Welcome back to the blog readers. The second series of Phase Five in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come and gone, and we need to talk about it. Loki's first season was a standout season of television to me, and it got better as time went on. That finale twist was must-talk about, as was the characters and ramifications. Natalie Holt's score was awesome, and it brought the idea of the multiverse to fruition. I was curious to see how they would bring this to life, but we unfortunately had to wait a bit to see the results. Now the results are here, and would we be as satisfied with the second season as we were the first? Stick around and find out.
Loki was created for television by Michael Waldron, who cowrote the first season with Kate Herron directing. Eric Martin took over writing for the second season with duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directing a majority of the episodes, with additional direction from Dan DeeLeuw and Kasra Farahani. The second season stars Tom Hiddleston as Loki, with Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, Eugene Cordero, Rafael Casal, Kate Dickie, Liz Carr, Neil Ellice, Key Huy Quan, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Owen Wilson, Tara Strong, and Jonathan Majors. In this season, which begins minutes after the events of the first season finale, Loki and his friends at the TVA are on the hunt for Sylvie, Ravonna Renslayer, and Miss Minutes through the multiverse, as the TVA is headed for destruction.
NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the season.
If you remember the season review I posted for Ahsoka, it was long as shit. I promise that I will try to keep this season review shorter than that one. Who knows what will happen though? With that being said, you are here for my thoughts on Loki season 2 as a whole. And I am here to let you know that this is probably rivaling WandaVision (2021) as my favorite season of Marvel television on Disney+ so far. I am not kidding you here. Every episode was an unraveling of what could be in the MCU, and it was an acting showcase for lead Tom Hiddleston. This season made me giddy for the future of the Multiverse Saga in the MCU, and made me excited to see what could be done with Kang as the main villain.
I cannot go any further with this review without giving Tom Hiddleston his flowers. If you may remember from earlier this year, I sand Pedro Pascal's praises for his performance in The Last of Us (2023-present), and how it was my favorite of the year. Hiddleston is utterly fantastic, and at this point I am confident in saying that he rivals Pascal right now. Every episode was a different level of fantastic, and I am literally obsessed with this performance. The biggest plus I have with this performance is how efficiently Loki's character arc was handled. And this goes hand-in-hand with Loki's first season. Loki began this new journey as a stuck-up villain pissed about losing the Battle of New York and ends up literally being the thing holding the entire multiverse together. We also get to learn more about Loki's inner machinations. We learn that Loki now considers these people at the TVA his friends and will do anything for them. And the scene where I truly believed this is his scene with Sylvie in the bar in the fifth episode. Sylvie has to fight to get him to admit he wants his friends back and is afraid to be alone. Just the acting in that scene alone is Emmy-worthy. His scenes in the following episode with Sylvie and Mobius are incredible scenes, and his scene with Mobius I will talk about later. Hiddleston better get an Emmy nomination next year for this performance, and I will scream if he does not.
The next performance I want to talk about is that of series newcomer Ke Huy Quan. Ke Huy Quan won an Academy Award earlier this year for his brilliant performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) opposite the great Michelle Yeoh. The character he plays in Loki, Ouroboros (or OB), is drastically different from Waymond Wang, but I was absolutely excited to see Quan in the role (actually, it is a dual role, as his variant counterpart is theoretical physicist and failed author A.D. Doug). And I am happy to say that Quan completely melted my heart in this role. Ouroboros is revealed as the author behind the TVA guidebook, and appears to know a whole lot more about the TVA than any of its members. Quan is absolutely perfect in this role, bridging the gap between the funny and the serious in the best way. From being the majority of the comedic relief (which was brilliant by the way) to being the source of some of the plot developments in the season, Quan expanded on his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once to give us a well-rounded character that was fun and enjoyable to watch. I also appreciated his character of A.D. Doug in 1994 California in a branched timeline, who is basically the same character as OB, except he comes off as a real person. And Quan excels in this role as well.
The next performance that I want to praise is that of Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, and as we later learn, Verity Willis. Mosaku gets an expanded role this season compared to last, and absolutely shines where she needs to be. In the first season, B-15 is just another Hunter who does what she is told, but everything changes for her when Sylvie shows her what her life could be. This sets the character on a different course where she winds up siding with Loki in trying to take down the "Time Keepers." In this season of the series, however, B-15 steps up and becomes one of the best characters on the show. No, I am not kidding. The way her character was handled was absolutely perfect. It is that because in this season, we get to see a more human and natural side to B-15. A side of her that wants to protect these new timelines and new people, because they matter just as much as the people on the "Sacred Timeline." We actually get to see some genuine emotion from B-15, and that is all based on the believability of her actor Mosaku. There is another version of the character that Mosaku plays, and that is her real variant counterpart. Mosaku also plays child physician Verity Willis in 2012 New York in a branched timeline, and she comes off with the same humanity that B-15 does. This makes me wonder if this is what Sylvie showed B-15 in Loki's first season. Is the possibility that she was always such a kind-hearted person enough to change B-15's outlook on life? I hope so.
