The Ringer-Verse - 'Loki' Season 2, Episode 2 Easter Eggs | Splash Page [VIDEO]

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Loki and Mobius are racing to find Sylvie in the latest 'Loki' episode, and Jessica Clemons is back to break it all down, including the differences in branched and sacred timelines (00:41), Loki's powers (03:24), what that key lime pie actually looks like (7:43), McDonald's in the '80s (10:12), and more! Host: Jessica Clemons Producers: Aleya Zenieris, Chia Hao Tat, and Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Jonathan Kermah and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Jessica Clemens, and this is Splash Page on the Ring Reverse. We're breaking down Loki Season 2, Episode 2, giving you Easter eggs, theories, and more on your favorite god of mischief. Let's go. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks,

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vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfair Radio.com. You are now watching Splash page. If you're listening to this, you can also watch it on the ringer.com. YouTube.com slash The Ringer on Spotify at the Ringerverse. This is your one warning that we will be spoiling Loki Season 2 episode 2. We'll be spoiling the premiere and second episode, the first season of Loki, and basically any of Loki's appearances across the MCU. You've been warned. Get out. Go watch it. Come back. And let me spoil it for you. We're taken to an alley in London. The newsstand says the London messenger and seemingly no one cares or notices these two men in 70s suits stepping out of a glowing cube. Regardless, it's 1977 and they're on the sacred timeline,

not a branched one. When Sylvie dropped herself off in Oklahoma, the word branched timeline under the year broke off from the white line. This is just an unaltered thin white line with a dot on it. And I love this little indication showing us the branch timelines from the sacred. They're trying to find Sylvie and they're tracking X-5's temp pad that they had a hit on in this timeline before it went dark, which I feel like we were all thrown into, right? The segue from the last episode was super unclear. Mobius explains what they're doing, but it's so quick and you might have missed it because we're trying to figure out how they went from saving Mobius from the loom radiation to the alley in London. There was absolutely, no, we're prepping for a mission scene that you usually get in like movies and TV shows, so it felt very abrupt. We also have the 74 Disney movie poster for Herbie Rides again.

The second movie of the Herbie Love Bug franchise. And did you know that there's six Herbie movies, like the Herbie fully loaded movies that Lindsay Lohan was in? I thought there was only one. Honestly, there's a ton of movie posters here that are Easter eggs, so let's just get into it. You can see Kingo from Eternals on a movie poster in the alley. We also get a poster for Phone Ranger.

This is A.G. Bell from the comics. He is a phone repair man that fixes and protects phones. He has no superpowers whatsoever. He's just a skilled telephone repair man. The tagline actually says, Criminals. He's got your number. God, I love him, but it's also a bad superpower.

We saw this scene from the Zaniac premiere in the trailer, so I won't get too much into it, but outsteps our very own Hunter X-5, and it appears on the sacred timeline. He's famed 70s actor Brad Wolf. The first news anchor says this. How do you feel about your meteoric rise to fame? I don't know how I feel, but I know it looked pretty darn good.

Come on, look at this. Pretty darn good. Which means he wasn't always a famous actor. He might have facilitated or sped up the process as X-5 on the sacred timeline. The second news anchor says this. Oh, the Bridget Bardot rumors true. Oh, Ron. Ron, you cannot ask me about that.

What do you do? I'm on a date here, man. Oh, that stays in the vault. In the vault. You. Bridget Bardot was a French film, actress, sex symbol, musician, dancer, you name it, from the 50s to the 70s. One of her songs, Eternel, is featured in Disney's Corella, actually, and she's not really that good of a human being now.

She's kind of a racist, so we don't really need to like her at all for this. The next scene had some photo leaks on record. it a while back, safe to assume why we didn't see this little cameo of the queen. Brad is confronted by Loki and Mobia, so he sprints off and the chase begins. His ego delays him into signing an autograph, and it turns out it's B-15. She gets the temp pad, but he still gets away. After running through all of London's underground, he's finally caught by Loki using his decoy manipulation and tricking Brad into believing he was cornered by strangers. Brad is pinned to the wall with Loki's shadows, and there's so much going on about these powers, so let's get into it.

