Loki Season 2 Discussion - Spoilers

[Cadence]

I really liked season 1.

I really want to like season 2, and if they cut each episode in half (on average) so that I didn't have to wallow in wondering about why the time travel was so nonsensical I might. Even if the final episode ties that up, it doesn't erase all the flailing spaghetti running around feeling of wasted time I invested.

I like that Loki has found his heart (a la the Grinch). I think I am still rooting for Sylvie and Loki as a couple in spite of myself and it is leaving my subconscious disappointed.

And I really like Mobius.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think I am still rooting for Sylvie and Loki as a couple in spite of myself and it is leaving my subconscious disappointed.

I mean, on the one hand I completely agree with you.

On the other hand ... kinda weird?

 

[Ryujin]

I watched the show last night, and I largely agree with @Clint_L and @MarkB ... but with a few caveats. I was asked by a friend this morning if the show was "good." And I responded ... eh, it's complicated.

I should start by saying that the acting was, of course, excellent. And the set designs and costumes (especially the retro TVA sets) are amazing. There were times I freeze-framed just so I could read the posters in the background.

But I think that a lot of the praise of the show was simply a function of the lowered expectations people had coming in. After all, in the last year, the only MCU show we've had has been Secret Invasion. Really. She-Hulk aired last August (!!!). And with all the dire news coming out of Marvel over the last year or so, I think people wanted a win. And Tom Hiddleston is charming!

Simply by virtue of not being Secret Invasion, and by having Loki (and Morbius, underplayed with alacrity by Owen Wilson), this show was always going to get a pass. But the last two episodes ... they were just treading water. The plot, such as it was, didn't actually amount to anything. Compare that with the first season, which was full of forward momentum and surprises. Here, other than a nice plug for Mickey Dees, I can't imagine thinking about it at all. A lot of signifiers, signifying nothing. And while some of the time travel escapades were fun (such as Loki being the one who "killed" Loki in order to save him), the rush of the finale reduced anything that could have been meaningful to a blip on the screen and deus ex machina. Compare and contrast the episode of Doctor Who (Heaven Sent) where you feel the weight (and wait) of using time travel / rebirth to accomplish a task that takes a long time to this, which is just reduced to assumptions or a title card that reads, "Centuries later." Did that change Loki? I mean, it had to, right? And yet, the character changed before that.

Eh. Look, I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. The show was fine, and certainly a massive step up from the last MCU show, and I like seeing that crew together again. But it was a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. IMO.

Part of the issue might be what others have been asking for here; that you don't have to watch all of the individual shows in order to know what you need in order to understand the next movie. Everything in "Loki" happens outside of the regular continuity, and so doesn't have an effect on the movie franchises. Beginning and end in the same place. Oroboros. Mobius.

 

[Stalker0]

accomplish a task that takes a long time to this, which is just reduced to assumptions or a title card that reads, "Centuries later."

Yeah there has been this weird element of the show that time really doesn't matter. I mean we've had TVA employees apparently doing their work for "eons" of time, virtually unchanged (so much so that I had assumed they were robots before we learned they were variants).

Now Loki has been groundhog day things for centuries of time. That's likely a million or more loops. And Loki just seems....normal, not crazed not super fatigued, just....well got to do it again. He is a frost giant so may just have endurance that normal people don't, but I found that part really weird.

I will also say a lot of red herrings in this one. The whole Victor Timely thing turned out to be noise; the whole "you came before and called me OB" thing near the beginning of the season which made you think Moebius was going to go back in time at some point and meet Ouroboros never happened.

Just a whole lot of nothing plot wise it felt like, so really the only advancement in the character of Loki himself, he went from "I'll do anything for the throne" to "I don't want it, but I will grimly bear it". And that's a solid arc I don't mind it, but it did feel like a whole lot nothing to get there.

 

[Cadence]

On the other hand ... kinda weird?

Do we have an answer as to if being a Loki means one is a particular person, the occupier of a particular place in the universe, or just a title?

Is it being the child of Laufey and adopted by Odin and Firgga? Being adopted by Odin and Frigga? Having the potential of being the Norse god of Mischief or Stories?

It feels like the answer affects the weirdness level some.

 

[Rabulias]

Looks like war's back on the menu, boys.

Yes, we have known this since the mid-credits scene with all the Kangs in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. And the events of that film were alluded to by Mobius in the new TVA at the end of the finale.

Beginning and end in the same place. Oroboros. Mobius.

The episode titles say it all: "Glorious Purpose" is the title of season 1 episode 1 and season 2 episode 6. Full circle.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Do we have an answer as to if being a Loki means one is a particular person, the occupier of a particular place in the universe, or just a title?

Is it being the child of Laufey and adopted by Odin and Firgga? Being adopted by Odin and Frigga? Having the potential of being the Norse god of Mischief or Stories?

It feels like the answer affects the weirdness level some.

I mean, there's different levels of weirdness to the Loki-on-Loki action.

 

[trappedslider]

I thoroughly enjoyed it, I wasn't bugged by the time travel being nonsensical

So Loki makes Yggdrasill. Can we see Loki again? Anywhere and anywhen.

I thought that was a cool visual

I think I am still rooting for Sylvie and Loki as a couple in spite of myself and it is leaving my subconscious disappointed.

Fan fiction is both wonderful and terrible depending on how (for lack of a better word) snobbish you want to be about it

I mean, there's different levels of weirdness to the Loki-on-Loki action.

Best loki

Also, the "tease" or purple light and Renslayer.....if it's picked up for a 3rd season and if Kang Variant found her.

 

[tomBitonti]

My sense of it is that the Loom is a fail-safe for he who remains, not for the TVA. The understanding of what the Loom was for was wrong, until Loki goes back to He Who Remains.
Loki decides to not try to preserve the timelines. He breaks the Loom, almost killing both the Sacred Timeline as well as all branches of it. He then rejuvenates the timelines and reassembles them while taking the throne of time, presumably because the timelines still need some maintenance.
The season was about understanding He Who Remains trick and having the courage to recreate the timelines. A victory for free will, but with the re-arisen immanent threat of the time war.
TomB

 

[Stalker0]

Also, the "tease" or purple light and Renslayer.....if it's picked up for a 3rd season and if Kang Variant found her.

I thought that was alioth about to eat her