Gareth Gatrell“Hope is hard,” says Tom Hiddleston’s God of Mischief in the second season of Loki, and the struggle to stay optimistic extends to the Disney+ series itself. Despite a largely inventive first act, creator Michael Waldron and writer Eric Martin’s streaming affair remerges (October 5) during a rocky period for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is unraveling almost as quickly as the multiverse that Loki and his comrades are trying to mend. The show’s return engagement, unfortunatel