REVIEW–Fans are still reeling from the Loki season two finale, speculating on what sort of implications it will have for the larger Marvel multiverse. However, many forget that Marvel has already filled in several of these gaps for us. Soon after Loki’s first appearance in Thor (2011), Marvel also released Midnight in Paris, starring Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson on yet another time travel adventure!

The movie actually showcases the life that Mobius (Wilson) had on the Sacred Timeline before he came to the TVA. In this film, Wilson is a writer named Gill, vacationing in Paris with his fiancé–and no doubt going jetskiing on the Seine! (Don the watercraft salesman, as featured on Loki, was clearly just a variant from another timeline.) However, when Gill suddenly starts time-slipping, he finds himself in the Roaring 1920s, interacting with some of the greatest creative minds of that time!

During Gill’s escapades, Loki (Hiddleston) appears to him in the guise of author F. Scott Fitzgerald. While Loki pretends to be discussing literature and culture with Gill, he’s actually been sent by the TVA to bring Gill in now that he’s veered off of the Sacred Timeline. Only later, when Gill is brought to the TVA and has his memory wiped of his former life, does he Don the name Mobius and fully become the character we see in Loki. Some may ask how it’s possible that Mobius recruited Loki to the TVA but Loki also recruited Mobius. The answer is that it’s a clear time paradox–like a snake eating its own tail!

Interestingly, Mobius isn’t the only character in this movie to have escaped from his place on the Sacred Timeline. M.O.D.O.K. is here too, posing as author Ernest Hemingway. Apparently, after being Kang’s minion and then dying in the ethereal quantum realm in Ant-Man 3, M.O.D.O.K. actually fell through the multiverse and ended up on this branched timeline! We also see a variant version of Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams)–the same one from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness–but in this movie she appears as Mobius’s love interest! Since Loki, Mobius, M.O.D.O.K., and Palmer have all had connections to Marvel’s multiverse, the casting of all these characters together was clearly intentional!

Even Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard) from The Dark Knight Rises is on this branched timeline too. The presence of a DC character shows what a truly chaotic, desolate, and frightening place the multiverse can be.

The cast of characters on this branched timeline actually explains a lot. For instance, if some of our most enduring American authors were actually supervillains in disguise, that explains why their books are so dark and depressing. I mean, can you imagine good ol’ Steve Rogers writing a tragic story that signifies the death of the American dream? No way! Heck, Edgar Allan Poe was probably a Thanos variant, as creepy and morbid as he was!

Go rewatch Midnight in Paris for some clues to the larger multiverse–and for more wacky time travel adventures in the mighty Marvel manner!