The ending of episode 5 of "Loki" was a big moment to close out the final episode of the series, and a spectacular one at that And with one episode still to go, the final moments of "Journey into Mystery" ended (understandably) with a big cliffhanger

Beyond that, there wasn't even a post-credits scene to tell us what would happen in Loki's finale What in the world happened? Spoilers for episode 5 of Loki ahead!

In the last part of Loki episode 5, Loki and Sylvie carried out a plan to get to the person who founded TVA The plan was to cast a spell on the extradimensional entity that consumes everyone in the void in hopes of finding a way to the mysterious and unknown ruler of the TVA

By the looks of things, their plan worked, and Sylvie and Loki joined forces to cast a spell on Arios, opening a door to a mysterious castle in an unknown location Well, a mysterious place, but MCU viewers may have seen it somewhere before:

The scene's colorful warp backdrop closely resembles the Quantum Realm, a micro universe that first appeared in the movie "Ant-Man" and was used as a makeshift time machine in "Avengers: Endgame" But the place is much darker than anything we have seen so far

The idea of a castle in the quantum realm seems far-fetched, but a castle already appeared in the background of a scene in "Ant-Man and the Wasp In other words, the micro universe is not only inhabited by things, but it is also capable of building complex structures and civilizations

The city in "Ant-Man and the Wasp" is obviously different from where Loki and Sylvie are headed But it does raise some questions about the TVA and the real people behind it

Ever since it was confirmed that the Quantum Realm acts as a conduit to other times and places, it has been speculated that the ruler of the city is Kung the Conqueror (the infamous time-traveling villain from Marvel Comics) As his name suggests, he has a habit of traveling to new eras and taking over

Speculation grew after Kang was confirmed to appear in "Ant-Man 3" and the first episode of Loki premiered last month Fans were quick to notice that one of the timekeepers was a Kang lookalike, sparking theories that he would secretly make his debut in "Loki"

The fact that Judge Lavona Lenslayer's comic counterpart was Kang's lover only added fuel to that particular fire

The theory that Kang was one of the timekeepers turned out to be bogus, but it is still speculated that Kang may have been working behind the scenes to prevent TVA from making any major deviations to the timeline that might affect his plans

To make it even more compelling, Kang also has a history with Arios in the comics, and the comic version of Arios is not, as Sylvie says, just a watchdog of the TVA rulers, but a conqueror in his own right

Toward the end of the series, it seems certain that Kang will have a role to play by the end of the new season of Loki The pieces are certainly falling into place, and they all seem to be headed toward Kang - no matter how many times Jonathan Majors as Kang denies it [As for the supposed Doctor Strange/White Vision cameo in the final scene of Wanda Vision, it's definitely more than just wishful thinking Let us hope that the true big bad of the series was not, in fact, simply Loki