How the God of Mischief's second solo outing could be the most critical installment of the mind-bending story that has been building since 2021, changing the future of the multiverse forever.
Spoilers: Loki, What If...?, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
The second season of Marvel Studios' Loki is set to debut on Disney+ between August and September this year, and it could be the most important installment yet in the ever-growing Multiverse Saga. We've had our fair share of multiverse-centric projects in the past couple of years, from the world-shattering Spider-Man: No Way Home, to the exploration of different realities in What If...?, and to our first look at the MCU's next big bad in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 2021's Loki gave us our first glimpse (and then some!) at the history behind the multiverse, the purpose of the mysterious Time Variance Authority, and the man behind it all, whose powers extend beyond the boundaries of time and space itself - He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors). With two new Avengers movies on the way and a multiversal war brewing in the shadows, Loki's sophomore season may need to pull some rabbits out of its magic hat to achieve its ambitious goal— to connect the entire Multiverse Saga in a way that is yet to be done.
The importance of Loki's second season in terms of the bigger picture has been constantly emphasized by the likes of Michael Waldron (scriptwriter for Season 1) and Kevin Feige (CEO of Marvel Studios) - but we don't need to be told that. The central theme of the first season was the multiverse, and it introduced us to concepts such as variants, Nexus events, and the TVA. It can be expected that Season 2 will continue this trend, and develop upon these ideas further. This time, however, there are likely to be some more significant developments toward where this entire Saga has been heading - multiversal war. For six episodes, new writer Eric Martin and directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead will be given the floor to come up with an MCU installment that edges us dangerously close to multiversal chaos bringing the entire Saga thus far to boiling point. That's a very big job - and will need to be considerate of every development up to now regarding the multiverse.
On top of this, Loki's second season needs to maintain a degree of focus on its core characters. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) ended the first season on a bad note, and there will need to be some reconciliation between the two early on in this season if they are to tackle the newest threat to their lives - a variant of Kang who is hell-bent on war. There is also the relationship between Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson) that needs to be addressed. As we saw in the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania post-credit scene, the duo seem to be going on time-traveling adventures once again, this time in the early 1900's witnessing a certain Victor Timely explain his latest scientific discovery. There is only one small problem - Mobius doesn't remember who Loki is after the TVA agents seemingly had their minds wiped when the organization was overthrown by the evil Kang variant. With the confirmed return of Season 1 characters Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaka), Casey (Eugene Cordero), Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and Miss Minutes (Tara Strong), it is safe to expect that Loki: Season 2 will be just as character-focused as the first season, just with some added significance to the wider Marvel picture. Michael Waldron mentioned last May that the second season would explore "new emotional ground" for Loki, with Tom Hiddleston mentioning that Loki does confront Sylvie about her actions at the end of the first season's finale. We also have some new characters joining the show, perhaps the most notable being an undisclosed villain role held by Game of Thrones actress Kate Dickie.
To give us some insight into the insanely high stakes of Loki: Season 2, Tom Hiddleston mentioned in September that it will involve "a battle for the soul of the TVA". That should tell you almost as much you need to hear - with the TVA being the most powerful and important organization in the entire multiverse, true chaos could ensue if the said organization falls apart & loses control over the very thing it swore to protect. This is now under threat due to an evil Kang in charge - will the TVA agents rebel against their new leader, with the help of Loki, Sylvie, and Mobius, to try and restore order and preserve multiversal stability?
There are so many factors at play that will need to be connected soon, and Loki's second season looks like it could be the place where this all happens. Will we see the return of What If...?'s The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) any time soon & will he play a part in the grand-scale war ahead? We already had a mini multiversal war in the What If...? finale, with the formation of the Guardians of the Multiverse and a threat that could quite literally consume realities at will. Will there be some escalation in the conflict between Earth-616 and Earth-838 following the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? That particular movie ended with Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) being told that an incursion had been caused between the two universes - will we see incursion events explored further in the near future? Will we see some more familiar faces in the form of multiversal variants, like we did in Spider-Man: No Way Home, where both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield made their historic returns as variants of Tom Holland's Peter Parker? All of these questions need answers - and our very own God of Mischief may have all of them, or at least guide us in the direction of when we'll be getting them.
Marvel has lots of loose ends to tie up, and unfortunately, it doesn't have all the time in the world to get to the point. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars are still officially slated for a 2025 and 2026 release respectively, and with lots of street-level projects on the horizon throughout 2024, the opportunities to tie up the multiversal picture are limited. Loki: Season 2 is the perfect opportunity to finally show us, as the audience, what Kevin Feige's grand plan for the Multiverse Saga is.
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