After a long wait, Loki finally unleashes Jonathan Majors’s return to the MCU in “1893,” an episode jam packed with action, plot twists and betrayals. Loki and Mobius finally find Renslayer in the past with a familiar face that could either save the TVA, or be its downfall.
Setting the Path | In 1868 Chicago, Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) arrives in a small town with a package and meets Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong), who informs her that she needs to drop the package off in a house nearby and if she does so, she’ll end up in charge of the TVA once again. She drops it off in a young boy’s home and he opens it to reveal the TVA handbook.
Back at the TVA, OB (Ke Huy Quan) tells Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) that unless they can expand the capacity for the time loom trying to control the branched timelines, the TVA will be destroyed. But since only Miss Minutes can access the system they’re locked out of, they need to find her. With the location provided by Casey (Eugene Cordero), Loki and Mobius head to Chicago in 1893, where they see a newspaper headline about a ghost clock haunting the midway.
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Mister Timely, I Presume | They head there and see an advertisement for Victor Timely’s temporal presentation at a fair. There, they not only see Renslayer dressed in vintage garb, but they see Timely himself (Jonathan Majors), who Loki recognizes as one of Kang’s variants. Timely presents his prototype of the temporal loom, which he plans to use to power the planet, impressing many greedy buyers, who immediately shower him with cash for his patents. Renslayer, Loki and Mobius all beeline for him as well, not to mention numerous customers of his inventions who want their money back.
After Timely outwits the unhappy customers, Loki gets him alone, only to be interrupted by Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), who tries to kill Timely despite Loki’s objections. In the chaos, Renslayer gets away with Timely using a giant Miss Minutes as a distraction, while Mobius and Loki chase after them. Renslayer gets Timely alone and explains that he is the future creator of the TVA, but tell him that Loki killed his variant and that he cannot trust him. Timely buys it and offers to take Renslayer to his lab in Wisconsin, just as Loki and Mobius arrive and chase after them, but they get slowed down by more unhappy customers, allowing Timely, Renslayer and Miss Minutes to escape on a boat. On said boat, Renslayer tells Timely that she was the one that delivered the TVA handbook to him and he thanks her for the inspiration and she says that they should be partners. Next thing we see is Renslayer getting dumped into the lake on a raft by Timely and Miss Minutes.
What Else Could Go Wrong? | Timely and Miss Minutes arrive at his lab and he grabs a small device and says that it’s the culmination of his life’s work. But then, Miss Minutes gets creepy and asks him why his variant never made her a body so they could be together. Timely wisely shuts her off, but then Renslayer arrives and pulls out a prototype of the TVA pruning gun, just as Loki and Mobius storm in and try to convince her not to kill Timely, but to add to the chaos, Sylvie knocks everyone off their feet and tries to kill Timely.
Timely tearfully pleads for his life, saying that he can make his own choices and isn’t Kang, convincing Sylvie to spare him as Loki and Mobius take him to the TVA. That leaves Sylvie with Renslayer, as the former traps the latter in Kang’s fortress at the end of time with the rotting corpse of the Kang that Sylvie killed. Renslayer reactivates Miss Minutes, who tells her that Kang was keeping a big secret from her…
Loki streams new episodes Thursdays on Disney+.