Credit: Marvel StudiosNow that Season 2 of the Disney+ Loki series has reached the end of its six-episode run, its head writer, Eric Martin, is sharing new insights into the production, revealing that Marvel Studios executives actually “nuked” the original version of what could very well be its best episode.
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The finale of Loki‘s sophomore season left viewers with, perhaps, more questions than answers, leaving many loose plot threads that will hopefully be explored in upcoming MCU projects as the Multiverse Saga unfolds.
With Marvel’s Phases Five and Six just getting started, the studio certainly seems to be keeping the door open for the God of Mischief’s (or rather, the God of Stories) return. However, Hiddleston recently cast doubt on his MCU future following the Loki Season 2 finale, titled “Glorious Purpose” — a nod to the Season 1 episode of the same name.
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Over the weekend, Hiddleston appeared on an episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to promote his latest Disney+ outing, where he revealed that his “journey” as Loki had “comes full circle,” adding, “It’s the conclusion of season two. It’s also the conclusion to seasons one and two. It’s also the conclusion to six films and 12 episodes, and 14 years of my life. I was 29 when I was cast, I’m 42 now. it’s been a journey.”
Understandably, many concerned fans interpreted this as Hiddleston announcing his plans to retire the character, with there being no confirmation of a Loki Season 3 or any upcoming MCU installment, for that matter. Again, while Hiddleston didn’t explicitly confirm his exit from the MCU, he did sound pretty final about Loki’s journey, meaning it truly could be the end of the road for the Asgardian trickster after all.
Still, if there’s one thing about Loki, he has a pretty difficult time staying dead. Even after being strangled by Thanos (Josh Brolin) in a heroic act of self-sacrifice, Loki (or rather, a variant of) managed to find his way back to the MCU for his solo series on Disney+, suggesting that he could return in some capacity for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2026) or Avengers: Secret Wars (2027).
Given that Loki did a lot of the heavy lifting when setting up the character of Kang the Conqueror/He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) and laying the foundation for the inevitable Multiversal War, it would be unusual to see Loki not return for future MCU projects down the line. But until we hear any word from Marvel itself, Loki’s fate remains shrouded in mystery.
Recently, while speaking with Script Magazine, the series’ executive producer, Eric Martin, was unable to give much of an answer. However, he did share some interesting tidbits about Loki Season 2’s development and even revealed how Marvel Studios “nuked” the original treatment for its penultimate episode, “Science/Fiction.”
To quickly recap, Loki Season 2, Episode 5 saw the God of Mischief rounding up his friends from branched timelines before they were plucked from the Sacred Timeline by He Who Remains. We got a quick glimpse into the pre-TVA lives of Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson), predictably, a jet-ski salesman, Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku), a doctor, and O.B. (Key Huy Quan), a failed science-fiction author, all through the lens of Loki, who serves as the sort of audience surrogate here.
It was a totally unique and generally lighthearted romp through various alternate timelines, ending with a bombshell cliffhanger as Loki learns to control his time-slipping, essentially making him the most powerful being in the entire Multiverse. And, according to Martin, the original script treatment for the episode was what convinced Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to come aboard as the series’ directors.
The word “original” is important here because the studio “wasn’t into” his original plans for the fifth episode and decided to scrap it at the last second, leaving the Loki scribe scrambling to write a new one — something he impressively did over the span of just one weekend:
[Justin] Benson and [Aaron] Moorhead. I think they did just incredible work across that episode. And that was the one that we were most intimately involved in together. Our [original] episode five had gotten nuked. The previous version was the one that they came on because of. It was their favorite episode. And so then that one got nuked and we had to come up with something new, there was this mind meld. In writing that, that was just something I had to go write in a weekend. There was no time. We were in prep and this thing just needs to be done.
With the pressure on to create the perfect penultimate episode for a high-stakes season, Martin was focused on telling an “emotional” story that allowed audiences to fully feel the effects of the collapsing Multiverse. The result was that fantastic record store scene, which sees Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) desperately attempting to save her friend Lyle (Jason Pennycooke), only for it to “just dissolve in her hands:”
I’m just so focused on telling this story and doing it in the most emotional way possible and trying to envision some of these things, but really seeing what they did with that; that final moment where everything is just falling apart for Sylvie in that record shop? What was in my head was quite emotional. But what they did with all of that, with everything slowly creeping, and then finally she sees Lyle, the record store guy, just dissolve in her hands.
When asked to elaborate on why the original version of the episode was scrapped, Martin vaguely claimed it boiled down to it being “something that the studio wasn’t into,” admitting that it was “a big swing,” even for a series like Loki. So, even if the episode we ended up with was unarguably great, it sounds like we might’ve missed out on a wild hour of television:
It would have been one of the stranger things that the MCU had ever done. It was a big swing. It was a really big conceptual swing and I think dramatic swing. When that got nuked, it was funny because that was the thing where people would stop me in the hallways like, ‘Oh man, I’m so sorry. Like, that was my favorite episode.’ People were really bummed about it. But, you know, again, I think the studio was right. I think what we had was really good, I think really interesting, but it may not have fit within the show the way that this episode did. There was no time to question it or to even mourn it. It was just like, ‘All right, well, whatever. We just have to jump in and just do it.’
Ultimately, in Martin’s words, there was “no time” to mourn the scrapped episode, but it’s hard to believe he came up with something off-kilter enough to make even Marvel nervous — a truly awe-inspiring feat, considering just how much of a “big swing” the Loki series really is when you think about it.
It sounds like, at the end of the day, Marvel Studios knows best when it comes to maintaining a somewhat consistent style and tone across its movies and TV shows. So even if Martin’s original script treatment for Loki Season 2, Episode 5, was a favorite amongst the series’ creators, we can’t fault what proved to be a brilliant lead-up to the jaw-dropping finale.
All episodes of Loki are now streaming exclusively on Disney+.
Would you like to learn more about this axed Loki Season 2 episode? Are you happy with the finale we got? Let us know in the comments below!