The end of Loki season 2 raises questions about the future of the MCU. Will there be a season 3? Will Jonathan Majors (Kang) stay in the Marvel Universe? Warning, spoilers.
Warning, spoilers. It is recommended to have seen season 2 of Loki before continuing reading this article.
With the release of The Marvels in cinemas and the broadcast of the Loki series on Disney+, the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to explore the twists and turns of the Multiverse in its phase V. And season 2 of the television fiction on the God of Malice , who also suffered from superhero fatigue, folded all the cards.
The sixth and final episode of season 2 of Loki, entitled “Glorious Destiny”, indeed marks a turning point in the MCU. The character played by Tom Hiddleston continued his adventures with the TVA (Tribunal of Anachronistic Variations), which manages inconsistencies in the Multiverse and flaws in the Eternal Temporal Flow.
Poor Loki tried to restore order within the TVA, following the death of “He Who Dwells” (Jonathan Majors), creator of the TVA, at the end of the first season. This event disrupted the Eternal Time Flow and created too many new branches in the Multiverse, which is causing an overload of the Temporization Center.
The Multiverse and the TVA are in danger and Loki, accompanied by Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson), OB (Ke Huy Quan), B-15 Hunter (Wunmi Mosaku) and Sylvie, aka Lady Loki (Sophia Di Martino), must solve this major problem of a potential destruction of the Eternal Temporal Flow.
The shocking end of episode 4 suggested that all hope was lost, but that was without taking into account the ingenuity and bravery of the God of Mischief. In the last episode of season 2, Loki travels in time and returns each time to the precise moment of the explosion of the Eternal Temporal Flow to try to stop it with new strategies, in vain.
He then decides to go back even further in time to the fateful moment at the end of season 1 when Sylvie wants to kill “He Who Remains” because it was this event that started it all. But this new tactic is still not the right one. Loki then goes back to his arrival in the TVA at the very beginning of season 1 and then understands what is this “glorious destiny” that he so wanted to achieve.
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Loki will make the ultimate sacrifice and take the place of “He Who Dwells” within the TVA by becoming the protector of all timelines, in addition to the Eternal Time Flow. He will seize all the temporal branches and bring them together in the form of a “tree of life” which contains his new divine throne in the Citadel at the End of Times.
His sacrifice then allows the TVA to return in 2.0 form, with a new manual, new directives and more effective protection of the Multiverse. Loki is more alone than ever on his Throne, but has finally fulfilled his glorious destiny by becoming the Guardian of the Timelines.
A season 3 for Loki?
After this epic ending, Loki’s epic seems to be completed. In any case, this is what screenwriter Eric Martin says, who explained to CinemaBlend that the Loki series was not designed to have a season 3:
“We approached the show as two halves of a book. Season one, first half. Season two, we close the book on Loki and the TVA. I don’t know how much more the story can go beyond that. I just wanted to tell a complete story through these two seasons.”
The Loki book is therefore indeed finished but that does not mean that the character disappears from the MCU. Especially since he took on considerable importance at the end of season 2, because he is now the Guardian of the Timelines. And the Multiverse has been a major issue since the start of phase 4 of the MCU and still is for the current phase 5 and the future phase 6.
It would not be surprising if Loki made appearances in the next films and series expected in the MCU, especially since other characters will make their return, such as Deadpool, Fantastic 4 or even Blade.
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Another detail to take into consideration: Loki is one of the only major characters in the MCU to know of the existence of “He Who Dwells”, with Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), who fought his variant Kang the Conqueror in Ant- Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, since he was announced as the big bad of the sequel to the Marvel universe.
And “He Who Dwells” warned Loki at the end of season 2 of his series: they will see each other again soon, especially since he has a lot of variants (Victor Timely and those we saw in the scene post-credits of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania).
The Jonathan Majors case
The character of Jonathan Majors (and his variants) is therefore the main antagonist of the future of the MCU and the end of season 2 of Loki confirms this once again. However, Marvel Studios has been facing a major problem since the news of his arrest last March in New York.
Jonathan Majors was indeed accused of strangulation, assault and harassment by his ex-partner. Since then, a long investigation, published in Rolling Stonehighlighted the testimonies of several ex-girlfriends of the actor who reported his psychological and physical violence but also former work colleagues who reported abusive and intimidating behavior on film sets .
Several film studios have distanced themselves from the actor, who has also lost advertising contracts. And since then, Kang’s interpreter has been awaiting his trial, which was postponed as previously reported Deadline.
With all the episodes of season 2 of Loki having been filmed when the Jonathan Majors affair came out, the actor was not erased from this new season, as executive producer Kevin Wright explained to Uproxx :
“Victor Timely has always been a big part of this. The story you’ll see is what was written, what was shot. This may be the first Marvel work without a reshoot or additional filming.”
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The producer also claimed that there were no internal discussions about whether to remove Jonathan Majors from the episodes, “simply because the series [était tournée]”. For them, “[ils ne pouvaient] nothing to do about it”.
So what’s next? According to VarietyMarvel Studios are tearing their hair out over the future of Jonathan Majors in the MCU sequel, whether to continue in this direction, choose a new actor to replace him or completely change the identity of the actor. antagonist of the future of the Marvel universe.
According to one of the main negotiators, who saw the last episode of Loki, “Marvel is really screwed with the whole Kang angle. And they didn’t get a chance to rewrite until very recently [à cause de la grève des scénaristes]”. It is then difficult to imagine Marvel Studios continuing their collaboration with Jonathan Majors.
The artistic blur is total for the MCU because the initial script direction is turned upside down and the strikes – now over – have not helped anything since future projects have everything been postponed. We will have to wait for official announcements from Disney and Marvel Studios to find out more about the future of the MCU.
Loki season 2 is available on Disney+.