Disney+ will launch season 2 of Marvel’s Loki on October 6. Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige announced the date during Disney’s Upfront presentation on Tuesday, where he also introduced first-look footage of the upcoming season. New episodes will air weekly.
Starring Tom Hiddleston, Loki is set in a Marvel Cinematic Universe-adjacent world, in which the God of Mischief is a fish-out-of-water when he lands in trouble with the bureaucratic TVA (Time Variance Authority) after absconding with the Tesseract.
Hiddleston is joined in the cast by Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku and Richard E. Grant.
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead direct and executive produce Season 2. Eric Martin is head writer and executive produces, along with Hiddleston and Michael Waldron.
How ‘Loki’ Season 2 Is Dipping Into McDonald’s Archives for Sylvie’s Story
Loki‘s long-awaited second season grows closer with each passing day, and while many of the details surrounding the next chapter in the God of Mischief’s (Tom Hiddleston) story remain under wraps, one thing is for certain, he’s going to McDonald’s.
Yes, Loki will head to the golden arches seemingly in search of Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) after leaving things unfinished between the duo in Season 1. As revealed in the Season 2 trailer, Sylvie is working at the fast food staple, albeit in a time not parallel to our own, instead opting for the 1980s.
In celebration of the trip back in time, McDonald’s transformed one of its Brooklyn locations, outfitting it with retro decorations, TVA gear, and Loki and Sylvie’s costumes. The company’s historian, Mike Bullington, was also on-site to answer questions about McDonald’s role in Season 2.
As an archivist, Bullington acknowledges the details he’s most excited for fans to see, saying, “Something as simple as Sylvie’s name tag,” is a big deal. “They wanted the authentic name tag from that period,” he adds of the show’s team. “Of course, there were several designs, but to be able to provide that was really cool.”
Calling it a “Once in a lifetime project for an archivist,” Bullington added, “They had storyboards that they wanted me to work with, so I sent them a lot of images of restaurant interiors, exteriors. We sent actual uniforms, cash registers, and equipment for behind the cash register. So again, we tried to make it as authentic as possible.”
While some of the items fans will see onscreen were recreated, Bullington noted, “A lot of the restaurant equipment was original. Some of the other props, like the straw dispenser was original. So they tried to use quite a bit of [original] materials.”
“Just like Sylvie in the show,” the props are “going back in time,” shared Bullington. Such was the case for this special Loki pop-up at the Bay Parkway Brooklyn McDonald’s which offered fans a closer look at the Loki-McDonald’s ties through September 1. In the meantime, fans will have to stay tuned for more details on the fast food company’s Marvel cameo when Season 2 arrives on Disney+.
And while the promotional aspect is certainly something to consider, Bullington set the record straight, saying the show’s team at Marvel “came to McDonald’s. They said, ‘Where would Sylvie eat in the early 1980s? McDonald’s, of course.’”
Meet OB, Ke Huy Quan’s quirky repair guy in Loki season 2
Season 2 (premiering Oct. 6 on Disney+) finds Loki and Mobius trekking into the deepest bowels of the TVA, seeking help from Quan’s quirky repair guy. OB works in the repairs and advancement department, and his office is stuffed in the basement, a sprawling mishmash of gadgets and gizmos.
“His job is basically every piece of tech, every computer, every thing that is running at the TVA,” executive producer Kevin Wright tells EW. “He either designed it, or he fixes it and keeps it running.”
Quan, of course, is no stranger to trippy, universe-hopping stories, winning an Oscar earlier this year for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Wright tells EW it was celebrated Marvel casting director Sarah Halley Finn who first suggested Quan for Loki, having caught an early screening of the film. It was April, and Everything Everywhere was about to open wide across the country, so Marvel scrambled to make Quan an offer immediately — knowing that his schedule was about to fill up.
“I think Kevin Feige made a call maybe April 12, just to follow up and say, ‘Please, please do this,'” Wright says with a laugh. “Little did we know, Ke is apparently already a giant Marvel fan and was a big fan of Loki season 1.”
EW spoke to Quan in August 2022, immediately after his Loki role was first revealed at Disney’s D23 Expo. Stepping offstage, the giddy actor admitted that he’d been keeping the role secret even from his family.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this for many, many years,” Quan told EW at the time, “all the way back to when the first Iron Man came out. I saw all the movies in the theaters. I’ve seen all the films. I constantly watch on YouTube how passionate and enthusiastic these fans are. So to be up on stage today with Sophia and Tom and Owen and Kevin and to be on the receiving end of that… it’s just been incredible.”
Since the launch of shows like WandaVision and Ms. Marvel, Marvel has built a minor TV empire on Disney+, with multiple new shows still in the works. But Loki is the first Marvel Disney+ show to get a true second season, and Wright says he and the creative team wanted to continue to embrace the storytelling possibilities of episodic television. Season 1 took time to luxuriate in quieter, character-driven moments — like long scenes of Hiddleston and Wilson together, just talking. Wright promises that season 2 will continue to do the same. (In fact, he says, the unlikely buddy-cop friendship between Loki and Mobius is the season’s “bread and butter.”)
“In our [Marvel] movies, sometimes you have to keep moving forward very rapidly to get to the next thing,” Wright explains. “Here, it’s like: ‘No, we can sit in these moments.’ And dramatically, that’s an exciting thing.”
Season 2 will also find Loki, Sylvie, and Mobius coming up against a new but familiar nemesis: Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), a brilliant industrialist and inventor living in the early 1900s.
Like the menacing He Who Remains, who debuted in the first season finale, Timely is a variant of Kang the Conqueror, a dimension-hopping villain who takes many forms. Majors’ version of Timely will play a major role in Loki season 2, even as the actor faces off-screen legal troubles.
“Victor Timely is somebody that we are very, very excited about,” Wright says. “When you look at Kang, he has a very funny comic backstory. He has all these iterations. Timely was one that we’ve always wanted to do in Loki. And I think we’re really excited about how that integrates into the season. It’s a big part of the show.”
Above all, Wright promises that Loki’s second season will continue to embrace the weirdness of the first.
The upcoming six episodes will zip throughout space and time, stretching from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair to the fluorescent lights of a 1980s McDonald’s. After all, this is the show that gave us Alligator Loki and sentient floating clock mascot.
“We made a weird show [in season 1], and people responded to how weird it was,” Wright explains. “So, we wanted to push it further.”
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Source: Deadline / EW / TV Insider
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