‘Loki’ Season 2: Muddled, Multiversal, and Still Awesome
The multiverse is confusing but I don’t care
Sometimes, the reception of new Marvel movies and TV shows can feel almost arbitrary. I can’t help but see something strange in the way The Marvels has been panned while Loki has received near-universal acclaim. It seems that the same critics leveling charges of convolution against The Marvels are turning a blind eye to how flagrantly hard to follow Loki is.
Of course, that isn’t to say that Loki is bad. Given a choice between the two projects, the show centered around the cloudily-intentioned mischief god in green would probably take the cake in my book. But the belief that the series is one that can be easily followed by the whole family is an almost comical fiction.
For me, though, it’s a given that any new Marvel project released in 2023 is going to be dense. Allowing myself to set aside each new plothole as it emerges is how I maintain my patience with the ever-bloating franchise. There was a time when I made a more earnest attempt to follow each subtle plot point the series introduced. And I’ve seen enough of the shows and movies that there are plenty of callbacks in each new entry for me still to rejoice in. But these latest releases have almost invariably felt so unwieldy and cumbersome that it’s been more fun to simply allow my critical eye to soften.
When each new Marvel movie requires an onerous recapping on 20 separate cinematic projects to be properly understood, they’re best approached with a certain caution. With a fine tooth comb, flaws and inconsistencies abound. But with an open, relenting lens and a readiness to get lost in a whir of motion, colors, and superhero combat, it’s not difficult to enjoy what you’re watching.
To keep up with the overflow of these accruing years worth of plot threads, there are an entire subset of videomakers offering summaries, retellings, analyses, and easter egg exposés with each new movie, series, and short. For a couple of years, I made a point to watch them. But lately I’ve come to the realization that I almost prefer to go in blindly. I don’t derive much satisfaction from these detailed explorations of protean superhero hierarchies. A base level knowledge of good guys and bad guys is more than enough for me to be adequately entertained.
I’ve had a theory for a while that self-awareness is the driving force of the Marvel franchise. It’s hard to completely connect with this proliferating series of laser-beam-shooting characters when each of these new movies and shows can’t learn to laugh at itself a little. The more complex the plot, the funnier it needs to be.
Loki musters among the most strenuous plotlines to follow in all of the MCU. It’s so deeply entrenched in the multiverse and so wildly unfastened that it renders coherent summary all but impossible. When I even attempted to summarize to myself what was going on at certain points I ended up practically fighting off laughing fits. “So now Loki and his somewhat antagonistic, female version of himself, the character from Everything Everywhere All at Once, and their ragtag gang of friends are attempting to prevent ‘He Who Remains’ from being killed and all of the timelines from being ‘pruned’ by fixing the ‘time loom.’ Got it.”
I can’t even begin to explain how this problem was actually solved. And yet, the circuitous ride toward that conclusion was visually, musically, and humorously pleasing enough that I didn’t even mind. It managed to drive home an impressive poignance for me without even an understanding of context. It told a visual story that felt cohesive even while remaining a little too loose to be unpacked by anyone without a PhD in sci-fi. For one of the least action-oriented Marvel entries of all, it features more than its fair share of triumphs in the CGI department.
But during the climax, as Loki walks up these stairs that are beyond time… or dimension… or something — with each of the universe’s separate timelines in his hands — I can’t help but experience an unexpected sense of finality. Even while Loki boasts the most dense and inexplicable plot that I’ve seen — possibly within any TV show ever — Tom Hiddleston’s and Owen Wilson’s constant humor and on screen chemistry is enough to remind me that the finer nuance isn’t all that important.
Ke Huy Quan’s inclusion, too, creates light in a muddled darkness. The role he plays is one that feels inarguably lifted and a little diluted, but given that both Loki and Everything Everywhere All at Once are each rooted in a sprawling, complicated multiverse, there’s something about his reappearance that’s inarguably apt. It’s hard to imagine that his casting didn’t go something along the lines of: “So you know that role you played last year in that crazy, multiverse movie? Can you do basically the same exact thing again under the name Ouroboros in this new Marvel show?”
Quan’s role in the A24 phenomenon was so incredible that his copy & paste reemergence in Marvel’s new time traveling, interdimensional escapade is a surprising and welcome reprieve. He’s an actor that certainly deserves all of the renewed time in the limelight that he’s seen these past 2 years. Famed largely for his childhood roles in The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, he had few on screen appearances before his 2022 return.
Eugene Cordero‘s Casey is another role that arrives as a comedic relief to the overly congested plot with his smiley, affable presence.
A controversial highlight within the film’s cast is Jonathan Majors, delivering what’s likely one of the series most dynamic performances with his polar leaps between aspects of character. Both as Victor Timely and He Who Remains, his on screen time is something magnetic. He’s the grand villain that Marvel has spent the last few years building up, but with a fresh set of real world criminal allegations pending against him, MCU’s executives seem set now to divert course and replace him with yet another antagonist.
Sophia Di Martino offers a more than passable performance as Sylvie, but, apart from a few great scenes, she’s a character that never fully landed for me. Maybe it’s just that I never quite understood her interdimensional doppelgänger/ lover relationship with Loki in the first season, but it’s hard to sympathize with and unravel her motives.
Sylvie’s presence sometimes comes across as a bit too self-serious to completely congeal with the rest of the cast, but Di Martino’s portrayal creates grounding in a sometimes-jovial atmosphere and still effectively drives home some of the story’s more gripping moments. Wunmi Mosaku is similarly tasked with breathing life into a character that frequently feels flat and unexplored. While her performance is laudable, at times her presence seems too stone-faced and brooding for the plot at hand.
There’s an elegant circularity to the Loki finale that harkens back to where the first season initally began, but it’s a raucous enough rollercoaster between those ouroboric points that the connections don’t present themselves to the viewer very easily. Some of the imagery creates a similarly provocative callback to one of the most crushing scenes in the Infinity War saga.
Loki is a TV show that makes an incredible argument for the power of music within cinema. While The Marvels provided something fun and frenetic, it was neither as exciting as either Spider-Man film in the The Spiderverse Saga, nor as stirring and emotional as Loki.
Natalie Holt reprises her role from the first season composing the show’s score and delivers what stands for me as one of the most memorable songs in the entire MCU in “Purpose Is Glorious.” It’s odd, electric, ethereal, haunting, floaty, climactic, and powerfully directionless. It’s likely to go down for people as one of the most moving musical contributions to a superhero movie within memory and it helps the series to stick its utterly bizarre and nebulous landing with an obliquely pointed perfection.
I haven't started watching Season 2 yet, but I am excited to do so. Loki is hilarious.