Review: Loki, "Ouroboros" | Season 2, Episode 1
Tom Hiddleston's god of mischief returns with a bang
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s weekly coverage of Loki season two, which debuted tonight on Disney+. As always, the first review is available to all, but subsequent reviews will only be available to paid subscribers. You can check out our full Fall schedule here (along with information about our yearly subscription deal good through 10/7), and learn more about the site and its mission on our About page.
The most compelling thing about Loki is the way it simultaneously manages to feel as small as a workplace comedy and as big as time itself. Though there were moments last season where the show’s insistence on returning to the TVA so often felt a little claustrophobic, I’ve come around to accepting that’s more of a feature than a bug. Last season, the show took my breath away with the humble image of a pile of Infinity Stones tossed into a desk drawer like spare paper weights. This second season premiere does the same by cleverly subverting last season’s cliffhanger in a simple yet totally unexpected way.
When last season’s finale saw Loki return to the TVA only to be greeted by a statue of He Who Remains and an unfamiliar Mobius and Hunter B-15, I thought for sure we were in one of two scenarios: Either He Who Remains had rewritten the Time Variance Authority’s existence to put himself at the center or Loki had jumped into an alt-universe version of the TVA. What hadn’t occurred to me is that Loki might be in the same timeline, but in the past.
True, it takes a little bit of handwaving to fully explain the reveal. (Mobius and Hunter B-15 don’t remember this era of the TVA because their memories were wiped.) But when the payoff is so fun, I’m more than willing to go with it. And that’s largely what this premiere is, fun—but in a slightly melancholy, slightly unnerving way that feels distinctly Loki.
After a two-year break, new head writer (and returning season one scribe) Eric Martin is smart to anchor this premiere around a high-stakes but ultimately fairly episodic “adventure of the week” storyline about fixing Loki’s “time slip” problem, which gives the hour some much-needed focus as the more complicated season-long arcs bubble in the background. We meet some new TVA players and we’re reminded about the threats posed by Ravonna Renslayer, Miss Minutes, and He Who Remains’ variants. But above all, we’re reminded how funny Loki can be and how strong the character work is, which is particularly welcome on the heels of a disastrously lackluster season of Secret Invasion.
Wunmi Mosaku’s Hunter B-15, for instance, is adamant in her desire to deprogram the TVA and protect the burgeoning branched timelines that formed when Sylvie killed He Who Remains. Because B-15 actually glimpsed memories of her past life last season, she has a sense of urgency and conviction that’s not entirely shared by Owen Wilson’s Mobius, who agrees with her aims but can’t quite shake his sensibilities as a loyal company man, either. (“‘Everything you’ve been doing is wrong and all your gods are dead,’ how are people gonna take that?”) Instead, Mobius’ passion lies first and foremost in his friendship with Loki, who he’s literally willing to risk life and limb (and flesh) for.
Even Ke Huy Quan’s chipper Repairs & Advancements maintenance man Ouroboros (a.k.a. “O.B.”) immediately feels like a richly drawn character. He’s more friendly and personable than your average TVA agent, perhaps because he spends hundreds of years alone at a time. And his “by the book” and yet “game for anything” energy works well against our central heroes. But he’s not afraid to make the tough calls either, like lowering the blast doors with Mobius and Loki still outside. He’s quirky but he’s also got a noble devotion to something bigger than himself, and that seems to be Loki’s sweet spot.
Particularly once O.B. enters the story, this episode absolutely soars, helped along by some kinetic direction from Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead. While the visuals of Loki’s “time slips” between the past and the present are arguably too much of a straight rip-off of the glitching from Into the Spider-Verse, the rest of the episode offers a more loving homage to classic sci-fi ideas. There’s the Bill & Ted fun of the scene where Loki makes plans with Past O.B. that pay off in the present, and there’s some delightful Douglas Adams energy to the whole Time Loom sequence where a piece of duct tape is all that protects Mobius from a skinless future as he tries to rescue Loki using O.B.’s Temporal Aura Extraction machine.
Of course, the biggest selling point of the series remains the titular god of mischief himself. And Tom Hiddleston continues to prove he’s one of the smartest investments Marvel ever made. Though Hiddleston and Sophia Di Martino never quite sold me on Loki and Sylvie’s rather rushed love story last season, Hiddleston plays wounded romantic better than just about anyone on the planet. And giving Loki the singular drive to get back to Sylvie is a smart way to ground his character against the wackier antics around him.
