Easter Eggs And References You Missed In Loki Season 2

The Time Variance Authority (TVA) is loaded with signs and informational posters, each written in the same bland corporate language that is the hallmark of any bureaucracy. These signs reward eagle-eyed viewers with sly jokes and visual gags. For instance, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) walk through a hallway containing a sign that says, "Minimize chit chat in the cafeteria, please. Limit your lunch break to 17 minutes." Why the lunch break is such a precise, random number, we have no idea. You would think that, for an organization whose employees can live for more than a thousand years, the TVA could spare some time for a little chit chat.

Meanwhile, in the Repairs and Advancements room, you can glimpse two signs in the background: one that outlines "Pneumatic Tube Etiquette" and another that says "Temperamental TemPad? Don't delay, repair it today." Deeper into that department, the characters pass a sign that reads, "Are you meant to be down here?" This feeble warning is probably unlikely to stop trespassers.

Even the end credits contain some Easter eggs. One poster warns, "Check your suit for defects before entry," something that Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) fails to do with Mobius when he suits up. Another reads, "Behave or get your clock cleaned." It depicts Miss Minutes standing on the chest of a TVA employee — something that seems altogether possible, judging by the clips from the trailer showing an angry Miss Minutes growing to monstrous size.

The post-credits sequence for Episode 1 shows Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) traveling to Broxton, Oklahoma. This may just seem like a random place on a random timeline, but it will actually be familiar to observant Marvel fans. The town was mentioned in another Marvel TV series, though this one was not officially part of the MCU. In "Agent Carter," Broxton happens to be the town where one of the series' villains, Whitney Frost (Wynn Everett), grew up. The episode, titled "Smoke and Mirrors," shows a precocious young Frost (Ivy George) misunderstood by everyone in her small town.

The town also has ties to Thor in the comics. In "Fantastic Four" #536-537, Oklahoma is actually where Thor's hammer Mjolnir falls to Earth. After Asgard's destruction, Thor builds a new Asgard in the local town of Broxton during the 2007 "Thor" comic series by J. Michael Straczynski. Many fans believe this comic heavily influenced the 2011 "Thor" movie, with its storyline following Thor in rural America (though in the movie it was New Mexico instead of Oklahoma).

But what does that have to do with the "Loki" TV series? It turns out that Straczynski's comic was the first to introduce the character of Lady Loki. In fact, he was credited in the first season of "Loki" for creating the character that inspired Sylvie. So it's fitting that Sylvie's first appearance in Season 2 is in Broxton, the place where her character was "born" (so to speak).

"Zaniac" isn't the only movie playing at the Leopold Theater. Loki and Mobius walk past multiple movie posters — some from real-life movies and some that are fictional. Behind-the-scenes set photos reveal that Marvel included some real '70s-era movie posters, including "Airport 1975" and "Herbie Rides Again." However, the creators of "Loki” also snuck in some movies that don't exist outside of the MCU, though it would be cool if they did.

One poster advertises a Bollywood movie titled "The Great Kingo." Fans will remember Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) from "Eternals." As an immortal, Kingo has been in Indian showbiz for decades, every so often pretending to pass the torch to his "son" to prevent his fans from wondering why he never seems to grow any older. Clearly, he was popular in 1977 London.

Another poster is for a superhero movie called "Phone Ranger." The tagline reads: "Criminals, he's got your number." Believe it or not, such a ridiculous character actually exists in the Marvel comics. His first appearance was in "Marvel Age Annual" #1, as a telephone repairman named A.G. Bell (we think you can guess which scientist he is named after) who stumbles upon alien technology inside a telephone. The character has no powers, just an uncomfortable-looking suit that allows him to tap into any phone line.

Let's be honest — we would definitely pay to see a movie like that.

In a fight sequence from Episode 2, a sign in the background reads, "Deleeuw & Soner Båtbyggeri." The word "båtbyggeri" appears to be the Swedish word for "boat builder's yard," which makes sense because General Dox (Kate Dickie) and her Minutemen are using a boatyard to bomb the branched timelines. Since "Soner" translates to "sons," the name "Deleeuw" must be the family that owns the boatyard, and Marvel aficionados will know that this name is a homage to a visual effects coordinator at Marvel Studios – Dan Deleeuw.

Deleeuw served as a visual effects supervisor on "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Avengers: Infinity War," and "Avengers: Endgame" and received Oscar nominations for his work on each of these. In fact, the episode that contains the Easter egg is actually directed by Deleeuw (in his directorial debut.) The episode marks a huge milestone in Marvel history, because it is the first time any visual effects supervisor at Marvel Studios has sat in the director's chair.

