The second season of the American television series Loki, based on Marvel Comics featuring the character of the same name, sees Loki working with Mobius M. Mobius, Hunter B-15, and other members of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) to navigate the multiverse to find Sylvie, Ravonna Renslayer, and Miss Minutes.
The season is produced by Marvel Studios, with Eric Martin serving as head writer and Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead leading the directing team.
Tom Hiddleston reprises his role as Loki from the film series, starring alongside Sophia Di Martino (Sylvie), Wunmi Mosaku (Hunter B-15), Eugene Cordero, Neil Ellice, Owen Wilson (Mobius), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Renslayer), Tara Strong (Miss Minutes), and Jonathan Majors reprising their roles from the first season, alongside Rafael Casal, Kate Dickie, Liz Carr, Ke Huy Quan, and Richard Dixon.
The season received positive reviews from critics, with praise for its conclusion, musical score, and Loki's character arc.
[citation needed] Loki star Tom Hiddleston and executive producer Kevin R. Wright began having conversations during production of the season one episode "Lamentis" regarding "how this world could build out" to "dive deeper into it".
[44] Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige had approached the duo while they were working on additional photography for Moon Knight to have them meet with Wright and Hiddleston to discuss coming on board for the season.
[51] Executive producers for the season include Marvel Studios' Feige, Stephen Broussard, Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brad Winderbaum, and Wright, alongside Hiddleston, Benson and Moorhead, Martin, and Waldron.
Wright explained that much of the "core character conflict" in the season came from the TVA and each's relationship to it, stating, "We want everybody to be in the gray area — they're neither good nor bad.
[57] Wright stated that the creatives wanted to push the weirdness of the series further in the second season, while still keeping the longer, character-driven moments, notably the friendship between Loki and Mobius.
McDonald's global chief marketing officer Morgan Flatley believed Sylvie's story aligned with their brand of "providing comfort and familiarity".
Director Peyton Reed stated that the usage of the scene had felt natural due to the MCU's focus on multiversal stories, and the fact that the season and film were being concurrently developed.
[67][68] In July 2022, Rafael Casal was confirmed to be cast in a "major role" in the season,[69] TVA Hunter X-5 and the actor Brad Wolfe.
[58][22][13] Casting director Sarah Halley Finn suggested Quan for the series after seeing an early screening of his film Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), with Marvel working quickly to offer him a part ahead of that film's wide release in April 2022, knowing it would result in Quan receiving many additional acting offers.
These new locations had "more of a cold war, 1950s aesthetic" featuring "understated, muted greens", though the yellow and orange colors established in the first season are still present as accents.
's work area, the temporal core, and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, with Wright believing that set was larger than the one built for Lamentis in the first season.
Additionally, Sylvie's herringbone jacket "took forever to get [tonally right]" as Wada wanted it to have a stealth quality to fit with the character and not be "too contrasty" and "bump in other eras".
[74] Principal photography began on June 13, 2022,[75] at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom,[76] with Benson and Moorhead, DeLeeuw, and Farahani directing.
Bullington suggested a drive-through be built at the set location, given they had become a popular feature of McDonald's restaurants at that time following their introduction in 1975.
[14]: 2 Visual effects were provided by Framestore, Trixter, Industrial Light & Magic, Rising Sun Pictures, FuseFX, and Cantina Creative.
Charles Pulliam-Moore from The Verge compared Loki's time-slipping to the visual effects of the Spider-Verse films, and noted that the trailer gave a good overview of what the supporting TVA cast would be dealing with in the season.
Pulliam-Moore also highlighted Loki's dialogue with Sylvie about being gods and believed Majors' role in the season would elicit a lot of discussion upon its release.
[7] Brad Lang at Comic Book Resources felt the trailer "promises another multiversal adventure" for the season with bigger stakes.
[89] The Hollywood Reporter's Aaron Couch felt Majors' inclusion in the trailer "answers a question about how Disney would market the show" amidst the actor's legal issues.
[90] Similarly, Screen Rant's Molly Freeman and Simon Gallagher had also felt Majors' minimal presence was appropriate, with the trailer instead focused on introducing the concept of time slipping.
[52] Additional footage was released on September 4, 2023, with Fay Watson from Total Film excited by the tease of a team-up between Loki and Sylvie.
[81][96] The doorway was altered to mimic a TVA timedoor for patrons to "travel" back to 1982 upon entering the location while costumes and props from the season were showcased.
[101] Additional partnerships included a tie-in commercial with Samsung Electronics directed by Farahani that saw TVA agents hunting down Loki using a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, Bones Coffee creating Loki-themed packaging for a Key lime pie-flavored coffee given the pie was a plot element for the season, and Citizen Watch making branded content with the series for their Axiom SC and Marvel x Citizen Loki watches.
[114][115][116] JustWatch, a guide to streaming content with access to data from more than 20 million users around the world, estimated that Loki was the most watched television series across all platforms in the United States during the week of October 9–15, 2023.
The critical consensus reads, "Loki's dizzying, dazzling second season may rely on sleight of hand to distract from its slightly less satisfying storyline, but the end result still contains enough of that old Marvel magic to entertain.
[4] Similarly, Polygon's Joshua Rivera panned the season for wasting the potential of an amazing cast, a great visual and acoustic crew and creative freedom, producing a jumble of confusing plot lines, keeping its characters underdeveloped and underexplored.