‘Loki’ Season 2 Finale Summary and Ending Explained: Loki’s Glorious Purpose

Ever since the start of the MCU, Loki has always talked about being burdened with glorious purpose without ever understanding what his actual purpose was. Aptly titled, ‘Glorious Purpose’ is the season 2 finale of Loki and quite possibly the finale of the entire series as it allows us to see what’s next for the Asgardian god and how he has to deal with the problem related to the Temporal Loom following his understanding of how his time-slipping abilities work. So, with that in mind, let’s look at what happened in season 2 of ‘Loki’ and how it ended.

An unending cycle of failure

In episode 5 of season 2, Loki discovered that his time-slipping ability was related to the people he wanted to see. This allowed him to control his new powers consciously, as he was now slipping between one timeline and another with controlled precision. And he returned to the time before the Temporal Loom destroyed the TVA.

Loki learns from OB that they need to move faster if they want to fix the Temporal Loom before it destroys Victor Timely. This allowed him to jump back in time numerous times to try to speed up the process, only for Timely to die from the radiation time and time again. And Loki had to return all the way back to the point where he brought Timely back to the TVA.

In his attempt to speed the entire process of prepping the Throughput Multiplier, Loki spent centuries going back in time to learn everything that OB and Timely knew about the Temporal Loom and the Throughput Multiplier, essentially becoming an expert in the subject matter through hundreds of years of slipping back into the past.

He and his friends were able to speed up the entire process, allowing Timely to succeed in fixing the Temporal Loom by using the Throughput Multiplier to increase the capacity of the Loom. Loki was about to celebrate with everyone until OB discovered the Loom was still overloading.

This allows Timely to come up with the conclusion that some infinite timelines and universes were being created and that the Loom would never be able to handle an infinite number of possibilities.

The truth about the Loom

Feeling defeated, Loki returns to the point in time where he and Sylvie confront He Who Remains at the end of the events of season 1. Loki tries his best to convince Sylvie to pause for a minute so that he can speak with He Who Remains and make sense of what’s happening. However, Sylvie repeatedly tells Loki that the only way for him to stop her is to kill her, effectively making things impossible.

It came to a point wherein He Who Remains paused the events to reveal to Loki that he knew exactly what was happening while also hinting that he was the one who allowed Loki to acquire the power to slip between time and space at will.

He Who Remains tells Loki that he knows this will happen and that the only way for Loki to save everything is to choose between killing Sylvie and destroying the Temporal Loom. And that’s because the Loom was never designed to regulate the timelines but was there as a failsafe that was supposed to destroy everything but the Sacred Timeline.

In short, the Loom was never the heart of the TVA but was the backup plan of He Who Remains. He created a closed loop that involved his reincarnation over and over again. That’s because if Sylvie kills him, the multiple timelines that would pop out would only destroy the branches and leave the Sacred Timeline as the only timeline.

Of course, the Sacred Timeline would give birth to He Who Remains, allowing him to return to power repeatedly, thus giving meaning to what he told Sylvie when he said that he would see her again back in season 1.

The nature of burden

Loki is now burdened with two choices: destroy the Loom or kill Sylvie. Destroying the Loom would ultimately bring about the multiple timelines that would cause a multiversal war, thus bringing about the return of He Who Remains. Meanwhile, killing Sylvie would allow He Who Remains to remain in power. In short, Loki thought that He Who Remains would always return no matter what.

However, Loki returns to the point in time wherein Mobius is still trying to convince him to join the TVA. This time, they end up talking about the nature of burden as Mobius tells Loki about the time when he was forced to make a tough decision in the past and that he has carried the burden of that decision ever since then. He was effectively telling Loki that he has to carry the burden of a tough choice that he has to make.

Loki returns to AD Doug’s laboratory to tell Sylvie about the nature of his new ability and how he can now control time. He paused time to tell Sylvie that he may have to kill her, only for Sylvie to tell Loki that it is up to him to decide what he needs to do.

Sylvie tells Loki that she has lived in countless apocalyptic timelines and was able to see how the people there were willing to destroy things to make way for a better future. This effectively allowed Loki to understand what he needed to do.

Loki discovers his glorious purpose

Loki does not kill Sylvie but returns to the point before the Loom destroys the TVA. Instead of allowing Timely to go, Loki goes down to the Loom and locks everything behind him so that he can now do what he needs to do. He tells everyone that he now understands what kind of god he needs to be.

As he makes his way through the gangway, Loki dons his godly attire as he destroys the Temporal Loom, bringing about a sudden burst of different timelines appearing out of nowhere. Loki uses his powers to grab onto the timelines and destroys Temporal Loom, as OB notices that the branches are disappearing. He then enters a portal that leads to the end of time, where multiple more branches appear.

Loki takes his place at the seat of He Who Remains and grabs all of the different timelines, effectively becoming the new Temporal Loom. In short, he destroyed the Loom to make way for a better one, as his powers and godly abilities allow him to regulate the different timelines in the multiverse.

Essentially, Loki was able to find a way to destroy He Who Remains’ loop as he was now the one regulating the different timelines. He now has a glorious purpose that he has decided to fulfill because he now understands the nature of the burden and the things that he needs to do for the greater good.

The TVA and the multiverse

After Loki’s sacrifice, the TVA returned to normal as the different analysts and agents continued monitoring the different timelines. Mobius talks about how the Kang variants are yet to learn of the existence of the TVA and how one of them caused a small mess in Earth-616, referring to the things that happened in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.’

As B-15 and Mobius make their way to the war room to discuss plans, Mobius tells his friend that he is leaving the TVA to see his life in the Sacred Timeline and understand more about what he has been protecting for years. B-15 understands this and proceeds to the war room to join up with the other leaders of the TVA.

Mobius can be seen observing his variant on the Sacred Timeline as Sylvie joins him and tells him that it’s weird that Loki isn’t there with him. Nevertheless, they were hopeful about the situation and how Loki needed to do what he had to do. 

The series ends with Loki sitting on his “throne” as the one regulating the different timelines of the multiverse at the end of time. Effectively, he is now a true god in that he oversees the multiverse as the only person who can do so. And this is the glorious purpose that he was always burdened with when he first came into existence.

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