‘Loki’ Season 2’s Final Scene Is What Sealed the Deal for Benson & Moorhead

Editor’s Note: The following contains full spoilers for the Loki Season 2 finale.

The Big Picture

• Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead discuss Loki’s ultimate ending on a throne, and how it signifies his evolution as a character, becoming more human and valuing connections and friendships.
• The sacrifice he makes by being alone on the throne is bittersweet, showcasing his longing for humanity and the tragedy of having to give up what he wanted.
• The directing duo, Benson and Moorhead, discuss their collaboration with the cast and the influence from Moon Knight, and their excitement for the upcoming project Daredevil: Born Again.

Loki Season 2 is over, and with it comes the conclusion of a character arc for one of the MCU’s most popular characters. With the season finale, we saw Loki (Tom Hiddleston) make the ultimate sacrifice. It’s a bittersweet moment for the character who always wanted a throne, who finally gets a golden throne at the end of time but must sit there alone holding together the strands of life and existence. The MCU series was one of the earliest shows to come from Disney’s expansion into television content and Loki saw some changes both in front of the camera and behind the camera after Season 1. One of the biggest changes involved the directing of the episodes. Directing four of the six episodes of Loki, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead stepped in after Season 1’s director, Kate Herron, stepped down.

Benson and Moorhead are primarily known as a filmmaking duo, directing horror films like Spring, The Endless, and Synchronic. They’ve also worked in the MCU, directing two episodes of Moon Knight and currently signed on as directors for Daredevil: Born Again. Collider spoke with Benson and Moorhead about the Season 2 finale of Loki and the decision to put him on the throne at the end of time. We also discussed some theories about the series, both potential alternate storylines and going in depth on what might be awaiting Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). The duo talked about what drew them to the project and how they collaborated with the cast for the season. Finally, they teased their progress on Daredevil and their excitement for the project.

COLLIDER: My first question is actually about logistics. Loki Season 1 and 2, I’m curious where it lands in the timeline of the MCU. Is it before or after Quantumania?

AARON MOORHEAD: That question is one that I’m not even allowed to answer. You got to ask Kevin Wright for that.

Oh my god!

MOORHEAD: Did he answer it?

I didn’t get a chance to ask him! I had other questions. So, I was saving it for you guys.

Yeah, sorry about that.

Loki’s Final Sacrifice and Becoming Yggdrasil

[Laughs] It’s okay. Okay, so you established in the last episode that Loki wanted to be with his friends. And I’m curious why his ultimate ending was him alone on a throne. Can you guys elaborate on that decision?

JUSTIN BENSON: Yeah, yeah. We just saw Loki’s journey over all of these movies and all of these TV shows, this character we’ve all grown to love, that something primary to his evolution is that he is becoming more and more human. He’s becoming less and less a sort of archetype of an antagonist or a villain, and more and more gaining his humanity. And that those connections to people, the idea of having friendships, all those things, that is part of what we see is defined as being human. And then once he has that, and he realizes that that is what he wanted all along, that there’s this beautiful tragedy and having to sacrifice it. But also, the sacrifice itself is to be human.

MOORHEAD: Yeah. And we found it really important that the sacrifice was a real sacrifice, meaning he didn’t just do the act. He also is not able to be given the glory of having done what he’s done. He doesn’t get his friends, he didn’t sacrifice himself and then get to still hang out with his friends. He is fully alone.

That’s a little depressing!

MOORHEAD: You see, though, he has a smile on his face at the end. And I think that he gets a lot of fulfillment off of what he did.

And can you break down the meaning of him becoming Yggdrasil, the tree of life? Can you talk about what that means for him in the future as well?

MOORHEAD: We see that as he always wanted to be king or sit on a throne. And what we realized is that now that he’s had his redemption arc, what he really is, is a benevolent gardener. You know, he doesn’t rule the garden, he tends the garden, he makes sure the garden is happy, so it can flourish and grow on its own. And so that’s why ultimately it is that tree shape, and I can’t even speculate on what that means in the future. They don’t tell us.

That’s fair. Was there ever an intention to reunite Loki with Thor in this series? I heard some rumblings about this, and I’m curious if that was ever a thought.

MOORHEAD: Was there?

BENSON: I mean, it could have been and no one told us.

MOORHEAD: [Laughs] Yeah. I’m trying to remember like an early draft kind of thing?

BENSON: They probably wouldn’t tell us, like loose lips sink ships.

