Recap / Loki Episode 7 "Ouroboros"

"Don't do the "Coulda, woulda, shoulda", just focus on what we know."

Loki tries to make sense of what to do as he starts glitching in the aftermath of the fracturing of the Sacred Timeline.

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Tropes:

• The '80s: During The Stinger, Sylvie ends up in Oklahoma in 1982, where she immediately goes to a McDonald's and begins to understand what normal life is like.
• Actor Allusion: Director Allusion in this case, and an example crossing through in the same franchise. When we're reintroduced to Casey in this episode, he's shown listening to the "Staying Awake" podcast Steven Grant was listening to in the first episode of Moon Knight. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead were directors on that show before being tapped in to work on this one for Season 2.
• Ascended Extra: Hunter D-90 was the one who pruned Mobius, and now has a major speaking role.
• Bad Future: Something ominous is going on in the future TVA that Loki timeslips into. Alarms are going off, evacuation orders can be heard over the loudspeakers, the TVA is in disarray with all lights flickering, everyone is in panic, and a monitor says "LOOM CRITICAL".
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Casey has a dramatic pause where it looks like he's maybe recognized Loki, but then it turns out he's just realizing Loki is the fugitive that was just reported.
  • The episode picks up where the last season left off, with Loki arriving back at the TVA only to find that nobody there knows who he is, and there's a huge statue of Kang outside. The implication was that this was because history had been changed due to He Who Remains' death, but it turns out that he's just in the TVA's past, when none of them have met him yet. By the present, everyone's memories of that time have been erased (and all indicators of the TVA's true leadership, including the statue, have been removed or concealed).
  • Loki asks past O.B. if he can call him "O.B." At first he seems displeased, but then says "I like that!"
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • When Loki states he timeslipped to the past TVA, Mobius says that's impossible since the TVA doesn't experience time that way.
  • O.B. says time-slipping is impossible in the TVA, but Loki is well at it.
• Big Eater: When Sylvie says she wants to try "everything", the McDonald's cashier, interpreting this as "everything on the menu", is seen reacting in surprise evidently pegging her for this. Given she's a Frost Giant, she probably can tank one of everything if she really wanted.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Loki rolls out of the crashed mail truck, which then falls out of the window as the driver screams. Loki assures the staff that the driver is fine. Fortunately, he's proven right when the truck recovers and sputters away in the distance, but he didn't know that when he made the claim.
  • Loki tells Mobius that his fight with Sylvie was a draw, but he doesn't buy it:
    Mobius: So you both kicked each other through Time Doors simultaneously?
  • Loki assures Mobius that timeslipping doesn't feel that bad, but the agony on his face when it happens betrays his words. Mobius likewise tries to claim it doesn't look that bad, but is too horrified to keep up that lie.
  • Mobius pretends that he remembers meeting O.B., but he doesn't know his name and then gets details of their meeting wrong.
• Body Horror: Loki's timeslipping is uncomfortable to look at as he is suddenly being pulled apart into strings. Mobius describes it as if he is being born and dying at the same time.
• Both Sides Have a Point: In the beginning of the episode, when Mobius and B-15 are discussing what they should do about the alarming chain of recent events, they both have valid points. B-15 is right about how they should reveal the truth about the TVA as people had lives on the timelines and should be allowed to live them. However, Mobius is also correct about everyone most likely not going to react well when they learn everything they were told was a lie and everything they did was wrong.
• Brand Name Takeover: Lampshaded by Mobius when he informs Hunter X-05 that "jet ski" is a brand name, like Kleenex.
• Call-Back:
  • One of the Time Keeper robots' heads is on the table in the war room Mobius and Hunter B-15 attend.
  • Renslayer's duplicate is brought up as proof that B-15 is telling the truth about everyone being Variants.
• Can't Take Anything with You: Played with. When Loki timeslips into the future while holding a Time Stick, the stick doesn't slip with him. However, the timer does, which is a problem because the future TVA is deserted and Loki now lacks the means to prune himself.
• Chekhov's Gun: Mobius writes "Skin?" on the dust-covered terminal. Loki sees this when he winds up in the future, which allows him to realize he's in the future.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The podcast that Casey from the past is listening to is the same that Steven Grant listened to while trying to stay awake in Moon Knight. Fitting, as two of the directors in that show, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directed this episode too.
