TV Review: Loki: Season 2 – Episode 1: “Ouroboros” (2023)

LOKI
SEASON TWO

Episode 1: “Ouroboros”

BY CHRISTOPHER HASKELL
OCTOBER 11, 2023

“The Temporal Loom is the heart of the TVA. It’s where raw time is refined into physical timeline.”

— Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan)

“Loki: Season 2” hits the ground running with “Ouroboros,” the new season’s first episode. It’s been over two years since the first season of “Loki.” Yet, we pick up right where we left off, with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) returning from his and Sylvie’s (Sophia Di Martino) conversation with He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors). Loki tries to fill in Mobius (Owen Wilson). Still, he keeps getting ripped through time, sometimes in the past, creating things like a crack in the floor that then appears in the future (or so we think now) or having a conversation with the episode title character Ouroboros, O.B. for short, (Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan) which translates into a memory formed of that conversation.

I can’t help but think there’s something bigger at play here. Is Loki jumping through different moments on the same timeline? Or is there a chance he’s jumping between the multiverse? I love the pandamonium caused by revealing that the Timekeepers were robots. I especially love the inner turmoil Loki feels after his conflicting conversation with He Who Remains. Was it an idle threat to keep them from killing him? Or is the unending war he promised now on its way? It feels like there’s something bigger going on with O.B. as well. How does he remember everything when all the other TVA employees appear to have had their memories wiped multiple times? How is it that he was in charge of writing the TVA’s handbook and designing most of the TVA in general? In that regard, where in space does the TVA exist? Like what plain of existence?

Kudos to Marvel for allowing the visual effects team enough time to output their best work. Loki’s “time slipping” transformations are some of the best viz I’ve seen in a long time. The production and costume designs are impeccable, from the shrines of He Who Remains to the well-lit war room table to the suit Mobius wears into the Temporal Loom and the Temporal Aura Extractor device that shoots into the Loom. Having seen a few of Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead’s previous works, I get a sense of their style poking through in several comedic moments and with some of the visual style. I commend Marvel for avoiding the rash decision regarding Jonathan Majors and his outstanding legal trouble. Overall, “Ouroboros” does everything an opening episode should do. It introduces new characters, ups the stakes, and promises much more.

RELEASE DATE
October 5, 2023

DIRECTORS
Justin Benson
Aaron Moorhead

WRITTEN BY
Eric Martin

STUDIO
Marvel Studios

NETWORK
Disney Plus

TV-14

ACTION
ADVENTURE
FANTASY
SCI-FI
45 minutes