Summary
- The post-credits scene in Loki season 2 episode 1 takes place immediately after He Who Remains’ death and shows Sylvie in a McDonald’s in 1982.
- Sylvie’s choice to go to McDonald’s in 1982 is a result of seeking a simple pleasure she never experienced due to her life of constant flight and fighting.
- While Broxton, Oklahoma may not seem significant in the show, in Marvel Comics, it is the location where Lady Loki debuted and where important events involving Thor and Asgard took place.
WARNING: This Article Contains MAJOR SPOILERS For Loki Season 2, Episode 1Is there a credits scene in Loki season 2 episode 1? Yes! In the grand tradition of most Marvel Cinematic Universe releases, the Loki season 2 opener has a stinger, and it has a deeper meaning than you might initially think. Following directly on from the daring mission to pull Tom Hiddleston’s Loki out of the timeline and stop his time-slipping, the first Loki season 2 credits scene is also an important one.
Loki season 2 has already started off strongly, with a complicated storyline injected with a lot of scientific jargon (not least from Ke Huy Quan’s Ouroboros). It’s also very obvious that the show is less interested in tying to wider MCU timeline events, and focusing instead on the continued battle for the Sacred Timeline set up by Loki season 1’s ending. But that doesn’t mean all MCU traits are out the window, with the post-credits scene offering that element of familiarity.
What Happens In The Loki Season 2 Episode 1 Post-Credits Scene
After the credits role on Loki season 2 episode 1’s ending and Loki has avoided being spaghettified or lost in time, the post-credits scene flips back to Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie in the immediate aftermath of He Who Remain’s death. Sylvie transports herself to 1982, enters a McDonalds (perfectly rebuilt from the early 1980s designs, including the freakish cartoon tree), speaks to the young manager and orders one of everything on the menu. Quite how she pays for all of those burgers, fries and nuggets is anyone’s guess, but since the marketing has spoiled that Sylvie ends up working at the same McDonalds, maybe she’s forced initially to do so to pay off the fast food debt. Or she uses magic.
What Happened To Sylvie After Loki Season 1
As confirmed by the Loki season 2 episode 1 post-credits scene, Sylvie didn’t stay in the Citadel at the End of Time after killing Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains in season 1’s finale. Having completed her mission, she did exactly as Thanos did, seeking her own personal peace, by leaving and jumping somewhere else in the timeline. Sylvie’s outfit all but confirms that the McDonalds scene happens immediately after He Who Remains’ death.
Unfortunately for Sylvie, Loki season 2 episode 1 also confirms that her new idyllic life won’t last. As Loki attempts to complete his mission to extract his temporal aura from the time stream by pruning himself from the future timeline in order to stop his time-slipping, he sees Sylvie at the TVA, trapped in a broken elevator. This moment is set at some point in the near future, with the TVA seemingly fallout apart, with Sophia Di Martino’s anti-hero clearly drawn back to the organization’s HQ for an as-yet unconfirmed reason. But that obviously means that she doesn’t stay in Broxton, Oklahoma for too long.
Why Sylvie Goes To McDonalds In 1982
The question most will have watching the Loki season 2 episode 1 post-credits scene is why McDonalds and why 1982. For the first answer, you have to consider Sylvie’s tragic origin story. As she reveals in Loki’s Lamentis episode, the TVA attempted to prune her when she was roughly ten years old in human terms (but a lot older as a Frost Giant). She flees and spends the rest of her life on the run, which, judging by the life-span of Frost Giants (at least around 5000 years), would mean she’d probably been on the run for thousands of years. 1982 doesn’t appear to have any major significance in Loki itself, but it’s interesting to note that Zaniac debuted in Thor #319 in 1982 ahead of his later importance in Loki season 2.
More importantly, it’s what the year means to McDonalds that brings Sylvie to 1982, as revealed by producer Kevin Wright in an interview with Fast Company. The more colorful design of 1980s McDonalds, which was supposed to appeal to families, clearly worked on Sylvie: “When we stayed in the view of character, this woman who went on the run as a child, had been running through time, a fugitive of time, living in apocalypses, never being able to relax or slow down, the novelty of walking into a 1980s McDonald’s looked appealing.”
She never got her chance of her truly formative years, which would have included simple pleasures like the Asgardian equivalent of McDonalds. Sylvie seems drawn to McDonalds because of the same wonder that made the fast food giants so popular with children. It’s a simple, almost naive pleasure, completely in contrast with Sylvie’s life of fight and flight. Sylvie has also never been able to enjoy anything, constantly looking over her shoulder and having to move everywhere to keep ahead of the TVA. Being able to go somewhere as innocuous as McDonalds and not be worried about how conspicuous she is in her Asgardian outfit, which she noticeably doesn’t disguise, is a huge indication that she believes she’s beaten the TVA. Wright’s comments further reflect that:
“You play a Little League game and go to McDonald’s. You go to a kid’s birthday party at McDonald’s. Someone like Sylvie would never have experienced that, and would be really taken by that… I was worried that McDonald’s would think we wanted to do something ironic or make fun of them. But we were selling an earnest story, a love letter to nostalgia through a character’s eyes who will see all of the novelty and joy of it.”
Why Broxton Is Important In Marvel Comics
Sylvie’s choice of the small town of Broxton, Oklahoma for her new home may not seem to have any significance in Loki’s TV show lore, but it is an important site in Marvel Comics, which suggests it may be some sort of nexus location in wider Marvel lore. In the comics, Thor purchases land just outside of Broxton (paying with a truck load of gold), to rebuild Asgard in the wake of Ragnarok. That story run, with Asgard’s new location outside Broxton, was where Lady Loki first debuted in the comics after the God Of Mischief stole Sif’s body.
Obviously, in the MCU, Thor and Valkyrie rebuilt Asgard in Norway, but the new Asgard was in America on the page, setting up the events of Siege, which took place around Broxton. In that event, Norman Osborn seeks to invade Asgard, under the pretense of a threat to the United States, but really as a means to strengthen his own power. Loki actually plays a key role in that Siege, convincing Osborn to orchestrate a tragedy at Soldier Field football stadium, where thousands of civilians are killed during a battle between Volstagg and villains working for Osborn, as he and Loki watch on.
Other notable events in Broxton include it being the site of the death of Cul Borson (AKA Serpent), as well as a war between the Asgardians and Galactus, and finally, its destruction by the God Of Hammers, which killed its residents, as a means to draw Thor’s anger. Sylvie heading there in Loki‘s season 2 episode 1 post-credits scene doesn’t tie to those events – though it could similarly endanger the town and its people – but it fits a rich Marvel history.
Why Sylvie Doesn’t Timeslip Like Loki
Loki season 2 episode 1 suggests that Loki time slips because Sylvie kicks him back into the past from the Citadel at the End of Time before she kills He Who Remains. Because he was previously pruned – i.e. removed from the timeline – his presence back on the timeline causes a glitch, sending him randomly slipping through time without warning. By the same logic, Sylvie too should time-slip when she heads back to 1982: OB explicitly reveals that Loki is “un-synced” from time, which can only have happened when he was pruned. The fact that Sylvie also pruned herself makes this a plot hole that Loki will have to resolve in the future.
Loki season 2 continues next Thursday, Oct. 12 at 9pm ET on Disney+.
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