The following contains Loki spoilers.
Marvel’s Loki may have only been six episodes, but it was a wild ride from start to finish, reinventing a fan favorite character, wrestling with complex existential questions of free will and fate, and telling one of the franchise’s weirdest love stories to date. Plus, you know, it also managed to entirely rewrite the reality of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it.
Thankfully, Marvel wasted no time confirming a second season, announcing the show’s renewal in the end credits of the Season 1 finale. (Likely because it was obvious that fans would riot if we weren’t promised some answers to the many questions – both literal and philosophical – that this show raised.)
Here are just a few of the things we’re definitely going to need Loki Season 2 to explore.
Where in the Timeline is Loki?
The first season of Loki ends with a jaw-dropping cliffhanger: He Who Remains is dead, the multiverse is reborn, and when Loki returns to the Time Variance Authority he doesn’t find things exactly as he left them. Mobius and B-20 no longer remember him and the three giant statues of the Time Keepers at the TVA have been replaced with a single figure carved in Kang’s image. What in the world is going on here?
One of the first key questions Loki Season 2 will have to answer is precisely where and when this Loki and the TVA even are. Is this the remnants of the Sacred Timeline, rewritten into something new by He Who Remains’ death? Did Renslayer’s actions somehow change the TVA? Or did Sylvie’s temp-pad launch Loki across the multiverse into another world entirely? (Though since the TVA is supposed to exist outside of time and reality, could there even be a second one?)
Thinking too hard about this is enough to make your head hurt, in the best way possible.
What’s Next for Sylvie?
When last we saw our favorite female Loki variant Sylvie, she was watching time fracture around her after killing the man she’d spent her entire life trying to find and punish. Where does she possibly go after that? She’s literally changed reality – both for herself and everyone else.
Throughout the series, we’ve seen Sylvie driven by an aggressive single-mindedness. But where does she turn that focus now? Will she try and build the home she’s never been able to have before in one of the new timelines she’s created? Track Loki down in whatever timeline she’s sent him to? Or does she begin seeking out the Kang variants, trying to prove that her decision to essentially create them all doesn’t have to doom the universe the way He Who Remains predicted?
Is Sylvie and Loki’s Romance Doomed?
The season ended with Marvel’s most bizarre romance having their first relationship spat. Of course, for Loki and Sylvie that means literally fighting each other with swords while debating whether the universe deserves free will, all before one kisses and then betrays the other by shoving them through a temporal gateway. Shakespeare says the course of true love did never run smooth, guys.
What’s next for these two crazy kids is anyone’s guess – as far as we know, Sylvie’s currently still in the castle at the end of time, and Loki’s in…well, Loki’s in a timeline that we haven’t entirely identified yet. How they’ll find their way back to one another in season 2 (because of course they will find their way back to one another in season 2) is anyone’s guess.
Will Sylvie realize her decision to kill He Who Remains was a mistake? Will she regret kicking off what may well be another multiversal war and seek Loki out to try and fix what she broke? Will Loki try to find her again, in the wake of all that’s happened?
What About All Those Other Versions of Kang?
According to He Who Remains, Sylvie’s choice to kill him would essentially release a veritable army of Kang variants across the multiverse, who will wreak untold havoc and destruction until one essentially takes over again. And that appears to be exactly what has happened, to some extent, given that the statues of the Time Keepers at TVA headquarters have been replaced with a giant Kang figure. But which version of the character that is – or what the other, less benevolent version have done in his name – is up in the air.
We know that Jonathan Majors is set to play Kang the Conquerer in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania but that film isn’t set to hit theaters until 2023 and that’s an awfully long time to let the MCU’s new Big Bad sit idle. So it seems safe to assume that we’ll see some version of him pop up in at least one MCU property before then, if not more.
Where Did Judge Renslayer Go?
When last we saw Judge Renslayer, she seemed determined to prove that her life as a leader of the TVA – and the many morally dubious decisions she made as such – had some sort of meaning, despite the fact that her actions were essentially all performed in service to a group of leaders who didn’t actually exist.
After an emotional confrontation with Mobius, Renslayer escapes in search of “free will,” which as we know in this universe generally means Kang. Whether she finds him, or what happens during her confrontation with whichever version of Kang she meets is unknown, but since Renslayer is Kang’s girlfriend in the comics, it seems safe to assume that she has some hand in the creation of whatever version of the TVA Loki stumbles back into at the end of the finale.
Why Does the TVA Still Exist?
Throughout Loki Season 1, the TVA was sort of the literal embodiment of the “you had one job” concept. They were meant to patrol and protect the Sacred Timeline, pruning rogue variants and cutting off dangerous branches before they threatened the balance of reality. But now that He Who Remains is dead and there is no Sacred Timeline anymore, then what purpose does the TVA still serve in this new reality?
Judging by the giant statue of some version of Kang in the lobby, there’s every likelihood that the organization has shifted focus to either battle or track the many variants of the former He Who Remains throughout time and space and may have even been created in this reality by one the the “good” Kang variants. But, it’s also possible that the TVA is still trying, in some small way, to corral or at least organize the multiverse into something where its many branches can somehow peacefully co-exist.
What’s the Deal with Miss Minutes?
Miss Minutes, the TVA’s cheerful sentient clip art, is one of the most memorable parts of Loki’s first season. Her organizational prowess is clearly unmatched and very little appears to ruffle her determinedly perky attitude. But we still don’t know much about her, including how she came to exist or what her ultimate goals are.
Simultaneously helpful and vaguely menacing, it seems clear that she had an agenda of her own throughout the season. But an agenda in service to whom? He Who Remains? Kang the Conqueror? The larger concept of order? And what sort of secrets does she still know?
Is Alligator Loki Okay?
Obviously, a real concern going into Loki Season 2 is the fate of all the other Loki variants we met throughout the season. With He Who Remains dead and the multiverse unleashed, will the other Lokis be able to leave their Void prison and return to their real lives?
Most importantly, is Alligator Loki okay? Are he and Kid Loki striking out on their own now, perhaps to a Disney+ Young Avengers series near you? Loki Season 2 definitely needs to provide us with an update on our favorite reptilian god.
Could Classic Loki Still Be Alive?
As long as we’re talking about Loki variants, does the rebirth of the multiverse mean that Classic Loki might return in some way? Your mileage may vary on whether or not you think his sacrifice was truly heroic or a heroic piece of misdirection, but we don’t actually know what happens to the variants and timelines gobbled up by Alioth.
Sure, the other Lokis hinted that to be eaten by the fog monster equals instant death, but this show also spent four full episodes pretending that pruning equals being killed, so trust but verify, is all I’m saying. Plus, Richard E. Grant is just too good an actor not to put back in a classic Loki costume as soon as possible.
How Will Doctor Strange 2 Impact Loki Season 2?
With reports swirling that Tom Hiddleston will make some sort of appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seems likely that the film will impact Loki Season 2 in significant ways.
Of course, the question of which version of Hiddleston’s Loki we might see in the film – the same one we saw in Loki or some other perhaps as-yet-unknown variant – remains an open one, but given that this Loki had a direct hand in the creation of the multiverse, it certainly makes sense that he might cross over to a film dealing directly with that concept. Could Sylvie also pop up? It’s certainly possible and after Loki and WandaVision it seems as though anything could happen in this film.