Loki S2 Episode 5 Twist Ending Explained: Time Travel Secret Revealed

The hows, whens, wheres, and whys of Loki’s time-skipping powers have been revealed in Season 2, Episode 5. Here’s exactly what was explained in the new episode.

Tom Hiddleston’s eccentric trickster first began time-slipping in the early moments of Episode 1, and since then fans haven’t had a clear answer as to exactly what was happening or how it worked. Things changed in the final moments of Episode 5.

Loki S2 Episode 5’s Time Travel Reveal Explained

Warning – The rest of this article contains spoilers for Loki Season 2, Episode 4.

In the closing moments of Season 2, Episode 5, the destruction of the TVA spreads to the branches, eventually consuming everything and everyone except for Loki himself. 

In a moment of anguish and isolation, Loki time-skips back to just before the desolation, which leads him to reveal to OB (or the timeline version of him, at least) that the trick to mastering his time-skipping lies in the “who.”

While that might seem confusing at first glance, an earlier discussion with Sylvie along with a quick look back at Episode 1 gives some key insights that tie it all together.

In a bar on Sylvie’s branch, she asks Loki what it is he really wants. While Loki initially offers that he wants to stop He Who Remains and then to save the ailing TVA, Sylvie draws out of him his true motivation: he wants to save his friends. Ultimately, he just doesn’t want to be alone.

Throughout the minutes leading up to this in the episode, Loki has been time skipping to various branched timelines where he meets Hunter B-15, Casey, OB, and Mobius in their original forms. These people, his friends, are the people for whom Loki would do anything, and they’re the reason he’s time-skipping, even when he doesn’t know that.

Back in Episode 1, Loki’s first ever time-skip is when he’s talking to the past version of Casey who doesn’t know who he is. As the despair of it washes over him, he jumps forward in time to a later version of Casey who does recognize him. When he then goes to pursue Mobius and skips back into the past, he ends up skipping directly into the room with the future Mobius, once more finding the friend he was seeking.

Ultimately, Loki’s ability to skip through time stems from the connection he has to the people around him, which enables him to—as OB mentions—do what should be impossible. The how and why are both answered in the who: Loki’s friends and his connection to them are what enables him to move through time and space to do whatever it takes to save them.