Destination D23, Disney’s biannual fan event, happened last weekend at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. At Marvel’s presentation on Sunday morning, Loki producer Kevin Wright showed attendees the first few minutes of the Loki season 2 premiere. The footage confirms one major plot point about the Time Variance Authority—and supports a galaxy brain-level fan theory.
What happens in the Loki season 2 footage at D23?
The first scene of season 2 picks up right where season 1 left off: with Loki finding himself in a new Time Variance Authority where no one knows who he is. After Hunter B-20 alerts minutemen to his presence, they chase Loki through the TVA. He falls into a floating vehicle and encounters Casey, who doesn’t recognize him.
Then Loki experiences his first time slip. He finds a newer version of Casey, who does recognize him. That’s how we find out Loki wasn’t sent to an alternate TVA—instead, he traveled through time back to a point before Mobius knew who he was.
The theory of a past TVA, instead of an alternate TVA, first came up after a Disney+ promo that showed Loki pruning a Time Keepers mosaic to reveal Kang’s face behind it. Now, with Loki glitching back and forth in the first scene, that theory seems to be confirmed.
It also supports a more radical theory that sharp-eyed fans have put together based on footage from the trailers.
Does Loki create the TVA?
There are three lighting-quick shots in the two trailers and Disney+ promo that have come out in the past few weeks.
In one split-second shot near the beginning of the second trailer on Instagram, you can see Loki sitting in the center of O.B.’s workroom. The fans in the wall, along with the large umbrella-like structure in the middle, are the same, but everything else is different. On Loki’s left, you can see Mobius in civilian clothing, wearing a blue vest.
In another shot in the trailers, Loki time slips in front of a jet ski dealership. In the background, you see someone wearing the same blue vest as Mobius, hinting that Mobius was an employee at that dealership before the TVA took him.
Finally, in a recent Disney+ ad, Loki tells someone off camera that “it’s up to us to save this place.” Based on the listener’s silhouette, some fans think it’s Mobius.
Put all three of those shots together, and you get a very interesting possibility: Loki recruits pre-TVA Mobius to create the TVA—or, at least, take an active role in shaping its early days.
Of course, it’s not a perfect theory. At the end of season 1, He Who Remains says that he’s the one who created the TVA. But what if he only told Loki part of the truth? What if Loki isn’t fighting against Victor Timely in season 2, but working with him? Would the god of mischief really decide to build the very organization he wanted to take down?
It’ll be interesting if the theory is correct—but it’ll be fun if it’s wrong, too. Marvel loves nothing more than a misleading trailer. We’ll find out what’s going on at the TVA next month, when Loki season 2 finally premieres on October 6!
(featured image: Disney+)
