Loki Season 2 Review: Loki's Glorious Purpose Should Not Have Been This Glorious

Greg Ehrhardt, OnScreen Blog Editor

This column contains general spoilers for the entire second season of Loki

The Disney+ Loki show is, by far, the best production the MCU has had since Avengers Endgame. It is weird in the best possible way, the casting is excellent, the set designs are inventive and crisp (especially in Chicago), and it has one of the best opening credit sequences since Game of Thrones (among other virtues).

Season 2 doesn’t have the mystery box element like season 1 had, but it still made for enjoyable television, except for one big thing.

Loki (the character) is too simple.

Since appearing in the first Thor movie in 2011, Loki was an instant fan favorite, and deservedly so. He chewed up the scenery with enthusiasm, was entertaining as heck on screen, and pulled off the feat of being fun to root for when he was the hero and the villain.

Unfortunately, for me, Marvel put too much stock in him being a fan favorite and turned him over to being 100% a good guy towards the end of phase 3. At the time, I didn’t quibble too much because, for the most part, it made sense in the story, but it was a bit of a letdown because one of the most exciting things about Phases 1,2 and 3 was you were never quite sure what Loki was going to do. Would he play nice with Thor and do the right thing, or give in to his narcissism and look out for himself only?

That duality made Loki a fascinating and fun character to watch.

That same duality has been eviscerated since the end of season 1, which made some sense given his arc in the season, but was a disappointment in my eyes, especially considering the Loki TV Show started right after the events of the first Avengers movie when he was an outright villain.

During season 2, Loki is looking to do the “right thing” 100% of the time. That’s what heroes do, of course, but that’s not what the Loki we fell in love with does, nor does the character he is based on in the comic books. In season 2, there would be little difference between what Loki chooses to do and what Steve Rogers would have chosen to do in the same situation.

I don’t mind Loki choosing to do the right thing, but I need some doubt that he would choose to do the right thing.

Loki in this show is like any other superhero, bound by a universal morality to do the right thing, sacrificing complexity and rich storytelling.

Being put in this type of box allows some of the villain’s spotlight to be taken by others in the show, including Ravenna, Miss Minutes (the best thing of the show, more on her later), and General Dox.

But man, this is a big sacrifice for what we could have had.

Relatedly, the other Loki, Sylvie, has the same problem, and dubiously so. They could have made Loki the straightforward hero that the story required, but have Sylvie, who is, by the story’s telling, Loki in another universe, have the same moral gray lines as we are used to Loki having in the early MCU. But it seems like Marvel is scared to have any gray area for these characters so we can safely root for them and buy their toys, and that’s a real shame.

I’m worried this is a more significant trend with the MCU after seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. The guardians featured multiple characters with gray areas in their moral code. However, by the time the 3rd movie wraps up, characters like Rocket and especially Nebula are all straightforward heroes with zero complexity to her. Nebula’s arc was the actual sin of the overall Guardians’ story. Yes, she had a bit of a transformation by the end of phase 3.

Still, she was so interesting to watch when you would never quite know which side she was on (or in the case of Avenger’s Endgame, you got to see both the heroic and villainous depictions of her character).

Is Marvel more interested in selling toys than depicting characters with duality to them? I mean, the answer is, of course, yes, but does storytelling have to be sacrificed this much in favor of a 20% bump in merchandise sales?

That’s ultimately where I fell with Loki Season 2. Overall, I enjoyed it way more than most other Disney+ shows, but every scene featuring Loki was a bit of a letdown because I knew which choice he would make. There were no tricks, no deception, no struggles. Was there any doubt whatsoever that in the final episode, he was going to restore the multiverse?

That’s not the Loki I became a fan of.

Was Loki’s grand purpose really to be looked at as the literal savior of the world, the Jesus Christ of the MCU?

Loki was always more Judas than Jesus. That’s what made him such a fascinating character.

Judas, according to the Vatican, was redeemed despite what he did to Jesus, even though he made no real amends other than throwing the money back at those who paid him.

We didn’t need to go the full Judas route with Loki’s character, but we didn’t need the whole Jesus route either.

Loki was a god, as he often reminded his friends. But, he was always all too human at times.

It would have been nice to be reminded of that in season 2.