Loki is back, and so is the Time Variance Authority, Mobius, and Sylvie. Despite all the great new characters introduced in the first episode of the show’s second season, there was one major player missing. Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer, the mysterious TVA judge and one of the main antagonists in the first season, was nowhere to be seen at the start of this new outing.
Who is Loki‘s Ravonna Renslayer?
Ravonna, like every member of the TVA, was a captured variant whose memories were wiped in order to turn her into a faithful servant of the organization and its covert leader He Who Remains. In the Sacred Timeline, her name was Rebecca Tourminet, and she was a High School teacher and vice principal in Fremont, Ohio.
Throughout season 1, Renslayer is shown to be a dedicated professional, rising in the TVA ranks from Hunter to Judge. As Hunter A-23, she was the soldier responsible for Sylvie’s kidnapping from Asgard when she was only a child, and even after Loki and Mobius discovered the truth about the TVA and told Renslayer about her true self, she remained orderly instead of rebelling.
Where was Ravonna Renslayer in Loki Season 2, episode 1?
The last we saw of Ravonna Renslayer in the first season of Loki, she was leaving the TVA through a Timedoor, telling Mobius she was going to search for free will. We don’t get an update on her whereabouts at the start of the show’s second season, but her name is constantly referenced.
In one scene, from a time in the TVA’s past, after Loki time-slips into the war room, he plays a tape where He Who Remains can be heard brainwashing Renslayer into joining the TVA and being loyal to him. This could be a hint at the character’s future in the show, seeing as, even after the TVA’s facade was revealed, she was still convinced her master would have done it all for a noble reason.
Is Renslayer in Loki season 2?
We know for sure we will see Renslayer again, as actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw confirmed that she was filming the new season. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, the British star teased “bigger and bolder” stakes for the show’s continuation, adding that Renslayer made it out of the TVA for selfish reasons.
In the comics, Renslayer eventually becomes involved romantically with Kang the Conqueror. In the same vein, the name Rebecca Tourminet should be familiar to the Marvel faithful, as that is the alias used by Renslayer to meet with Kang in 1903 when he was going by the name Victor Timely. We know from the Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania post-credits scene that Jonathan Majors will return as a Kang variant in season 2 of Loki who goes by that same nickname. The dots are connecting, and we’re thinking the once-faithful TVA judge will become Kang’s right arm going forward.