This episode of Loki is called: Science/Fiction, and this can be a reference to the fact that Ouroboros is a Science Fiction writer, or a reference to the fact that this time around the time travel really borders on science fiction, even in universe, Like A.D. Doug(Ouroboros's name on the timeline) said it's impossible, but don't let that stop you. But most importantly I think it is a reference to how fiction is an escape for most people, from the daily monotony and the constant cycle of loss and agony.
In case the reader doesn't know, this episode's story takes heavy inspiration from the comic book story: Loki: God of stories.
The story follows Loki as he realizes that Loki's throughout the multiverse are destined to be villains and then be a stepping stone for others to become the best versions of themselves, and he fights against this destiny, rejects it, and takes control of the story.
What does that mean?
This version of Loki is above a time traveler, he can got to different points in a "story", even if you time travel and change something it's a story, you created the universe?(Like those guys in the comic up there) still a story, everything that has ever happened and will happen is a story, and the God of Stories can change it all.
It is one of the most broken powers ever and I love it.
Another story line that this pulls from is Loki: Avenger prime.
Avenger Prime is a version of Loki that like the god of stories, realizes his ultimate destiny to be a villain and loose in order to let Heroes rise and then rejects it, he roams the multiverse in order to collect a multiversal team of Avengers in order to fight a big threat to the multiverse which he oversees from the God Quarry.
This is very much like the arc Loki has been on in these two seasons, realizing his destiny, finding the cause, rejecting it and becoming a hero who stands for Freedom and Justice.
And these parallels are not just from story Analysis, official artwork that has been released shows Loki controlling what look like, the strands of time.
And this is what got most people theorizing that he was going to become the God of Stories /Avenger Prime
So what exactly happens in this entry then?
Well it is pretty straight forwards, the time loom explosion resets everyone's lives, so they go from TVA workers to just normal people on the sacred timeline, Mobius becomes Don, a single father with two children in 2022, and since this is 2022, it is quite likely that his wife died in the snap, and his Jet Ski obsession is revealed to be something that reminds him of his wife.
Hunter B-15 is now a pediatrician in 2012 called Verity Willis, which... holy shit... Verity Willis is a good friend of Loki from the comics, the "Lie Detecting Ghost" as is shown in the comic panel above.
Casey is an Alcatraz escapee, called... Frank! Yes, from that movie based on true events.
And Ouroboros is a Science Fiction Writer and the only one who is all in on Loki's plan from the start, to the point of loosing his Job and wife.
And Sylvie is... Sylvie.
It's actually her who helps Loki realize exactly why he wants the TVA together,
And it almost leads to the destruction of the entire Multiverse, everything starts to Spaghettify and this wouldn't have happened if she had just gone along with him immediately and then they had used the Tem-pad to go back to before the Time loom melt down.
However, we don't know if that would have been possible, and on a whole, perfect stories are boring, and dare I say it... unrealistic (goddamn a Sci Fi show is unrealistic *Gasp*). Point is her decision here makes sense according to her character, and so does Loki's and everyone else's, and that makes it a better show, not worse.
I am saying this because nowadays, it has become common place for certain Amateur/self-employed Critics to criticize something every time a character could have made one decision differently and the whole thing would have been solved easier, ignoring Characterization and good story telling, which btw, I will say the main thing here is that they both happen, the problem is when one is sacrificed for the other.
And so, due to multiple mishaps, the Universe begins to unravel, and Loki's found family disintegrates in front of him in a spaghetti version of Avenger's endgame.
This entire episode is the definition of, I tried, I failed and the worst possible thing I could imagine happened and yet, I survived, the world has ended, but the fighting hasn't stopped.
"Do you think that what makes a Loki a Loki, is the fact that we are destined to loose?" maybe it does, but loss is an opportunity to prove oneself, no matter how bad, if you come out the other end, you come out stronger, and so Loki did.
I think this story has been implying from the beginning that time slipping is all about the "who" you want to see, from the whole "a person's Temporal Aura" thing, this is exactly what they were going to do when they were scanning every individuals temporal Aura to get the collective Aura of when they were all present in one place.
I think it is safe to say that time is all about the person perceiving it, I think there is no individual time, instead time is generated by the collective temporal Aura of everyone present in a place, and that is why, Loki can hone onto a particular person's Temporal Aura, at a particular place in their stories and slip to that place, and rewrite what happens, I think this is why the time singularity, also known as the time infinity stone is green, it's Loki's magic.
Keep in mind, the time stone is Time manipulation, not time travel, Time travel will just create a branch timeline, while the original goes unchanged, the time stone however, has been shown to rewrite past events, just like time slipping.
This is what this entire season is about, unraveling your own story and rewriting it, breaking out of your own loops and your failures, and Loki, now having conquered the ultimate failure is the perfect person to rule the TVA as someone who cares about people and not some cruel calculating dictator like He Who Remains.
Let's see what happens in the Finale.
The main question that lingers in my mind is that is this Loki actually breaking the loop or is this all what He Who Remains has planned, because they made it a point to show in the beginning of the episode in the recap, the clip where He says: I paved the road.
Perhaps he really was hoping for the outcome of the Lokis taking over or, perhaps he was bored literally to death, who knows, nothing is certain with this guy, and that's the fun of it.
But I guess we'll see.