Sylvie and Loki finally meet the person behind the TVA in the citadel at the end of time.
Spoilers Below
Loki Season One, Episode Six,” For All Time. Always,” directed by Kate Herron, ends with the unraveling of the sacred timeline and the friendship between the two Loki Variants. Jonathan Majors from Lovecraft Country performs as a mysterious thirty-first-century scientist called ” He Who Remains.” Ravonna Renslayer escapes the TVA and the newly self-aware employees to find ” free will.” Sylvie and Loki break into the citadel at the end of time, expecting to find a god and only seeing a cryptic man. ” He Who Remains” finds a way to split apart Sylvie, the woman who cannot trust, and Loki, the chronic liar, by presenting them with a gambit. They could kill ” He Who Remains,” unleashing a potential Multiverse war or co-rule the TVA. Sylvie wants to murder the scientist and let the Multiverse bloom. However, she doesn’t believe the scientist. Loki thinks they should think about their two options. The finale of Loki Season One ends with the perfect cliffhanger to an epic story.
Jonathan Majors expertly performs as the sociopathic scientist ” He Who Remains.” In Lovecraft Country, Major played the opposite character, Atticus Black, the Black Veteran who gets pulled into the world of witchcraft and racial horror. Leaders of the White secret order, the Sons of Adam Samuel Braithwaite and his daughter Christina, hoodwinked him with all their mysterious rituals and rules. In the first season, Major uses his tone of voice and props to portray the scientist’s blasé manipulation of Loki and Sylvie. Throughout the final episode, ” He Who Remains” eats a green apple. Taking bites of the apple during tension-filled scenes as he attempts to convince two Variants not to kill him shows a level of calm that is unnerving to the audience. Even when Sylvie stabs the scientist in the heart, he winks at her, stating that he will see her soon. Majors’ constant chatting in a joking manner makes ” He Who Remains” scary since nothing can crack his emotional armor. He makes blasé jokes while telling half-truths about knowing everything and the concept that Variants of himself will start another multiverse war that nobody can stop. The scientist has no fear of death or moral consequences.
The central plot hole in Loki Season One is how aging works in this part of the MCU. The writers never take the time to explain why none of the characters seem to age in the TVA or the end of time. Loki and Sylvie never aging past a certain point make perfect sense because they are literal gods. Everybody else, including ” He Who Remains,” are normal human beings but spend infinity maintaining the sacred timeline. Loki writers use devices that enable exposition-filled scenes to explain everything from the TVA to the sacred timeline. The cartoon character Ms. Minutes a.k.a. exposition device, could have spent part of her video explaining how aging rules in TVA headquarters. The lack of answers about aging took me out of the story. I was constantly wondering: Does time freeze at the TVA? Is ” He Who Remains” still so young because the citadel preserves him? Now Michael Wardon might answer the aging question in later seasons. Or Wardon might expect us to suspend disbelief because it’s an MCU television show. The only problem is Marvel fans are extraordinarily detail-oriented and are hard to please.
The mise-en-scene of “For All Time. Always.” builds the sense of the vastness of the end of time. At the start of the final episode, the camera follows a fast-moving blue and purple line in the middle of the universe representing the “sacred timeline.” The blended voiceovers come from historical figures like Nelson Mandela and MCU characters like Vision. These voiceovers represent different moments throughout the sacred timeline. The timeline appears vast because the two-minute sequence takes the audience to the end of time. The minute Sylvie murders “He Who Remains,” the lines start to splintering, turning into continuous branches. The timeline looks like the roots of a tree or blood vessels, showing the liveness of the now vast Multiverse.
The citadel captures the darkness of ” He Who Remains”’ soul. The citadel looks like a shadowy black castle. There are green stripes that glow throughout the citadel that echo back to the Loki Variants’ powers. There is always a green aura around any magic that Loki or Sylvie cast. These green stripes glow, bringing some light to the castle. “He Who Remains” talks a lot about his plans and history, but neither Loki nor Sylvie can ever trust a word he says, leaving a spot of mystery to him. It’s tough to see any details in the citadel making the location obscure and scary like the evil scientist who lives there. “ He Who Remains” evil nature reflects his shadowy home, but the green stripes correspond to the Loki Variants piercing his armor with their magic.
The last scene of “For All Time. Always” shows Loki in a different universe’s TVA that openly serves ” He Who Remains.” Can Loki find his way back to Sylvie or his version of the TVA? Will Sylvie regret her choice? How many TVAs are there now? What is “For All Time’s” real name? To find out these answers, watch future Loki Season Two on Disney Plus!
