Loki spoilers follow.
No matter what variant of Loki you meet in whatever world you meet them in, there is always one major similarity – no matter what, they strive to survive.
The same can be said, it seems, for its TV show iteration, with the Tom Hiddleston-fronted Marvel series is indeed returning for season two.
Loki season 2 is currently one of the only live-action Marvel series with a guaranteed second season, with only What If…? outside of it. Apart from the knowledge that the God of Mischief will return for more small-screen antics, there isn’t much clear information about what’s to come.
Reacting to the confirmation, Hiddleston told Marvel.com in July 2021: “I am so grateful that we got to do season one, I still am not quite able to process that we get to have another go at this. I am so excited by the possibilities. We are already in discussions. Deep, deep, deep discussions. I can’t wait to get started.”
During this chat, the Loki star also said: “I want to say thank you to the audience because without the audience, we wouldn’t be able to make a season two. I hope season one was full of surprises. And I think season two will be full of even more.”
That isn’t to suggest that there isn’t enough to keep us occupied in the meanwhile. Marvel may prefer to keep things under wraps, but the studio has confirmed who will be returning for season two (both in front of and behind the camera), gave updates on when filming may begin, and suggested when the new episodes would be published.
We got the confirmation of this news literally seconds after the first season ended – so now we have to either make a deal with the TVA to jump through time (though we doubt they’ll let us) or we just have to be patient and wait.
Here’s everything we know about the upcoming episodes, including when to expect them.
While season two is definitely on its way, as of May 2022 there is no news of Loki’s official release date.
Industry magazine Production Weekly reported the second season was meant to start production in January 2022, but there doesn’t seem to have been any confirmation of this anywhere on social media or by Marvel itself.
The cast and crew of Loki Season 2
The only confirmed Loki season 2 cast members so far are Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Mbatha-Raw earlier confirmed her comeback as Ravonna Lexus Renslayer in an interview with GMA.
Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige told Collider in August 2021 that season two was already “underway” and “being developed it as we speak” – but that could mean anything from ‘the story is currently being written to ‘Tom Hiddleston is finishing up his scenes already’.
However, we do know, thanks to a recent Deadline interview that season two is about to begin shooting! Squeeeeee!
But don’t squeal too loudly. While it is encouraging to see things moving forward, ‘about to shoot’ means that we are still months and months away from a release and are unlikely to see a new series this side of the calendar year.
For context, the first season dropped in June 2021, and if you factor in things like the extensive special effects needed in post-production, on top of the initial filming schedule and reshoots, the show won’t come out until at least the beginning of 2023 at this rate.
Loki season 2: Who will be in it?
In typical Marvel style, they are keeping plans for Loki season 2 pretty close to their chest. As a result, there’s currently no official word on who might be joining the next time-hopping adventures.
Obviously, Tom Hiddleston is on board, because after all that is Loki without, you know, Loki?
Gugu Mbatha-Raw will also return as Ravonna Renslayer, though speaking to Digital Spy in December 2021 she admitted she had no idea what lay ahead for her character.
“Honestly, I genuinely don’t know where it’s going,” she said. “I feel like there’s so much potential, especially when you’re dealing with time, as Renslayer does, you know? So, yeah, I don’t know.
Loki season 2 theories
Because the first season ended in utter chaos, Loki season 2 theories are aplenty. Sylvie set off a multiverse war, Loki is stranded in another dimension, and an even more dangerous variant of He Who Remains has come to power.
In the new timeline that Loki finds himself trapped in, a statue of Kang The Conqueror is present. This implies that Kang, a variant of He Who Remains, has taken over as leader of the TVA and potentially all other timelines.
Nerdist theorizes that, while Mobius and Hunter B-15 don’t remember Loki in this timeline, Sylvie might. This is possible considering that it was Sylvie who killed He Who Remains and sent Loki to this new reality.
