It sees Loki informing Mobius and Hunter B-15 about the existence of He Who Remains and his variants, while working with those two and Ouroboros to stop his time slipping.

Tom Hiddleston reprises his role as Loki from the film series, starring alongside Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku (Hunter B-15), Eugene Cordero, Neil Ellice, and Owen Wilson (Mobius) reprising their roles from the first season, alongside Rafael Casal, Kate Dickie, Liz Carr, and Ke Huy Quan (Ouroboros).

The episode received mostly positive reviews with praise for its visuals, direction, production design, the character of Ouroboros, and the performances of the cast (particularly Hiddleston, Wilson, and Quan).

Ouroboros deduces that Loki is "time slipping", suggesting that it is caused by the timeline branches dangerously overloading the TVA's Temporal Loom.

In the present, Ouroboros starts sealing off the Temporal Loom to protect the TVA, despite Mobius' protests to wait for Loki.

Mobius successfully pulls Loki from the time stream, and the two tumble back into safety from the Temporal Loom, which becomes sealed off.

Development on a second season of Loki had begun by November 2020,[1] which was confirmed through a mid-credits scene in the first-season finale, which was released in July 2021.

[11][12] The creatives used the episode to introduce many "timey-wimey" concepts for the season, trying to keep them simple to understand, while still leaving some intrigue for elements that would be paid off later in the season, specifically Loki seeing Sylvie in the future; Wright specifically praised directors Benson and Moorhead for helping to "[straddle] the line between intrigue and confusion" within the episode.

Wright called it "intentionally a bit abstract" and while it would become a larger storyline for the season, noted it brought up "interesting questions" as to who did or did not have their memory wiped at the TVA.

[19] Filming took place at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom,[20] with Benson and Moorhead directing,[4] and Isaac Bauman serving as cinematographer.

[23] Visual effects for the episode were created by Framestore, Trixter, FuseFX, Cantina Creative, Industrial Light & Magic, and Lola VFX.

Club's William Hughes gave a "A−" rating for the episode, describing that the show is "still one of the most vibrant, fast-paced, and occasionally over-stuffed corners of the Marvel Cinematic Universe", with an outstanding scene between Mobius, Loki, and Ouroboros.

He praised the episode for being "briskly paced [and] skillfully shot", leaning into the show eccentricity and retro-futurism, and incorporating exposition in novel ways.

Ruiz criticized the episode for its excessive exposition but praised acting performances, camerawork and continuation of the show's distinctive production design.