Loki Season 2 Release Time and Season 1 Recap

This post contains spoilers for Loki season 1 and Ant-Man 3

It’s time to check back in on Loki, the trickster god burdened with glorious purpose. Introduced in 2011’s Thor, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) immediately established himself as one of the premier characters in the fledging Marvel Cinematic Universe. After inadvertently gathering Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in The Avengers, Loki walked the line between good and evil, up until his death at the hands of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.

But death never stopped any superhero character, certainly not one devoted to lies as Loki Laufeyson. The first season of Loki brought the baddie back and sent him on an adventure across the Multiverse, teaming him with an intriguing Variant and reshaping the entire MCU. Season two promises to have just as many reality-shaking consequences, so here’s what you need to know before the god of lies returns again.

When Does Loki Season 2 Premiere?

The first episode of Loki’s second season comes to Disney+ on October 5. Each of the following five episodes will appear on the streamer every Thursday, leading up to the season finale on November 9.

What is the Time Variance Authority?

Created by a mysterious group calling themselves the Time-Keepers, the Time Variance Authority (TVA) exists to protect the Sacred Timeline. When something causes a Nexus Event, the point where the timeline separates into multiple branches, TVA Hunters arrive to “purge” the timeline, sending extraneous Variants to a neither-space called the Void.

Because the Hulk’s disruption causes a Nexus Event in Endgame, the Loki who escapes is a Variant, subject for purgation. But instead, he gets recruited by the organization to hunt a Variant of himself. Loki works alongside Agent Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) an affable jet ski enthusiast who still holds a candle for his boss, Judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).

Who are the Variant Lokis?

There are as many Lokis as there are universes. And (apologies to the Distinguished Competition), there are practically infinite Earths. We got a good look at all the variants of Loki in the first season’s penultimate episode, in which we met Alligator Loki, Classic Loki, Kid Loki, and more.

But the most important Loki doesn’t go by Loki at all. Loki encounters a female variant called Sylvie Laufeydottir (Sylvie Laufeydottir) while doing missions for the Time Variance Authority (TVA). Sylvie has been running from the TVA since she caused a Nexus Event as a child and became a target for purging. Sylvie recruits Loki into her mission, convincing him that the TVA and its lies must be stopped.

What is the Secret of the TVA?

Loki and Sylvie discover that everyone in the TVA are themselves Variants, pruned from even happy existences and mind-wiped to become servants of the Time-Keepers. Despite attempts to recruit Mobius and Ravonna, the revelation gets the duo sent to the Void, where they not only meet other Variants but also learn of Alioth. A transdimensional creature in the form of a black cloud, Alioth consumes Variants in the Void and works directly for the Time-Keepers.

After escaping the Void, Sylvie and Loki make it to the Citadel at the End of Time to confront the Time Keepers. But they have already learned that the Time-Keepers are literal puppets; a facade being controlled by some other figure.

After destroying the Time-Keepers, Sylvie and Loki then meet that figure: He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors). He Who Remains introduces himself as a scientist who first discovered the multiverse. As he and his Variants met one another, they started a Multiversal War, which threatened to swallow reality. Using Alioth, He Who Remains ended the War, collapsed reality to a single universe and established the TVA to prevent no realities from cropping up.

According to He Who Remains, the Sacred Timeline keeps reality safe by barring his more dangerous Variants from manifesting and destroying reality. Unimpressed with his arguments, Sylvie kills He Who Remains and allows the Multiverse to grow unchecked.

Were His Warnings True?

Yes! The Multiverse, as seen in What If?, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Spider-Man: No Way Home came into existence precisely because of Sylvie killing He Who Remains.

More importantly, we’ve seen a horrible Variant of He Who Remains in the form of Kang the Conqueror, the principal baddie in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. While Kang died an ignoble death at the hands of the titular heroes and their ant army, the post-credit scene showed that many more dangerous Variants still exist.

We know that Kang will be the primary antagonist of the next Avengers film, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. That film comes at the end of Phase Six of the MCU and sets up Avengers: Secret Wars, which will close out the Multiverse Saga.

All of that means Loki season two will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, carrying huge stakes for the rest of the MCU.

The first episode of Loki season two premiers on Disney+ on October 5.