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The further adventures of the Norse trickster god may define Phase 5’s path to salvation or its looming doom
Published : 16 Oct 2023, 07:30 PM
Two years ago, the world was a very different place.
As the pandemic stretched into its second year and patience with stay-at-home orders began to fray, the first season of Loki brought welcome relief to fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some, including myself, found the adventure starring the Avengers’ most delightful antagonist one of the MCU’s best projects.
The series, the third in the MCU’s foray into TV, saw the trickster god Loki (the ever-charismatic Tom Hiddleston) plucked from his villainous 2012 machinations in The Avengers and plopped into an 80s-inspired bureaucratic organisation called the Time Variance Authority.
Branded a ‘time variant,’ he tried to help Mobius M Mobius (Owen Wilson) stop a great threat to the timeline to prevent being erased from existence. Along the way, he found himself charmed by a female variant of himself from another universe called Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) and even underwent a slight change of heart that transformed him from antagonist to anti-hero.
But, when Sylvie decided to kill a version of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) in the finale, it threw the Multiverse into chaos. For two years, eager fans were kept on the hook to learn what happened next.
Two years is a long time.
Since then, superhero movies have seen a slow waning of their cultural dominance. And the MCU, an unstoppable juggernaut during the Infinity War saga, has stumbled in the Multiverse era. Several key movies – like Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Thor: Love and Thunder – fell flat with audiences and critics. The MCU’s TV efforts, like Moon Knight, She-Hulk, and Secret Wars, haven’t helped.
And that exciting introduction to the Multiverse has fizzled while unpleasant allegations have emerged around Majors, who was to be the central pillar of this epic tale.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 provided a much-needed moment of hope for the future of the massive franchise.
But now comes season two of Loki. Will our reformed villain prove a saviour of the MCU or another step towards its destruction?
Well, things look promising if the first episode is anything to go by.
The new creative team throws us into the deep end of the chaos and heartbreak that ended the first season. When Loki scrapes himself back to the timestream, he finds his old pals in the TVA don’t recognise him. And then they do. And then, again, they don’t.
As TVA technician Ouroborous (Ke Huy Quan) puts it, it seems Loki is ‘time-slipping’ as something interferes with his temporal existence.
The stakes have never been higher. Loki is hurled violently through the past, present, and future. He knows everything and nothing all at once. And, if he is to safeguard the present, he must tread carefully in the past.
Some critics thought the dialogue-heavy opening episode dragged, but I had a much kinder perspective. With a show ready to dive headlong into the loopy time-travelling shenanigans, it’s often best to take a moment to peel back the layers and expose the story’s mechanics for the audience’s understanding in an initial expository sequence.
While the explanation can be a bit heady, the new directors and cinematographers working on season 2 bring a restless intensity with their flair for anxiety-inducing camera movement. At the same time, ultrawide shots give us broad glimpses of the TVA’s unexplored depths. It ratchets up the sense of anticipation, of moving pieces whirling through high-stakes chaos.
And it gives us a moment to touch base with our characters, to allow Hiddleston to lure us in with his mesmeric talent and Wilson to remind us of Mobius’s sincere desire to ride a jet ski.
Sylvie might take a bit of a backseat in the opener. Still, the addition of Quan – the beating heart of the beloved Everything Everywhere All At Once – ensures the series has a rock-solid group of supporting characters to build and play off of in future episodes.
All in all, the first episode of season two sets off on the right track. Here’s hoping we don’t see the series falter as Secret Invasion did.
But Loki is already working from a stronger foundation. After all, thanks to the groundwork laid by the first season, fans will be hoping for an emotional (and well-deserved) redemption for Sylvie and a more menacing turn from Kang.
And, even if those don’t quite work out, there’s always hope for a glorious climax with a jet ski.
This article is part of Stripe, bdnews24.com's special publication focusing on culture and society from a youth perspective.
