Loki Season 2 Episodes 1-4 Review

The God of Mischief returns for convoluted but fabulously entertaining adventures in the temporal apocalypse. The second season of Loki shines a spotlight on the supporting characters battling to save and enforce their vision of the TVA (Time Variance Authority). Let’s just say that not everyone is on the same page about the TVA’s mission. Journalists were provided with the first four of six episodes. The runtimes remain around the same length, 40-53 minutes. Already impressive production values take a sizable leap forward. The series continues to look eye-popping as the former villain finds himself thrust into the hero’s journey.

The first season ended with Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) killing uber-antagonist He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) despite his warnings of guaranteed doom. She kicked Loki (Tom Hiddleston) through a timedoor and vanished. He returned to a TVA where no one remembered him and a statue of He Who Remains displayed prominently. Judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) also disappeared while Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) struggled to cope with the awful truth. They were once all variants on the timeline and the Time-Keepers were just a system of control.

The premiere opens with a shattered Loki running from a confused Mobius (Owen Wilson) and B-15 in hot pursuit. He gets to the temporal control room where Casey (Eugene Cordero) also doesn’t have a clue about his identity. He’s about to be caught before bizarrely “timeslipping” back to his original timeline. Mobius wants to know where the heck he’s been, what happened, and how can they stop their current crisis. The timeline has started to branch out of control. Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) is mysteriously gone. The entire TVA system is overloading.

Ke Huy Quan as OB

Marvel Studios

Loki and Mobius go the bottom floor of the TVA to find the only man who can possibly help. Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan), the solitary employee of the Repairs and Advancement department, is busy at work but happy to see Mobius again, who hilariously doesn’t remember their chance meeting eons ago. OB, as he’s soon affectionately called, gasps as Loki glitches away. He appears before OB again, but 400 hundred years earlier.

The timeslipping is indicative of a colossal bigger problem. However, it does give Loki the advantage of bringing key information back and forth in time. Meanwhile, in a tense meeting with the remaining TVA judges, X-15 wonders what to do next. They were all variants on the timeline, kidnapped, brainwashed and set for eternity to do He Who Remains’ bidding. As she struggles at that moment with Judge Gamble (Liz Carr), General Dox (Kate Bickie) develops a terrifying and merciless plan.

Loki’s view of the TVA has been shaped by He Who Remains’ dire predication of the alternatives. This criminal variant who tried to escape the TVA is now its reluctant champion. But first he has to stop timeslipping. OB, the quirky and polite jack of all trades, figures out a wacky solution. It’s not something Loki or Mobius want to do, but they have no choice.

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A Convoluted Season 2

Marvel Studios

Each episode has a cliffhanger ending that develops from a crazy idea. It’s a loop of chaos to catastrophe that frankly befuddles. The recaps before the first act become pivotal to understanding the overall story. It all comes together quite eloquently in a banner fourth episode where all the chips are finally on the table.

Loki season two explores friendships and philosophy as subplots. Loki needs to find Sylvie for cosmically important reasons. She, much like B-15, feels righteous anger for being robbed of her destiny. The difference is that Sylvie decides she’s earned the opportunity to live her life. Where she goes is both humorous and shameless commercialism. I cringed in episode two while admittedly laughing.

Mobius, in Wilson’s trademark delivery, can stop to enjoy delicious automat key lime pie as the universe crumbles. He represents the ‘stick to our guns’ ideology of not wanting to know his variant identity. The TVA’s brown runs deep through his veins. This reinforces his bond with Loki as they become more than just partners. The TVA is their only viable answer for greater good. But can those who play God stop from becoming monsters?

Related: How Loki’s Season 1 Finale Connects to the Future of the MCU

Jonathan Majors as Victor Timely

Marvel Studios

Production designer and episodic director Kasra Farahani (Star Trek Into Darkness, Black Panther) and his team deserve a golf clap for getting more granular at the TVA. Their clever mockery of cumbersome bureaucratic procedures is knockdown funny. OB’s stable of goofy gadgets is like using a chainsaw to slice bread. There’s nothing sleek or stylish as the characters bumble around with epically unwieldy devices.

Ke Huy Quan is a scene stealer in his Oscar-winning form, but another heavyweight actor truly stands out. We’d only seen glimmers of Jonathan Majors as Victor Timely, a variant of He Who Remains. Majors is brilliant here and completely unexpected. The character is a pleasant surprise on all fronts. He brings all the threads together just when the narrative was getting too scattered. Thrilling is an understatement. I am champing at the bit to watch what happens in the penultimate episode five.

Loki is a production of Marvel Studios. Season two premieres October 5th exclusively on Disney+.

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