fiction author from 1994 Pasadena, California. While Doug is also a theoretical physics teacher at Caltech, his true passion is writing, calling his PhD an embarrassing necessity to keep his day job until he can quit to write full time.
  • When Loki and Sylvie are talking at the bar, Brad's voice can be heard coming from the Zaniac arcade game.
  • The episode's directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson play Clarence and John Anglin, Frank's fellow escapees.
  • Frank Morris, Clarence and John Anglin are real people who escaped from Alcatraz in June 1962. However, as they were never seen again, much speculation still exists as to whether or not they actually survived their escape attempt.
    • It's revealed that at least his Casey variant did succeed in escaping alive before Casey was found and captured by the TVA. This might suggest that Casey's Nexus event was his successful escape from Alcatraz in his timeline while the original Frank perished.
  • All of the characters are listed in the credits for this episode as their original selves rather than by the names of their TVA variants.
    • Only Ouroboros appears of the versions from the TVA, making a brief cameo at the very end of the episode when Loki travels back in time to before the explosion.

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