After last episode, it looks like Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and company have lost, the Time Variance Authority is over and the multiverse is finished.

Not quite.

Apparently the imminent destruction of the TVA initiated an emergency protocol that whisked away all the members of the TVA into their original timelines, a concept long teased in the show. Mobius (Owen Wilson) is fittingly a jet ski expert, Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) is a nurse, Casey (Eugene Cordero) is an escaped prisoner from Alcatraz, Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) is a physicist/novelist and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) returns to her McDonalds, though only her and Loki retain their memories of the TVA.

Sophie is completely against bringing the TVA back and there initially appears no reason to do so. There is no imminent threat and everyone is where they’re supposed to be. There’s this brilliant moment when Sylvie talks Loki through the need for the TVA — like he did previously — and talks him down from bringing it back, as he admits that, outside of a multiverse-threatening event, he wants it only because he misses his friends. Loki has found purpose and doesn’t know what to do without it.

Alas, there IS a reason to bring it back, as the branches they were all sent to start to spaghettify. It’s at this point where Sylvie finds the will to live and Loki learns how to control his time-slipping, which he’s been doing uncontrollably throughout the episode.

This is another great installment that builds off of primarily Sylvie and Loki’s characters and further fleshes out the core dilemma of the TVA — once people have their minds wiped and it’s all they know, they are willing to die for it and its cause, but without prior knowledge of what they’re giving up, it’s not fully their choice.

We appear to be building towards saving the TVA, though I think it’s also possible that Loki will move on from it and learn to let go. He’s found companionship through the agency, but he needs to learn how to be happy alone in order to be a complete person. I also am unsure if, without this show, his character will be reintroduced into the MCU, like the past version of Gamora was in the last “Guardians of the Galaxy” film.

“Loki” Season 2: Episode 5 “Science/Fiction” gets a 9/10