Here’s What the Thor: Love and Thunder End-Credits Scenes Mean for the Future of the MCU

The Marvel movie stingers used to set up the plot for the very next film in the franchise. The end-credits scene for Iron Man gave us our first glimpse at Thor’s hammer before the first Thor movie debuted. The stinger at the end of Captain America featured Nick Fury recruiting Steve Rogers into the Avengers team. Now, things are more vague in end-credits scenes. While they plant seeds, we don’t know if or when we’ll see them bloom.

Case in point: The final act of Thor: Love and Thunder introduces a new father-daughter superhero team. Thor adopts the child of Gorr the Godbutcher (Christian Bale), a guy who was trying to kill him literal minutes before he entrusted him with his daughter’s life. Sure. Thor lovingly makes the girl pancakes, and they head into battle together, as one does with their elementary school aged child. At the end of the film, text appeared onscreen promising that “Thor will return,” but we don’t know when and whether this warrior child will be in tow.

Even after the credits begin to roll we get further promise of future Thor adventures. A new villain is introduced and a possible spinoff is set up. But given that Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige said this year that the Marvel producers were going on a summer retreat to figure out the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it doesn’t feel as if any of these plotlines are set in stone.

Still, there are some fun building blocks in place if Thor 5 ever does get made or characters like Jane (Natalie Portman) get a spinoff. Here’s everything you need to know about the Thor: Love and Thunderend-credits scenes and what they could mean for the future of the MCU.

Read More: Breaking Down Every Single Marvel Post-Credits Scene

What happens in the mid-credits scene?

During the film, Thor got into a scuffle with a very pompous Zeus, the king of the Greek gods. Thor wanted Zeus and the other gods to help him fight Gorr the Godbutcher (Christian Bale), who—as you can perhaps guess from his name—poses a threat to all the gods. Zeus is uninterested in helping. Thor then kills Zeus using Zeus’ own thunderbolt, which (frankly) feels like a bit of an overreaction. Yes, Zeus had him handcuffed, but killing him?

Well, Zeus’ death doesn’t need to weigh on Thor’s conscious because it turns out that Zeus somehow survived. Nursing his lightning wound (again, an explanation on how he didn’t die would be helpful), Zeus bemoans the fact that mortals now worship superheroes instead of gods. “Now, they look to the sky, and they don’t ask us for lightning. They don’t ask us for rain. They just want to see one of their so-called superheroes,” he says. “When did we become the joke? No. No, they will fear us again.”

He then summons his son, Hercules, to help him. The camera then pans to….Roy Kent!

Okay, fine, not Roy Kent, but Brett Goldstein, the actor who plays Roy Kent in the beloved, Emmy-winning soccer dramedy Ted Lasso—an absurd and perfect casting choice. For those unfamiliar, Ted Lasso is a warm-hearted Apple TV+ show about an American football coach tasked with coaching a British soccer team. Goldstein plays Roy Kent, a soccer legend on the last legs of his career. He is supremely grumpy and droll in the most British way possible, a great foil to his ever-optimistic Midwestern coach Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis). As a a cantankerous, foul-mouthed, but begrudgingly warm-hearted Hercules, he would be a delight. So many actors are phoning it into these superhero movies now to get a payday that it would be kind of fun to get a character who seems actively annoyed at getting sucked into this universe.

(Apologies for spending much of this analysis on Ted Lasso, but if you were as underwhelmed by Thor: Love and Thunder as TIME’s critic, Stephanie Zacharek, may I recommend a certain soccer show as a comedic palette cleanser?)

What happens in the end-credits scene?

Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, who finally succumbed to cancer and died, arrives in Valhalla sporting a very obvious wig. I suppose the bouncy bob is supposed to signal to the audience that Jane is no longer ailing and also that ascending to heaven means automatic blowouts.

Jane is greeted by Heimdall (Idris Elba), who if you recall was killed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. (He was also criminally underutilized by this franchise considering he was played by Stringer Bell himself.)

Heimdall thanks Jane for helping to protect his son from the villainous Gorr. He explains that because Jane died a warrior’s death as Thor, she has been granted access to the godly afterlife. It looks very golden and idyllic.

There’s not much else to say about this one. But since I spent so much time in the last post-credits analysis hyping Ted Lasso, a property totally unrelated to this film, I really ought to mention that The Wire is an even better show than Ted Lasso, and Elba is excellent in it.

Read More: All the Cameos in Thor: Love and Thunder

What does it mean for the future of the MCU?

Could Hercules be the villain of the next Thor movies? Maybe. Will there be a fifth Thor movie? Most likely, given that “Thor will return” text. But we don’t know whether he’ll return in his own solo movie, in a Guardians of the Galaxy, or some other team-up extravaganza. Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi, for one, has said that he hasn’t thought about a future movie. So, yes, in theory Thor vs. Hercules could be a lot of fun. But also it’s been five years since the last Thor film, so don’t hold your breath.

There’s also not a lot of comics canon to support a big Hercules arc. Greek gods have always been relatively minor characters in the Marvel comics, so introducing an all-out war between the Norse and Greek gods would be new ground. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Gods fighting can be fun, as the popularity of the God of War video games has proven. And Brett Goldstein’s grumpy Roy Kent on Ted Lasso could be the perfect foil to Chris Hemsworth’s increasingly goofy, Golden Retriver puppy-esque Thor. (Goldstein and Waititi also sound like a fun comedic match, especially if they both contribute to the script. After all, they are contributing to some of the most beloved comedies on TV right now, between Ted Lasso and What We Do in the Shadows.)

And what of Jane Foster and Heimdall? The glimpse at Valhalla seems to be setting something significant up. We don’t know if Portman or Elba would star in a Disney+ TV show, but it’s likely they would return for a fifth Thor film. Thor does bring Jane Foster back from the dead in the comics, so Jane and even Heimdall returning to New Asgard is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.

Another option could be giving those two actors some sort of spinoff. But a movie solely focused on a perfect afterlife sounds boring. Unless, of course, Valhalla were attacked. Or we learned a bunch of other non-Norse god heroes had wound up there like Tony Stark. Now I’m just wildly speculating.

Read More: The Thor Comics Can Help Us Understand What Happens to Jane After Thor: Love and Thunder