Loki season 2: release date, trailer, confirmed cast, plot synopsis, and more

Loki season 2 is almost here, ladies and gentlemen. Everyone’s favorite trickster god will be back on our screens in early October, so now is as good a time as any to learn everything about the hugely popular Disney Plus show’s next installment.

In this guide, we’ve rounded up all of the big and little details about Loki‘s second season. That includes the Marvel Phase 5 series’ official release date, trailers, confirmed actors and other cast rumors, plot synopsis and story speculation, and so much more. In short: expect it to have a major impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) when it launches on one of the world’s best streaming services.

Major spoilers follow for previous Marvel productions, including Loki season 1 and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Potential spoilers for Loki season 2 are also discussed, so proceed with caution.

Loki season 2 release date

Loki season 2 is coming out earlier than expected. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Loki season 2 was set make its worldwide debut on Friday, October 6. However, Marvel has since announced a new Disney Plus release date for Loki‘s second season. In the US, it’ll now launch on the evening of Thursday, October 5. In the UK and Australia, it’ll still arrive on its original date.

There’s no word on whether it’ll get a single or two-episode premiere. According to industry insider and X (formerly Twitter) user Cryptic Quality, who has previous form for leaking official episodic runtimes early, the show’s first two entries will run for 45 and 49 minutes respectively. Additionally, Loki season 2 is reportedly going to be the final MCU TV show of 2023, with the writers and actors strikes apparently forcing Marvel to delay the likes of Echo until next year.

Eric Martin – who penned half of Loki season 1’s episodes – serves as season 2’s showrunner. He’s been joined in the writers’ room by Kathryn Blair, Kasra Farahani, Amber Dupre, and Brett Maline, according to the Writers Guild of America directory (thanks to Reddit for the catch).

Moon Knight directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, plus Farahani and Dan DeLeeuw, have directed its episodes. Season 1 head writer Michael Waldron returns as an executive producer, while season 1 composer Natalie Holt is also back to create another hauntingly beautiful score.

Loki season 2 trailer

Loki season 2’s official trailer arrived in late July – and it broke a major Disney Plus record in the process. By the looks of it, time is running out for the trickster god to try and stop Kang (or, rather, another of his variants) from causing multiversal havoc. 

A second teaser, which debuted in early September, also appeared to spoil a key plot point from the show. A very brief McDonald’s tie-in advert, which confirms Sylvie will be working at a McDonald’s restaurant at the start of season 2, and that Marvel fans can pick up a new Loki-flavored sauce before the series starts airing, also showcased some additional footage. You can watch that 15-second teaser below:

Loki season 2 cast: confirmed and rumored

Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan’s character name has been revealed. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Major spoilers follow for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Here’s Loki season 2’s confirmed cast list so far:

Tom Hiddleston as LokiOwen Wilson as Agent MobiusSophia Di Martino as SylvieGugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna RenslayerWunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15Ke Quy Huan as OuroborosJonathan Majors as Victor TimelyTara Strong as Miss MinutesEugene Cordero as CaseyRafael Casal as TBCKate Dickie as TBC

Tom Hiddleston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Owen Wilson, Wunmi Mosaku, Sophia di Martino, and Tara Strong return from Loki season 1.

Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones, Everything Everywhere All at Once) has been confirmed as Ouroboros (also known as ‘OB’), an expert TVA engineer. Eugene Cordero’s scene-stealing TVA employee Casey returns and has been bumped to a series regular.

Potentially big spoilers for Loki season 2’s cast follow.

Kate Dickie (Game of Thrones) is also believed to be Loki season 2’s primary antagonist. We briefly see her spar with Di Martino’s Sylvie in the official trailer and industry insider MyTimeToShineHello suggests Dickie will play an “evil general” whose army of TVA agents destroy any new timelines in the wake of He Who Remains’ death in Loki episode 6.

MCU insider DanielRPK (via MCU News) suggests Casal is portraying a rogue TVA agent, who escapes into the 1970s and becomes a movie star. Casal’s TVA agent is thought to be part of Dickie’s rogue faction.

Jonathan Majors, who played Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man 3, will also appear. Per The Hollywood Reporter, he’ll feature in half of season 2’s episodes – but we know it won’t be as the time-traveling warlord.

In Quantumania, Kang was seemingly killed by Ant-Man and the Wasp. Unless Kang pulls a Darren Cross/Yellowjacket move and returns (either as himself or a villain in the mold of Cross’ MODOK, who also features in Ant-Man 3), we shouldn’t expect to see him again.

