Spoilers for the previous episodes of Loki are below, though I’ve done my best not to spoil this week’s show beyond a brief synopsis. You have been warned!

Time passes differently in the TVA, but it’s still felt like an incredibly long time since we last saw our favourite God of Mischief, alongside Sylvie – a variant of Loki from a different timeline – and Owen Wilson’s jet-ski obsessed Time Variance Authority agent, Mobius.

At the end of Loki’s fantastic first series – and also at the end of time itself – Loki and Sylvie were poised to discover who lurks in the house beyond the Void, as well as who was really behind the TVA, the supposed protectors of the Sacred Timeline.

As is common knowledge now, of course, it was Kang the Conqueror (Johnathan Majors – or at least a variant of Kang, who called himself He Who Remains.

He’d supposedly been holding his other variants at bay with his clandestine direction of the TVA – but then Sylvie took matters into her own hands, killing him and unleashing his variants from different timelines to attempt their conquering of time itself.

So Loki is now back at the TVA after being pushed back through a timeline portal by Sylvie; yet no one recognises him.

What’s going on? Where’s Sylvie? And can Loki get the help he needs to stop the Kang variants, at least one of which we’ve seen in another MCU property (with him being the primary antagonist in the disappointing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania)?

Everyone loved Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, myself included. His chemistry with everyone he shares a scene with is astonishing to watch – and that’s no different in this second season’s opening episode. New to the cast this time is Ke Huy Quan’s Ouroboros (or ‘OB’), a sweet, awkward tinkerer who becomes involved in some brilliantly entertaining, superbly written timey-wimeyness alongside our displaced God of Mischief.

Oh, and Agent Mobius makes a welcome return of course.

The TVA’s lovely, mundane and clunky bureaucracy also comes back – and it remains a breathtakingly well designed setting, with all of its delightfully analogue technology and stabs at futurism from a mid-20th century standpoint. Wonderful stuff.

Natalie Holt also returns to provide the stunning soundtrack; this opening episode capitalising on all of the strengths of the first season once more and continuing the story seamlessly.

Burdened with the glorious purpose of putting the MCU back on track after some underwhelming movie and TV shows, Loki looks set to live up to the promise of what its excellent first season set up.

Oh, and make sure to stick around past the credits for an important piece of setup for the next episode too.