  • The sword slash Loki sustained in episode 4 is still visible underneath the bloodstained rip in his shirt sleeve.
  • The Temporal Loom resembles the device that was debuted by Kang variant Victor Timely in the post-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, though obviously far more advanced.
• Cringe Comedy: Mobius doesn't remember meeting O.B. because it has been 400 years (and he's possibly had his memory wiped since then), but instead of admitting it he just keeps digging himself deeper.
• Cue the Falling Object: After Loki in a flying mail truck crashes through the window of a TVA office and the truck falls backward, leaving Loki there, an overhead TV screen, damaged by debris, falls from the ceiling. It doesn't happen in the background, though, and ends up being significant because the crack it leaves in the floor can still be seen (only partially repaired) after Loki time-slips, letting him understand he was in the past.
• Diving Save: Unintentionally done by Loki when the Temporal Aura Extractor pulls him from the time stream. He crashes into Mobius at full speed, and his momentum sends both of them through the closing gates just in time.
• Dramatic Chase Opening: The episode starts with Loki being chased by past Mobius, B-15, and several minutemen, with Loki desperately begging Mobius to recognize him.
• The Dreaded: Continuing from the first season's Cliffhanger, Loki is absolutely terrified of Kang and makes sure everybody else recognize the threat he poses.
• Duct Tape for Everything: O.B. uses duct tape to fix a crack in the visor of Mobius's helmet.
• Egopolis: The TVA is decorated with numerous statues and images of Kang and his variants in the past when Loki timeslips to that point. Some time between then and the show's main "present", all the Kang iconography was either torn down or covered up and replaced by the Time Keepers.
• Failed a Spot Check: Mobius somehow misses the presence of an obvious crack in the faceplate of his environment suit until right before he's about to enter the Temporal Loom containment chamber.
• Fate Worse than Death: Mobius argues with Loki about being Flayed Alive being worse than being lost to the timestream, because at least Loki would be dead.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Loki realises he was in the past rather than an alternate timeline when he sees the crack in the floor and Casey tells him it's been there as long as he can remember. Except past-Casey saw the crack being made, which leads Loki to subsequently conclude the TVA have been subjected to memory wipes.
• Flaying Alive: This would be Mobius's fate if either he fails to fire the extractor or Loki fails to prune himself in time.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Loki walks up to the ringing phone and the elevator with Sylvie in it in the future TVA, you can see the person who prunes Loki approaching him from behind.
• Gender Flip: Judge Gamble is a woman while her comic counterpart was a man.
• Have We Met Yet?: O.B. realizes that he has already met Loki a long time ago when Loki time slipped to him.
• Have You Tried Rebooting?: A rare non-technical variant. Ouroborus's plan to cure Loki's timeslipping is having him prune himself, meaning releasing himself from time, and then pulling him from the time stream back into the present with the Temporal Aura Extractor.
• Hazmat Suit: O.B. puts Mobius into a Temporal Core Suit that will protect him from the temporal radiation for a little while.
• Headbutt of Love: General Dox shares one with Hunter X-05 while telling him to hunt down Sylvie. B-15, who's still in the room, looks very confused by how close the two of them apparently are.
• Homage: The whole scene in Orobouros's office, from the clustered decor to the character-centered shots, is very similar to Wes Anderson's cinematography (or at least, similar to the various AI-generated Wes Anderson parodies). Further reinforced by featuring one of Anderson's favorite actors, Owen Wilson.
• If I Do Not Return: Loki is about to tell Mobius something along this sentiment but he timeslips again before he can finish the sentence.
• Immediate Sequel: This season kicks off what seems to be merely minutes after the end of the previous one.
• I'm Okay!: After Loki crashes through the window in the mail truck and falls to the ground, he tells the people who witness it that he is okay.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: While Loki wants to deal with the fallout of He Who Remains's death, Mobius wants to get Loki checked out first because he keeps disappearing. Trying to downplay it, Loki denies that it keeps happening, and a second later he timeslips again.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Loki reveals to everyone at the TVA that "He Who Remains" is the true founder and that there are more variants of him coming.
  • Mobius learns from Loki that Miss Minutes is secretly working against them and working for "He Who Remains".
• Jump Scare: Loki slips back right in front of present Casey, causing him to jump in surprise.
