‘Loki’ Season 2: What Was the Device Sylvie Was Holding?

One of the things that we saw in episode 2 of ‘Loki’ season 2 was the fact that Loki and Sylvie were now reunited as Loki and Mobius had to play good cop, bad cop on X-5 (now Brad Wolfe) to learn about whether or not he was able to find Sylvie. Of course, things got a bit messy with General Dox and her loyalists as Loki and Sylvie worked together to stop them. But that didn’t stop Sylvie from returning to her newfound home, where she was seen holding a mysterious device at the end of the episode. So, what was the device Sylvie was holding?

Was Sylvie holding He Who Remains’ Tempad?

Episode 2 of ‘Loki’ season 2 focused more on the events surrounding Loki and Mobius and their efforts to make X-5, now known as the Hollywood actor Brad Wolfe, admit that he knew where Sylvie was. In episode 1, Dox sent him on a special mission to find Sylvie. As such, Loki and Mobius knew he had found Sylvie before abandoning his post to become an actor.

After a creative good cop, bad cop strategy that Loki and Mobius used on Brad, they discovered that Sylvie had been staying in a different timeline that branched off from the Sacred Timeline. In this timeline, she used her hard-earned freedom to live according to her own terms. And she started fresh and simple by working in a McDonald’s chain.

Loki tried to convince Sylvie to help him out because he saw that she returned to the TVA when he was transported into the future due to his time-skipping problems. However, Sylvie didn’t want to help Loki and the TVA out because she wanted to stay free and live the life that she wanted. But things changed when Brad squealed that Dox had planted bombs throughout the different branches to try to prune all of them, including the one where Sylvie was living.

To that end, Sylvie had no choice but to help Loki and Mobius stop Dox. Despite that, Dox succeeded in destroying multiple timelines as the people over at the TVA were saddened about the deaths of countless people all over the multiverse. Sylvie was sad, but she realized that the TVA was defenseless against the upcoming problem that He Who Remains discussed. That was why she returned to her new home, which survived Dox’s pruning.

While she was lying on the hood of her pickup truck after her shift, Sylvie had a short conversation with one of her co-workers as she asked him if his mother would be picking him up. Shortly after that, she was seen holding on to a mysterious device that some fans aren’t quite familiar with.

However, Sylvie was holding on to the special Tempad that He Who Remains had during the events of season 1. This special Tempad was not only a Tempad but was also a Time Twister, which allowed him to teleport at will. As far as the TVA is concerned, this is the strongest device in the ‘Loki’ storyline as it combines the ability to move across the multiverse and teleport at will.

Let’s not forget that Sylvie killed He Who Remains at the end of season 1 so that she could become free. Because she did indeed kill the Kang variant governing the TVA in secret, Sylvie also acquired the Tempad that He Who Remains had on his wrist. 

What does Sylvie have in store for the Tempad?

Of course, at this point, it became clear that Sylvie was happy to live out her life in Oklahoma while living a rather simple life under the employment of Ronald McDonald. This wasn’t something that people thought Sylvie wanted, but it was clear that she simply wanted to be free instead of living a life of luxury or power. But why does she have the Tempad of He Who Remains if that’s the case?

It would have been a waste if she had just left this special Tempad. After all, this device’s power would have allowed her to do what she wanted. Nevertheless, despite having such a powerful device, she still decided to live a simple life in Oklahoma. This would mean she wasn’t about to use the Tempad for her own good but was saving it for something important. 

Seeing Loki and Mobius allowed Sylvie to understand that she didn’t fix things by killing He Who Remains. She realized that she may have made things worse and that something threatening was coming for them. But she wasn’t about to give up her freedom and the life that she earned because she was happy with the simple life that she was living. Still, she kept the Tempad because it was likely a part of her backup plan in case things went south.

Director Dan Deleeuw explains to GamesRadar:

“She’s still a Loki. If she’s got the keys to the universe, the keys to the multiverse, she’s not gonna give that up. I think she truly was happy on the timeline; I don’t know how much manipulation has been going on behind the scenes, but… yeah… I think she always suspected this might come back, and I think that ties in with a lot of the reaction to Loki in the McDonald’s as well. She knew she was on borrowed time, I think, and kept it because she knew, eventually, Loki would show, or some other Loki would show up, some other variant of He Who Remains or something like that, that she’d have to ultimately deal with.”

That means there’s a good reason to believe that she kept this device to deal with the problem she caused. As the director said, Sylvie was still a Loki because she was still quite selfish yet capable of redemption. We already saw Loki having his moment of redemption in season 1. So, if that’s the case, season 2 might allow us to see Sylvie redeeming herself by using this device to fix her mess.

Given that this Tempad is much more powerful than the regular Tempad that the TVA uses, Sylvie likely kept it so that she could easily deal with the Kang problem that would arise at one point in the future. In short, she might go for a big multiversal killing spree to try to fix her mistake. 

Then again, we don’t know what’s going on in Sylvie’s mind and whether she wants to redeem herself. And that’s why we have to wait to see what Sylvie has in store for this device and why she never told Loki and the TVA about it.

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