Loki Season 2 Episode 5 - The 'Real' Life Of Every TVA Employee Explained

Contains spoilers for "Loki" Season 2, Episode 5 — "Science/Fiction" 

If you've ever wondered just how the variants staffing the Time Variance Authority used to live before He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) brought them into the Sacred Timeline maintenance business, "Loki" Season 2, Episode 5 has great news. Though the Temporal Loom's explosion is threatening the very fabric of reality, Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) time-hopping trait means he's able to track down everyone who was present during the incident and eventually form a plan to save the day (and the multiverse with it). 

There are a few hurdles on the way, though. Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) are the only ones who retain their memories of the explosion, and the latter isn't particularly thrilled by the idea of another TVA rescue mission. The TVA personnel who were present at the scene, meanwhile, have been thrown back into their original lives and have no memory of either the agency or Loki. This poses a problem for the trickster god, who has to convince them all to return to the fold. However, it also offers an interesting glimpse into the personal history of several prominent "Loki" characters. 

In all fairness, the versions of Mobius M. Mobius (Luke Wilson), Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku), Casey (Eugene Cordero), and Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) we see on "Science/Fiction" are quite likely variants, at least by the time they meet and decide to assist Loki. Still, the episode does give a rough idea of what all four used to be up to in their civilian lives ... and some of their stories, it turns out, are extremely surprising.

Out of all the TVA agents we've seen, Mobius M. Mobius' civilian history has been teased by far the most. The character's obsession with jet skis and reluctance to research his original life have been sources of intrigue almost since the show started, and "Science/Fiction" finally sheds light on both. 

As it turns out, Mobius doesn't own just one jet ski. He owns two and also sells the things for a living. A single father of two whose real name is Don, this version of Mobius is clearly a bit exasperated with his ordinary life and is greatly intrigued by the revelation of his real identity — well, as Loki sees it, anyway. However, he's also more than willing to turn it down because it would mean leaving his sons behind.

Mobius being a hard-working single dad fits the character like a glove and explains a lot about his mentality. Even as a memory-wiped TVA agent who's served for who knows how long, he radiates sarcastic, mildly frustrated dad energy. Even his default mode of treating TVA prisoners like Loki and Brad (Rafael Casal) resembles a patient but disappointed father dealing with unruly children. His unwillingness to investigate his background makes sense now, too. Deep down, he might subconsciously be aware that he has left his children behind ... just like Don explicitly tells Loki he would.

None of the rebooted TVA agents have a more surprising backstory than the mild-mannered receptionist, Casey. Loki encounters him in the middle of a three-man escape from the infamous Alcatraz prison. This and the fact that his name is Frank strongly imply that his true identity is Frank Morris, a famous bank robber who took part in the only successful escape from Alcatraz in 1962 and was never seen again. 

Casey being secretly one of the most infamous convicts in history is perhaps the episode's best example that the TVA employees may have led dramatically different lives in their own timelines. This isn't the first time "Loki" drops an Easter egg about a famous real-life disappearance, however. The very first episode of Season 1 reveals that Loki himself was the famous airplane hijacker D.B. Cooper. The season also reveals that not only does the USS Eldridge — the ship the U.S. Navy used for the alleged 1943 Philadelphia Experiment — exist in the MCU, but the poor ship actually teleports into the Void to serve as a handy snack for the all-consuming Alioth.

Hunter B-15 goes through quite an arc over the first two seasons of "Loki." She starts out as a capable and professional TVA Hunter, but when presented with new information, she's quick to absorb it and adjusts accordingly. When she finds out that everyone in the TVA is a time-displaced variant, she shifts gears entirely and starts protecting timeline branches instead of culling them. In other words, she may seem like a cop or a soldier, but her mindset seems to be that of a scientist, and she does only what she genuinely believes is for the best. 

This character trait receives a perfect explanation in "Science/Fiction" when Loki finds out that B-15's true identity is Dr. Willis, a pediatrician who seems to be very good with her young patients. The fact that the character turns out to be a doctor fits perfectly with her professionalism about keeping the Sacred Timeline healthy — as well as her utter distress and instant allegiance shift after she finds out the TVA's true nature. After all, even if she doesn't remember taking her Hippocratic oath, destroying entire timelines must strike a nerve for someone with a medical professional's mindset.

Of all the people Loki meets in their original lives, Ouroboros is the most unchanged. A scientist who aspires to be a sci-fi writer, he's essentially the same guy as he is in the TVA ... only, his civilian version is known as Dr. A.D. Doug. He's extremely quick to believe Loki's story about the TVA and time-hopping and even implies that he's written about similar things in his unsuccessful novel. When Loki creates a bit of a paradox by giving Dr. Doug a copy of his Ouroboros self's TVA Guidebook, Doug immediately starts building a TemPad, and even his lab space has a very TVA-style aesthetic. 

The big twist to his original life, however, lies elsewhere. Ouroboros' real name may or may not be a play on Arthur Douglas, a character from Marvel Comics who becomes a victim of Thanos. Unfortunately for the Mad Titan, this bites him back pretty badly when Thanos' father and grandfather, Mentor and Kronos, use Douglas' essence to create a powerful entity to defeat Thanos. Said entity's name? Drax the Destroyer. 

The MCU version of Drax (Dave Bautista) has a more conventional backstory as an alien whose family Thanos killed, so it's unlikely that the two characters end up being connected. Still, Marvel rarely does things by accident, so the similarity of the two characters' names may, at the very least, be a subtle nod to the sidelined Arthur Douglas character. Even if it isn't, the mental image of Ke Huy Quan and Bautista effectively playing the same character is certainly a fun one.