“Avengers: Endgame,” released in 2019, marked the culmination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, aka MCU’s Infinity saga, spanning through the first three phases. The next big installment is The Multiverse Saga, which has already started with phase four and will include upcoming phases five and six as well. Interestingly, phase four also saw the beginning of MCU’s original tv series getting released, the first two of which, namely “WandaVision” and “Loki,” provided the dots to connect to build a larger picture of the multiverse in their respective first seasons. Among them, arguably the best MCU series released to date, “Loki,” with a second season release date in 2023, has fans most hyped up. Earlier this month, Disney’s D23 Marvel panel released a special trailer for “Loki” season two, which was meant to be screened solely for the audience present there. However, like much previous comic-book media content, the trailer got leaked on the internet for the world to see, albeit in a sketchy quality. We can’t wait to discuss it and share our thoughts regarding how things will shape up in season two and also in the future timeline of the MCU.
Trailer Description
At first glance, it seems season two takes off right from where season one had ended, but still, there seems to be a gap that we will try to bridge using our speculations. The trailer opens with the sound of an elevator door opening, as Marvel Studios’ logo gets unveiled. It moves on with a clock ticking sound mingled with the sound of a hand-cranked music box, creating an ominous effect. We see Loki cautiously approaching an unseen character. The camera is focused on the said character’s hands, which are holding a logbook or diary with “TVA” on it. Loki greets the character by saying hello, but before uttering another word, he seems to get warped and transported to another place. A couple of shots from Time Variance Authority (the agency associated with maintaining temporal balance in MCU), aka TVA’s headquarters, are shown, which looks deserted. We find Loki in a desert as he says to someone off-screen that what he’s trying to say might seem strange, but he’s being pulled in time, and he has seen terrible, awful things happen. The trailer shows Loki almost glitching and reappearing in the same place multiple times. In the next scene, Loki, accompanied by Mobius and minutemen, takes the time stick to strike a mural on a large wall of TVA HQ. The mural, which had timekeepers’ figures engraved, exposes Kang’s figure engraved within, as a sinister tune cue in the background. The trailer follows Loki and Mobius to a library-type setting where they are being handed over something by Ke Huy Quan’s character. In the next shot, we see Sylvie sporting a new haircut in an unfamiliar setting, listening to music. The TVA clerk, Casey, is seen being escorted by someone through a narrow, dark space.
TVA hunter B-15 is seen next in traditional African garb, while Loki says in the background that there is nothing that stands between this world and utter destruction. The scene then shifts to a different era, and Loki and Mobius adorn tuxedos in a supposed party-like setting. TVA judge Ravonna Renslayer is shown as Loki warns someone about an impending war. Loki fights with a couple of minutemen and gets chased. Mobius and Loki are seen with either a doppelganger or a variant of Loki. Mobius asks whether it was a bit over the top, to which Loki replies that he thinks it was spot-on. A quick succession of images follows among which we find Mobius wearing a spacesuit-type attire and Loki freefalling somewhere. The series title “Loki” with interchanging fonts appears, and the trailer ends with the following comedy sequence. As we see Loki and Mobius sitting in a cafeteria, Loki tells Mobius he doesn’t want him to think that Loki is the bad guy in this ordeal. Mobius questions, perhaps sarcastically, who even thought he was, to which Loki namedrops the members of the Avengers, Thanos, Thor, Odin, Miss Minutes, and Mobius himself. Mobius keeps scoffing in disbelief.
Trailer Breakdown And Easter Eggs
The trailer shares similarities with the season one trailer as both open with the familiar elevator ding and the clock ticking sound, which suggests that time will be of the essence in this season too. The second season is directed by director duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who are skilled at making modern horror sci-fi movies, as evident from their previous movies like “Spring,” “Synchronic,” and “Resolution.” Therefore, we can expect a mind-bending psychological or unique body horror touch in the series, too, as hinted at in the opening theme. Season one ended with TVA rebooting itself, and in this trailer, we don’t even see that continuation. From the opening sequence, this version of TVA looks almost abandoned, wrecked, almost like it had been through hell. Loki’s warping in and out of reality at first reminds us of season one’s TemPad, which made the targets get stuck in a time stasis or time loop. His being transported to the desert once again is a callback from season one when, after escaping from the 2012 timeline Avengers, Loki got arrested by TVA. The trailer suggests that Loki has gone through some experience in the gap between seasons one and two, as he talks about seeing terrible, awful things. Fans will remember that season one had ended with Sylvie killing ‘He Who Remains’ and branching the multiverse, which meant evil variants of ‘He Who Remains,’ including Kang the Conqueror, will rise to take control. Now Loki’s experience might allude to Kang’s role in making Loki witness a future where he tries to take over the Marvel multiverse or the fact that the temporal shift in the first season finale made Loki move through multiverses to see many doomed timelines. In any case, this version of TVA, whether rebooted or original, seems to have no directory for Loki. As it seems from the trailer, Loki is starting from square one, but this time, he is tasked with warning and convincing the TVA, not the other way around like in season one.
