Entertainment NOW

Entertainment Now | September 30 - October 6, 2023 By Sarah Passingham TV Media W e've all done the time warp and explored the multiverse, but it's high time to sort out the timeline. A brand-new season of "Loki" premieres Fri- day, Oct. 6, on Disney+. Tom Hid- dleston ("The Essex Serpent") re- turns as the God of Mischief, ev- eryone's favorite troublemaker, Loki, who has developed a myste- rious problem this season. Owen Wilson ("Haunted Man- sion," 2023) is back as Mobius M. Mobius, the Time Variance Author- ity agent tasked with helping Loki right his wrongs across the multi- verse. The first season of "Loki" saw the Norse God meet his match in an alternate version of himself. Sophia Di Martino ("The Electrical Life of Louis Wain," 2021) is Sylvie, a variant of Loki who interrupts the Sacred Time- line. After coming together to set things right across space and time, Loki returned to what he thought would be the TVA headquarters he left before his mission, but some- thing still wasn't right. In the official trailer for the up- coming season, Mobius brings Loki to a repair shop of sorts, manned by TVA repair guy OB, portrayed by Ke Huy Quan ("American Born Chi- nese"). Before the pair have time to explain what's brought them there, Loki suddenly, uncontrolla- bly disappears in a timeslip, leaving Mobius looking to OB for an an- swer. "It's impossible to timeslip in the TVA," is all he can say, though they just watched it happen. "Loki" executive producer Kevin Wright told Entertainment Weekly in September that "[OB's] job is basically every piece of tech, every computer, every thing that is run- ning at the TVA. ... He either de- signed it or he fixes it and keeps it running." Having recently picked up an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2022's "Every- thing Everywhere All At Once," Quan is well suited to help repair another multiverse. While Quan's character is the latest to join Loki's crew as he chases chaos across the multi- verse, several cast members re- turn for the new season, including Gugu Mbatha-Raw ("Surface") as Ravonna Renslayer, an ambi- tious judge in the TVA who over- sees Loki's case. Literally backing up Loki at one point in the sea- son's trailer alongside Mobius, Sylvie and OB is Wunmi Mosaku ("We Own This City") as Hunter B-15. Eugene Cordero ("Star Trek: Lower Decks") returns as Hunter K-5E, former TVA receptionist. The upcoming seasons also star Neil Ellice ("Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn") as Hunter D-90, Jonathan Majors ("Creed III," 2023) as He Who Remains and Tara Strong ("Teen Titans Go!") as the voice of Miss Minutes. Rafael Casal ("Blindspotting"), Kate Dickie ("Annika") and Liz Carr ("Silent Witness") all join the cast this sea- son in as-yet-unnamed roles. Odd couple Mobius and Loki unsurprisingly have different ap- proaches to their world-saving mission spanning space and time. While the former admits in the "Loki" teaser trailer that he pre- fers his "slow, deliberate, cerebral approach" honed by years in the bureaucracy of the TVA, while the Norse god is "a man of action, which is fine." Unconvincing, giv- en Loki is the source of the de- struction that they are trying to stave off. While Disney has remained characteristically tight-lipped about the new season of "Loki" ahead of its premiere, Mbatha- Raw promised in a December 2022 interview with Entertain- ment Tonight that fans "are gon- na be in for a real treat because the show is bolder and more sur- real." She added that the upcom- ing season "goes to some bigger, bolder places than Season 1, which is really exciting." Wright promised something similar in his September EW interview, saying, "We made a weird show [in Sea- son 1], and people responded to how weird it was ... so, we want- ed to push it further." Marvel introduced the multi- verse in the 2016 movie "Doctor Strange," and since its release, it has opened up a far-reaching world of timelines and possibilities within the Marvel universe. The lat- er so-called "phases" of the Mar- vel Cinematic Universe following the 2016 film utilize time travel to connect Marvel films and TV series. Following the wildly successful first foray into a Marvel live-ac- tion TV series with "WandaVi- sion" in 2021, Disney and Marvel architects have been turning to the episodic format to expand on stories that simply can't be done justice in the films. Wright told EW, "In our [Marvel] movies, sometimes you have to keep moving forward very rapidly to get to the next thing." Embracing the extra hours in a season of TV that you can't fit into a theatrical release works for a complicated, expansive story like the one in "Loki," Wright adds, "Here it's like: 'No, we can sit in these moments.' And dramatically, that's an exciting thing." Though Majors currently faces allegations of domestic violence, his character, Kang the Conquer- or, can be seen in the "Loki" trail- er as variant Victor Timely, and Wright confirmed that he is "a big part of the show" in the up- coming season. Plant yourself firmly onto the couch, try not to timeslip and tune in to the "Loki" Season 2 premiere when it drops on Dis- ney+, Friday, Oct. 6. Owen Wilson and Tom Hiddleston in "Loki" Beyond time and space: 'Loki' returns with uncontrollable powers 2 | Cover story Grindstone Charlie's 1 x 4" Moore's Home Health 5 x 2"

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