Before You See Deadpool & Wolverine, A Few Things To Know About TV's Loki (And Gossip Girl)

The Merc With a Mouth is back in theaters this weekend, this time (finally) teaming up with an X-Man who gives manicurists the willies.

The good news is that if you have not kept 100% up to speed on the Marvel Studio-produced, "It's all (truly) connected" TV series that have been pretty steadily rolling out on Disney+ since January 2021, Deadpool & Wolverine doesn't lean hard on many references.

There are, though, a few things it might help to know when marching into the Cineplex, about Loki Season 1... and a certain CW sudser.

No Deadpool & Wolverine spoilers follow, not to worry....

Per the official, sanitized synopsis, with Deadpool & Wolverine, "Marvel Studios presents their most significant mistake to date," in which "a listless Wade Wilson (played again by Ryan Reynolds) toils away in civilian life, his days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. When his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctantlier... reluctanter? Reluctantest? He must convince a reluctant Wolverine (the X-Men films' Hugh Jackman) to — F–k. Synopses are so f–king stupid."

OK, maybe the synopsis wasn't that sanitized.

The non-spoiler cast also includes Deadpool film vets Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams and Karan Soni, plus The Crown's Emma Corrin (as the film's Big Bad) and Succession's Matthew Macfadyen (as TVA agent Paradox).

The Time Variance Authority was a primary setting for Seasons 1 and 2 of Disney+'s Loki seres starring MCU vet Tom Hiddleston. Based out of a retro HQ that exists out of time, the TVA was famously tasked with protecting the Sacred Timeline. TVA agents use Time Stick batons to "prune" from any timeline any out-of-place "variant" that threatens to derail the Sacred Timeline. Owen Wilson played Loki TVA agent Mobius, while Lovecraft Country's Wunmi Mosaku played Hunter B-15.

Whomever gets zapped by a Time Stick is not destroyed, as the harrowing CGI effect may suggest, but instead transported to The Void, a desolate realm situated at the End of Time where "every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops," we were told.

Introduced in Loki Season 1, Episode 5, Alioth (rhymes with "Goliath") is a storm cloud-like, trans-temporal entity that patrols the Void and literally feeds on Variants who land there.

The original Gossip Girl that aired on The CW from September 2007 to December 2012 starred Leighton Meester, Penn Badgely, Chace Crawford, Ed Westwick, Taylor Momsen and... Blake Lively, as in Deadpool front man Ryan Reynolds' real-life wife. As a TVLine reader, you probably knew that, but in case you didn't, it will help you fully appreciate one of Wade's (many) boner jokes, made early on in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Now, go see D&W and then come back to weigh in with your grade!