Loki Season 3 Is Happening More Than 2 Years Later But Not How You Think – The Global Tofay

Despite what its latest season 2 finale revealed, Loki season 3 is set to happen in the future, though not by traditional means. Tom Hiddleston went through quite the journey with Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From debuting in 2011’s Thor as a villain to shedding his God of Mischief image and dying for his brother Thor in Avengers: Infinity War, the original Loki changed a lot. That was then passed on to the Loki variant that would star Disney+’s successful Loki series. Loki season 2’s ending concluded one of the MCU’s best character arcs, with Hiddleston’s character becoming a powerful entity.

The God of Mischief title is no longer the best fit for Loki. The character went from selfish to selfless in a remarkable way, condemning himself to a life of solitude as he watches over the different strands of the multiverse all alone. That sacrifice led to Loki becoming the MCU’s God of Stories, and given his predicament at the end of the series, the possibility of Loki’s MCU return is up in the air. That said, even if its lead character does not return, a kind of Loki season 3 will be making its way into the MCU in the coming years through a major project.

Avengers: Doomsday Is The MCU’s Loki Season 3 Replacement

The MCU Has Made Loki A Central Part Of Its Multiverse Saga

Initially, the fact that Loki season 2 explored so much about Kang and his many variants meant that Avengers 5 – then titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty – was set to be an obvious kind of spiritual successor to the Disney+ show. While Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror — the Multiverse Saga’s main villain — debuted in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the actor first played a version of the character — He Who Remains — in Loki season 1. The second season of the MCU series saw Majors return as He Who Remains and play another Kang variant, Victor Timely, which helped expand the mythos around the MCU’s Big Bad.

However, the MCU cutting ties with Jonathan Majors appears to have altered these plans, with Avengers 5 being revamped to Avengers: Doomsday, now starring Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom in the starring role instead of Kang. While this may initially look to reconfigure the story of the fifth Avengers movie, this reconfiguration actually looks set to need to rely on Loki more.

Firstly, Loki season 2 has the Time Variance Authority actively hunting down variants of Kang, meaning that their prospective success would be the easiest way for the franchise to justify Kang’s story ending instead of having him be the focal villain in Avengers 5. Since the MCU ideally needs to address the Council of Kangs – and looks unable to directly since the variants were all played by Majors – this approach solves a potential problem for the story while also tying everything closer to the existing Multiverse Saga lore.

Secondly, the MCU needing to focus on part of its multiversal story that don’t rely on Kang so much means that using the TVA more makes sense, especially since Deadpool & Wolverine brought the faction to the movie side of the franchise in a focal position, and brought back Loki‘s Hunter B-15 in doing so. Indeed, Deadpool & Wolverine‘s major financial success means that the concepts introduced in Loki that it uses – like the TVA, the Void, and Alioth – are all now relatively broadly known, making their future use even easier for the MCU.

What Loki Season 2 Storylines The MCU Still Needs To Address

Loki Season 2 Left A Few Hanging Threads

While Loki season 2 did a masterful job of closing the major plot points of the series, as well as giving the perfect ending to Hiddleston’s Loki if the actor feels like he is done playing the character, there were some loose ends that the MCU could explain in future projects. Sylvie’s story was left wide open at the end of the series. As one of the series’ most important characters, the MCU needs to follow up on that ending and show what kind of life Sylvie has chosen for herself now that Loki gave her the power to be free.

Another major loose end left by Loki season 2 is the fate of Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer. The character was sent to the Void, which is the place where everything the TVA pruned was sent to. Renslayer had an important role in Loki season 2, but as the series neared its end, the character was mostly cast aside. Renslayer’s fate in the Void was given nothing more than a quick scene to show where she was. While Deadpool & Wolverine explored the Void further, Renslayer was absent from the scenes that took place in this location, leaving the mystery of her fate and future still unclear.

How MCU’s Kang Changes Could Make Loki Season 2 An Even Bigger Deal

The Franchise’s Casting Changes Set Up Loki To Be More Important Than Ever

With the MCU having cut ties with Kang actor Jonathan Majors in December 2023 following him being found guilty on two misdemeanor counts of harassment and assault, it’s clear the franchise is set to undergo some reconfiguration in order to course correct from the clearly integral role Majors’ Kang variants were set to play. This most logically brings Loki – and the events of Loki season 2 most specifically – to be even more important, as the most popular and prominent multiverse exploration in MCU’s recent history.

Loki’s role as an overseer of the multiverse could easily be used to retcon any details the MCU wants to tweak with Kang, or even be used to replace him entirely. Even if the MCU doesn’t want to lean into one of its Disney+ shows too intensely – to ensure broader audiences who don’t keep up with the TV series can still enjoy the likes of Avengers: Doomsday – looking at what made Loki so successful would still be a healthy approach while restructuring is underway.

Given Loki also shows the beginning of the MCU’s multiverse branching out, this makes it crucial too for the building blocks for Avengers: Doomsday. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is to be set in a different universe, meaning the introduction of Doctor Doom’s main comic enemies inherently carries on from the Loki season 1 ending that sees the multiverse blossom, and the season 2 ending that sees these alternate universes be secured by Loki himself.

Will Loki Season 3 Actually Happen?

A Return Of The Disney+ Series Is Unlikely

While Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will see Loki‘s prophesied Multiversal War happen, an actual return for Loki is unlikely. Speaking with Phase Zero, Loki producer Kevin Wright said that he would “love to continue to work with this team that made these two seasons of this show.” The producer then revealed that rather than make Loki season 3, he would like to do a spinoff series, saying, “I would love to find a way of… if this was our Breaking Bad, what’s our Better Call Saul?”

As it stands, an actual Loki season 3 seems to be off the cards – but it’s also not impossible, either. In an April 2024 interview with Variety, Loki actor Tom Hiddleston stated when asked about whether Loki season 3 was possible that, “I truthfully don’t know… I am so proud of where we landed in season 2. To go from this lost, broken soul in Asgaard, and be given a second chance and learn so much about life that he actually gives himself to protect other people, has been such an honor.”

While this also suggests Loki season 3 is not to directly come to fruition, Hiddleston’s statement does leave the possibility open for another chapter – or a spinoff show that effectively continues this story, as Kevin Wright discusses. However, with so many other projects in the pipeline, it seems even more unlikely either of these scenarios would happen anytime soon, making the chances of Avengers: Doomsday serving as a Loki season 3 of sorts all the more viable for the MCU timeline and its Multiverse Saga story.

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