Ivan Radford | On 15, Oct 2023

Warning: This review is based on the opening two episodes of Season 2 and contains spoilers for Season 1. Never seen it? Read our spoiler-free review of Season 1 here – or catch up with our review of the Season 1 finale here.

Since his introduction in Avengers Assemble way back in 2012, Loki has become firmly established as the least bad of Marvel’s pantheon of screen villains – so it was no surprise that his solo outing on the small screen rapidly became Marvel’s least bad TV show. In a plethora of wildly uneven series, though, that’s a low bar to clear, and the time-hopping show suffered come Season’s 1 finale, as it got sucked into the machine of MCU’s increasingly interlinked narratives.

The first of Marvel’s Disney+ shows to get a second season renewal, Loki is in prime position to move away from its MCU ties and focus on developing its characters – such as Loki’s bromance with Owen Williams’ charmingly laidback agent, Mobius, at the Time Variance Authority (TVA), and his unusual romance with Sophia Di Martino’s enigmatic Sylvie, a multiverse variant of Loki. After a couple of episodes, though, Season 2 only develops its own timey-wimey intricacies, never quite shrugging off the sense that it’s merely paving the way for the next big Avengers film. (The fact that it will involve Jonathan Majors returning as the villainous Kang makes the prospect even less appealing for reasons that don’t need to be stated.)

And so it is that we wind up following Loki and Mobius through a string of time-hopping missions, as they try to track down Sylvie, who is on the run having killed He Who Remains (a variant of Kang), and prove to people that the TVA’s whole modus operandi is built on a lie invented by Kang. And, to top it off, they have to find a way to stop Loki from time-slipping back and forth through the timeline at random.

It’s a gorgeous reminder of the show’s impeccable production design, from 1970s London to the dazzling visualisation of timelines intersecting and the TVA’s gloriously retro office equipment. A brief diversion to a 1980s fast food joint rivals Stranger Things for heartfelt nostalgia. Throw in the inventively practical direction of Spring helmers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson (fresh from Marvel’s Moon Knight) and you have a thrillingly inventive and playful spectacle.

The problem, though, is the plot becomes increasingly erratic in the process, either feeling like nothing is moving forward at all or everything is rushing forwards too quickly. “It’s horrible,” jokes Mobius about Loki’s time-slipping. “It looks like you’re being born, or dying, or both at the same time.” There’s a similarly awkward sensation while watching this sophomore run unfold, as we’re either struggling to keep up with overly convoluted chrono-shenanigans or getting bored watching the script spin its wheels so its cast can enjoy hanging out together. The decision to keep Sylvie separate from Loki and Mobius for a lengthy period of time, or spend scene after scene catching up with an old friend of Mobius without any sense of stakes or emotional engagement, only add to the frustration.

The cast, nonetheless, are fun to watch when they are together. Owen Wilson’s Mobius is a flawlessly conceived company man-cum-best friend, and his hangdog enthusiasm is a beautiful contrast to Wunmi Mosaku’s focused TVA agent, let alone Tom Hiddleston’s narcissistic trickster god, who remains at once charming, funny and chilling. The addition of the loveable Ke Huy Quan as IT guy Ouroboros is an inspired way to build on Mobius and Loki’s lighthearted interactions – Quan’s unique delivery, simultaneously understated and hyperactive, kicks the screwball farce up a gear to often delightful effect.

But even the evolution of Loki into an ensemble buddy comedy is a telling indicator of the show’s fundamental problem, which is not knowing what to do with its main antihero. Is he a good guy with a dark streak, or a bad guy with a moral compass? Is he powerful or a born loser or both? An interrogation sequence repeats those questions, having already explored them in Season 1, and doesn’t help with the feeling that Loki is both the best and worst character to give a spin-off series to – as audiences, we undoubtedly want to see more of him (and Hiddleston), but we’re never quite sure what we want to see him do, dive down a rabbit hole on his own or stay tied to the MCU’s bigger picture. After Season 1’s charming unpredictability, and teasing Sylvie as part of the answer to that mystery, Season 2 is at risk of suggesting that the writers aren’t sure either. Still, if any of Marvel’s TV shows can pull off an unexpected comeback, it’s this one.

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