Deleeuw has shared that he loves hiding Easter eggs, adding that he knows that there are still some Easter eggs he hid in the first season of "Loki" that nobody has spotted yet. The director told Art of VFX, "I have checked online — the fans have found most of them but there are still a few that they haven't found." Now, Deleeuw has been with Marvel for a decade and is honored with his own well-deserved Easter egg.

At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair in Episode 3, Mobius describes the biggest highlights of this historical event, and one of the names he mentions is H. H. Holmes, a real-life serial killer at the World's Fair who lured victims into his "Murder Castle." You may be wondering why Mobius says the man's name in the same sentence as "Thomas Edison." Surely there were plenty of other groundbreaking innovations on display at the Chicago World's Fair that are more important to mention than a serial killer. It's quite possible that Mobius goes out of his way to mention Holmes because it's an Easter egg.

H. H. Holmes was featured in a 1947 comic by none other than Jack Kirby, one of the key comic artists behind Marvel's Silver Age. The story was told in the form of an eight-page comic titled "Let Me Plan Your Murder," as part of the series called "Real Clue Crime Stories." This was not a superhero comic — those had fallen out of fashion in the years following World War II. Instead, it was a collection of pulpy "true crime" stories. Still, fans of Kirby will immediately recognize it as his work. Some readers would even argue that the design of Holmes is nearly identical to that of Dum Dum Dugan (a character Kirby would later help create in the Marvel comics).

This detail from Episode 3 was likely meant as a subtle way of honoring Kirby's lesser-known works.

Balder isn't the only Marvel character hidden at the World's Fair. On the same sign that boasts "Victor Timely's Astounding Temporal Marvels," there is a smaller message: "For this night only Hedwig Wolfe to perform on German pipes." This is probably a nod to the obscure Marvel character Hedy Wolfe.

Hedy Wolfe began as a supporting character for Patsy Walker, the star of an "Archie"-style teen romance comic. Hedy was the "mean girl" opposite the friendly heroine — the Veronica to Patsy's Betty. Hoping to adapt to the ever-growing market for superhero comics, Patsy's creator Steve Englehart introduced her in the Marvel comic "Amazing Adventures." (The previous "Patsy" comics were later retconned as simply a comic that Patsy's mother made about her daughter.) Eventually Patsy got her own comic and became the superhero Hellcat. Likewise, Hedy Wolfe returned, this time as a secondary villain trying to damage Patsy's reputation in "Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat" #7.

Hedy has already appeared as an Easter egg in another Marvel TV show. While Hellcat (Rachael Taylor) is a major character in "Jessica Jones," Hedy only gets a brief mention. In Season 2, Hedy appears on the cover of a tabloid that reads, "Hedy Wolfe clashes with gal pal." 

Perhaps Hedwig is also the great-grandmother of Brad Wolfe. After all, performing at carnivals is not too far removed from starring in slasher movies, so her family could have stayed in showbiz.

The various machines that dispense food at the TVA seem like they are pure sci-fi, but they are actually based on machines from the real world.

Take the pie automat, for example. During the first half of the 20th century, it was quite commonplace to find an automat — that is, a restaurant with coin-operated machines that distributed freshly made meals. What's more, Episode 4 features a hot cocoa machine where TVA employees can insert a token to get a hot drink. The vending machine is marked with the logo "Ditchburn," which is the name of a real-life company that manufactured jukeboxes and vending machines. In fact, the machine from the TVA looks exactly like a model shown on the official website of The Ditchburn Project. From the retro illustration of two glasses full of steaming drinks to the sign that reminds users to "Dial Selection First," the two machines are almost identical. Of course, there is one key difference: The menu options from the TVA's machine (as shown up close in the end credits) include the usual selection of drinks but also a button marked "TVA Soup," which doesn't sound particularly appetizing.

Given that the TVA is using a vending machine that exists in real life, we can't help but wonder how the TVA obtained all these machines. Perhaps the TVA borrowed them from the Sacred Timeline, or perhaps, just like everybody who works at the TVA, these vending machines are all variants.

Just when you thought the show's creators had exhausted all the possible gags they could hide in the background of the TVA, Episode 4 reveals even more hilarious posters and signs.

In the pie automat, a sign on the wall instructs visitors to take "1 Slice Per Week." Mobius would have broken this rule in Episode 4 had Sylvie not called him out for wanting yet another slice of pie (his second that week, assuming no major time-skips occurred since Episode 2). Meanwhile, another sign reads, "Bring your own cup. If you forgot it, remember it next time. We do not provide cups or employ dishwashers." It seems the TVA is not only stingy about giving its employees lunch breaks but also cheap when it comes to providing basic eating utensils.

In OB's department of the TVA, viewers can glimpse yet another amusing sign, which reads, "Prevent self-pruning. Service your time-stick every 674 minutes." Apparently, a time-stick is prone to backfire if it's not charged properly, and the fact that the TVA placed this warning sign indicates that at least one incident of accidental self-pruning has already occurred. This detail is a clever bit of foreshadowing since Loki prunes himself — or rather, his past self — by the end of the episode.