We learned in Season 1, Episode 2, the difference between Loki's illusion and duplication casting. Loki uses the saying depicting a detailed image when breaking down illusion projecting. This means Loki from memory, or just his own perception of an image, is making an illusion. Illusion projection is what we saw in Thor the Dark World, when he was making himself

look good when he was in jail, and possibly the group of people Brad just gets strict by. Duplication casting is an exact facsimile of one's body in its present circumstance. I'd argue that's what we saw in First Avengers movie when Loki killed Colson and the first Thor movie when fighting the multiple loki's on the bridge and when Loki pins Brad to

wall in this episode. When Loki makes Brad's temp ad watch disappear, we know we've seen Loki use this presence manipulation before, but him being able to grab people through his projections is totally new. Most times, like the gang of people about to jump Brad, his hands phasing through his moms in Dark World or in Thor Ragnarok when Thor threw the rock at Loki and went through him, objects just normally go through him when he's projecting or casting. This could mean two things. One, this could be some new found, for us at least, mental manipulation powers where Loki is making Brad Wolf see he's in danger and being restrained. Sort of like the trance Sylvie puts people under, or two,

Loki's illusions can actually restrain people, which could be the case. New powers have to start somewhere. I'd lean more towards option two, only because we see X-5 get tortured later. And like, wouldn't it be easier to torture Brad Wolf using mental manipulation if you had it? I think so. So I doubt he has it right now.

Also, would like to shout out behind Brad Wolf, our flyers highlighting the UK movement on Squatters' Rights in the 70s. It was a huge London social and political movement that's still active today and around the world and also wasn't started in the 70s. There were moments after the first and second World War, but it was definitely a staple in the 70s. I learned about all of this from Kessia Reeves.

She wrote a very informative article on it. You guys should check it out. Regardless, they used one of the posters to reinforce the 70s London vibe in the back. We look inside the TVA handbook for a split second, and it looks exactly like a generic user guide. This is all I got. And I don't care

because it has actual illustrations and words for the tempest. and I need to read it. I need to see it. Marvel, if you're watching this, listening, please send this to me. I need that handbook. It's revealed later that Ms. Minutes is working with Renslayer, and she has the last hit on Renslayer's temp pad before she dipped. Casey, with all his knowledge and glory recognizes immediately X5 wasn't using the tent pad to block any trackers. So Mobius and Loki decide it's time to interrogate X5. I like that Mobius warns everyone that X5 is an asshole and not to let him get under anyone's skin and Mobius lets him get under his skin and he slaps them immediately.

arguably is an asshole. He's ripping into Loki, yells at Mobius, and for no reason says B-15 is a waste of space. He brings up Loki's mom, which is literally crazy, then calls out Loki and calls him a little pet. Ha! Gotti! Gotty!

He specifically says this. At the end of the day, you just make everything worse. For Mobius, for B-15, for your mother. I assume when X-5 says, you made everything. worse, he meant for Mobius and B-15, it was telling them the truth about the TVA and opening

up those floodgates. For Loki's mom, it was telling curse where to go in the second Thorne movie that ended Frigga's life. In conclusion, X-5 is one cold son of a bitch. One interesting thing that X-5 does explore is Mobius's real life self. How after learning everything, the truth about being kidnapped and forced to work for the TVA, has Mobius never been curious about who he really is? He mentions later while eating pie that what if something good is in that timeline. His biggest fear is seeing something he never wants to leave, and that's the That's really sad to me. X-5 calls Mobius a nowhere man, which like has to be the Beatles song of the same name about

a misplaced man doing the same thing every day without asking any questions and just going nowhere in life. And again, X-5 is one cold son of a bitch. Also, look here, punk. You're in London for a premiere in the 70s. I don't want to hear you quote a 60s Beatle song like you analyze their entire discography bitch. Like, get out of here.

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about being angry and letting it out. He uses him taking over and destroying New York in the first Avengers movie as a past experience where he went a little crazy with anger. not at all the same situation, but I think it's funny that he compares to. Also, that key lime pie, it looks like soap,

and I bet it's soap. I feel like the art direction here is just cutting bars of Irish Springs. The temporal loom is clearly unstable and about to explode. Obie calmly meanders around the lab overseeing the loom. He tries using the computer

and gets an access-denied notification that says invalid temporal aura. Back with Loki and Mobius and X-5, they trick X-5 with torture into telling them where Sylvie is. This device is used to have enhanced conversations with variants, aka torture. It creates a time cube atmosphere. These posters were at the Loki Season 2 event in London,

and these pictures were taken by Rich Johnston. Back with Obie in the temporal loom, Casey is now enlisted to help. It's revealed that blast doors won't open because it needs the temporal aura of He Who Remains. Since Miss Minutes isn't there to override the lock, the branches will keep growing and destroy the TVA. We're back in Brockton, Oklahoma in 1982, a branch timeline, and where Sylvie is. Mobius notices X-5 is jumping. And finally, someone says it.

