Not bad, but kind of limited in scope so far, since it was just about stabilizing Loki, recapping the events of season 1, and discussing their aftermath. Worthwhile for the interplay of the cast, though. Wunmi Mosaku is a breakout performer here, I think; I love how Hunter B-15 started out as a ruthless, dangerous figure but has become a voice of morality and compassion. And of course, Ke Huy Quan is charming as always.
The biggest thing that bugged me was the scene where Ouroboros's memories changed in the present when Loki interacted with him in the past. For one thing, I've always hated the nonsensicality of stories where events in the past or future somehow happen "simultaneously" with the time traveler's present, or in the order in which the audience sees them. Causality should not work that way. If something happened in the past, it should already have happened even if the audience or characters don't know about it yet. It's solipsistic to assume causality must progress in the order we observe it.
For another thing, showing people's past being rewritten in that cliched way violates the rules of MCU time travel established in
Endgame, which actually got it right for a change: the only way to alter a past event is by creating a parallel timeline that coexists with the original rather than replacing or transforming it. You can't have a "before" and "after" version of a single moment in time; by definition, they can only be simultaneous. Again, just because the time traveler or the audience observes one before the other doesn't mean that's objectively the order in which they happen. I was so glad that
Endgame actually got it right, and now
Loki is falling back on the stupid, nonsensical cliches of fictional time travel that I hate so much. And it adds the equally stupid cliche of people in the present being
aware of their memories changing in real time! If events were changed in the past, they should have had those memories from then to the present, and have no awareness that they're in an altered timeline. It's self-contradictory and silly.
More fundamentally, a universe should have consistent rules, no matter how fanciful they are. You shouldn't change the way time travel works from story to story. I mean, good grief, the whole premise of
Loki season 1 was predicated on the idea that any change in time created a new branch rather than rewriting the original one! So doing it this way doesn't just contradict
Endgame, it contradicts
Loki itself!
The only saving grace is that it's happening within the TVA, a realm out of time, so maybe the rules are different there. And they said the rules are changing from how they used to work within the TVA, so a lot of things could be in flux. It still doesn't hold together in terms of its internal logic, but at least I can hold on to the hope that it doesn't change the rules established previously, so long as it remains limited to the TVA.
Plus lots of Jonathan Majors while at the same time no Jonathan Majors! Do we know if much ahem, pruning, has gone on in relation to his involvement in the show?
According to the producer, they didn't change a thing.
https://uproxx.com/movies/loki-season-2-kevin-wright-jonathan-majors/
And this is the part that you’ve probably had to take PR classes about before you started doing interviews. Jonathan Majors has a trial that starts this month. And I know there’s no way you don’t know this is going to pop up in every review. And I’m not asking you to comment on an upcoming trial. But as a producer, how does this affect you?
Yeah, I think what you said is right. We don’t know what that will all be. But what I can say is the show that is on-screen, that will be, going out, is the show that we wanted to make. Victor Timely was always a big part of that. The story that is there is what was written, what was shot. This is maybe the first Marvel movie or show with zero additional photography. So I think we feel strongly about what the story is, what the performances are. And we’re happy with it, and it’s what the show is. And what happened afterwards, none of us really know. And we’ll see.
Was there any thought, even a quick discussion, about making a change and re-shooting his part? Now that I’ve seen it, he’s in it a lot so I’m guessing that wasn’t possible.
No. And I think it’s because we had shot the show. We made the show. And there’s nothing really to act on at this moment.
Any changes in Marvel's plans for Kang won't take effect until future productions.
I think it's extremely likely they changed their minds. They probably didn't want to waste time reintroducing everyone to Loki, making them trust him, ect. Not needed for the story. The fact that they invented and sorted out the time-slipping in one episode is evidence of that I think.
It did kind of feel like they were walking back what they'd set up, or that there was a new creative team taking a different approach. Looking it up, I see that this season does indeed have a different showrunner, though one who did work on season 1.