Finally, there is a sign hanging on OB's model of the Temporal Loom. The sign reminds us that the Loom is "Not to Scale," as though OB didn't already repeat enough times that his replicas weren't exactly to scale.

Before he was recruited into the TVA, Casey was a man called Frank Morris who lived on a branched timeline, and it might surprise viewers to learn that this was actually a real-life person. Casey must be a variant of Frank Morris, a 1962 criminal who escaped Alcatraz along with fellow inmates John and Clarence Anglin. Just like we see in "Loki," Morris and the Anglin brothers placed replicas of their heads in their beds to fool the guards, and just like in the episode, they escaped through a hole they dug in the wall and then launched a makeshift boat into San Francisco Bay. 

Some fans have observed that the shot of the two Anglin brothers peeking through the hole in the wall might be a homage to the iconic movie poster for "Escape from Alcatraz," a fictionalized retelling of these real-life events. In real life, the three men managed to successfully get off the island, but most historians agree that they never made it to land — but then again, their bodies were never recovered. Of course, "Loki" Season 2 offers a possible explanation for their disappearance: Casey was actually spirited away by the TVA. 

Marvel superfans will also spot that Casey's two fellow inmates are actually played by directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, thus making this moment an Easter egg within an Easter egg.

You may notice that OB's office on his home timeline looks awfully similar to his workshop from the TVA. Fans will immediately recognize the circular doorway, the network of pneumatic tubes, and the curved shelves that follow the slope of the walls. There's even a pair of circular fans on the back wall that mirror OB's workshop. These parallels cannot be a coincidence. Perhaps OB felt nostalgic for his old office and modeled his department of the TVA after it. Or maybe OB's office will somehow be transplanted onto the TVA.

Funnily enough, the Citadel at the End of Time is also reminiscent of OB's office. Observant viewers have pointed out that the two circular fans in Repairs and Advancements mirror the two little circular windows overlooking the timeline in the Citadel. It's possible that, after years of renovations and deterioration, OB's workshop has transformed into the Citadel at the End of Time; it might even be the last part of the TVA left standing.

All of these details point to the fan theory that the TVA was built not just by He Who Remains but also OB and Loki. After all, Loki has already recruited the TVA's key members from the timeline and placed the TVA handbook into OB's hands. At the end of the episode, Loki stands in a room that looks like it might eventually become the bedrock of the TVA. Perhaps Loki will become not just a god but also a creator (of sorts).

Observant fans will notice that the Citadel at the End of Time is webbed with cracks, each of which is lined with gold. Production designer Kasra Farahani confirmed that this was an intentional design choice. These cracks were partially inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of using gold lacquer to fill the cracks on broken pottery, thus transforming a blemish into something beautiful.

The use of kintsugi in "Loki" might indicate that the Citadel was a patchwork assembled from the fragments of universes left over from the multiversal war. Or maybe the domain of He Who Remains has been slowly crumbling, so he has been patching up the cracks (with solid gold, naturally), just barely keeping the multiversal war at bay. Viewers may be left with the uneasy feeling that these cracks run to the very foundations of the Citadel and have always been there, so perhaps the place was always doomed to be destroyed.

Once Loki claims his place at the end of time, viewers will spot even more kintsugi on his throne. This adds a whole new layer of meaning. The cracks in his throne may be filled with gold, but they are still cracks nevertheless. No amount of gold on Loki's throne will disguise the fact that it is not a privilege but instead a burden. The detail could also be foreshadowing that Loki's reign cannot last forever; sooner or later his fortress at the End of Time will crumble, too.

The epilogue of "Loki" Season 2 reveals that the new TVA is monitoring all the Kang variants that He Who Remains warned about. B-15 asks Mobius if any of them are a threat, and Mobius explains, "I guess one of 'em caused a little bit of a ruckus on a 616-adjacent realm, but they handled it. So we're good for now." When Mobius says "616-adjacent realm," he is referring to the Quantum Realm in Earth-616, and he is describing the events from "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" in which Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) defeated a variant of Kang. If you look closely at the folder that B-15 is viewing, you can see the attached photos appear to show glimpses from the film. The top photo shows Kang with glowing eyes and wearing the same suit he wore in the movie, while the lower photo appears to depict Kang's Multiversal Engine Core.

You may also notice that the file reads "Risk Report: Threat Identification." This appears to be a new format that the TVA is using for their files. Previously, these types of files would read "Nexus Event Report" because the TVA always intended to prune the timelines before a nexus event created a branched timeline. Now, however, the reformed TVA is protecting branched timelines, too. Presumably the TVA will try to find other ways to steer Kang's variants on the right path and will only resort to pruning them as a last resort.