With the multiverse teetering all around it, Loki is one strand of the timeline that is sustaining its originality and intention — and actually thriving. It’s about time.
The new season of “Loki” is a scrappy time-travel caper, a ticking-clock sci-fi thriller and a workplace comedy all rolled together, and a reminder that oddball creativity still goes a long way in the MCU.
Time will tell if the final two episodes can stick the landing, but there's reason to hope that, at last, the unending nature of the franchise needn't overshadow its creative ambitions. For better or worse, the ball is firmly in Marvel's court.
Its convolutions overwhelming its charming personalities and freewheeling spirit of paradox-laden adventure, it’s another indication that the once-mighty franchise has lost its direction.
Those expecting a new multiversally manic season of Loki should temper their expectations; the absence of director Kate Herron has seemingly removed the series’ wily sense of anything-goes possibility, effectively turning Season 2 – and, shockingly, Loki himself – into an obedient, uninteresting cog in the MCU’s increasingly unwieldy mega-structure.
More than anything, Loki has started to resemble what it truly is: an ill-advised spinoff in the old tradition. A too-bright spotlight for a side character who was never best suited to lead.