So, who is Majors playing? One of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s post-credits scenes confirms he’ll play another Kang variant called Victor Timely, an early 20th century inventor and industrialist. 

In the comics, Victor Timely travels to 1901 to found the technology-rich Wisconsin-based town of Timely. We suspect this will form the basis of Loki’s second season, with Victor acting as an antagonist (primary or secondary) to Loki and Mobius, who travel to the past to track him down.

Based on Quantumania‘s other post-credits scene – the Council of Kangs one – we could see multiple iterations of the Kang gang show up, including Immortus, Rama-Tut, and Scarlet Centurion. Season 2, then could feature multiple Kangs, which would give Loki and company some serious headaches.  Fascinatingly, MCU leakers The Cosmic Circus and CanWeGetSomeToast also claim He Who Remains will return, though it’s unclear how he could do so. 

Loki will be trying to stop Victor Timely in season 2. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Unfortunately, Loki season 2 will have a big Majors-shaped problem hanging over it ahead of, and during, its time on Disney Plus. On March 25, Majors was arrested on domestic abuse allegations and later charged for assault, harassment, and aggravated harassment.

Majors and his lawyer have denied the allegations and, as the case remains open, Marvel hasn’t publicly commented on Majors’ continual involvement in the MCU. Majors’ trail was set to begin in August, before being delayed to early September (per Variety) and then late October (Variety again).

We won’t learn what Majors’ MCU future will look like until the case is closed, but industry insider Jeff Sneider claims Marvel hasn’t made a decision over the actor, while DanielRPK suggests a decision will be made after Loki season 2 airs. We’ll update this section once we know more.

Loki season 2 plot: story synopsis and rumors

Sylvie will team up with her multiversal counterpart again in Loki season 2. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Full Loki season 1 spoilers, plus potential season 2 rumors, follow.

Here’s the official plot synopsis: “Loki season 2 picks up in the aftermath of the shocking season finale when Loki finds himself in a battle for the soul of the Time Variance Authority. Along with Mobius, Hunter B-15, and a team of new and returning characters, Loki navigates an ever-expanding and increasingly dangerous multiverse in search of Sylvie, Judge Renslayer, Miss Minutes, and the truth of what it means to possess free will and glorious purpose.”

In the season 1 finale, Loki found himself in a TVA that he recognizes, but none of its employees know who he is. Clearly, He Who Remains’ death – at Sylvie’s hands – causes the Marvel multiverse’s various timelines to start intersecting. These events, which we learned more of in Doctor Strange 2, are called Incursions and they’re already causing havoc across the MCU.

Before Loki, Mobius, and company can begin to tackle this wider multiversal problem, they’ll need to find a cure for Loki’s random time-slipping ailment, which we see affecting the god of mischief in the official trailer. It’s unclear how they’ll stabilize Loki’s condition, but we think the chrono-device or watch, which Loki is seen holding in the trailer, has some part to play.

Once fixed, Loki will surely tell Mobius and his cohorts about Kang (and his variants) and ask for their help to stop them. As Ant-Man 3’s second post-credits stinger and the season 2 trailer show, Mobius agrees to help. We’re looking forward to seeing him and Loki combine their collective intellects (and contrasting personas) again to amusing effect in season 2 – something that was sorely missing after Loki season 1’s first two episodes.

So the pair will embark on a buddy cop-style adventure to track down Victor Timely at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, learn more about this Kang variant, and his potential role in the TVA’s creation (that’s our guess anyway).

We’re not sure what role Timely will play this season or, as we mentioned earlier, if he’ll be the main villain of the piece. As a Kang variant, though, we suspect he’ll be up to no good and, whisper it quietly, might be the one behind the TVA’s creation. After all, it seems he’s the one who made Miss Minutes (as shown in the trailers), who is the TVA’s mascot. Put it all together and Timely should (in our view) be the TVA’s architect.

Interestingly, the teasers also reveal that Ravonna Renslayer, the TVA’s former director, has tracked Timely down as well. Again, we don’t know what her role will entail in Loki season 2 but, given her romantic ties to Kang in Marvel comics, we wouldn’t be surprised if she teams up with Timely.

