On November 9, the second season of 'Loki' concluded on Disney+. Marvel continues to develop its cinematic universe, but lately literally every new project has become a lottery, and what ticket the god of deception drew, we'll tell you now.

After the frankly poor bar, hopes for the Marvel cinematic universe have dropped again, but 'Loki' managed to prove itself back in the first season, so the second, at least, was worth watching. Of course, there were suspicions that it wouldn't work out here either, but hope for the best still lingered, and, you know, not in vain. The continuation of Thor's adoptive brother's adventures turned out very good, though not perfect (but can a trickster ever be perfect?).

Evgeny Belousov

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What's the Plot?

The second season starts exactly where the first ended.

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Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: What the Finale of 'Loki' Showed

How the finales of 'WandaVision' and 'Loki' prepared us for the multiverse in Marvel and what will be shown in future films.

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Loki (Tom Hiddleston) finds himself in the TVA (Time Variance Authority) and sees statues of He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) everywhere. He finds Mobius (Owen Wilson), but the hero doesn't remember him and starts pursuing him as a 'variant'. While fleeing, the god of mischief runs into Casey (Eugene Cordero), but he also doesn't recognize the trickster and calls for backup. At that moment, Loki disappears and ends up in the exact same place where Casey's memory is fine. It turns out that the character is involuntarily time-skipping, even where it's physically impossible to do so. Mobius decides to take his friend to the TVA genius Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan) to help fix the ailment, but the skips aren't even the main problem...

After Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) killed He Who Remains, the timelines immediately began to multiply. Opinions within the TVA on what to do with them are divided: some believe they should be pruned as before, but Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) categorically disagrees, because billions of people live on the new timelines, making the old methods outright genocide. The woman managed to defend her position, but Loki saw in the future the collapse of the TVA because the Time Loom (a huge device that creates a physical timeline from raw temporal particles) cannot withstand such a number of timelines. Now the heroes will have to deal with the consequences that Sylvie has caused.

Okay Loki

Because Marvel now releases more bad projects than good ones, you always anticipate new releases with apprehension (if you anticipate them at all). Although there was hardly any worry about the third Guardians, because there was some confidence in James Gunn and what he was doing, but 'Loki' inspired some suspicions. The first season came out two years ago, and it's still one of the best phenomena among the MCU series, but what to expect from the continuation was completely unclear. It would seem the start was good, so they'd try to continue in the same vein, so why worry too much?

Evgeny Belousov

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However, you absolutely cannot trust current Marvel. You always need to be extremely vigilant, because as soon as you relax, there's a chance you'll get hit in the face with something like 'She-Hulk' or 'Ms. Marvel'. Why go far? Take, for example, the recent 'Secret Invasion', which had a very cool and promising concept and an extremely powerful and interesting source material, and what did it all turn into? I don't even want to remember. So I had to worry about 'Loki' as well, because I didn't want such a fate for the beloved god of daggers (that is, deception). Fortunately, it turned out fine.

The series is still just as good and interesting. Of course, not without flaws, but where are there none? The second season starts off quite briskly, but then for almost three episodes it stalls in one place. Loki and Mobius just run from location to location (from timeline to TVA and to another timeline) to figure out how to fix the damned Loom. Because of this, the plot progresses at a snail's pace. To distract, the series throws in characters: Ravonna (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), Miss Minutes, and Victor Timely (again Jonathan Majors), so thanks to them, an imitation of vigorous activity is created, and the running around stretches to the moment the creators need.

It gives the impression that the writers simply had nothing to fill the middle with, but everyone is used to Marvel releasing 6 episodes, so from the second to the fourth episodes, the heroes are busy with a single task. The finale, in contrast, looks great, as it's hard not to notice the sag in the plot after the brisk start. This makes the ending stand out favorably and gives brighter emotions. It's funny that four undeniably good episodes of the season were directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (first, fourth, fifth, and sixth), while the two worse episodes were directed by Dan DeLuca (second) and Kasra Farahani (third). So to speak, they took the best for themselves and pushed all the uninteresting stuff onto less experienced colleagues.

