WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Loki Episode 2, "The Variant," streaming now on Disney+.

Loki's Agent Mobius M. Mobius is effortlessly working his way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom's heart, although he's having a rougher time of it with his Variant charge. The Trickster God is too cynical to be won over by Mobius' gentle but firm demeanor, but he's also proved himself to be genuinely interested in what the Time Variance Authority analyst has to say. That growing mutual respect may lay the groundwork for the moment Mobius needs Loki's sympathy, because there's already some big clues that the TVA cares far less about Mobius' fate than he does about theirs.

In their original appearances in Marvel Comics, the TVA is just as bureaucratic as their television counterpart. Fantastic Four Annual #27, by Mark Gruenwald and Mike Gustovich, delved more into their timeless world, revealing that the bulk of the TVA's workforce were clones bred from a single genetic code. Though they did recruit the occasional standout, TVA officers were designed to be models of bland efficiency. Loki's TVA is similar in its generic bureaucracy, but so far, they don't appear to employ a world full of clones. There are multiple hints, however, that not all of the TVA's behavior has changed.

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Hunter U 92 is an agent alongside Mobius

The TVA's beleaguered evidence clerk, Casey, offers the darkly funny reveal that he's lived his entire life behind a desk with no concept of the outer world. Agent Mobius follows it up in "The Variant" with his dream of riding a jet ski, something he doesn't think he'll ever get to do. Mobius also explains to Loki the comfort he takes in his ordered world and his foreordained job with the TVA, a glorious purpose of his own. Even so, there's a thread of yearning to the discussion about his magazines that Loki expertly pulls on. In short, the TVA and its agents are all dull and bureaucratic, which seems fitting for an agency out of time. But an earlier scene puts a sinister twist on the organization.

When Judge Renslayer pulls Mobius in for a dressing-down over the botched 1985 job, it's a tense but friendly situation. Renslayer has a nice office, he notes, with statues, golden trim and a wall of trophies from some of the TVA's bigger cases. Mobius asks why he never gets to keep any trophies, and Renslayer humorlessly shuts him down. He also points out that there's a few he doesn't recognize, which she plays off as having other analysts on board. As they sit down, there's a shot on the water stains Mobius has been leaving behind that seems to deliberately draw the eye.

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Renslayer catches him in time to give him a coaster, and it seems like a familiar move. But the detail-orientated analyst acts like he's never noticed the stains before, and he places his drink out of the usual position. It's angled off, and the coaster prevents the old stains from turning into a fresh infinity symbol. As the camera lingers on the stains, it seems like a subtle way of telling the audience that Mobius is already off his charted course after a few days with Loki.

Loki and Mobius at the TVA in Loki Episode 1

Mobius' memory gaps in this scene hint at a dark possibility. The TVA is built on reliability and routine, and while an analyst is at their best when they have some imagination to work with, too much may make them unreliable in the eyes of their superiors. In fact, a TVA agent who begins veering off course may be as disposable as a branching timeline. As such, stray agents may get "pruned" and replaced with a fresh clone of themselves, in a grim retelling of their comic book origins. Any hints that they're stuck in their own loops would be kept from them, making it too risky to let a disposable figure keep unique trophies. If this is the case, Judge Renslayer could've seen Mobius "rebooted" any number of times.

It's a building tragedy that Mobius is so vocal about his loyalty to the TVA and his faith in the happy epilogue of time. He knows the TVA can be callous in its dealings with doomed timelines and imprisoned variants, but it hasn't yet struck him that that dispassion may also be turned inward. It seems likely that Agent Mobius will be faced with the hardest decision of his life before the end of Loki: either keep faith and stay with the cruel TVA, or join Loki, knowing full well that trusting the Trickster could be a grave mistake.

Loki stars Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wunmi Mosaku, Sophia Di Martino, Richard E. Grant, Sasha Lane and Eugene Cordero. New episodes air Wednesdays on Disney+.

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