Warning – The rest of this article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 4 of Loki.
Thanks to Loki Season 2, Episode 4, fans finally have their answer as to who pruned Loki in Episode 1 and why.
Toward the end of the latest episode, it was revealed that Loki pruned himself to close the Season 2 premiere.
The ending of Episode 4 saw Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief in a TVA in crisis, as Miss Minutes attempted to shut down any safeguard and impede the series’ central heroes from stopping the Temporal meltdown that has been a constant threat this season.
This dual Loki sequence revealed that the pruning scene in Episode 1 was actually a future version of the TVA.
As current Loki frantically looked to reboot the entire TVA in an effort to shut down Miss Minutes, he came across his past self, knowing he had to prune him to set his character on the path he was currently on (and cure him of his time-slipping).
The sequence saw future Loki (the one audiences have been following throughout Season 2), running through the TVA as Sylvie is in the elevator she was seen in in Episode 1.
After hotwiring the lift, Sophia Di Martino’s hero happens upon past Loki (even though she does not know it is past Loki).
She says to him, “There you are,” and a phone rings just like it did in the first episode before Loki’s past self is pruned by the current-day version of the character.
“I promise you this will make sense,” current-day Loki says to Sylvie as the pair run off to hopefully get Victor Timely’s dampener on the Temporal Loom which is on the verge of collapse.
Where Does Loki Season 2 Go From Here?
Just like the Season 2 premiere, Episode 4 of Loki has left fans dumbfounded with yet another cliff-hanger Easter egg.
It remains unknown if Loki, Mobius, and their allies will be able to bring down Miss Minutes and rein in the Temporal Loom. With two more episodes of the Disney+ series left, surely, the Loki team is not done with these sort of head-turning reveals.
The biggest tease headed into the second batch of Loki episodes was that the series would feature a search for “Kang Variants.” And so far, there has only been one to make an appearance (being Victor Timely).
Perhaps the next two episodes will see things get even more out of hand, with Loki and co. taking on a whole swath of Kang Variants.
It could also be interesting, with this pruning reveal in Episode 4, if there are going to be even more time-traveling shenanigans taking place.
Maybe there will more instances of time looping back around (as it did toward the end of Episode 4) that fans never saw coming.