Loki Season 2: Miss Minutes Is After More Than He Who Remains’ Return

This Loki article contains spoilers for season 2 episode 3

The Loki episode “1893” saw the return of the TVA’s mascot and everyone’s favorite sentient clock, Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong). Journeying with Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) to the past, Miss Minutes puts into motion a plan supposedly left by He Who Remains to ensure that one of his variants regained control of the TVA after his death. Though they are successful in inspiring this variant, Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), to pursue the life’s work of his predecessor, Miss Minutes betrays Ravonna and convinces Timely to leave her behind.

At first this betrayal seems like it may have been part of He Who Remains’ plan all along. Loki discovered that variants of Ravonna and Kang were once romantically involved in the season 2 premiere, so it’s possible that He Who Remains wanted to avoid the potential distraction for Timely. He could have tasked Miss Minutes with getting rid of Ravonna once her usefulness was up.

However, once Miss Minutes and Timely arrive at his workshop in Wisconsin, her true intentions are revealed. It turns out that getting rid of Ravonna likely wasn’t part of He Who Remains’ plan, but was instead inspired by Miss Minutes’ more romantic feelings for He Who Remains. He created her to be his companion, and gave her the autonomy to write her own code, but never let her take a form beyond the cartoon clock mascot of the TVA.

Miss Minutes reveals to Timely that she has always wanted to be more than a friend or confidant to He Who Remains. She wants to be a true partner to Kang as he once was with Ravonna, but needs a body to do so. With Ravonna seemingly out of the picture, she proposes that they lay low before returning to the TVA so that he can build her a proper body for… totally normal and not at all creepy reasons. 

But just how sentient has Miss Minutes truly become? In an interview with Marvel.com, Loki executive producer Kevin Wright talked about her relationship with He Who Remains, saying “Is her programming [written] to make that loyalty for him? Or, as she says, she was given the free will to write her own programming? Is this a naturally growing kind of emotion that she’s having? I just think that’s a cool space creatively to sit in. And of course, when she’s rejected, she’ll go off the rails. That’s fun, too, because she’s vindictive.”

And he’s right about Miss Minutes being vindictive. After Timely rejects her romantic advances as He Who Remains did, Miss Minutes turns on him and offers to tell Ravonna a secret about her past with him that will make her “real angry.” As much as she longs to feel the connection she once felt with He Who Remains, she also appears to be learning and developing motivations beyond her original coding and purpose. Her loyalty to He Who Remains seems to have been shaken by her own desires and needs.

Miss Minutes being horny for Kang variants was not on my Loki season 2 bingo card, but watching a sentient cartoon clock gain consciousness and decide to take revenge on a scorned lover will surely prove to be an interesting dynamic. If Miss Minutes tells Ravonna about her past relationship with He Who Remains and she also feels betrayed by how he once treated and likely discarded her, then we could see the two begrudgingly team up and try to take the TVA for themselves to spite him. With Ravonna and Miss Minutes currently stuck at the End of Time, they’ll have plenty of time to reconcile their differences and conspire to undo the plan they just set into motion.