When Loki premiered back in June of this year, many fans were thrilled. While the Marvel Cinematic Universe had been teasing the multiverse since Doctor Strange, it didn't delve into the concept much until the Disney+ show came along. With the introduction of the Time Variance Authority, viewers learned what the multiverse was and the effect it might have on the MCU. The six-episode season also left a lot of questions in its wake. One of those questions, which had been posed very early on, came at the expense of one fan-favorite character.
In Loki’s first episode, “Glorious Purpose,” the God of Mischief was taken in by the TVA for his crimes against the “Sacred Timeline.” As it turns out, when Loki took the Tesseract and ran off with it in Avengers: Endgame, it created a nexus event, a moment in the timeline that diverged from its intended path and into an alternate branched reality.
This reality, along with many others like it, had been “pruned” as a means of ensuring the Sacred Timeline remained intact. Loki was put on trial and as he was being led to the courtroom, viewers got a glimpse of a familiar sight in the background: a woman in a blue dress who looked a bit like Agent Peggy Carter was being led away by a guard.
A lot of Loki’s fans have concluded that this was, in fact, Peggy, although it has neither been confirmed nor denied by the show’s creators. If this is the character, though, it does leave a few questions about why she was there. Of course, due to it being more of an Easter egg than anything else, there isn’t much of an answer to go on. However, there are plenty of theories.
One of the more popular theories on that front is that this variant of Peggy Carter is the one that danced with Steve Rogers at the end of Endgame. And while this could be a possible nexus event, the suggestion doesn’t quite add up. For one, the dress she is wearing in Loki is not the maroon color it was at the end of that film. While this is a minor point that could be explained away, other factors, such as Steve staying almost an entire lifetime supposedly to be with her, make it even harder to believe.
In truth, her nexus event could have been at any point in time. As Loki’s final few episodes had proven, there is a multitude of ways for one to occur. As such, the version of Peggy shown may have been just one of many variants of the character. This could range from her What If…? scenario, where she took the serum instead of Steve, to anywhere in the timeline of Agent Carter. It could even be a point in time that viewers haven’t seen yet.
Of course, if the variant has a connection to any point in the timeline, Agent Carter would, unfortunately, be the most likely candidate. This could especially be the case with the final season, which dealt with Zero Matter, an unstable type of energy that came from another dimension. There is certainly a chance that the character’s involvement with the element could have somehow created a nexus event. Furthermore, with the show’s acknowledgment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe only consisting of a cameo from James D'Arcy's Edwin Jarvis, it is hard to tell if any of the show fits the TVA’s definition of canonicity. If not, then chances are that some or all events from Agent Carter could have been pruned out of existence.
If this is the case, it would be a devastating blow to Agent Carter fans, as such an act would negate its place in the main MCU timeline. It would also mean that shows like Agents of SHIELD, which share plenty of close connections with Agent Carter, are also at risk of being wiped from the timeline. While this is an unsettling thought, there is a strong likelihood its erasure was undone after the events of Loki's season finale, and that at least softens its impact.