Loki season 2 is streaming on Disney Plus, with the second episode streaming on Thursday, October 12. The Loki 2 premiere introduced new time travel rules as well as a post-credits scene imbued with glorious purpose. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
I’m watching season 2 with different eyes and expectations than season 1. I know the events of Loki will eventually lead to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars. Loki is a pivotal element of that story, and that’s not a spoiler.
But Marvel practically confirmed how important Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is for the MCU, including the upcoming Secret Wars crossover event that’s coming in 2027. While that’s not a spoiler, other Loki and MCU spoilers might follow.
The key to understanding the events in Loki
Loki deals with time travel in the MCU — rules we started learning about in Avengers: Endgame. It’s more timeline travel, as returning to the past will not change the future. The only place where that happens, as we saw in Loki season 2 episode 1, is the TVA.
But that’s because the TVA experiences time differently. It sits outside timelines, so the probably billions of people serving the organization do not age. Mobius (Owen Wilson) last saw OB (Ke Huy Quan) some 400 years ago, yet the former doesn’t remember. Well, Kang, the hero/villain of the show, made sure memories were wiped on a regular basis.
My point here is that the TVA and the He-Who-Remains Kang are contemporary with everything that happens in the multiverse. The past, present, and future all occur simultaneously from their perspective. It’s like watching millions of TV screens at the same time, each displaying a different show, but one the TVA can influence immediately.
The Loki season 1 finale makes that clear when Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) kills Kang. The past, present, and future of the timeline start creating branches at the same time. From their perspective, there is no past, present, or future.
What I’m getting at is that the events in Loki sesason 2 also happen at the same time as Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars. That is, for TVA agents, such as Loki, Mobius, and Sylvie, the face-offs against Kang in Avengers 5 and Avengers 6 will probably happen right as season 2 ends, from their perspective of personal chronology.
We, the watchers, will spend a few years getting there, just like everyone in the MCU’s main timeline.
Will Loki and Sylvie appear in Avengers: Secret Wars?
On that note, I fully expect Loki and Sylvie to be key characters in at least one of the upcoming Avengers sequels. Secret Wars is probably the best candidate for that. Marvel is far from announcing the cast for that movie, but it has practically confirmed that Loki is a key catalyst for Secret Wars.
It all happened during Phase Zero’s interview with Marvel producer Kevin Wright, who discussed making the two seasons. At one point, the producer addresses a question about Loki being the consistent throughline of the Multiverse Saga.
Wright said he had conversations with Michael Waldron during season 1 about Loki’s importance to the MCU.
“So much of the first two or three phases of Marvel storytelling do track back to Loki and the choices he made. Even Thanos coming to Earth is a ramification of Loki not doing his job in Avengers,” he said.
I will remind you here that the Loki he’s referring to has died. The Loki in the TV show is a variant that experienced none of that. But what he and Sylvie did at the TVA in season 1 did impact everything in the MCU, including the events of Endgame.
Back to Wright’s comments, he said that while they were developing Loki, they wondered about the character’s impact on the current phases.
“We were kind of like, ‘Oh, in a broad sense, it would be really cool if the coming phases also ran through Loki and his choices, but in a different, unexpected way,'” he said.
“It always, I mean those are kind of like broad discussions, but we always are focusing in on just what we’re doing and try not to get too bogged down by the bigger picture. If we tell our story really well, the rest of the MCU will embrace it.”
“So Tom Hiddleston is the catalyst for Secret Wars confirmed,” joked Brandon Davis, the host of the podcast. That’s when Wright jumped back in to also give a nod to the other Loki of the show.
“Sylvie has a lot of responsibility in that too, by the way, with what she’s done with the Multiverse,” Wright said.
Before we get to Secret Wars, we have to see how the two Lokis mess with the multiverse in season 2. Episode 2 will be available on Thursday on Disney Plus at 9:00 PM EST.