A theory from EliteDaily speculates that Ravonna might become the new love interest of Kang, seeing as her character plays his lover in the comics.
“I haven’t really… I am sort of keeping an open mind. I’ve been working quite intensely on something else over the last five months. So I don’t know. I’m sort of open to the next chapter. We’ll see. I would, of course, be open to (a movie). I don’t know where it’s all going at this point, but we’ll see.”
Given how season one ended, we’ll also be expecting the following cast members to return in Loki season two:
• Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15
• Tara Strong as the voice of Miss Minutes
• Owen Wilson as Mobius M Mobius
• Sophia Di Martino as Sylvie
Don’t be surprised if Jack Veal reprises the role of Kid Loki at some point too, whether it’s in the second season of Loki or some kind of Young Avengers project. With multiple members now lined up, it’s only a matter of time before Marvel’s legacy team arrive, and we’re hoping that Kid Loki will be a part of that, just like in the comics.
That’s not the only Loki we’re hoping to see return, either. Richard E Grant made a huge impact on fans with a brief but already iconic take on Classic Loki, complete with his Golden Age comic book outfit. Although this variant sacrificed himself to help Sylvie and Loki escape The Void, Grant told Entertainment Tonight that his character could still return one day.
“Everything’s possible,” he said. And although Grant doesn’t know how this would work after “going out with such a bang”, he did reveal that he “wouldn’t say no” to coming back.
“I think that because his sacrifice is so huge and it’s going out with such a bang, how do you top that if he had to come back? I have no idea. You know, it’s not within my arena to do that. But I wouldn’t say no, if asked. Put it that way.”
“We were treating it like a movie, and we were running it like a movie,” Herron explained. “We weren’t doing it in the showrunner system. So it was a lot to direct these six episodes, and I gave it all of my energy and everything I had in my soul and in my heart. I threw everything I loved about Marvel at it.
“I just feel like my part is done,” she added, “but I’m really excited to see where it’s going to go next.”
And, of course. Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors will most certainly return as He Who Remains – and not just one of him either. Expect to see an infinite number of Jonathans return as the Big Bad(s) in season two.
Loki season 2 plot: What will the second season be about?
As expected, season one ended with a cataclysmic event that sets up multiverses. Many theorized that it directly set up the chaos of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, along with Wanda’s role in the film too. After all the Scarlet Witch is a Nexus Being which would have tied the two together very nicely.
The multiverse and its impact were later shown in Spider-Man: No Way Home in December 2021, with heroes and villains, and multiple variants of characters, being pulled through to the central universe by Doctor Strange when a spell went wrong. As a result, they were all living in the same timeline together.
However, Doctor Strange’s release has since quashed those theories pretty much like Wanda trying to stamp out America. In fact, the events in Loki didn’t even make the post-credits scene. Michael Waldron, the screenwriter behind Dr Strange and Loki, explained his reasoning for keeping the two separate during a recent interview with Deadline. When talking about the lack of Kang in Doctor Strange, Waldron said:
“To me it felt like we had the biggest best bullet in Wanda.”
“When working with Sam (Raimi), I said we should really make the decision to make Wanda the antagonist in this film,” says the scribe, “we can’t let another movie have that fun.”
He added, “If you introduced Kang…you would have risked the movie getting overstuffed.”
Wanting to give Wanda some breathing room to do her thing is definitely understandable but what does that mean for Kang and his multiversal involvement?
During season two discussions surrounding Kang and the character’s plot involvement, the screenwriter revealed:
“In creating the show in the first place, the only way it’s worth doing to me is that we can find a new story to tell with this character.
“It felt like we had new emotional ground to cover with Loki. That’s the only way into season two. We absolutely found that. It’s a great continuation of that story that feels different from season one and hopefully will subvert expectations.”
Loki still has to contend with Sylvie’s betrayal and the ramifications of what she did.
With Kang (He Who Remains) gone, an infinite number of his variants will rise up and take control of the multiverse. We’ve already seen that happen in “our” Time Variance Authority with the arrival of Kang’s statue.
