Ouroboros: Loki Season 2, Episode 1 Recap (Includes FAQs!)

Another season of my favorite Marvel series, Loki, is finally here! After a stellar season 1, I’m excited to see what transpires in season 2.

In this post, I’ll give a recap of episode 1, Ouroboros, along with commentary and a quick Q&A section.

SPOILER ALERT: This post may contain spoilers to movie or show plots.

Super quick season 1 recap

We left off at the end of season 1 with Loki and Sylvie confronting He Who Remains.

Sylvie pushed Loki through a Time Door back to the TVA and kills He Who Remains.

Except we quickly learn Loki doesn’t end up in the TVA of his original timeline because his new bestie, Mobius, has no idea who he is.

And Loki is on the run from the authorities, yet again.

What a way to end a season!

Now let’s jump in to the Loki Season 2, Episode 1 recap.

The Sacred Timeline

In season 2, episode 1, Ouroboros, we pick up right where we left off in the season 1 finale cliffhanger.

Loki is in the TVA but no one seems to know him, so we quickly establish that he isn’t in the same timeline as before.

Loki: Mobius, it’s me!
Mobius: I don’t know you!

Back on the original timeline, Mobius and Hunter B-15 mentally sort through what happened in the finale of season 1 and ponder how to move forward.

Mobius: Think about it. Hey, everything you’ve been doing is wrong and all your gods are dead. How are people gonna take that?
Hunter B-15: We have to give it a shot.

The war room

By this point, we’ve establish that Loki is possibly blipping and doesn’t seem to know how to stop it from happening.

He blips again and lands in a war room at the TVA. There’s a giant Mt. Rushmore-style art piece featuring multiple variants of He Who Remains.

Creepy.

Being the curious being he is, he presses play on some type of audio machine. 

He Who Remains: For us. For All Time.
Rennslayer: Always.
He Who Remains: Ravonna Renslayer, you are quite a marvel. I will be proud to lead with you.

Meanwhile back on the original TVA timeline, Hunter B-15 and Mobius are in the same war room, arguing over the timeline branching and how to move forward.

General Dox: We won’t let the timeline branch. I’m sorry, Hunter. If we don’t protect it, what on Earth are you suggesting?
Hunter B-15: Protect? Is that what you think we’ve been doing? With all due respect, ma’am, we haven’t been protecting, we’ve been destroying.

Loki flashes into the original TVA timeline, ecstatic to see the variant of Mobius who actually knows him.

He notices that he’s in the same room he was just in, except the Mt. Rushmore artwork is gone and has been replaced by a mosaic featuring the three Timekeepers that he and Sylvie obliterated in season 1.

He destroys the mosaic in the war room, which reveals the Mt. Rushmore-like artwork, revealing that is who he met at the End of Time and who is to blame for all this mess.

General Dox: The Time-Keepers are fake, but their warnings were real. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Hunter X-5: What do you want me to do?
General Dox: We need to know what happened at the End of Time. Find Sylvie. She’s the reason we’re in this mess.

Uh what? Here we go again. Back to blaming all their problems on Sylvie and hunting her down.

Loki just made it clear that it’s not Sylvie they should be after. When will they learn?

The boys are back in town

Meanwhile, Loki and Mobius are on the move within the TVA to try to figure out why Loki blips, or disappears, involuntarily.

Mobius: You just disappeared.
Loki: I know.
Mobius: I can’t keep looking at it ’cause it’s horrible.
Loki: What? I thought you said it didn’t look that bad?
Mobius: I was lying. It’s terrible. Looks like you’re being born or dying or both at the same time. It’s freaking me out.

They also discussed everyone having their memories wiped, to which Mobius responded with this gem:

I have no memory of having my memory wiped.

Mobius

Well duh, my friend.

Meet Ouroboros

And finally, we meet one of our newest characters, Ouroboros, or OB for short, played by the brilliant Ke Huy Quan.

Man am I glad he’s back to acting! OK, back to the show.

Ouroboros explains that Loki is timeline slipping, which is impossible in the TVA.

Except we all know that’s wrong because Loki’s been doing it all episode!

Luckily he knows how to fix it, but it’s pretty risky.

As in, Loki needs to prune himself from the other timelines. Mobius has to fix the Temporal Loom and might lose all his skin from radiation.

The Temporal Loom

At this point, the power has surged a bunch through the episode.

Everyone was acting like it was no big deal and were probably getting ready to pull out their hurricane supplies (ie, alcohol and junk food).

But OB – he’s worried. So he leads them all on a field trip to the Temporal Loom, meeting up with Hunter B-15 along the way.

What’s the Temporal Loom? Well, I’ll let OB explain.

OB: The Temporal Loom is the heart of the TVA. It’s where raw time is refined into physical timeline. And it’s not constructed to weave together so many new branches, so it’s overloading. I’ve never seen it like this.
Loki: It looks like a disaster.
OB: It IS a disaster.

