Disney Plus has another smash-hit on its hands – and more episodes are on the way. **WARNING: LOKI SPOILERS**

By David Craig

Published: Thursday, 05 August 2021 at 12:00 am

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Marvel Studios has dominated Disney Plus this year with each of its blockbuster shows being bigger than the last, but Loki kicked things up to a whole new level.

The high-concept sci-fi drama has had the biggest impact on the MCU of any streaming project to date, with the Loki ending birthing a multiverse and setting the stage for endless amounts of chaos.

The show has also introduced iconic time-travelling foe Kang the Conqueror – or at least, a memorable variant of him – who will soon be cropping up again in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

As if that wasn’t enough, a last-minute twist saw our God of Mischief seemingly thrown into a parallel dimension, with fans already desperate for answers on how he’ll get out of his latest predicament.

It appears director Kate Herron won’t be the one to provide them, as the filmmaker has decided to part ways with Marvel after an acclaimed six-episode run on Loki’s first season.

Nevertheless, she has said she’s “excited” to see where the show goes next, telling Collider that one of the most important jobs for her replacement will be getting Owen Wilson’s Agent Mobius on his jet ski.

Read on for more details on Loki season two, including potential release date on Disney Plus, cast and where the story could go next.

Loki season 2 release date

CONFIRMED: Loki will return for a second season, as confirmed by Marvel in the Loki post-credits scene included in the series finale, but the reveal will not have been a total surprise to those who have been keeping up with headlines.

In January 2021, Deadline reported that Loki season two is in the works, with head writer Michael Waldron said to be returning to pen the second chapter in the saga.

There’s no confirmed launch date for Loki season two just yet but, according to industry publication Production Weekly, the next episodes could start filming in January 2022.

The first season of Loki shot for approximately six months (not including a pandemic-related hiatus), before going into post-production for an additional half-year.

If the epic streaming series keeps to this cycle for its sophomore showing, RadioTimes.com predicts a Loki season two release date in early 2023, perhaps taking over WandaVision’s January slot.

In April 2021, executive producer Nate Moore told IndieWire that Loki is a project envisioned for “multiple” seasons, suggesting it might continue even further than the second instalment.

“I think there’s a lot of storytelling in Loki that’s really irreverent and clever and cool, but also lends itself to multiple seasons in a way where it’s not a one-off,” he said. “Tom Hiddleston, I think, is doing some of his best work on that show.

“It really is kind of amazing. I think of all the great stuff he’s done, but this show is going to show such different sides and really the true scope of his range. I think that show is going to surprise a lot of people.”

Loki season 2 cast

There’s no word yet on which Loki cast members will be returning for season two but it stands to reason that Tom Hiddleston will be back in the title role.

Of course, he isn’t the only Loki in town anymore, so we could very well see more from his mischievous Loki variants, of which Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie has been the most prominent.

We could very well learn more about DeObia Oparei’s Boastful Loki as well as Jack Veal’s Kid Loki, but it looks unlikely that Richard E Grant’s Classic Loki will be able to come back from his encounter with Alioth – then again, the Lokis do pride themselves on finding sneaky ways to stay alive.

Fans will be keen to see what happens next for the TVA’s top agents, now revealed to be brainwashed variants, after Owen Wilson’s Agent Mobius and Wunmi Mosaku’s Hunter B-15 appeared to have forgotten Loki in the final scene.

If the comic books are any indication, we’ll definitely see more of Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Renslayer given that she’s one of Kang the Conqueror’s closest allies – with the ruthless TVA judge going on a search for free will in the series finale.

Disney

However, it’s possible she could instead follow Loki episode six’s breakout star Jonathan Majors to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, rather than stick around for Loki season two.

Fans were thrilled to see the actor show up in the series finale – thank goodness we didn’t have another Mephisto situation on our hands – with an electric performance that takes cues from some truly iconic sources.

“Some cultural pop references were, of course, The Wizard Of Oz, Sunset Boulevard, Citizen Kane, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory,” Majors told Empire Magazine. “The archetype of the wizard and what happens to him when he gets bored, you know? And he becomes a trickster.

“I think when we meet He Who Remains, he’s on the borderline of those two things. You don’t really know where he’s at. And I think the ambiguity of that is one of the wicked things about it.”