And what of He Who Remains? Seeing as he was killed by Sylvie in season 1’s finale, we didn’t expect to see him back but, as we touched on in our cast section, he might be. How will his return impact the plot and Sacred Timeline? Who knows, but it wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility that this Kang variant created a failsafe in case he was killed by someone. The plot thickens…

Based on the Council of Kangs post-credits scene in Ant-Man 3, other variants are likely to turn up, too. That may include Mr Gryphon (owner of Qeng Enterprises, whose headquarters showed up as an Easter egg in Loki episode 5) or any of those seen in Quantumania‘s post-credits sequence.

Jonathan Majors is expected to appear in Loki’s second season. (Image credit: Disney Plus/Marvel Studios)

As for Sylvie, Loki’s female multiversal variant appears as if she’ll be grappling with the huge decision she made to kill He Who Remains. As the official trailer shows, she’s living a sheltered life as a McDonald’s employee, but she soon crosses paths with Loki again.

Speaking to IGN, producer Kevin Wright revealed why Sylvie had found a new life working for the iconic fast food enterprise, saying: “This woman went on the run as a child, had been running through time, a fugitive of time, living in apocalypses, never being able to relax or slow down, [so] the novelty of walking into a 1980s McDonald’s looked appealing. You play a Little League game and go to McDonald’s. You go to a kid’s birthday party at McDonald’s. Someone like Sylvie would never have experienced that and would be really taken by that.”

Judging by her pulling a sword on him in the teaser, Sylvie might not be all that pleased to see him. Still, they’ll put their differences aside and attempt to undo the damage they (or, rather, Sylvie) caused. We see Loki, Sylvie, and Mobius battling a bunch of TVA agents – likely Kate Dickie’s forces – towards the trailer’s end, with the first two using their magical abilities in unison. Who knows what other tricks they’ll have up their sleeves in order to take down Dickie’s character, Timely, and any one else who threatens the stability of the multiverse.

Lastly, industry insider DanielRPK (via the Marvel CineVerse Twitter account) suggests a new temporal concept called the Time Loom will play an integral role in explaining the TVA’s formation and how it exists outside of time and space. Any perilous journey through the Time Loom might explain why Mobius will wear a so-called Temporal Suit, which we briefly glimpse in the trailer. Hopefully, Mobius will have a far greater, more action-packed role to play this time around.

Loki season 2: how will it impact the MCU?

Loki’s TV show has a lot to answer for in the MCU. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

In September 2022, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed that Loki’s second season will connect all Phases 4, 5, and 6 together (per Marvel.com). If one of the best Disney Plus shows acts as the narrative through line for the Multiverse Saga, it’s possible a third season could be greenlit for Marvel Phase 6.

Regardless of whether that happens or not, the impact of Loki and Sylvie’s actions is already being felt. Spider-Man: No Way Home was affected by universes colliding, while Doctor Strange 2 examined the multiverse and Incursions in greater detail. The first season of What If…? was also loosely connected to Loki‘s first season, based on its exploration of alternate versions of MCU characters and the dimensions they inhabit. Lastly, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania finally introduced Kang the Conqueror and set up events regarding Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which is currently scheduled for May 1, 2026.

As for upcoming MCU projects, Loki season 2 could tie into the Fantastic Four‘s MCU debut. Comic fans will know that Kang is linked to Doctor Doom, the group’s infamous villain. So it’s plausible that they could battle Doctor Doom and a Kang variant in their first MCU adventure, which is slated to arrive on May 2, 2025.

What role will Ravonna play in Loki season 2? (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Armor Wars, which will star Don Cheadle as War Machine/James Rhodes, might link to Kang if Marvel decides to bring Iron Lad (another Kang variant) into the equation. In the comics, Iron Lad is the pseudonym of Nathaniel Richards, the descendant of Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards. Nathaniel winds up becoming Kang Prime, aka the first iteration of Kang the Conqueror and his many variants. See? It all ties together.

Additionally, Marvel leakers claim Loki season 2 could impact Deadpool 3, with the multiverse offering a potential route into the MCU for the Merc With a Mouth and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. X-Men 97, a long overdue sequel to the beloved 1990s-era animated series, could have ties to the MCU’s multiverse as well. If Deadpool 3 isn’t a route into the MCU for everyone’s favorite mutants, maybe this animated show will usher them into the MCU. It seems, then, that Loki season 2 (and its predecessor) have a lot to answer for when it comes to the multiverse’s arrival and its wider impact on Marvel’s cinematic multiverse.

For more MCU-based content, find out how to watch the Marvel movies in order. Alternatively, read up on where Loki season 1 placed in our Marvel Phase 4 ranked article, or get the scoop on The Marvels, 2023’s final MCU film.