On the plus side, 'Loki' doesn't look cheap, like, for example, 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania', which had just terrible visual effects, or 'Secret Invasion', where it's unclear what they spent the huge budget on. The visuals, sound design, locations, and costumes are all done well, so there are no complaints about the technical side of the show. This is 'old good Marvel', and that fact alone cannot but please.

Deceive but Stay

As for the characters, many of them received a worthy story. B-15, Mobius, and Casey in the second season are well-developed and become a full part of 'Loki's team'. Ouroboros, played by Ke Huy Quan, is generally the best multiversal transfer from 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'. The character, played by the Oscar-winning actor, turned out incredibly memorable and in many moments stole all the attention, so Quan fully justifies the statuette for 'Best Supporting Role'.

Evgeny Belousov

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Jonathan Majors plays two roles in the series, and his acting talent for transforming into different variants is also noticeable to the naked eye. It would be a huge loss for Marvel if the studio has to abandon Majors' services and replace him with someone else due to the charges brought against him. I think it would be more correct to wait until the case is fully resolved, and only then proceed to take measures.

Moreover, it is in 'Loki' that Kang's danger finally begins to emerge at least a little. In the first season two years ago, he intrigued, and then disappeared and only appeared in 'Quantumania', where viewers saw no hint of the antagonist who would become a global problem for all superheroes and unite them in a new large-scale crossover, akin to 'Endgame'. But in the second season, it becomes clear that Kang poses a danger and is far from as simple as it seemed in February.

Tom Hiddleston is also as magnificent as always. Even though he no longer sparkles with the charisma of a villain, and instead of the green robes of Asgard, the antihero often wears a suit with a shirt — this is still the beloved Loki. The real brother of Thor completed his journey in 2018 and died a hero's death in 'Infinity War'. This variant from the 2012 'Avengers' has overcome no less severe trials: he went through an existential crisis, saw his unrealized life and death on screen, changed for the better, found friends, and found his place in this cinematic universe.

The only one in the series who remains questionable is Sylvie. Firstly, she is annoying throughout the entire season, because the heroes are cleaning up the mess that this lady made, after which she calmly got a job at McDonald's (the Western equivalent of 'Vkusno i Tochka', for those who didn't know) on one of the temporal branches. Secondly, this female variant of Loki also behaves as if everything around is going its own way, and if any problems arise, she certainly has nothing to do with it.

Throughout all episodes, Sylvie does the team a favor by helping them, which makes irritation a completely natural reaction to her actions. Moreover, it is now unclear what the future of the heroine in Marvel is, because in the first season it felt like the creators were pushing her to the forefront, thereby preparing a replacement for Loki-Hiddleston. But based on the results of the second season, it turned out that only her role remained underdeveloped, and her further fate is unclear.

The entire team got their worthy ending, but questions remain about Sylvie, as if they have changed their minds about including her in the cinematic universe and are now thinking about what to do with her, leaving the character in limbo. The 'Marvelous He Who Remains in a cap' decided not to reveal his script regarding her. Well, in any case, we will only find out the answer to this question in the future. It's just a pity that now there is no particular desire to wait for new studio projects as before. We hope that one day it will return.

What's the Verdict?

'Loki' is still one of the best Marvel Studios series (if not the best). Yes, against the backdrop of new releases, the compliment doesn't sound as impressive as it could, but the god of deception has twice not deceived expectations and managed to give bright emotions from 'old good Marvel'. It's unclear where Kevin Feige will lead the MCU next and what place is prepared for the trickster there, but already now Tom Hiddleston can be paid tribute for his twelve-year journey side by side with his character. If it weren't for this Briton, perhaps the green-loving antihero wouldn't have such a multitude of fans. So if the second season of the series is the end of the road for Loki, then we can only say to him: 'Thank you, the prank worked'.