• Just Following Orders: When D-90 apologizes to Mobius for pruning him, Mobius dryly remarks that he was just following orders, but then actually forgives him.
• Just in Time: When it appears that Loki has run out of time before O.B. can close the blast doors to the overloading number of branches from destroying the TVA, he is pruned from behind by an unseen figure at the last moment.
• Kangaroo Court: Judge Gamble lampshades how every trial at the TVA was predetermined:
  Judge Gamble: All my life, I've always handed down the same verdict. Guilty. The Time-Keepers deemed it so.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: At some point, He Who Remains wiped the memories of the TVA staff when he transitioned from personally leading the agency to using the Time-Keepers as figureheads.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Played for laughs. Loki asks Mobius how his timeslipping looks like and Mobius assures him that it isn't so bad. A few moments later he admits that it is "horrible" and "terrible".
• Match Cut:
  • A significant one when the war room in the past, with a mural showing Kang's faces, switch to the war room in the present, where said mural is now covered by a mosaic of the Time Keepers.
  • There is a cut from the outside of the door to the Temporal Core to the inside of the door as it's opening.
• Mean Boss: The TVA has signs up in their cafeteria asking employees to limit their lunches to 17 minutes and to minimize chitchat, surely as another means to limit the possibility of anybody learning of their true past.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The mural that Loki is pointing to when telling Mobius that war is coming depicts several figures that are wearing Kang's classical costume from the comics.
  • In the comics, Broxton, Oklahoma is the location of New Asgard.
• No Escape but Down: Loki gets cornered by past Mobius and the Minutemen, and jumps over the railing to escape them, landing in a mail truck.
• No Social Skills: Due to spending most of her life on the run only eating pests and rodents, Sylvie does not know how to casually talk to and order food from a cashier. However, she recognizes this, so her first question is "How do I do this?"
• Oh, Crap!: O.B. is horrified when he's told that the power surges are happening all over the TVA, because that means its power source has destabilized.
• Ouroboros: The name of Ke Huy Quan's character, and the title of the episode. The concept also relates to the plot as the TVA is revealed to be in a Stable Time Loop.
• Percussive Maintenance: The Temporal Aura Extractor doesn't activate until Mobius delivers a strong kick.
• Phlebotinum Overload: The Temporal Loom creates a single timeline out of several. The sheer number of branches formed in the wake of He Who Remains's death is overloading it, and it's destroying the TVA.
• Product Placement: In The Stinger, Sylvie ends up at a McDonald's in Oklahoma in an alternate 1982. The cashier at the counter mentions several McDonald's menu items when Sylvie asks for something to eat.
• Ragnarök Proofing: The Temporal Loom has functioned without maintenance and virtually no oversight for a millennium at the very least. O.B. only runs diagnostics every few hundred years, and it's only now that the timelines are branching beyond its ability to handle that it becomes necessary to work on it.
• Rapid Aging: According to O.B., radiation from the Temporal Loom will age Mobius's suit off and then age his skin off. The suit is a bulky monstrosity seemingly to force the radiation to have to burn through dozens of layers before it hits the person inside.
• Reduced to Ratburgers: Sylvie has been subsisting off of these her whole life, as she requests from the McDonald's cashier "Not squirrel, not possum, not rats, something that's already dead, and nothing with a face."
• Remember the New Guy?: We're introduced to General Dox and Judge Gamble, who are high-ranking TVA members but were never alluded to in the first season.
• Retroactive Preparation: Unintentionally done by Loki, who is timeslipped to the distant past with O.B. and uses the opportunity to help him prepare the device and information he needs for Mobius to get him unstuck from time.
• San Dimas Time: O.B. doesn't remember Loki, until Loki jumps back and starts talking to him, at which point his present iteration remembers those events at precisely that moment.
• Shout-Out: The analogy O.B. makes about a black hole turning a person into spaghetti was created and popularized by Stephen Hawking in his book A Brief History of Time.
• Smug Super: Mobius lampshades that "He Who Remains" is a lofty title, but Loki counters that it's not that lofty if you can back it up.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • Loki travels to the past TVA to speak with O.B. in the past and unintentionally allows the present O.B. to give Mobius the equipment and directions he needs to fix Loki's situation.
