Spoilers follow for Loki Season 2 through episode four, “Heart of the TVA”
Things got messy on the fourth episode of Loki’s second season. Like a large group of people smashed together into bloody goo messy. Yes, they kept the actual moment of horror off camera, but it was clear what was happening when Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong) chose to kill General Dox (Kate Dickie) and the other TVA prisoners that were loyal to her via a collapsing cube they trapped them inside and closed the walls in on.
It was not only a notably dark moment for the MCU, but for the two characters behind it, who have turned into quite the villains on the series this year – Miss Minutes was smiling while this was happening! This is certainly a surprise given how they began on Loki, especially since Miss Minutes is an adorable cartoon clock. But it’s always the ones you least suspect, right?
Loki Executive Producer Kevin Wright spoke about the evolution of these characters, the differences between them, and having them go to such diabolical lengths.
Though few would predict this level of villainy within her, we did find out by the end of Loki’s first season that Miss Minutes was actually loyal to He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) and keeping secrets from everyone else in the TVA.
When it came to teaming Miss Minutes up with Renslayer, Kevin Wright remarked, “Even in Season 1, we obviously had fun with revealing [Miss Minutes] clearly is holding more cards than we’ve led on. She knows something more. So going into Season 2, and Renslayer having this great exit from the TVA in Season 1 as well, to go in search of free will, it felt natural that they would eventually find each other and come together and go on their own little journey.”
However, Wright stressed the difference between the two, saying, “Miss Minutes is clearly manipulating Renslayer. Renslayer wants something. She wants stability at the TVA but I think Miss Minutes is sort of the one that’s dripping that poison in her ear and sort of poisoning the well in a way that it makes you wonder ‘Yeah, what is Miss Minutes aiming for here?’ And is she also just using Renslayer as sort of the embodiment of that person who can do the legwork for her and sow the seeds of chaos?”
As Season 2 has progressed, Wright said, “They do some pretty horrible things but I also think you empathize with Renslayer, hopefully, by seeing she helped build this place.”
As Wright was noting, Renslayer has now discovered she was helped He Who Remains begin the TVA, only for him to callously mind wipe her and simply put her to work within the organization and he added, “She got there, she got to the end of time, and she was sent back to kind of go do the paperwork without her knowledge. I think there’s a feeling there that people can empathize with. And then from there, she makes a lot of very scary choices.”
As for the decidedly horrific manner in which Renslayer and Miss Minutes dispatched Dox and the others, Wright remarked “Part of that comes from you wanting real stakes.” In Season 1, initially, it appeared as though if someone in the TVA used a Time Stick to “prune” someone else, it was killing them but eventually we’d learn that wasn’t the case. Said Wright, “We know now, if you prune somebody, they’re still alive… maybe. They’re gonna go to the Void, they might have a hard time down there, but you can come back from that.”
Beyond introducing a manner in which characters are very much actually disposed of within the TVA, Wright said that as far as Renslayer and Miss Minutes going through with this act “It was finding stakes and things that they could do that feel like they’re hard to come back from as a character. Once that goes on your ledger, you’ve got to deal with that. But Loki’s done some pretty bad things in his past too, as we try to remind people of, and you still can progress. So these is a lot of echoes in what we’re trying to do with these characters. They’re just all at various points on that arc.”
We’ll see if Renslayer and Miss Minutes smush anyone else to death when the final two episodes of Loki Season 2 air the next two Thursdays at 6:00pm PT on Disney+.
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