And I’m curious, following Jonathan Majors’ legal issues, and I know this is a sensitive topic, but were there any changes made to the show after his arrest?

MOORHEAD: No.

No, not at all?

MOORHEAD: [Shakes head]

What Happened to Ravonna Renslayer?

Okay. With the finale, we kind of see where everybody is at the end, at the “after”. But a character that I found to be kind of incomplete is Ravonna. We see her waking up in that void area where you go when you get pruned. Do you guys have an answer to what she’s facing in the future?

MOORHEAD: I think it’s kind of like with Loki, is she got a bit of a comeuppance. We played it as, and Gugu [Mbatha-Raw] played it as truly trying to restore stability to the TVA, which isn’t an important and noble goal. But, ultimately, [she] ended up on the wrong side of it. But I get the sense that this look on Gugu’s face at the very end, that she actually might have a plan. And just there might be some… she’s not just lost in the void. And there might be like one more move. You know? That’s how we like to think.

BENSON: I mean, she certainly has the virtue of being resilient.

MOORHEAD: And if she could harness Alioth I feel like there’s something to be had there. I feel like if Renslayer and Alioth somehow are able to be, I don’t know exactly how Alioth would operate, but like zookeeper and lion. There’s a very interesting story to be told there.

Was There Ever an Alternate Ending for ‘Loki’?

I’m curious, with these endings, if there was ever an alternate ending, or if there’s ever an idea for Loki to have a different ending. I was speaking to Kevin Wright about it. And he said, it was always the idea for him to be on a throne. But I’m just wondering if there was a different path that you guys were thinking of taking?

BENSON: Yep, there were a few that were there were slight deviations here and there. But what’s so interesting, Kevin said that, too, when Kevin told us that this idea that you’re talking about essentially where the show ends, that’s when Aaron and I bit. We were like, “We’re in, that sounds amazing.” It was such a beautiful tragedy. Him and Tom [Hiddleston] brought us in a room one afternoon and told us what this was going to be. And to be honest, it was so cool that you hang on, and you hope that actually, in the end, that’s the story you get to tell. And we did. We’re very grateful for that.

MOORHEAD: [Nodding] Yeah.

And can you talk about working actors like Tom [Hiddleston]? I know that it was quite a collaborative process when it came to planning for the season. I think Dan [Deleeuw] was telling me that you guys were all kind of working together. Can you talk about that?

MOORHEAD: Yes, that is one of our favorite parts about having been able to work on Loki. It’s something we actually pulled from Moon Knight, where Oscar [Isaac] and Ethan [Hawke] and the writers and everybody we all got in the same room. And it started as a question answering session, but turned into kind of like character-focused writing. We took that lesson, because we feel like that made the character side of it so strong, made the actors believe and understand every motion that we’re ever doing, and we applied that to Loki. And watching their brains work in a room without a big pressure cooker of time yet, you know, and we’re all just trying to piece it together, like what we love about it and what matters to us and how to make sure we’re honoring the themes. That’s really exciting. Also, you know, it’s exciting trying to make Owen Wilson laugh. If you ever make him laugh, you feel like you’re a king.

What Is the Progress on Daredevil: Born Again?

I can only imagine. So, just to touch on some other MCU stuff. Obviously, you guys are going to be directing Daredevil: Born Again. And I can see on your faces that you probably can’t tell me much about it. Have you guys started filming? And how has that process been? If you can tease anything.

MOORHEAD: It’s just super early days. That’s being straight up with you. It’s super early. I mean, we were late to this because we just walked into our office for the first time.

BENSON: We couldn’t figure out like how the internet works.

Well, I look forward to your interpretation.

MOORHEAD: We’re super excited.

What Was the Multiverse Like Before Kang?

I am too, trust me, I love Daredevil. And then a general question that I don’t know if you have the answer to, but I’m curious to hear your take on it. You know, if all of this existence requires so much tending and you need, you know, a gardener, so to speak, or like Kang, how did the multiverse survive before Kang and the TVA? Do you have any thoughts about that?

MOORHEAD: I do, do you? [points to Benson]

BENSON: No.

MOORHEAD: I don’t want to speak out of turn because I actually I’ve thought about this a lot. And I think it’s kind of like the question of what happened before the Big Bang. Time didn’t really exist before it. So the story happened in which he built the TVA and all of that, but it’s probably a bit like an Ouroboros where the beginning begat the end, begat the beginning. And anything before that is before time and so there is no before.

All of Loki is available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S.

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