Warning: This article contains spoilers for Loki season 2 episode 5. Make sure you’re up to date on the Marvel Phase 5 show before reading on.
The latest episode of Loki flies through multiple timelines as we finally find out the backstories of our favorite TVA variants. Among those explored is Hunter B-15’s other life as a doctor, which features a cheeky nod to a very interesting date on the Marvel timeline.
When Loki timeslips to her location, the date on the screen reads: "2012, New York, New York". We don’t know about you, but our first thought was we were about to see some of the fallout of the Battle of New York in The Avengers. A quick refresh: this is when Loki (under Thanos' influence) unleashed a Chitauri invasion on Manhattan as part of his plan to subjugate Earth.
The set-up for the scene seemed to be pointing that way especially B-15 starts helping a girl who has broken her arm. In reality, though, it seems the writers were just trolling us. We’re not dealing with a Loki-related injury here, but just a young girl who fell out of a tree.
In fact, it’s not actually clear if this branched timeline even had its own Battle of New York to start with. Given that we B-15 doesn’t seem to recognize Loki, we’d hazard a guess that it doesn’t. That doesn’t stop it from being a great little Easter egg though.
It’s not the only reference in episode 5 either, which also features a true crime nod in Casey’s backstory and a Zaniac Easter egg in the post-credits. That’s not all either, there is also a clue seemingly hidden in OB’s sticky notes too.
