Realistically, Marvel was going to have to acknowledge that Jonathan Majors was part of Loki‘s second season eventually, despite the studio doing its best to sweep the actor under the rug in the face of widespread assault allegations and historical accusations of untoward behavior dating back years.
Sure, he was omitted from the marketing hyping the home video and streaming releases of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, left out of the official Disney Plus synopsis, before the release of the movie’s behind the scenes special was delayed and then quietly debuted to little fanfare, but the trailer for Tom Hiddleston’s second run of episodes finally showed brief glimpses of Majors as Victor Timely.
With his court case having been delayed, Majors could feasibly be all over the headlines once again by the time Loki returns to the small screen on Oct. 6, which makes a new report from The Cosmic Circus all the more fascinating after the outlet claimed that not only does the fallen star appear as Timely, but he’s also shot brand new footage as He Who Remains, too.
It’s made clear that it isn’t simply repurposed scenes from the season 1 finale, either, but brand new inserts tying the two seasons together that saw Majors return to set, suit up, and get back into character as the most benevolent of all Kang the Conqueror variants.
Having been shunned by the cinematic universe for months, doubling down on Majors goes against the grain of Marvel’s approach to the ongoing controversies, and it’ll be curious to see how audiences react to getting two performances for the price of one given the negative publicity threatening to swallow his promising career.