He says this. So you go ahead. I'm going to head on back, all right? Wait, wait, wait. Why are you so jumpy? It's making me nervous. I'm not nervous. Yeah, you're like you want to take off.

I just don't want to be around a variant who killed 400 of our coworkers. So I'm just going to, if you just open a door and hit... Why would you go after a woman who has killed y'all before? I've been saying this since last episode. Even though it's revealed is because General Docs is about to prune the hell out of it, I'm glad they acknowledge Sylvie's body count.

It's massive. Why would you go after that woman? Honey, you've got a big storm coming. When Loki and Sylvie see each other for the first time since she kicked him through the temp pad in Loki season one finale, the vibe is very tense. Also, Sylvia has been working there long enough that she knows the customer's names. She's living a good life. She drives a Ford Ranger now.

Also good to note, not a single person cares that famed actor Brad Wolf is there. This is a branch timeline, so Brad Wolf might not even. exist in this timeline. Loki confronts Sylvia about seeing her at the TVA elevator before being pruned. She doesn't believe him. She wants to be done with everything after killing he who remains, but they can't help but fight about all the ripples they've caused and how they need to save the timelines again. Loki pleads how important the TVA is right now to making sure the branch of timelines doesn't destroy everything. And while this heartfelt dramatic conversation is happening, Mobius is eating the hell out of that McDonald's apple pie while X5 stares at Loki and Sylvie.

What's with the pie? Is there something in the pie? Mobius likes pies and jetties. What type of blue-collar American is he on that sacred timeline? Disturbingly behind X-5 is the hamburger. In the 80s, McDonald's had this horrifying layout, and I'm so happy Loki didn't take all the inspiration from it because they look like a bad trip with a scary tree, and that same tree is behind Mobius. X-5 does tell Mobius a little bit about his Rosaniac

and how the movie is an elevated thriller. He's literally playing a serial killer like in the comics. Also, X-5's acting ain't good enough to hide that this is clearly all the setup. setup. Sylvie looks into X-5's brain, which we saw her do many times. Also, Loki basically did it to Valky and Ragnarok. Regardless, we see that Dox is about to bomb all those extra branches. They've already started bombing some of them. We see the sort of shipyard from the trailer that has a tempad tower stacked. The Minutemen under Dox's orders are going through the different branches resetting and bombing them all. Luckily, Sylvie and Loki and

lucky ambush them, not in enough time to stop all the bombing, though. They use their combined powers to blow up the rest of the tempad stations, and for now it's halted the bombings of branches, but there's still some minute men that escaped. This fight didn't feel as climactic as it should have been. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because we're seeing branches disappear and not seeing the actual timeline of people first or the fight was just like a quick one, two, and over.

I don't know. Again, this could just be me. I just thought it was kind of like loose. It was okay. Loki and Mobius go back to the TVA. Sylvie follows them and they watch in horror as the trim branches began to disintegrate. B-15's hurt knowing that innocent lives have just been killed,

probably the worst timing to get a hit from Robona's temp pad. Sylvie shows up just to tell Loki the TVA could have done better, and Sylvie, like, let's not act like the reason all of this happening isn't you. Sure. I mean, like, sure, let's not act like it's your fault. Just be fucking for real. Sylvie sits upon her Ford Ranger listening to Janice Joplin as her manager. The young boy Jack says goodbye, and she pulls out he who remains little like wristwatch,

which I assume could be doubled as a temp pad. And that's it for Splash Page on the second episode of Loki Season 2. Though Sylvie's disappointed, she's ready to take on different. timelines to kill He Who Remains' Vance. We still have this scene from the trailer of her walking up on Victor Timely ready to kill. We're also now on track to find Robona and figure out if she's the Robona that had the conversation with He Who Remains from the First episode or truly just what the heck she's up to. Subscribe to The Ring Reverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

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