Loki writer teases Thunder Frog deleted scene, alternate ending for Episode 5

The setup of Marvel's Disney+ series Loki is one that lends itself to all kinds of intriguing Easter eggs, alternate paths, and connections to potential other worlds within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, this is a show in which the title character has been introduced as a "variant" of his true self, and thus encountered various other alternate versions of his past, present, and future along the way. That seemed to reach its apex in this week's episode, "Journey Into Mystery," but as strange as the episode was, it almost got even stranger.

Eric Martin, a writer and producer on Loki who scripted the show's fourth episode, "The Nexus Event," and served as a co-producer on "Journey Into Mystery," added some key insights into the episode and its development this week in the form of a Twitter thread delivered as he watched along with the episode on Wednesday. The Easter egg-packed episode saw our main Loki (Tom Hiddleston) teaming up with a group of variants of himself, including everyone from a far future version of the God of Mischief (Richard E. Grant) to a Loki who also happens to be an alligator (or maybe he's just been playing the long con this whole time, which would be very Loki of him even if he's not a Loki).

Among the well-hidden Easter eggs: A version of Thor as the Frog of Thunder in a jar, which Martin noted was actually part of a larger Loki gag at one point.

"Comic fans will notice the Frog of Thunder in that jar. We actually shot a scene for the Time Theater in Ep 1 of Loki getting pummeled by Frog Thor, but had to cut it to keep things moving," Martin wrote. "It’s too bad, because Tom was funny as hell."

Things get even more interesting when you reach Martin's commentary on the episode's ending, which featured Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) working together to enchant a giant cloud monster known as Alioth. According to Martin, the idea of Loki and Sylvie joining hands to enchant the beast together was co-executive producer Kevin Wright's, and arrived fairly late in the process, but there was also an alternate version of the ending. At one point, the plan was to have all of the variants Loki met in the Void return for battle out of pure arrogance.

"There was a hilarious version of the Alioth confrontation that Tom Kaufman wrote where all the Variant Loki's [sic] showed up to also confront Alioth because they couldn't let our Loki outshine them," Martin said.

While watching Loki and Sylvie's bond grow stronger at the end of the episode was certainly a joyous thing to watch, and sets up a must-see finale next week, we have to admit that seeing a full-on Loki team-up fight would've also been a fantastic way to close out one of the show's best episodes.

Loki returns Wednesday on Disney+ for the Season 1 finale.