Loki (Season 2)

Available on Disney+

If the overall health of the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t especially rude, viewers of the sophomore season of Loki wouldn’t know it. The series, created by Michael Waldron and featuring a broad spectrum of creative talent, could rightfully exist in isolation from the increasingly tangled web of analogous Marvel properties, such is the distinctiveness of its aesthetic and tone.

Nonetheless, Loki’s second outing confirms the mini-series as a vital cog in the Multiverse Saga that is being not so carefully assembled by Kevin Feige and co., with its second six-episode run picking up directly from the cliff-hanger ending of its first. The titular protagonist (played with aplomb by Tom Hiddleston) finds himself slipping between branches of time and must frantically make sense of the increasingly convoluted conundrum that was caused by his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) offing He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors’ increasingly uncertain ‘big bad’).

Waldron and writer Eric Martin wisely opt for continuity from Loki’s maiden voyage, with the majority of the cast remaining the same, aside from newcomer Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once), who excels as the quirky but exceptionally savvy TVA officer Ouroboros. The perpetuation of the first series’ narrative motifs - the importance of free will and the value of striving to be the best version of yourself - is also wise, and is displayed poignantly through the performances of the dependably excellent Hiddleston and his criminally underrated co-star Owen Wilson.

Granted, the complexity and simultaneous ridiculousness of Marvel’s burgeoning multiversal world makes aspects of Loki less enjoyable than others, but, at its best, this is a widely entertaining home run for the comic book behemoth that really ought to set the standard for the forthcoming phases of its seemingly never-ending cinematic content.