A lot happened in the Loki finale. Between that big new supervillain and all those multiversal shenanigans, it’s possible you completely forgot about the most important moment in Episode 6.
No, we’re not talking about the ending. We’re actually talking about the very beginning of Loki Episode 6. Here’s why the opening montage is way more important than you think.
Warning! Spoilers ahead.
Loki Episode 6 begins with an audio montage featuring some of the most iconic lines in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That includes bone-chilling classics like “Wakanda forever” and “I can do this all day,” along with memorable jokes like “Dance off, bro” and “He’s a friend from work.”
After revealing the Marvel Studios logo, the audio continues and the camera zooms out to show an entire galaxy. Then we see the entire universe, visualized as a multi-colored glowing orb floating in the middle of nothingness.
From there, the camera zooms back in, seemingly moving through space and time to reveal the sacred timeline itself, a bright ring of energy looped around a giant asteroid with the Citadel at the End of Time perched on top.
This scene accomplishes two things. (Well, three actually since it also confirms the existence of Greta Thunberg in the MCU.)
On the surface level, this scene helps place the Citadel at the End of Time geographically within the MCU. Loki makes it clear that He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) exists outside the sacred timeline he created, giving him a clear vantage point on the universe he controls. (For what it’s worth, we still don’t know where the Time Variance Authority is based, but I say it’s in the Quantum Realm.)
On a deeper level, the opening scene of Loki Episode 6 is signaling something far more important that you might have missed. By encapsulating over a decade of Marvel movies and displaying them as the building blocks of an entire universe, Loki is setting the audience up for a major shift in the MCU.
At the end of the episode, Sylvie kills He Who Remains and the multiverse is unleashed. At the beginning of the episode, Loki reveals why this matters:
Everything you thought you know about the MCU? That’s over. Whatever comes next will be very different.
Loki is streaming now on Disney+.
