"I can rewrite the story." The Loki Season 1 finale sucked. I've said it a million times before and I'll say it again. The things the narrative frames as good and correct end up making the show take the most nihilistic possible stance on its own fiction that it possibly could, framing the character who literally restored free will to the multiverse as an overemotional villain who didn't think through what she was doing. It's bad, it's awful, and I don't like it. But the events of that episode did happen, it would be bad form for a second season to pretend they didn't. However, the things it was implying, those were not set in stone. There was still a chance for the show to keep all the same events canonical, while changing the story they were clearly building up. Right from the first scene of this season, you can feel the shift in priorities and the change in creative team. The literal events we see on screen in last season's cliffhanger, Loki arriving in a version of the TVA with a statue of He Who Remains where Mobius doesn't remember him, still happened. But the thing they were implying, that He Who Remains fulfilled his prophecy and another variant of him started a new TVA, is something Season 2 immediately throws out. The actual explanation for this scene ends up being completely different, and gets the show back on track to actually continuing the characters and themes of Season 1. This is the approach Season 2 takes to just about everything the Season 1 finale did. Everything we saw happen did still happen, it's just being reframed. The story is being rewritten. Season 1 spent so much time building up sympathy for Variants, those whose existence inherently defies the Sacred Timeline, only for its finale to argue that their lives didn't matter. However, the one character in that finale who *did* act in defense of Variants was the character who "won." Thus, the show deals with the consequences of that. Not just the negatives that finale warned us of, but the overwhelming positives. Free will is restored. This is a good thing. There are problems to be solved, yes, but the answer is not to go back to the old system. The entire season's plot basically just revolves around one thing: the device that essentially holds the entire timeline together is breaking. It was not designed to account for free will. Thus, they need to fix it. They need to create the future Sylvie was fighting for. I kept waiting for a moment where the show would argue that the machine is unfixable, that they need to use it to do only what it was originally designed to do: enforce the singular Sacred Timeline. And while there are a few close calls, the characters always work towards a better solution in the end. Free will must stay. Variants must not be purged. And since the plot is so light, essentially just finding various goobers they need to fix the machine, this also frees this show to do something it so rarely gets to do: episodic storytelling. Almost every episode, although feeding into a larger narrative, is about a singular problem and all of the characters reacting to it, and working together to find a solution to it at the end of the episode. This approach is unfortunately not executed perfectly due to the limiting 6-episode total, so you get some unfortunate casualties like Episode 2, whose first 30 minutes follow an episodic formula, only to awkwardly staple on an extra 10-15 minutes of an almost completely separate conflict that really should have been stretched out into their own separate episode instead. Still though, after we've recently learned that Marvel just doesn't do showrunners, it's a miracle this actually functions as a season of television and not a chopped-up bloated movie like nearly all of Marvel's previous shows. And this applies not just on a writing level, but also the direction. Especially have to give a big shoutout to directing duo Benson and Moorhead, who helm most episodes of this season. Their camerawork is so distinct from the usual Marvel "functional" approach. This leads to some of the most visually inventive sequences in the entire MCU, frankly making the rest of these shows and even most of the movies look embarrassing. Even on a smaller level, there's a moment that sticks out to me in Episode 4. A minor side character makes a difficult choice, one that hurts him to watch the consequences of, and we never cut away from his facial expressions as he processes what he's just done. Even as the devil on his shoulder in this scene tells him from out of frame that he made the right choice, the camera is still focused solely on this man's face. It's not revolutionary, but the MCU never shies away from basic shot/reverse shot, so it ends up sticking out when you remember what franchise this is in. Oh, and to top of all off, you've got some good acting on display here, too. Obviously, Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson were always doing better than the MCU deserved in this show. But this season you also get Ke Huy Quan delivering an absolutely golden comedic performance as new character Ouroborous, also known as "O.B." You'd think after doing something like Everything Everywhere all at Once, such a role would be beneath him and that he'd totally phone it in, but he is unironically dancing circles around the rest of the cast even in a role that doesn't leave much room for him to show his range. This is straight-up the best Disney+ Marvel season, period. On every level, they succeeded where the countless prior shows (even the good ones) failed miserably. One that not only succeeds on its own terms, telling its own story, but one that redeems what was (in my opinion) one of the most thematically backwards pieces of Marvel media ever created. I cannot stress enough how much joy I got watching the Season 2 finale, watching sequences where Loki looks back on scenes from Season 1 and realizes just how awful He Who Remains' ideology truly is. He never says the words "I was wrong", but the choices he makes in that episode surely do not line up with the actions of Loki in the Season 1 finale. The contrast between those finales truly shows how far this show has come. I might be able to watch Season 1 without tearing my hair out at the finale now! Favorite episode: Glorious Purpose