Caution: spoilers ahead for Loki episode 4.
Loki has confirmed suspicions many viewers might've held regarding the mysterious Time-Keepers... but proves more than a few theories wrong too. When the TVA abducted Tom Hiddleston's God of Mischief, it was explained to him that everything was controlled by three mythical Time-Keepers, who long ago consolidated the universe's conflicting timelines into one manageable Sacred Timeline, thus avoiding the total annihilation of reality. Needless to say, Loki didn't buy it. From their cult-like influence to the fact that hardly anyone sees them, something didn't add up about the Time-Keepers.
In episode 4, Loki drops a major Time-Keeper reveal when the trickster and his Lady counterpart are taken to meet the Time-Keepers for the very first time. Following a tough scuffle, Sylvie tosses her sword at the central Time-Keeper's head, slicing it off at the neck. When the liberated noggin rolls to their feet, however, Loki and Sylvie discover that the Time-Keepers are merely androids, with their true puppeteer yet to be unmasked.
Firstly, this revelation confirms a bunch of different theories viewers had about the TVA's sacred trio of space lizards. Though the odds were certainly short, anyone who put money on the Time-Keepers not existing looks to be due a payout. Whoever does rule the TVA, it's not the three mystic beings Miss Minutes told us about, with the entire "Time-Keeper" concept seemingly a ruse designed to instill compliance in the TVA's variants-turned-employees. Many also correctly guessed that Richard E. Grant would be portraying an older version of Loki. This inspired piece of casting is confirmed by episode 4's post-credits scene, in which Grant is dressed as 1960s comic Loki.
However, many more theories can now be put to bed. While plenty guessed Grant would play Old Loki, some theories claimed he would be the TVA's true leader. There's still time for that to happen, but based on Loki's episode 4 post-credit scene, the veteran God of Mischief is probably just another variant looking to strike back against the TVA, just like Sylvie and Tom Hiddleston. The possibility that Kang is behind the TVA deception is looking stronger, but a few fans suggested the "middle" Time-Keeper was actually the conqueror himself, as they shared a passing resemblance. "The Nexus Event" proves this categorically untrue, as all three figures are animatronic (even if Sylvie only beheads one of them).
Plenty of MCU theories have suggested different ways the Time-Keepers might've influenced past events in franchise canon, such as Wanda's twins being born, or the Avengers being allowed to time travel. Turns out the Time-Keepers influenced a whole lot of nothing, since they don't actually exist. Loki's real villain might have made alterations to the timeline, but this remains to be seen. Darker corners of online speculation went down the route of MCU characters who might've been Time-Keepers previously, such as Mephisto, Kang or Loki himself, and unless the temporal trio were once genuine living beings who eventually got replaced by robots (which seems unlikely), that isn't going to happen either.
Loki's episode 4 Time-Keeper twist also leaves a great many theories on shaky ground - but not quite debunked entirely. Since the Keepers themselves proved to be a fallacy, so too might the lore surrounding the Sacred Timeline and an ancient war. An entire MCU multiverse could currently exist, or be allowed to exist safely, and anyone who proposed such an idea after episode one can now take a bow. By the same token, any theories along the lines of "X could become a Nexus event" now seem highly improbable, because who's there to judge the correct course of time?
Throughout the Disney+ series, Loki fans have posited that Tom Hiddleston's character (and more recently Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie) could somehow be thrown back into the mainstream MCU sandpit when the story ends, skillfully evading Loki's Avengers: Endgame death. This looked unlikely with the Time-Keepers in play, but if the rules aren't all they're cracked up to be, why can't Loki and Sylvie be permitted to exist somewhere in time?
New Loki episodes stream every Wednesday on Disney+.
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