Warning! This article contains spoilers for Loki season 2, episodes 1 and 2.

Though Loki season 2 is only two episodes in, there is a lot of speculation on how the season will end, and its snake eating its own tail structure may offer a clue. Loki famously includes time rules unique to its central organization, the TVA, including that the body exists out of time and its agents do not move forward or backward. The TVA, in essence, functions as a deistic entity that determines whether entire timelines are eradicated, with little regard for mortal life.

Throughout the MCU series' run, however, especially in season 2, Loki has poked holes in these time rules, tying the TVA back to reality. Season 1 revealed that TVA agents are variants whose memories were wiped so that all they know is their life in the TVA. It also revealed that the TVA did not always exist and instead was created by He Who Remains to preserve the Sacred Timeline. The Loki season 2 story has focused on the God of Mischief's uncontrollable time-slipping, something that is supposed to be impossible in the TVA. These holes mean that the TVA is susceptible to some traditional time rules, which complicates its autonomous, timeless status.

Loki Season 2 Story Structure Explained by Producer

Producer Kevin Wright has revealed that Loki season 2 has a snake eating its own tail structure, which could be key to understanding its ending and explaining the TVA's time errors. In an interview with Collider, Wright comments on the writers' decision to make season 2 pick up immediately where season 1 left off, and whether there was debate over this decision. Read his full comment below:

It wasn't too much of a debate, but in the writers' room all sorts of paths are discussed. We certainly walked down a few paths that didn't pick up right away, maybe jumped ahead, maybe weren't past TVA’s…You talk through all that very quickly, we’ve realized. Setting up this past thing did two things for us: it helped us kind of start the structure in place, the snake eating the tail structure that we wanted for a full season, but also it was where a lot of really rich character drama was going to happen picking up in the immediate moment, not just for Loki, but also for Sylvie and the TVA. We didn't want to fast-forward any of that drama of Mobius and B-15 want to stop pruning, but this is a vast organization, and clearly, different people are gonna have different perspectives on the future of this. So it just revealed itself fairly organically pretty quickly.

It's clear from Wright's statement that the writers explicitly wanted the snake eating its own tail structure for the season and tried to plan for it, and they realized that beginning the season at the end of season 1 allowed them to do that. This decision also allowed them to maintain the weight of season 1's ending, including significant beats for the Loki season 2 characters that would have been difficult to pick back up again had the season decided to jump forward in time.

What Does Loki Season 2 Being A Snake Eating Its Own Tail Mean For The Ending?

A story with a snake eating its own tail structure suggests that it exists in a never-ending loop which means season 2's ending may be right where it began. This kind of ending has been hinted at since episode 1 when Loki returns to the TVA after He Who Remains' death. When Loki returns, no one recognizes him, not even Mobius. It is soon revealed that this is due to Loki's time-slipping, which makes him move between the present and the past when he hasn't met anyone at the TVA yet. Loki also time-slips into the future and sees Sylvie back at the TVA before he is pruned by an unknown person.

This event will probably take place in the present at the end of the season. Because Loki was pulled back into the present after being pruned in the future, it is likely that once that future becomes his present, he will again be transported back, this time into the past, placing him where he was at the start of the season. Loki season 2's snake-like structure would then suggest that the TVA does not exist outside of time but instead exists in its own infinite time loop, explaining why it is subjected to certain time rules and not others, as well as why it has a past, present, and future.

New episodes of Loki season 2 are available to stream every Thursday on Disney+.

Source: Collider