There’s a fine line between being comprehensive and being confusing, and Loki season 2 straddles that line with debatable precision. The question is whether or not that’s to Marvel’s benefit.
Everyone has their own threshold for what confuses them and what doesn’t, but an entire show revolving around timelines, both branched and sacred, as well as the fate of not one universe, but multiple (aka the multiverse) is already at a major disadvantage for the average at-home viewer.
That’s not even including time travel, because yes, there’s time travel in Loki, too. On top of that, just three episodes into season 2, we’ve already been tossed terms like Temporal Loom, Temporal Aura Extractor, Time-Slipping, and the Throughput Multiplier, not to mention season 1 terms like TemPad, Time Stick, and the TVA. Let’s not forget the number of times we’ve had to stop, drop, and recalibrate our understanding of how time works in Marvel’s universe/multiverse/sacred timeline/whatever they’re calling it these days.
Loki isn’t confusing in the sense that we don’t know what’s going on. In fact, I would argue that its storytelling is grossly simplified, as in many of Marvel’s TV endeavors. The issue here is the incorporation of time travel and multiple universes. Once you introduce those concepts, it takes a mad genius writer and a meticulous script supervisor to ensure that the average viewer isn’t getting lost in the grand multiversal shuffle.
Is Marvel shooting itself in the foot with Loki?
Forcing viewers to remember a litany of complicated terms, mind-boggling concepts, and important artifacts is an easy way to alienate fans who, on their relaxing Thursday nights, don’t feel like mixing mental gymnastics with leftover lasagna. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was never easy to understand per se, but it was always simple to follow. You had the Infinity Stones, a Mad Titan trying to capture them, and a group of superheroes saving their own corners of the universe who eventually come together to stop its destruction.
Loki is already operating within a saga that is on the precious of incomprehensible, what with variants of familiar characters running around and a Multiversal War hovering on the horizon. If you ask me, introducing all of the aforementioned concepts has done the opposite of reel people in — it’s starting to push them away.
One shouldn’t judge a show before it’s finished (I think that’s some sort of superstition or something), but going off of my gut alone, I’m not confident that Loki is intending to confuse. It feels less like Marvel is deliberately planting seeds for the benefit of an ultimate payoff, and more like Loki’s flying by the seat of its pants and forgetting to check for rips along the way ⏤ rips the audience can see, by the way.
Either way, Loki season 2 is in stark contrast to recent MCU shows that have tanked (you know the one we’re talking about), so beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. Still, I’m looking forward to the day Marvel starts implementing more tried-and-true TV standards.