Possibly the most spectacular thing about this week’s episode of the Marvel superhero series Loki may have been its post-credit statement saying: “Loki will return in season 2.” Marvel and Disney Plus did a surprisingly good job of concealing the fact this won’t be a limited series like Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision. While both of these shows were a setup for upcoming MCU Phase 4 movies (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the next Captain America film, respectively), they also told self-contained stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Instead, Loki ended with an exciting cliffhanger that didn’t just set up the second season, but the next big MCU story arc as well. In addition, the season finale featured an electrical performance by Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country) as the mysterious mastermind villain He Who Remains. Just several days ago, there were rumors about Marvel hiring Majors to play the villain Kang the Conqueror in the upcoming MCU movie Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The fact that the same character – or at least one of the countless multiverse versions of him – now appeared on Loki shows Majors may play a much bigger presence throughout the next MCU story arc than Josh Brolin’s Thanos.