  • Another appears to be set up at the end when Sylvie arrives at Loki's location in the future and an additional unseen person prunes him Just in Time as part of O.B.'s plan. As soon as Loki returns, he tells Mobius that they need to find Sylvie in order to close the loop.
  • O.B.'s nickname seems to have been created by a Stable Time Loop. He calls himself "O.B." to Loki in the present, then Loki timeslips and calls his past version by that name, causing the past O.B. to decide to use it.
• The Stinger: Sylvie arrives in a branched timeline Broxton, Oklahoma, through a Time Door and goes to a McDonald's where she orders normal food for the first time in her life.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Dox and Gamble marshal a ridiculous number of TVA agents in the hunt for Sylvie. It's so many, in fact, that D-90 doesn't believe that that's what they're really doing, despite how dangerous Sylvie's proven herself to be.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Both Loki and Mobius have this reaction in knowing that the former will be erased from existence and the latter will lose his skin if O.B.'s plan fails.
• Time Is Dangerous: A new hazard from branching timelines is revealed by them overloading the Temporal Loom, which is supposed to weave them together into a single one. The TVA has to prepare for this by dropping the blast doors when it inevitably overloads. To stop Loki's timeslips, Mobius has to wear a heavy suit to walk up a platform to the Loom and use a device to extract Loki from the timestream as he prunes himself. The temporal energy gradually erodes his suit, and if he stayed too long it would have aged Mobius' skin off his bones before killing him.
• Time-Passes Montage: There is a montage of Loki using/fidgeting with various tools in boredom to show that some time passes while Past O.B. builds the Temporal Aura Extractor.
• Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Happens twice during Loki's conversation with Past O.B.:
  • When Loki tries to explain where he's come from:
    O.B.: Uh, do I know you?
    Loki: Yes. In the future. Well, it's your future. My present. It's complicated.
  • When Loki tries to convince Past O.B. that he has been timeslipping:
    Loki: That's not impossible because I was just with you in the future.
    O.B.: Mmm... I think I would remember that.
    Loki: Yes, but it hasn't happened to you yet. Do you see?
    O.B.: Good point. It would be convenient if we were having this conversation in the future and this were the past.
    Loki: We were. This is the... Never mind.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Discussed. It's been established that TVA Headquarters is a Place Beyond Time, so when the TVA after the events of Season One stops pruning timelines, the TVA of the distant past (before the establishment of the Time Keepers and before Loki arrived) is itself caught up in the sudden manifestation of new, unpruned timelines. That said, it's also been established that there is no chronological progression within the TVA (or at least not in the same way as it is in the rest of the Multiverse), so Loki timeslipping at various points within the TVA's history shouldn't be possible.
• Trial Balloon Question: A variant. Loki asks O.B. how he would cure his timeslipping but O.B. interrupts him saying that timeslipping isn't possible in the TVA. Loki then rephrases his question to ask him how he would cure it if it were possible, hypothetically.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Mobius's conversation with present O.B is almost the same as Loki's with past O.B., and the scene cuts back and forth between them.
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Loki and Mobius are having a discussion about his time-slipping in an elevator, and Mobius seeks a second opinion from the third occupant. Pan to a horrified woman in the corner.
• Unstuck in Time: Loki suffers from timeslipping, which causes him to slip between the past, present, and future against his will and at random.
• Verbal Backspace: O.B. gives Loki and Mobius an hour to complete the plan. Then the window of the Temporal Loom starts cracking, and O.B. gives them five minutes.
• Vertigo Effect: There are two dolly zooms when Mobius tries to walk back from the launcher across the gangway: one with the Temporal Loom as the background element appearing to get larger, and another focusing on the closing blast doors seemingly receding as it becomes apparent that Mobius will not reach them in time on his own.
• We Only Have One Chance: Mobius tells Loki a variation of this to stop him when he wants to abandon the plan to fix his timeslipping and go after Sylvie before General Dox finds her.
  Mobius: We have one shot at this!
• Write Back to the Future: An unintentional variant. When Loki slips into the future, he's able to figure out it's the future because he sees "Skin?" on the side of a terminal, which he witnessed Mobius tracing into the dust in the present.
• You Are in Command Now: General Dox and Judge Gamble have taken over the TVA in the absence of Renslayer.
• You Do Not Want To Know: Past O.B tells Loki he doesn't want to learn what it means to be turned into spaghetti in a black hole.

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