Next up is the performance of Owen Wilson in a dual performance as Mobius M. Mobius and Don. Mobius was always the cool teacher that you wanted to hang out with after school, and Owen Wilson's laid back performance completely stole the show for me. And his chemistry with Tom Hiddleston is addicting as fuck. There are some hints of Mobius's past life in the first season with his love of jet skis, but he was the type of person who was not interested in learning about that side of him. We definitely get more of that in this second season. Wilson's laid back performance is going to win a lot more fans over, plus Mobius gets a little physical this season, which is a plus. To begin, we start to get more hints as to Mobius's previous life than we did last season, and that intrigue only grows upon Hunter X-5's mentions of it. I do love that between the change in seasons, the one thing that was kept the same was Mobius's desire to not get involved in his previous life. We briefly find out why I believe in the finale and it is a heartbreaking reason. When we actually meet Mobius's variant Don, a single father to two kids and a jetski salesman, it all makes sense. I also wish we could get a whole lot more of Don and his kids, to see what could have been. I also love the change in heart Mobius gets when he finally decides to retire from the TVA and see what his life could have been.
The final performance that I want to talk about is the dual performance of Jonathan Majors. Before I get into his review, I want to take a minute to address his legal issues. To spare you all the details, I will keep this brief. Amongst the accusations against Majors are domestic violnce and assault charges. Like I said in my review of his first episode this season, the third one, I truly believe he is innocent in this matter, but I am aware it is innocent before guilty. So I refuse to place any judgment on him or his character unless he is found to be guilty. In October, his motion to have the case dismissed was rejected and a trial date was set for November 29. I will keep up with the legal proceedings and keep you updated the best I can. Now on to the review. Majors has a dual role in the series, as his Season 1 character He Who Remains, and one of his variants named Victor Timely. I will talk about each role separately, so bear with me here. I want to start with Timely, as he is the first variant that we see. Majors was brilliant in the role, which is something that is becoming niche for him. The "stammer" that Majors employs and the charisma that he embues is nothing but hypnotic (I put stammer in quotation marks because the jury is still out on whether the stammer is even real or not). He is also involved in one of the most shocking and brutal moments in MCU history, so there is that as well. And his pairing with OB was nothing but comedy brilliance, knowing that the two of them inspired each other's work. Now to his other role as He Who Remains. Remember this character from the first season finale? Majors was fantastic in the role of He Who Remains. He brought a boyish charm to this role that was fucking infectious. That natural charisma of Majors really shined as he played He Who Remains, and he absolutely shines again. There is nothing that changed from the two seasons, and he is still devilishly infectious in the role.
Next, I want to talk about the story of the season. I was a big fan of the first season's story, with Loki figuring out his "glorious purpose" was basically nothing but bullshit. And his eventual meeting of Mobius and attraction for Sylvie dictates the course of his story. He goes from the selfish villain who got handed the biggest defeat of his life in the Battle of New York to the despondent god who lost the one real thing he knew. And with the story of the seond season picking up minutes after the events of the first, there is no time wasted at all. We begin to get more into what makes Loki tick, and what he really wants, and it is wonderful to watch. And like I had aluded to, Loki's conclusion is one of the most triumphant moments in the MCU, along with Tony Stark's sacrifice. When Loki realizes what his glorious purpose actually is and he has to discard all of his old baggage, the end result is something beautiful. Earlier in the finale, when he tells Sylvie he does not want the throne of He Who Remains, he means it. Loki realized he never wanted to rule, that he was afraid of being alone, and the TVA gave him a purpose. That duality is something I find to be very beautiful, because he realizes that he was in fact destined to rule when he never wanted it. So he makes the ultimate sacrifice to save not only the TVA, but the entire multiverse and allow it to prosper. Loki's glorious purpose was to allow the multiverse to grow without becoming diseased and sit alone atop a throne he never wanted, while the people he cares about get to live on without the threat of elimination. It almost is enough to bring a tear to my eye.
The next positive I have is with the direction of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and the writing of Eric Martin. Benson and Moorhead directed two episodes of Moon Knight (2022) and have since been tapped to lead the new creative direction for Daredevil: Born Again. I loved their episodes of Moon Knight, and absolutely fell in love with the two of them in this season. The kinds of shit that they do involving cinematography and direction just absolutely floored me. Some of the camera work is masterful. So much so in fact that I want to have a chat with that cinematographer. And I love how in tense moments we get up close and personal with the characters, because it makes it more intimate that way (and not in that way). Now I have to sing the praises of Eric Martin's screenplay. This man became a god damn superstar in my eyes with his writing. I am telling you that this guy really knows how to elevate work to a higher standard. Turns out he was a writer on the first season, and took over some writing duties for head Michael Waldron. Some of the dialogue in the season has become iconic to me already. Some of the highlights of the writing for me include Loki's scene with Sylvie in the bar in the fifth episode, most of the fourth episode, and most of the finale, with Mobius's line about purpose being more burden than glory already on the same level as Vision's line regarding grief in WandaVision (2021). I need these guys to write and direct every damn thing that Marvel has coming out. Like damn.
I did tell you guys I would try to keep it short but when there is too much good to say, you just got to say it. After this, I do promise that I am done. The final heaping of praise that I will lay on is that of Natalie Holt. The first season's composer (who completely killed it) returns to deliver more visceral and musical carnage. Holt knows how to absolutely elevate a scene, and kudos to her for creating some iconic musical motifs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Especially her god-tier score in the finale giving me absolute fucking goosebumps. I need the score for the final three episodes so I can have that ending track on repeat for the next year and a half. Please Disney, I'm begging you!
To conclude my thoughts, Loki's second season expands on the first in every way imaginable. Acting, directing, writing and music are all at a high while the MCU is taken in a whole new intriguing direction. Thank you all for soming on this journey with me, and I hope you all have a great one. I will see you for more reviews, including the new Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the second season of What If...?, and more films.
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