The Disney+ post-credits scene of Loki Season 2, Episode 1 teased what comes next for Sylvie at McDonald's, and a Marvel Studios producer has already explained the meaning behind the scene.
The trailers for Loki Season 2 teased a story filled with plenty of time travel and Multiversal chaos, even involving the Avengers' next villain Kang. But one of the more confusing inclusions comes in a trip to a 20th-century McDonald's.
Fans knew since production that Season 2 would take a trip to the fast-food chain as set photos revealed Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie wearing a McDonald's uniform, along with shots of Tom Hiddleston's Loki sitting in the restaurant.
Loki Season 2's Premiere Post-Credits Scene Explained
Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Loki Season 2, Episode 1.
The Season 2 premiere of Loki brought a post-credits scene to reveal the fate of Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie after she was last seen at the end of time, having just killed He Who Remains and opened the doors to the Multiverse.
In the same clothes she was last seen wearing in Season 2, Sylvie exited one of the TVA's TemPad portals onto a grain field where she was confirmed to be in 1982 in Broxton, Oklahoma, notably on a branched timeline.
The Oklahoma town has major ties to the Asgardian mythos in Marvel Comics, as Thor once recreated the capital city of Asgard on a patch of land just outside Broxton, and later turned it into a floating island to defend it from attack.
Broxton has also been featured once before in an MCU series, as Agent Carter villain Whitney Frost was born in the town in 1911, and it was even briefly featured in flashbacks to her younger years.
After exploring, Sylvie came across and entered a classic McDonald's where she simply asked an employee, "How do I do this?" The worker, whose badge labels him as "Jack," asked for her order in response.
Sylvie retorted with a hilarious response, asking for "Not squirrel, not opossum, not rats. Something that's already dead. And nothing with a face, please.
Jack then offered her to "try our new Chicken McNuggets, and we have a Big Mac..." At the time of the scene, McDonald's famous nuggets actually shouldn't yet be on the menu, having debuted one year later in 1981.
The Goddess of Mischief simply turned around in awe of where she was, exhibiting a look of tragic happiness as she declared, "I wanna try everything." This moment has already been explained by producer Kevin Wright in a previous interview with Fast Company.
The producer told how, as someone who has been "running through time" since her childhood, the novelty of a classic McDonald's "looked appealing:"
“When we stayed in the view of character, this woman who went on the run as a child, had been running through time, a fugitive of time, living in apocalypses, never being able to relax or slow down, the novelty of walking into a 1980s McDonald’s looked appealing.”
He added that as Sylvie never got to experience the ordinary novelties of childhood, much of which will often involve McDonald's for many, someone like her "would be really taken by that:"
"You play a Little League game and go to McDonald’s. You go to a kid’s birthday party at McDonald’s. Someone like Sylvie would never have experienced that, and would be really taken by that.”
McDonald's has been heavily baked into the marketing for Loki Season 2, and Wright has been clearly these partnerships came about after the fast food chain was written into the script, not the other way around.
The producer added that he was "worried" McDonald's would assume its role in the series would come as a joke, but was clear the goal was "selling an earnest story" about someone "who will see all of the novelty and joy of it:"
"I was worried that McDonald’s would think we wanted to do something ironic or make fun of them. But we were selling an earnest story, a love letter to nostalgia through a character’s eyes who will see all of the novelty and joy of it.”
But after pitching the idea to Marvel's partnerships team, Wright explained he was told they already work with McDonald's, and so, approaching them with this "makes it even better:"
“When I pitched it, our internal team said, ’Uh, you realize we have a partnership with McDonald’s already, right? The fact we’re going to them wanting to do something makes it even better.”
What Comes Next for Sylvie at McDonald's?
Based on the trailers for Loki Season 2, fans will already know well that Sylvie will find herself working for McDonald's, which will seemingly serve as the place of her reunion with Tom Hiddleston's God of Mischief.
With Sylvie now having found herself at that McDonald's ahead of her employment, one would expect those scenes, including the reunion of Loki with his female Variant, to come in the next's second episode.
It's certainly intriguing how Sylvie has found herself specifically on a branched timeline going into Season 2, especially as that only became possible after she killed He Who Remains, opening the doors for new branches to form.
Having completed her mission of killing the man behind the TVA, He Who Remains, Sylvie appears to have no aspirations of getting involved in any more shenanigans but rather is seeking the normal life she could never have.
Granted, that will undoubtedly go out the window sooner rather than later, as the trailers have revealed that, as expected, she will eventually be back in action and using her powerful magical abilities again.
One also has to wonder how long it will be before the controversial romance - dubbed "selfcest" by some fans - between Loki and Sylvie surges once again after last season concluded with an emotional kiss between the pair of Variants.
The first episode of Loki Season 2 is streaming now on Disney+.
