The next episodes of Loki are “the two best episodes of this series”

The second season of Loki is running now on Disney+, and at the risk of jinxing things, it’s the most I’ve enjoyed the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a while. The plot is trippy, the actors have great chemistry, and the show just looks terrific, perhaps because the producers got to build real sets instead of using the Volume, which is the LED-covered room Disney+ pioneered for The Mandalorian. I don’t think Loki would have the same appeal if it weren’t for those what-if-The-Jetsons-was-live-action kind of sets, so I’m glad that folks like director Kasra Farahani went to the mat for them.

“In season one, it’s not that we had to fight for the vision, but we had to really make our case, because we were doing things in a way that was very different from a lot of projects within Marvel Studios,” Farahani told The Hollywood Reporter. “Specifically, we were building more intact, fully 360 sets, including ceilings with integrated lighting, and that was just something that the studio was unsure about because they hadn’t done a lot of that. And so it took a lot of convincing, and Kevin Wright and Trish Stanard, our line producer from season one, were instrumental in that. And ultimately, the studio was like, ‘Okay guys, give it a shot.'”

"So it worked really well in season one, and in season two, we did not have to make that case in the same way. They were on board with the look of the show, and I dare say, I hope, that it’s even going to change things beyond our show in terms of how things are photographed."

Loki producers hope their show changes things at Marvel Studios

I would not be upset if the look of Loki was adopted by other Marvel series. Changing an institution like Marvel Studios is no easy task, not after it’s produced industry-defining hits like Avengers: Endgame. But they are trying. For instance, Marvel shows don’t have showrunners; they’re run more like big movies than TV series. But after being unsatisfied with the results, Marvel is trying to bring showrunners back.

All of this talk of institutional change dovetails nicely with the theme of Loki’s second season, which is about the characters trying to change the TVA, the bureaucracy that’s supposed to keep the multiverse from splitting apart. “Can people change? Can institutions change? What happens when that system breaks down, and you have to build a new system?” Loki writer Eric Martin asked Variety. “That’s really what we’re looking at. It all comes down to the idea of chaos versus order — which makes a lot of sense, because we’re dealing with a lot of chaos.”

So that’s the theme of the season. In terms of specifics, Loki and company were working to prevent the temporal loom — the big doohickey that keeps the many timelines of the multiverse organized — from spinning out of control But here’s the twist: at the end of Episode 4, they fail. The screen cuts to white, and it seems our characters are…dead? Lost in time? We’re not sure what.

Speaking to Marvel.com, executive producer Kevin Wright said that the ending of Episode 4 “feels like a thing that would be happening in Episode 6,” which is the last episode of the season. “What we always like to do in all of the scripts, and in all of our storytelling, is that thing you think is going to happen in Episode 6, or could happen in the finale or towards the end, what happens if we move that forward? What if we just accelerate all of the storytelling, hit it early.”

"One, It’ll be super shocking that it happened as early as it does. And two, it allows the filmmakers to kind of flex a different part of their brain which goes, OK, I thought that was going to happen later. What happens after that? What do we do now if we’ve got two episodes going forward? It forces you to think about where we go now and what do we do. It lets it go to really surprising and unexpected places."

I know I’m curious to see what happens next. “If people liked Episode 4, I genuinely think 5 and 6 are maybe the two best episodes of this series,” Martin continued. “They’re beautiful and they’re profound. They’re deeply moving. And we only get to go there because of that story acceleration.”

Martin gave a little tease of his own: “Obviously, the story continues. Just don’t expect a straight line.”

Loki season 2 was originally going to feature many more Kang variants

One of the biggest additions to Loki season 2 is Victor Timely, a variant of the character Kang the Conqueror, but from a different universe. We met another Kang variant in season 1: He Who Remains, the guy who built the TVA to keep more sinister versions of himself from waging a multiversal war.

Apparently, a multiversal war was originally what we were going to get in Loki season 2, or at least a “prelude” to one. Martin says that the initial plans for the season “leaned pretty heavily into aspects of the multiple characters” of Kang. But ultimately they decided to drill down on Victor.

"It just felt like, ‘What’s a surprising way to deal with this character, something that’s a little bit left of center, after we meet He Who Remains?’ And that’s really where Victor Timely came in. In the comics, there is a Victor Timely character. It’s pretty thin. He’s just kind of a Kang variant that went into the past and had some stupid plan."

If Victor Timely was going to work as a character, the show would have to go deeper with him. It came up with the idea of him being a turn-of-the-century inventor who was way ahead of his time, a Nikola Tesla-esque figure who’s also a bit of a con man. “When you’re that far ahead of everyone, what you’re doing isn’t going to make sense to them,” Martin said. “So you kind of have to con people a little bit to get some money, and then you can go off and work on your projects.”

As for Victor’s idiosyncrasies — he stammers a lot, and seems quite shy — a lot of them came from actor Jonathan Majors. “Jonathan showed up with so much work and invention in terms of the Timely character, and some of the conversations that he and I had in the run-up to shooting were about a historical figure named Granville Woods,” Farahani revealed. “He was a Black inventor from the late 19th century, and he lived exactly when Timely would’ve lived, basically. He invented so many things, and people were constantly trying to steal them from him. Edison twice tried to take his patents, but [Edison] lost in court and ended up offering Woods a job, which was declined. So he was an important figure that went into Timely as well, but Jonathan built the mannerisms, the physicality, the quirkiness and the specific mix of how he represented intellectual brilliance with social awkwardness, a degree of charlatanism and pathos at the end.”

Loki directors taking over Daredevil: Born Again

So far, whatever the Loki team is doing, it’s working. Disney must think so too, because Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead — head of the directing team on Loki season 2 — have been put in charge of Daredevil: Born Again, according to The A.V. Club.

Born Again was pretty far along in filming when Disney decided to retool the whole thing, firing head writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman and letting the directors on the show’s remaining episodes know that their services would no longer be needed. The show will still feature “some scenes and episodes” that have already been shot, but everything will receive a thorough reworking.

That reworking will happen under the watching eye of The Punisher veteran Dario Scardapane, who will serve as the first-ever showrunner on a Marvel series. Whatever’s Daredevil’s difficulties, I think this is a good move.

We don’t know when Daredevil: Born Again will be out, but the final two episodes of Loki drop Thursdays on Disney+.

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