So, the rag tag crew set out to fix the timeline from exploding and stop Loki from time slipping.

Except at that moment, Loki time slips to the future.

But there’s a very tight window in which OB’s plan will work, so Mobius suits up and they get to work.

And just as we think neither Loki or Mobius are going to succeed in their latest mission, Loki sees Sylvie while he’s stuck in the future.

And suddenly he time slips back to the original timeline and knocks Mobius back into the Temporal Loom’s control room, saving them both from a painful death.

Our favorite bromance continues another day.

We need to find Sylvie.

Loki

And scene.

1982 – Broxton, Oklahoma

Does Loki season 2, episode 1 have a post credit scene?

This is a Marvel show and we all know there’s a 99.9% chance that there’s at least one post credit scene.

And yes, Loki season 2, episode 1 has a post credit scene.

The post credit scene brings us to Sylvie transporting into 1982 in Broxton, Oklahoma, where she walks into a McDonald’s.

As the cashier explains what they have on the menu, Sylvie looks around and sees all kinds of happy people enjoying their day.

She suddenly realizes she no longer needs to hide in disastrous timelines like she has in the past.

I wanna try everything.

Sylvie

And scene. For real this time.

Got questions? I probably have answers.

We met a few new characters this episode, plus there’s some we may need a refresher on from season 1. Let’s dig in.

Who is Casey?

Casey is a TVA receptionist that we first met in season 1. He’s a bit nerdy and also very nice.

Also, he doesn’t know what a fish is. Like, legitimately has never seen or heard of one. Seems the TVA wiped his memories a bit too much.

Casey is played by Eugene Cordero.

Who is Dox?

General Dox is a highly decorated, highly-ranked official at the Time Variance Authority (TVA) – as evident by her militaristic uniform.

She recognizes that the Time-Keepers are fake, but for some reason, still stays loyal to the TVA’s mission.

I get the sense that she’s definitely going to be a thorn in Loki and Mobius’ side this season!

I mean, after all, her last name, Dox, is slang for publicizing private information with bad intentions.

General Dox is portrayed by Kate Dickie.

Who is Ouroboros?

Ouroboros is an unappreciated, underrated TVA employee at the Repairs & Advancement department who we learn is actually quite important. The brains behind a lot of things, if you will.

He’s almost like a Milton from The Office. He’s friendly, knowledgeable, but also often ignored. His office is even deep in the basement of the TVA, so he rarely gets visitors.

I just hope he doesn’t blow the office up and run away to a tropical island to drink fruity cocktails by the ocean for the rest of his life.

Anyway, back to O.B., as Mobius likes to call him. I was curious about his unusual name, so I did a bit of digging.

According to Dictionary.com, Ouroboros is a circular serpent that represents the circle of life and death.

How fitting.

But also, perhaps foreshadowing something?

Ouroboros is played by Ke Huy Quan.

Who is Renslayer?

Ravonna Renslayer is a Time Variance Authority (TVA) judge that we first met in season 1. In front of most, she is buttoned-up and stern. But behind closed doors, she is relaxed. Fun, even.

We learn toward the end of the season that she was aware the Time-Keepers are fake the whole time, but still kept up a façade.

But why? Perhaps the audio clip between her and He Who Remains that Loki discovered in the war room is a clue.

Judge Ravonna Renslayer is portrayed by Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Who is X-5?

Hunter X-5 is a TVA hunter, much like the beloved Hunter B-15 from season 1.

Like General Dox, he seems realistic regarding everything that’s going on. However, his loyalty seems wavering and easy to break. He comes off a bit anxious, maybe even scared.

And I’m gonna say it because I know many of y’all are thinking it and that’s why you’re wondering who he is: dude’s quite good looking.

X-5 is played by Rafael Casal.

Where is Kang? Victor Timely? He Who Remains?

Well, He Who Remains is dead. But we all know he is but one of many variants of the same time-obsessed menace.

And if you actually watched Ant-Man: Quantumania, then you know he is quite destructive.

And that some of his variants are Kang the Conqueror and Victor Timely, which haven’t been mentioned…yet.

Sorry, I warned y’all about spoilers!

Anyway, this dude’s like a bug that multiplies and once you squash one, a million more will pop up.

But where are the rest of the variants?

Only time will tell, so you’re gonna have to tune in or wait for the next recap!

What do you think about Episode 1: Ouroboros?

Personally, I thought it was a great episode!

I’m glad Loki was able to reunite with Mobius quickly and we didn’t have to wait all season to see it happen.

Plus, we learn about Sylvie’s whereabouts in the post credits scene, rather than a few episodes in.

And the new characters, like General Dox, Hunter X-5, and Ouroboros are very intriguing!

One episode down, five more to go!

Be sure to tune in for next week’s episode, which premieres on October 12 at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT.

What did you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.