This morning, Disney announced a new Loki season 2 release date and released a new featurette. The featurette contains cast interviews that were filmed before the WGA and SAG strikes, back when season 2 was being shot in summer 2022. It also confirms a dynamic that fans picked up on when the two trailers were released: Loki’s found family.
The featurette, titled “Amazing Loki,” shares some insight into Loki’s character arc in season 2. While season 1 was about Loki taking his first steps away from villainy and realizing he could be more than a heel for the Avengers, season 2 will be about Loki connecting with his found family at the Time Variance Authority. “He’s found a new family,” Tom Hiddleston says in the featurette. “There’s a new capacity to make connections. He realizes that those connections are all that matter in the end.”
The idea of found family hearkens back to one crucial shot in the second trailer, when Loki holds up a microphone in a room at the TVA. As he gets ready to say whatever he’s about to say, all his allies come up to stand behind him: Mobius, Hunter B-15, Sylvie, Casey, and O.B. The way they’re all standing, with everyone gathered around Loki, makes it clear that they’ve developed a bond. For once, Loki isn’t on his own. He’s surrounded by people who trust him.
And it’s the best possible direction for the show.
Loneliness has always been at the core of Loki’s character
Loki has always been a lonely guy. In Thor, he doesn’t fit in on Asgard. From the very start, he’s scheming while the other characters treat him with mild disgust. At the end of the movie, he lets himself fall into a void, and then spends a long time surviving in Thanos’ world before he tries to take over Earth. He fakes his death and hides his identity for years, ruling as Odin. In Thor: Ragnarok, he says that he always has to “go it alone.” He’s never had anyone he could truly open up to—except his mother Frigga, whom he accidentally gets killed. He even ends up alone at the end of season 1, when Sylvie pushes him through a time door and Mobius doesn’t recognize him.
That’s why seeing Loki find a new group of people is so important.
What is found family? It’s the people who love you for who you are, especially when you’re smarting from a family or community that rejected you. It’s the people who don’t want to change you, and who stick by you even when you mess up or make mistakes. The trailers and featurette make it look like Loki’s TVA crew will be filling that role in his life.
(featured image: Disney+)