Then there’s also Mobius to deal with too. Given that he no longer remembers who Loki is, it looks like “our” Loki has been erased from this universe, or replaced by a different version. What will our Loki do now that he’s all alone again? Things aren’t looking too good for the God of Mischief, especially now that he’s turned over a new leaf.
Speaking at the MCM London Comic-Con in September, Hiddleston gave some juicy season two context, even if he did hold his cards very close to his chest.
“OK so look, we can’t say anything, unfortunately, but at the end of episode six, season one, Loki comes back to TVA,” Hiddleston said.
“He’s quite traumatized, he’s quite emotional and he tries to explain what happens to Mobius [Owen Wilson], and Mobius doesn’t recognize him. And then he turns to look at the statue of the Timekeepers, but it’s not a statue of the Timekeepers, it’s a statue of someone else… And I guess we’ll start from there.”
Director Kate Herron might not be carrying on with season two (we’re still waiting to hear who will replace her – and she’ll be a tough act to follow), but she does have some ideas about where the story could go next (via The Hollywood Reporter).
“So the way I see it in my head is that the TVA exists outside of space and time, but reality and everything as we understood it has completely changed in the last few minutes. With the multiverse branching, how do we know the TVA still exists in that way
“We don’t know, and I suppose that’s a big question that will be answered as the show goes on. But in my head, the intention is that Sylvie thinks she’s sending him back to the TVA, but because of the way time and branches are crossing each other outside the window, Loki has unfortunately been sent back somewhere very different.
“So reality has shifted just by the nature of what He Who Remains said, and the idea is that he’s in this alternate TVA now.”
That’s actually a genius premise and one that could the show going for as long as Doctor Who (or Sliders, at the very least). Let’s hope Herron left behind detailed notes for whoever replaces her.
And don’t think for a second that this is the last we’ll see of Sylvie either. The last time we saw her, the Goddess of Mischief was dealing with the ramifications of her choice in Kang’s Citadel. But now that she has a TemPad, expect Sylvie to pop up again very soon. But will she be a friend or a foe? Or even a lover? That kiss sure carried a lot of emotional heft right before that betrayal.
Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see “our” Loki enjoy a romantic connection with another man following episode three’s groundbreaking reveal. Bisexual people don’t need to demonstrate same-sex attractions in order to be validated, but Marvel has notoriously shied away from anything like this in the past, so Loki season two could be a good way to address the character’s queerness in a physical way.
When Collider asked Herron about this possibility, she said: “Basically I don’t know plans for the future with Loki – I’m so focused on this story. But I would say that part of my thinking was, well, if it’s canon and it’s acknowledged, then yeah I hope there’s obviously more road to travel with that aspect of his personality. And I hope it has opened the door to more stories, definitely.”
Loki season 2 trailer: When can we see a promo?
Perhaps the most interesting theory comes due to the releases of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: now that the multiverse is open, could Loki team up with Wanda/Scarlet Witch and Doctor Strange? We know that the series extends into the MCU, as Kang the Conqueror is set to be the main antagonist in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility for other characters in the MCU to show up in an alternate timeline.
Could there be some of that mind-bending drama in “Loki”? The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) slaughters the Illuminati in an alternate dimension. In the Sam Raimi-directed sequel, Waldron exclusively told IndieWire that the kill sequence was “crazier” than expected.
“You want to try to meet expectations while simultaneously subverting them, if that’s feasible,” Waldron said. “I wrote gory deaths because Sam Raimi was directing and I wanted to shock him.” ‘Can we do this?’ Sam asked, and I said, ‘You can.’ I believe we can because it’s you.’
“I felt a lot of freedom to go crazy in this movie because it was Sam, and I know what he’s so good at and how well he’d do it,” Waldron continued. I only gave him the framework and some details about how that stuff works, but it was all direct from his sick mind.”
