Loki Season 1 Finale’s Ending Shot Explained By Production Designer

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Loki episode 6

The production designer for Loki, Kasra Farahani, explains season 1’s final shot of what Loki sees in the Time Variance Authority (TVA). Following Loki and Sylvie’s enchantment of Alioth in the penultimate episode, “For All Time. Always” sees them enter the Citadel at the End of Time, which exists atop an asteroid surrounded by the Sacred Timeline. After being startled by Miss Minutes (and being offered a version of happily-ever-after), the pair finally meet the man behind the TVA’s curtain.

The TVA’s true mastermind is revealed to be He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), who explains his position as the last remaining variant of a 31st-century scientist who discovered the multiverse—which ultimately led to a Multiversal War between Kangs/Nathaniel Richards/Immortus/etc. He Who Remains weaponized Alioth and created the TVA to stave off his other variants. He tells Loki and Sylvie that they have two options: kill him and unleash infinite devils or take over his life’s work. After sending Loki through a time door, Sylvie chooses the latter; unleashing chaos. The episode ends with Loki frantically searching for Mobius, only to find that he and Hunter B-15 don’t know him. The final shot sees a mortified Loki staring at a statue of Kang the Conquerer within a different TVA.

Speaking with Marvel.com, production designer Farahani spoke on foreshadowing He Who Remains throughout the series as well as building his Citadel to reflect the lonely, exhausted figure within. Farahani also revealed the look and design of the TVA’s Kang statue by the in-house VisDev team was a game-day decision. He went on to say that the set dressing of this other TVA was identical to the TVA we know “to delay the audience and Loki’s understanding that they were in a different place, that they were in a different timeline.”

The finale’s cliffhanger left viewers wondering whether there are multiple TVAs on different timelines within the multiverse. Being that the TVA is said to exist outside of space and time (perhaps in the Quantum Realm?), it seems likely that He Who Remain’s prediction came true—a variant of himself conquered the TVA and wiped the minds of its staff, something that Loki perceives instantaneously because “time works differently in the TVA.” Or, maybe it is another TVA in a different timeline; however, an infinite number of TVAs seems like an unnecessary complication narrative-wise.

Farahani referring to the TVA we see at the end of Loki as both “a different place” and “a different timeline” could mean either of these things. What we know for sure is that “For All Time. Always” irrevocably changes the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Kang is already set to appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and, presumably, the now-confirmed second season of Loki. With an infinite amount of him running around, he could appear anyway, from Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to Disney+’s What If…? Majors’ electric debut as He Who Remains bodes well for whatever version of Richards he plays next, ruling the TVA or otherwise.

Source: Marvel

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Josh Plainse
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Josh Plainse is a writer, movie, and television fanatic based out of Wisconsin. Josh works for Screen Rant covering the latest in entertainment while simultaneously pursuing the never-ending dream of becoming an established novelist, screenwriter, and/or decent human being. Josh would accredit characters such as Goku, Han Solo, Simba, and Maximus Decimus Meridius for instilling within him an affinity for storytelling. It is this incessant obsession which has propelled him to seek opportunities that inform, entertain, and inspire others.

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