The chaos of Loki‘s season two premiere began during season one’s finale. When Sylvie killed He Who Remains she upended both the Sacred Timeline and the entire TVA. And yet, the rogue Variant responsible for all that turmoil didn’t appear during season two’s debut until it was already over. A post-credits (more specifically a mid-credits) scene in Loki season two’s first episode revealed where Sylvie headed after leaving the Citadel at the End of Time. She went as far away from the royal court of Asgard as possible. At the very end of Loki’s first episode, Sylvie travels back to 1982 and visits a McDonald’s in a small Oklahoma community on a branch of reality that only exists because of her. This Loki season two, episode one post-credits scene location already had major ties to Marvel Comics. Now it’s home to one of the MCU’s most beautiful scenes.
What Happened in Loki‘s Season 2 Premiere Post-Credits Scene?
Sylvie ended Loki‘s first season in He Who Remains’ Citadel. At the time, she also had the dead TVA’s leader’s TemPad, which was how she opened up a Time Door to kick Loki through. Loki thinks that TemPad might have unique abilities (and he’s almost certainly right).
So what exactly did Loki‘s post-credits scene reveal to us? Well, in its only after-the-credits moment, the show’s season two debut shows us where Sylvie went next after the events of Loki season one. In it, we learn that Sylvie used a Time Door to go to Earth on a new branch that broke from the Sacred Timeline after she murdered He Who Remains. That place was Broxton, Oklahoma, in the year 1982. Her Loki armor would have stood out even in the 21st century, but she made for quite a spectacle when she walked into an ’80s-era American McDonald’s.
Sylvie had spent plenty of time on Earth before, but always under the worst circumstances. She successfully hid from the TVA inside apocalyptic events. Her best method of evasion involved mass casualties with no survivors. But in Loki season two’s post-credits scene, inside that normal McDonald’s, she saw peaceful Earthlings eating and laughing with friends. She then asked the young restaurant manager—who admirably did his job under strange circumstances—how “this works” so she could order food. When he asked her what non-rat and non-possum option she wanted to try, Sylvie smiled and said, “Everything.”
Why Did Sylvie Go to Broxton, Oklahoma on Loki?
Sylvie spent her whole life running from the TVA. The organization took her as a kid without ever telling her what her Nexus Event was. She spent decades fighting to survive, all while planning to bring down the TVA itself.
Once she seemingly did that by killing He Who Remains, she opted for a quiet, easy existence in a place that is the proverbial antithesis of an Asgardian god’s life. The place she sees in Loki‘s post-credits scene is also the antithesis of her own experiences. The TVA is a lifeless, emotionless bureaucracy of death where Variants and timelines are pruned to a Void where a monster eats them. The opposite of that is the quiet beauty and ease of a place like Broxton, Oklahoma on Earth in 1982, a time before cellphones and computers that never knew alien invaders.
Even that McDonald’s, a place totally unremarkable from any of the chain’s other locales, had a simple grace to it. A fast-food burger joint is as unpretentious as the TVA is arrogant. It’s a place designed for people to enjoy a simple pleasure that is so easy to take for granted.
But why Broxton specifically? Why an unincorporated community in Oklahoma’s Caddo County (a real place with less than 7,000 residents) versus the countless other similar locals on Earth? Because Broxton’s Marvel appearances aren’t just limited to Loki season two, episode one’s post-credits scene. Broxton was actually a major location in J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor comic series.
You can read more about Broxton’s Marvel Comics history and how it was briefly New Asgard in our own Eric Diaz’s deep dive.
What Was the Meaning of Loki Season 2’s Post-Credits Scene?
He Who Remains had Loki debating the merits of taking control of the TVA as a necessary evil. Sure, pruning Variants and entire branches might be awful, but isn’t the alternative worse? Aren’t some terrible sacrifices in the name of order better than all-out chaos?
It was easy for Loki to think that way because he never had to deal with being one of those sacrifices. But Sylvie had. She had her entire life stolen from her. She was a person with a home and a family, and the TVA took that away from her, just as it had to every Variant it pruned or stole to do its dirty work. A necessary evil is still evil, and it’s not even clear the TVA was necessary.
When Sylvie walked into that McDonald’s in Loki season two’s post-credits scene, she was finally free. No more running. No more TVA. And no more death. Instead, she found a simple life, the kind where you can sit down and eat a cheeseburger without worry. And while those people didn’t know it, they owed their entire existence to her, one brave individual who wanted nothing more than to let others live.
It was the culmination of Sylvie’s entire life. All that hard work fighting for survival and refusing to give in to evil led to a truly beautiful moment of hope and appreciation. And that was before she got to find out just how good Chicken McNuggets are.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
