Loki creative team thought it’d be ‘really fun’ to subvert expectations with Victor Timely

Expect the unexpected in Loki season 2 — particularly when it comes to Victor Timely — the show’s producer Kevin Wright teases to Yahoo UK.

The character, played by Jonathan Majors in the series, is a variant of Kang the Conqueror, and is a person that Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) were warned would bring death and destruction but that’s not how the creative team wanted to approach the character.

“He's telling us — at the end of season one — 'war is coming' [so] you're expecting this sci-fi villain from the future,” Wright says.

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“And I just think structurally from the very beginning, we [thought] it would be really fun if the next one that showed up wasn't a bad guy, and he wasn't a big sci-fi villain and was somebody from the past.

“It just opened up all of these avenues of fun storytelling, one: to get to go to the Chicago World Fair, but two: Victor is somebody that really can challenge all of our characters.

"The fact that the TVA is now aware of this guy, but they've got to bring him back there to help them.

"The fact that Sylvie just wants to live her life but is saying that ‘if one of these guys shows up I'm. I'm going to kill him,’ but she also believes in free will and it's almost a paradox for her of like you want free will, but you want to kill this guy.”

“It's just it's going to challenge your worldview,” he adds. “So for all of our characters, it just felt like it gave us rich character conflict to go this direction.”

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Majors was arrested on assault, strangulation and harassment charges earlier this year, and he is set to appear in court. The actor has denied the charges.

But the uncertainty around the actor’s position has left the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a precarious position, given how central the actor’s character is to the stories in Phase Five and Six.

Wright has previously explained that recasting Majors was never considered, and that the series wasn’t impacted by his arrest as production had already finished.

When asked what Marvel’s future for the villain might be, Wright says: “I've been nothing but Loki for five years. I would say it's hard to say without spoiling what we do this season.

“We do some pretty big things, but I think it's a character that always can be unexpected and come from different directions.”

Loki season 2 airs Fridays on Disney+.

Watch: Loki producer Kevin Wright reveals the team feared following up first season