The Sneaky Thor Reference In Loki Episode 2 That Slipped Right Past You
Contains spoilers for "Loki"
Disney+'s "Loki" focuses on an alternate-timeline version of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who manages to use the time-travel disruptions of "Avengers: Endgame" to snatch the Tesseract and escape the events of "The Avengers" without ending up in the Asgardian prison cell in "Thor: The Dark World." This, of course, means that this version of Loki is a pompous and antagonistic guy who's miles away from the comparatively mellow anti-hero the main-timeline Loki grows into — which makes it all the more delightful to see his growing frustration when the ultra-bureaucratic Time Variance Authority immediately captures him.
By the end of "Loki" Episode 1, the usually dangerous trickster god has been knocked down a peg (or 12) thanks to Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson) and the revelation about the inevitable fate of Loki's "true" self in the Sacred Timeline. There's also the minor fact that the TVA considers him an escaped timeline variant and wants to terminate his existence. Fortunately for Loki, Mobius extends a lifeline and offers him a chance to help the agency take down another rogue Loki.
"Loki" Episode 2 lets the God of Mischief out in the field, complete with a snazzy, "CSI"-style jacket. While Loki is definitely not a team player at this point in the series, he turns out to be a pretty effective detective, and is able to figure out that the Loki they're chasing is hiding in various apocalyptic scenarios. (Variants don't emit any variant energy in these events, thus allowing them to hop through time undetected.) This leads to a TVA mission in a suitably disconcerting setting — and a very cool and well-hidden Easter egg that fans are bound to appreciate.
Here's the sneaky Thor reference in "Loki" Episode 2 that slipped right past you.
That Roxxcart mall has some very familiar-sounding brands
The finale of "Loki" Episode 2 takes the TVA team to an apocalyptic Roxxcart big-box store, and the appropriately creepy location provides plenty of opportunities for low-key nastiness and grand reveals. However, there's also room for the occasional Easter egg.
The "Loki" trailer already revealed that the store itself is an allusion to the shady Marvel mega-corp Roxxon. But one of the store's aisles has an even cooler reference, in the form of a prominent — yet easily missed — light box sign, which advertises a line of products called "Arm & Hammer."
This is obviously a sneaky allusion to Loki's half-brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the God of Thunder who has wielded the mighty Mjolnir hammer against the trickster on more than one occasion. As a particularly nice touch, Loki's in the middle of some dialogue and just so happens to speak the word "clever" as he walks past the sign. You'd almost think that's a complete coincidence — almost.
Another reference to Thor appears earlier in the episode, when Loki is looking through paperwork detailing the events of the Ragnarok event on Asgard. Look carefully at the file that appears when Loki realizes variants in apocalyptic events don't give off variance energy, and you'll see a line that reads, "Codename: REVENGERS." The Revengers are an actual group of superheroes in the Marvel comics, but in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor, Loki, Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi), and Miek call themselves the Revengers when they're evading the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) in "Thor: Ragnarok."
New episodes of "Loki" are available for streaming on Disney+ every Wednesday.