I have many obsessions: sweet tea, books, “Dance Moms” and most importantly: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As of now, there are 27 movies and five Disney+ series. Not all of the movies were released in the timeline order, so Disney+ has a feature where fans can watch the movies in the specific order. The seventh movie in the timeline order: “Thor: The Dark World,” was released on Nov. 8, 2013. Spoiler alerts ahead:

Instead of fighting with the frost giants, Odin is now fighting with the dark elves. Now I have to admit this movie isn’t close to my favorite, but I do have to give it props for simply the fact that it is a crucial part of the timeline.

Anyway, a really long time ago Odin’s father fights with the dark elf named Malekith who wants to destroy everything using something called Aether which is actually the reality stone (there are 6 stones that are very important; the Tesseract holds the Space Stone). Odin’s father wins and puts the Aether in a place called Svartalfheim. Unfortunately, Malekith and some of his elves escape.

In the present day, Loki is in prison for his crime on Earth. Meanwhile Thor and his friends/warriors, Fandral, Volstagg and Sif, battle in a war to fix the Nine Realms after reconstructing the Bifrost or the Rainbow Bridge which allows them to travel between the realms. On Earth, Jane, Darcy Lewis and her intern Ian are in an abandoned factory when random objects start disappearing into the air. When Jane leaves the other two she is teleported to another world and becomes infected by Aether. 

Heimdall alerts Thor that Jane has disappeared, so he goes looking for her. It seems that something is wrong with her, and she releases some sort of power when the police try to arrest her. Thor takes her to Asgard, and although they don’t know how to heal her, Odin recognizes Aether and tells her that it will kill her. 

Malekith somehow knows that Aether was released and uses his dark elves to attack asgard. They look for Jane but they fail to capture her. Before they leave, they kill Frigga, Thor and Loki’s mother, in a fight. Odin orders Thor not to leave Asgard, but he does anyway. He teams up with Loki to use Jane to confront Malekith. 

On Svartalfheim, Loki, the god of mischief himself, tricks Malekith into pulling Aether out of Jane. Thor fails to destroy it so Malekith escapes while Loki lies wounded after protecting Thor from one of Malekith’s “lieutenants.” Thor and Jane discover a new portal which leads them to Erik Selvig, Darcy and Ian on Earth. They learn that Malekith is going to use Aether to destroy all of the Universe. Thor uses his friend’s science equipment to make Malekith go back to Svartalfheim where he is killed. 

When Thor goes back to Asgard, he declines the offer to take the throne and tells Odin of Loki’s sacrifice. Once he leaves, Odin transforms into Loki, who has a big grin on his face. 

The mid-credit scene shows Volstagg and Sif giving the Aether to the Collector because having both that and the Tesseract on Asgard would be dangerous. When they leave, the Collector says “one down, five to go,” which foreshadows a movie coming soon. 

The post-credit scene isn’t that important. It shows Jane and Thor on Earth when a frost giant from Jotunheim accidentally gets transported there.