Loki Season 2 Episode 1 Review - 7 Ups & 2 Downs
8. Down - The Time Slipping Rules
The rules of time travelling can differ greatly between different movies and TV shows. Hulk went to great lengths to explain how the rules in Avengers: Endgame weren't the same as in the likes of Back to the Future, and in Loki, there was license to differentiate even further.
It's been said multiple times that time works differently in the TVA, a line which on its own opens all kinds of doors for the story that normal time travel would be handcuffed by. However, the show still needs to play by the rules it sets for itself.
Throughout the first episode of Loki however, the God of Mischief's time slipping didn't really seem to follow any rules. Instead, the travelling itself seemed to change as needed to further the story. At times he would disappear for quite a while, but just when he needed Mobius to see it happen he disappeared and then reappeared immediately.
There could also be something said about how OB knew about time slipping. He said he had seen it before, but it was impossible to be done in the TVA. As a TVA employee, how could he have seen it anywhere else but not there? It feels like the rules around time slipping needed to be a bit more solid, instead of flexing to what they need to be at each specific moment.