‘Loki’ Season 1: Missing King Loki Scene Wasn’t Made for the Finale Like Fans Thought, Director Says
Loki Season 1 debuted its glorious conclusion on July 14. And with the finale came answers about the true identity of the Time-Keepers. Fan theories were in abundance ever since viewers learned the Time-Keepers were androids in episode 4. And while one popular theory did come true, the King Loki theory didn’t. Trailers for the Disney+ series showed Tom Hiddleston’s Loki as King of Asgard. Fans waited for that scene all season long and theorized King Loki was running the TVA. But the scene never came. Director Kate Herron explained why in a recent interview.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Loki Season 1 Episode 6, “For All Time. Always.”]
‘Loki’ Season 1 Episode 6 recap
The Loki season finale answered the show’s most burning questions and opened up the Multiverse. After successfully enchanting Alioth in the Void, Loki and Sylvie made it to the mysterious castle. Immediately upon entering, Miss Minutes appeared. She referred to the person in charge as “he who remains.” And “he who remains” was none other than Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror.
Fans had a feeling Kang would be the TVA mastermind. He was already confirmed for the upcoming Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. And Marvel describes the character as “an overlord of the time-space continuum.” So he fit the bill for Loki‘s big villain. Majors’ Marvel debut both introduced the franchise’s new villain, as well as explained how the Sacred Timeline came to exist.
As Kang explained, the multiversal war was caused by Kang variants. They battled for dominance of the timelines, and the variant in episode 6 is who won. He created the TVA to keep the universe in order. Nothing happened without him planning it first, which means everything that happened leading up to Avengers: Endgame was Kang’s design.
Kang even planned for Loki and Sylvie to take his place running the TVA, but Sylvie betrayed Loki by sending him flying through a TemPad portal and killing Kang herself. However, he knew if he was killed, another Kang variant would take his place. Sylvie called his bluff, and it turned out to be the wrong choice. Loki returned to the TVA and Mobius had no idea who he was. The season ended with a massive Kang statue shown front-and-center at TVA headquarters and the multiverse spreading like wildfire.
King Loki deleted scene explained
Before the finale, fans got to see the many Loki variants in the Void. Some were convinced King Loki — who was the only variant from the trailers so far unseen — would be the person behind the curtain in the finale.
“The storytelling is really directed on showing all the possibilities Loki could experience in his life,” one Reddit user said. “All the more reason that I think the villain is King Loki who won it all.”
Another user thought similarly, but added the possibility that Loki made a deal with Kang to become king like he did with Thanos before The Avengers. But King Loki never showed up in the series. In fact, the King Loki deleted scene was meant for the pilot episode, not the finale.
Herron told TV Line the deleted King Loki scene was going to be shown in the Time Theater in Loki Episode 1 as “memory scenes in Asgard.” But the scene came off as too funny in a moment where they were going for seriousness. She said:
“They tended to lean a bit more into comedy, and the scenes weren’t bad. But when we were putting the edit together, they were quite near where [Loki] sees Frigga [dying]. Obviously, we didn’t want to take away from that moment, because it’s his mom dying and it’s very emotional. It’s always tricky. The scenes weren’t necessarily not good, but they weren’t quite sitting right. That’s why there’s sometimes bits that people see that don’t end up in the show.”
‘Loki’ Season 2 updates
So, where does Loki go from here? The Loki Season 1 finale confirmed the show will get a second season. But Herron revealed she won’t be directing it. She told TV Line directing all six episodes of the series was all she planned on doing in the first place. She said:
“For me, there’s no bad feelings. It’s a lot for one director to do six hours, particularly in the Marvel way. We didn’t have the showrunner system. We ran this like a giant film, which I’m forever grateful for and was a massive opportunity for me. But I threw so much at it, and it’s a lot. I’m so proud that I got to work on it. I felt like this was my bit for Loki’s story, and I hope I work with Marvel again in the future.”
As for the cast, all of the characters from Loki Season 1 seem to have their plots teed up for Loki Season 2. Hiddleston also told Collider he’s happy to keep playing the God of Mischief. Hiddleston and WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen will reportedly both appear in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Sylvie is responsible for cracking open the multiverse, but it’s not known if she will appear in the film, out March 2022.