Indeed, given that last season was about watching Loki grow from the villain of The Avengers to a genuinely selfless hero, there was a risk that this season might find less to do with the character. But this premiere proves it can be just as compelling to watch this new, more vulnerable Loki interact with the world too—this is particularly true once he’s finally reunited in time with “his” Mobius, the man who saw through his bravado and anger to spot the “scared little boy, shivering in the cold.”
It's a side of himself that Loki has only ever really shown to Thor (and even then, only sometimes). So while emphasizing how rattled Loki is by his experience at the Citadel at the End of Time is a smart way for the show to amp up the threat of He Who Remains, it also demonstrates how much Loki has truly grown as a character too. Even at his lowest, he doesn’t revert back to his old self-protective coping mechanisms of anger and isolation. Instead, he pours out his raw emotions to Mobius and accepts his help when it’s offered.
That later element is crucial, because Loki seems a tad reckless now that he’s clearly found his new “glorious purpose” in Sylvie. There’s a heart-wrenching moment where he nearly throws away the entire Temporal Aura Extraction plan when he hears that Sylvie might be in trouble. It takes Mobius to pull him back from the edge, both figuratively and literally.
It's a new take on Loki and a new take on the Loki/Mobius dynamic, which continues to be the most compelling relationship of the series. Plotwise, this episode is more about clearing up last season’s cliffhanger than fully laying out the aims of season two. But characterwise, we’re exactly where we need to be.
Stray observations
Welcome to weekly coverage of Loki season two! I reviewed season one back at The A.V. Club, and as the world’s foremost Thor: The Dark World fan, I’m very excited to have a place to continue discussing the series here. Also, in case you missed it on your first viewing, be sure to check out the post-credits scene that teases what Sylvie got up to after she killed He Who Remains.
Speaking of Sylvie: We don’t yet know who prunes Loki in that eerie phone ringing/elevator flashforward scene. My guess is that it’s going to be a future version of Loki in some kind of devastating Will/Lyra-style separation plot. Or maybe Mobius does the pruning and Loki is the one calling? Either way, I’m expecting angst.
While Kate Herron directed all six episodes of Loki’s first season, this season’s directorial duties are split between Benson & Moorhead, visual effects supervisor Dan DeLeeuw, and production designer Kasra Farahani. Eric Martin, meanwhile, is writing or co-writing all the scripts.
Am I the only one bummed by Hiddleston’s slightly shorter haircut this season? The longer hair suits Loki so much better.
There’s a cute little reference to Ke Huy Quan’s Oscar-winning role when Loki notes that he has to rip himself from “every thread of time and space all at once.”
Our new TVA players include Blindspotting’s Rafael Casal as Hunter X-5, Game of Thrones’ Kate Dickie as General Dox, and Good Omens’ Liz Carr as Judge Gamble.
Leave it to Owen Wilson to deliver the biggest laugh of the episode with a simple thumbs up.
On a serious note: I’ll discuss this again when he appears in the series, as it’s certainly going to affect my viewing experience, but Jonathan Majors was arrested for domestic violence in an incident involving his former girlfriend back in March. (He’s pled not guilty; other women have come forward with stories of abuse.) I understand why Disney decided to move forward with releasing this season of Loki, since it was filmed before the arrest, but I’m worried Marvel is going to use this as a test balloon to see whether it can get away with continuing to use Majors as a major player in MCU projects moving forward. You can learn more about Majors’ alleged patterns of abuse in Rolling Stone’s in-depth reporting.
Color me impressed! I mean, I liked season 1 already, but genre shows can often lose their way after that, and this was such a confident launch to connect what worked before to wherever the story goes next. (And ugh, so refreshing after the mediocrity of Secret Invasion and to a lesser extent Ahsoka. Nice to know Disney can still make these series work, on occasion.)
Ke Huy Quan is a great addition, too -- I thought at first he was only going to be in that one scene behind the desk, fun as it was, but he adds so much to the whole episode after that too. I hope he sticks around for more this season.
Great episode! It’s the best thing I’ve seen on Disney+ since Andor and maybe the best thing from the MCU since Loki S1.
Agree completely with your review. Just really well done all around. Surprising and engaging. Everything looked fantastic. O.B. is a great new character.
Ok, we get a reference to EEAAO, but this was a serious missed opportunity to introduce the phrase “Okey dokey Loki”.