[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Loki, Season 2, Episode 1.]
Loki is back and bringing on plenty of new characters to keep the fast-paced plot interesting with stars like Ke Huy Quan and Rafael Casal joining the mix.
Already, questions are being raised around these latest additions, and series executive producer Kevin Wright is offering some clarity as we prepare to dive into the six-episode run this fall. Picking up where fans last saw him, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has found himself in the Time Variance Authority (TVA) during a point in time when He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) was openly ruling.
The God of Mischief takes off into a run when Mobius (Owen Wilson), Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku), and more characters who don’t recognize him begin a pursuit. Realizing he’s in the past, Loki finds himself fading back and forth through time, landing once again in the present with Casey (Eugene Cordero) who is able to point him in the direction of Mobius and B-15.
(Credit: Disney+/Marvel Studios)
Meanwhile, chaos ensues as the timelines freed by Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) stabbing He Who Remains in Season 1 continue to branch, raising alarms. Going in the direction of Mobius and B-15, Loki continues to “time slip” between the past and present until he finds himself in a council meeting Mobius and B-15 have been called into.
Loki begins warning them about the danger of He Who Remains, noting that their memories were wiped to forget him. Using a pruning stick he steals from meeting attendee and seeming antagonist, Hunter X-5 (Casal), Loki unveils a wall of He Who Remains’ face alongside other variants of the powerful being just as the council, including General Dox (Kate Dickie) and Judge Gamble (Liz Carr) were debating how to handle the out of control branched timelines.
B-15 doesn’t want them to prune the timelines, acknowledging that they would be destroying people’s lives. Judge Gamble ultimately rules in this favor, but when Loki interrupts, General Dox can’t help but take notice of Loki mentioning Sylvie and her involvement. When the meeting begins to unravel, Dox places a hand behind Hunter X-5’s neck pulling their foreheads together. She instructs him to find Sylvie in order to find out what happened at the end of time. It’s a peculiar position the pair take, which is noticed by B-15, but is she reading too much into it all?
(Credit: Gareth Gatrell/© 2023 MARVEL)
Wright says, “I think with all of the characters in the TVA because of these mind wipes, because they’re variants from timelines and lives that we don’t know about. There is a question of how much of their behavior is institutionalized from being in the TVA, from living by these set of rules.”
While Mobius has a love of Jetskis, Wright acknowledges, “I think we have to question where these things are coming from. This is speculation, but I think these are things that you want the audience thinking about,” he says.
“It feels like a maternal kind of relationship or something else,” Wright hints of the brief moment shared between the new characters. “I think it is a bigger question for all of the characters of what makes them, them. How much are they influenced by a life they don’t remember and how much are they influenced by the life that they know and are living?”
“We wanted everybody to be in the gray area of not just good and bad, but what makes them, them? Where are they coming from and are they even aware of it?” Wright continues.
(Credit: Disney+/Marvel Studios)
One individual who also falls into this category is Ke Huy Quan’s O.B., otherwise known as Ouroboros. When Mobius brings Loki down to the Repairs & Advancements department of the TVA, that’s where they’re introduced to the tinkering man fixing device after device alone in the basement.
But there’s something peculiar about the introduction as O.B. seems to remember Mobius, but Mobius can’t remember O.B.’s name, let alone the interactions they’ve had before. Whether this is a lapse in memory or part of memory wipes, it feels like the repairman is operating under a different wavelength than his fellow TVA employees.
“It is intentionally a bit abstract. It isn’t something that will play in a big storyline, so I don’t want people to be sitting around looking at false clues,” Wright points out. “But what I would say is the thing that we got excited about was he is sort of this forgotten character in the basement and when Mobius is first kind of introducing Loki to O.B, and they’re going through that whole conversation, Mobius says ‘You know about the timekeepers?’ and he’s about to tell him something about what’s been happening upstairs and it’s cut off with Loki’s time slip.”
Wright says, “I would be curious to see if even knew that there were timekeepers.” It’s more of a question of “How long has he been down there?” Wright notes. “I think those are all interesting questions about who’s had their minds wiped and who hasn’t.” Luckily, this is just the beginning of these stories with Loki‘s new characters as they interweave with the individuals fans have come to know and love so much.
What theories do you have about the show’s latest additions? Let us know in the comments section, below, and don’t miss more of Loki as Season 2 unfolds on Disney+.
Loki, Season 2, New Episodes, Thursdays, 9/8c, Disney+