Loki Season 2: What Rotten Tomatoes Critics Are Saying About The Marvel Series
Contains spoilers for "Loki" Season 2.
The long-awaited second season of "Loki" takes the Bifrost to Disney+ on Thursday, and reviewers who were given advance looks at the MCU show are making their opinions known. Rotten Tomatoes, which aggregates those reviews, currently scores the critics' reviews at a respectably "fresh" 82%, a strong indicator that Season 2 keeps the strong momentum from its first batch of episodes.
However, that number isn't the full picture. Rotten Tomatoes generates its oft-criticized scores by sorting every review into a binary: fresh or rotten, then averaging out those binaries. To really understand how critics feel about "Loki" Season 2, it's helpful to dive into their actual words. And those words are mixed, to put it mildly. This season finds its titular former villain (Tom Hiddleston) once again paired with Owen Wilson's Mobius as they untangle the aftereffects of He Who Remains' (Jonathan Majors) Season 1 death. Back again is Sophia Di Martino as Sylvie, and new to the proceedings is Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan as the TVA technician Ouroboros.
At the center of critical disagreement is a larger conversation about the MCU, which many perceive to be in a slump after some lackluster Phase 4 and 5 projects failed to maintain the high bar set by 2019's "Avengers: Endgame." While some critics argue that "Loki" Season 2 proves this superhero multiverse can still dazzle, others don't find it charming enough to slough off the chitinous shell of superhero fatigue.
Whether "Loki" sees a second-season success or sophomore slump depends on what you're looking to get out of the show. For those who wanted deep character work and a straightforward plot, disappointment abounds. But if you're after action and comic-book antics, it's mischievous fun.
Critics love: strong visual style and the cast
One aspect of "Loki" Season 2 that still delights the majority of critics is the show's strong visual style, which remains quirky and unique. The TVA and its gadgets are still a fun mix of futurism and 1970's office chic. (Tangential note: it's time for wood paneling to make a real-world comeback.) As Brian Tallerico at Roger Ebert put it, "Bluntly, a lot of Disney+ shows are ugly. 'Loki' never is."
Critics also rejoice over the cast, especially the support. This season brings in "Everything Everywhere All at Once" star Ke Huy Quan, fresh off his Oscar win. He plays Ouroboros, and if you've seen that video of Quan meeting a very startled President Biden, you already have a sense of his character here. Brian Truitt at USA TODAY notes, "Quan gives the show a refreshing buzz."
The most divisive aspect of "Loki" Season 2 is proving to be its mind-bending plot. As the season starts, Loki is slipping between the past, present, and future, while trying to save the TVA from exploding due to the infinity of new timelines now that the sacred timeline has been compromised. To be fair, it's not nearly as convoluted as a lot of comic books can be, and critics who like to follow the white rabbit of its multitemporal logic are having a blast. As Jeremy Mathai for /Film wrote, "Fans who've grown used to cookie-cutter plots and strangely unengaging adaptations of seminal comic book events might just be jolted out of their collective malaise."
Critics loathe: too much time hopping and abstract stakes
Not all critics are feeling the Asgardian magic of "Loki" this season, and for those reviewers, what's here to enjoy is too little, too late for the MCU. In a scathing review for The Independent, Louis Chilton writes of the season, "It's one series of pap among a multiverse of others."
Some critics just couldn't connect with the stakes of the season, which see Loki and Mobius racing against Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) to track down Kang variant Victor Timely, who holds the key to repairing the Temporal Loom that's threatening to explode and bring down the TVA, possibly unleashing Kang's Multiversal War upon the multiverse once more. That's one mouthful of a description, so it's easy to see why critics like The Daily Beast's Nick Schager were overwhelmed. He wrote, "... tumbling headfirst down its own rabbit hole, Loki twists itself up to the point of strangulating its original effervescent humor and rollicking energy."
Moreover, some reviewers were left to wonder why the TVA is still such a huge focus after the events of Season 1 promised to bring it crumbling down. With Kang's variants now unleashed on the multiverse, the first four of Season 2's six episodes involve the bumbling, shy Victor Timely, a stark contrast from previous iterations. Belen Edwards at Mashable summed his confusing character up, writing, "... at least Kang and He Who Remains had some sense of weight to them — Victor is a joke by comparison."
"Loki" Season 2 arrives October 5 on Disney+, giving fans the opportunity to decide its quality for themselves.