Director Kate Herron said she felt a “big responsibility” to get the casting of Kang right given how significant the character will be to the future of the MCU, revealing the decision to hire Majors was made in collaboration with Ant-Man’s Peyton Reed as well as Marvel Studios executives Kevin Feige, Lou D’Esposito and Victoria Alonso.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: “Jonathan Majors is an actor that we were all just blown away by; I think everyone who knows his work is blown away by him. He’s an amazing actor, and the thing that I love about him is that he’s this chameleon.

“He’s so different in everything he does, and that’s exciting, obviously, when you’re asking an actor to play a character who’s going to have a lot of different versions of himself. So for us, that was a thrill.”

Utopia star Sasha Lane seems to have made an early exit from the MCU as Hunter C-20, who was killed by Renslayer after realising the truth about the TVA – although there could be variants of her out in the universe too.

But one of the biggest departures from Loki has happened behind the camera, as director Kate Herron has confirmed in a surprise move that she won’t be returning for the second season.

The filmmaker detailed her decision in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter: “I would say that when I joined Loki, it was always going to be those six episodes. We were treating it like a movie, and we were running it like a movie.

“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. So I always intended just to do these six.

Loki season 2 theories: What could happen next?

Disney Plus

Loki episode six gave fans what they had long been hoping for, delivering the formal introduction of Jonathan Majors as comic book villain Kang the Conqueror – kind of.

It appears that the eccentric figure we meet in the series finale is not the ruthless maniacal villain from the comic books but rather a somewhat more reasonable variant under the alias He Who Remains.

In the source material, He Who Remains and Kang are separate entities, but it appears the character’s have been merged for the MCU adaptation as a way to streamline the story.

While his authoritarian grasp over reality as puppet-master of the TVA can certainly be considered evil, there is a virtuous side to this version of Kang as he strives to prevent the outbreak of a cataclysmic multiversal war.

After Sylvie kills him in the closing moments, he utters “see you soon” as the Sacred Timeline branches into countless alternate realities, one of which is sure to contain an even more dangerous version of himself.

It’s unclear whether Loki season two will feature Kang in a more prominent role given that the character is already confirmed to be appearing in the next Ant-Man film, due for release in early 2023.

Disney

But even if the Kang subplot is diverted to the big screen, there will still be plenty for Tom Hiddleston’s epic sci-fi drama to unravel as it deals with the ramifications of a tweaked timeline in which neither Agent Mobius nor Hunter B-15 can remember who Loki is.

From the jaw-dropping final scene, it seems that Loki may have ended up in a parallel universe where his exploits with the TVA never happened, but it’s unclear if Sylvie intended to send him there or if its a sign the cosmos is already out of control.

The addition of a giant Kang statue in the TVA headquarters, taking up the space once held by a shrine to the fictional Time-Keepers, suggests that perhaps an egotistical variant of the time-traveller is behind this meddling.

Things have been left similarly ambiguous for Judge Ravonna Renslayer, who exited the TVA headquarters through a TemPad portal on a quest to find free will.

In the comics, she becomes a love interest and right-hand woman to Kang the Conqueror, so it’s possible we could see the two villains first cross paths in Loki’s second season.

Season one showrunner Kate Herron isn’t returning for the next chapter, but she too has a lot of questions about where the story will go next, discussing the show’s renewal in an interview with Collider.

“I would say the decision for that came from Marvel and Disney, and I thought it was just the highest compliment to everyone’s work on the show,” she said. “They were just excited by the stories and by the amazing work that the writers and the actors were doing.

“And I thought that was so cool because there’s so many unanswered questions. It’s like, where did Renslayer ago? What are B-15’s memories? Who is she? And also beyond that, where the hell is Loki?

Herron added: “Yeah, I think there’s definitely more road to travel. And as everyone knows, in the comics, even with six hours, we scratched the surface of who Loki is, so I think there’s so much more to be explored.

Is there a Loki season 2 trailer?

Not just yet. But if filming does commence in January 2022 as rumoured, we could well get a trailer by autumn next year.

Loki is available to stream exclusively on Disney Plus. Check out more of our Sci-Fi and Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what’s on tonight. 

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