Loki striking down the mural of timekeepers to reveal Kang’s busts engraved underneath suggests the unraveling of TVA propaganda from season one, but it is also a means for him to convince ignorant TVA members, including Mobius, of the truth. Once again, confusion arises as the rebooted TVA from the season one finale substitutes the Timekeepers’ relics with Kang’s effigies, but the trailer shows this TVA still has murals with Timekeeper’s figures engraved, which surely is odd. Next, we see Ke Huy Quan’s character, added in season two, hovering down from the top shelf of what seems like the TVA archive room. Adding another multiverse traversal movie, “Everything Everywhere all at Once,” starring in a series like “Loki” surely was a cool move. He seems to be playing the role of a librarian for TVA in the series, approached by Loki and Mobius. TVA clerk Casey who was storing infinity stone in his desk in the first season seems battered and frightened as he moves through some cramped, dark area while being escorted by someone. Confirming the fact that TVA is in a horrid state.
Next, we see the variant of God of Mischief, who truly lived up to her name, branched the multiverse by killing ‘He Who Remains’ and initiated the uprising of Kang, Sylvie Laufeydottir. After taking her revenge and escaping TVA in the first season, it seems she has moved across time, as leaked stills reveal her to be present in 1970s London. Loki and Mobius in their tuxes were also seen in similar settings, so it seems that a bittersweet reunion will take place. The rest of the TVA members, like Hunter B-15 and Judge Renslayer, are probably separated or operating covertly. Renslayer left TVA in search of free will, so the rebooted TVA might not have affected her, and she might have all the memories of past interactions intact. Whereas B-15 was reprogrammed along with TVA and had to unlearn the truth all over again. In the scene where Mobius stands with two Loki-s, it seems Loki used his trickery to create a doppelganger of himself, as he had done on many earlier occasions. Mobius in spacesuit-like attire might suggest traveling to one of many different dimensions of TVA. As the trailer draws to a close, the shot with Loki and Mobius sitting for lunch is again a callback to season one’s cafeteria scene. The joke might seem like usual MCU banter, but the mention of Miss Minutes is crucial, as her absence is felt throughout the trailer, and we do not know whether she exists in this rebooted TVA any longer.
Big Picture For MCU
Whether it is introducing Thanos as the big bad for the Infinity saga or enabling Kang’s uprising in the Multiverse Saga, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki has always played an instrumental role in the MCU’s prolonged world-building. It should be mentioned that season two of “Loki” will be released during the summer of next year, and the third Ant-Man movie, “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania,” will be released just months before that (17th February 2023). The third Ant-Man movie will be closely connected with the follow-up of “Loki” season one, as Kang, played by Jonathan Majors, is set to be the primary antagonist for the movie. In turn, the aftermath of Quantumania will be followed in “Loki” season two. Both the leaked trailers for each of these ventures seemed foreboding and somber in tone. The dilapidated condition of TVA might be a result of incidents that will take place in the third Ant-Man movie. The Kang that will appear in Quantamania might or might not be the same variant of ‘He Who Remains’ that is going to appear in “Loki” season two; as in comics, we have seen multiple variants of Kang interacting in the same timeline.
Again, this year’s MCU Halloween special “Werewolf by Night” will feature TVA minutemen trying to snare the werewolf on the loose. Perhaps the nightmare dimension of TVA, which contains dark supernatural forces, has been unleashed in the aftermath of season one, and as a result, TVA is looking dreadful too.
The first season of Loki kicked off the multiverse, and also, it was an interesting study on the importance of self-love, acceptance, and free will vs. determinism. Loki, as the character, symbolized the chaos that nature manifests to give reign to free will. The second season has put the character right back to square one while switching sides of the table, as now Loki is acting on the basis of knowledge he was made to be known by the orchestrator, Kang himself. Kang’s plan might make Loki take decisions that result in favor of the inevitability of a determined end. All in all, the steady languor of phase four might have rested the audience enough to make the initial gut punches of phase five impactful, and “Loki” season two, along with “Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” will do exactly that. Both of these pieces, while being self-contained ones, will heavily work on multiversal trappings and set the stakes for the Multiverse saga’s conclusion, “Avengers: Kang Dynasty” and “Avengers: Secret Wars.”
