The MCU Just Introduced Its 2nd Biggest Ever Time Skip (& It Meant Nothing)

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Loki season 2.
Summary

Loki's season 2 finale features a centuries-long time skip, allowing the God of Mischief to attempt to stop the explosion of the Temporal Loom.
While the time jump in Loki may seem significant, it ultimately has no impact on the wider MCU timeline.
The time jump in Eternals, which spans roughly 7000 years, surpasses the time jump in Loki in terms of magnitude and significance.

Marvel Studios' Multiverse Saga has explored millennia of the MCU, with Loki season 2's finale spanning several centuries, marking the second-biggest time-jump in the MCU's history. Loki season 2, episode 6, "Glorious Purpose," released on November 9, 2023, concluding Tom Hiddleston's journey as the God of Mischief. Hiddleston debuted as Loki in 2011's Thor, and has since portrayed several different variants of the character, and embarked on two redemption arcs, with the most recent seeing him end up as perhaps the most powerful cosmic figure in the MCU. Prior to this, however, Loki gained a new ability that allowed Loki season 2's finale to span an incredible amount of time.
Loki season 2's finale saw the titular God of Mischief control his time-slipping ability, allowing him to journey back to before the explosion of the Temporal Loom in an attempt to stop the explosion and increase the throughput. Initially, it took several attempts for Loki to give Jonathan Majors' Victor Timely enough time to make it down the gangway, yet all of these ultimately failed as too much time was wasted on Timely and Ke Huy Quan's Ouroboros working on the Throughput Multiplier. Loki determines that he himself would need to learn everything Ouroboros knows to save enough time, which leads to the second-longest time-jump in the MCU's history.
Loki Season 2's Centuries-Long Time Skip Is Second Only To The Eternals Close While Loki was learning everything there is to know about the TVA, the Temporal Loom, and general engineering, all the viewers saw was a title card noting that centuries had passed. This "Centuries Later" moment proves that Loki was truly dedicated to saving the TVA and protecting the multiverse, and though it may seem that the MCU took a huge jump forward, the events of Loki primarily happened outside the normal constraints of space and time, meaning this time-jump had no bearing on the wider MCU. While this skip forward was massive, it was still nothing in comparison to the MCU's biggest time-jump, which was featured during Phase 4's Eternals.
2021's Eternals introduced the new titular team to the MCU, who were revealed to be synthetic beings created by the Celestials to ensure the Earth's population grew over millennia. As synthetic beings, the Eternals don't age, which allowed the Phase 4 film to feature the MCU's biggest time-jump while keeping the same cast of characters. The Eternals came to Earth around 5000 BCE, meeting a human tribe in Mesopotamia, but the film quickly took a huge time-jump into the MCU's present day, marking a skip of roughly 7000 years. Eternals did feature action in different time periods during this time-jump, but Loki season 2's "Centuries Later" still pales in comparison.
The MCU's original Eternals team comprised Salma Hayek's Ajak, Gemma Chan's Sersi, Richard Madden's Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo, Lia McHugh's Sprite, Brian Tyree Henry's Phastos, Angelina Jolie's Thena, Lauren Ridloff's Makkari, Don Lee's Gilgamesh, and Barry Keoghan's Druig, though Harry Styles was also introduced as the Eternal Eros.
Why Loki Season 2's Time Skip Meant Basically Nothing

Usually, a lot changes during the MCU's time-jumps, most notably with the Eternals' 7000-year leap forward, and with the five-year time-jump in Avengers: Endgame. However, this wasn't the case for Loki season 2, as despite jumping forward centuries, Loki ended up in exactly the same place and time thanks to his time-slipping. The only notable difference was that he had acquired new knowledge. This time-jump solidifies the fact that Loki exhausted every possible route to fixing the Temporal Loom, and informed his eventual decision to sacrifice his own life to protect his friends, but the time-jump in Loki season 2's finale doesn't actually change the MCU's timeline at all.
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