Loki Season 2 Review — Sucharita Tyagi
There are very few people left in the world who are STILL excited about anything new superhero-related, let alone a sequel to a Marvel TV show.
I was one of them.
But with this latest one, I really think it’s time to close that chapter. Ho gaya jitna juice ho sakta tha.
From what seems like 5 years ago, which in fact is only 2, Loki Season 1 ended when Loki and a variant of his he was in a situationship with, Sylvie, reached the Citadel at the end of time and faced off with He Who Remains. Sylvie pushes Loki back into his world, except he has reached a completely different timeline where TVA agent Mobius doesn’t recognize him. Oh, TVA is the Time Variance Authority, apparently, jiske office ke drawers mein infinity stones aise hi pade rehte hain.
Picking up RIGHT after this moment, Loki now has to figure out where he is, why no one recognizes him, and how he’s going to get back to Sylvie and finish that kiss.
When Phase 4 of Marvel TV shows began, the promise was glorious, bringing a new era of superhero stories to millions of people who didn’t care so much for “Agents of Shield” but would fight on Twitter with literal strangers to assert Marvel’s dominance over DC comics for reasons not going much beyond silly, pointless fanaticism. While online fandoms are almost always toxic, I happily joined this zealous lot after watching the spectacular “WandaVision.” An unexpectedly moving study of the emotional breakdown of a woman who had lost everything she held dear, except her supernatural ability to literally create worlds. Katherine Hahn and her song “It Was Agatha All Along” was an instant hit, and the show’s format pushed boundaries and presented a familiar story in an entirely new, dynamic packaging.
No other show has since come close, at least for me. I will say, that due to my love for Tom Hiddleston, I think I enjoyed Loki Season 1 more than most people. But it was STILL the pandemic, and discussing a 1-hour episode for 1 hour on a YouTube livestream still made sense. And credit where it is due, like “WandaVision,” Loki too made a valiant attempt to change the superhero story syntax a bit. With Wes Anderson-looking sets, an animated talking AI clock, Loki in prison, and actual, literal Owen Wilson, it all worked more than it should have.
Now that we’re back to regularly scheduled programming when the show needed to step it up, it has actually stepped back down, many MANY notches. Viewers, all 10 of you are still interested in Loki, I’m so sorry to report, but Season 2 is just not good. At all.
Once the lengthy flashback is over, and you’re over the joy of seeing Ke Huy Quan after all his moving and heartfelt award speeches for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the show Loki felt like watching a literal translation of Quan’s comeback movie’s title.
Boy, this season is a MESS! First of all, Loki isn’t the BAD guy helping the cops solve crimes anymore; he IS a cop, which immediately takes away one big reason why the show was fun to begin with. Secondly, we’re dealing with 4 or 5 OTHER bad guys here, none of whom command your attention or grudging fealty in any way. The only villain remotely interesting is Miss Minutes as the rogue Artificial Intelligence because it’s too real, but Renslayer, He Who Remains, Renslayer’s cronies, and a guy called Brad Wolfe, who if he was in the first season, I have no memory of… none of them have clear motivations the audience can get behind. Not to mention, with each passing episode, whatever little motivation they DID have kept changing, as they kept turning on each other, failing to hold on to any defining character traits.
The show gets momentarily fun when Loki remembers he is a bad guy and every time Owen Wilson delivers a line of dialogue sardonically, in a manner he has perfected. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but if you do watch the series, watch it for Owen Wilson this season; Tom Hiddleston’s Loki has never been less interesting. Multiple MacGuffins attempt to make their presence, or the lack of it, felt. At one point, Mobius even tries to make a dramatic turn, almost sacrificing his life for the larger good, but nothing, and I mean diddly squat, succeeds in forging a connection with the viewer. I may as well be watching “Fukrey 3.” A big mass murder takes place at one point, and I couldn’t tell you right now in this moment WHY that happened, or what was at stake. Four episodes in, and the lack of a larger story arc is not a good sign for what’s about to come.
True to form, the show jumps through time a bunch, with production design crews working hard to bring alive 1800s America. In a particularly highly choreographed sequence set in the Chicago World Fair of 1893, you meet Jonathan Major as Victor Timely, making and selling gadgets designed to make life easier for Americans. The actor chooses a unique stammer to give to his character, which, in an attempt to be different than your usual villain with a speech impediment, is so visibly put on, it’s almost cringe. More mess, more noise, more of nothing.
If you’re super-duper into the lore and committed to the MCU, watch the series; maybe you’ll find a source of joy hidden deep within somewhere that eluded me. Maybe you’ll figure out why Hiddleston, a Jim Jarmusch actor, a Tony-nominated Golden Globe-winning Shakespeare-performing thespian, got himself stuck in this no-acting-required job and why is he the only one from the original Avengers cast unable to get out of his MCU contract?
Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, Thor, saari iss saal aakar mooh ki khaakar waapas jaa chuki hain, aane waala kuch particularly exciting nahi hai. Iman Vellani, Brie Larson starrer “The Marvels” included. I wonder how much longer this will continue to plod on. What do you think? Batao comments mein neechey.
