Light Spoilers For Arcane Season 2
Arcane is now hurtling towards its inevitable conclusion, with this season’s second act setting up all the pieces bound to fall in the coming finale. With that said, it’s awful hard to go into any meaningful depth without spoiling the living hell out of it. But I’ll try my best.
Like many of us predicted, after the hard fought battle with Jinx at the end of act one, a fierce revolution has begun to unfold across Piltover, with the downtrodden inhabitants of Zaun in the presence of an unlikely leader that is ready to fight for them. But Jinx doesn’t care about the spotlight, instead worrying about taking care of Isha and getting to the bottom of a deadly beast storming its way across the city. Warwick is here, and he’s a major focus of this trio of episodes. But first, the sisters must reunite to face up against their transformed father figure.
I Predict A Riot
Caitlyn has shacked up with Maddie and now works alongside the corrupt and manipulative Ambessa as she seeks to control Piltover under the guise of helping it come back from the brink. It’s hard to see Caitlyn like this as she is clearly determined to avenge her mother, even if it means burning down the society she promised to protect. Without Vi she is aimless, angry, and spends most of act two figuring out the kind of person she must become in this new world.
Warwick is unleashed by his captors to wreak havoc upon the city and draw out Caitlyn and Jinx, so the two superpowers can fight it out, and with any luck, steer everything in the favour of their oppressors. It is once again enthralling to watch Caitlyn and Ambessa work with their combined military might and precision, while both characters occasionally show moments of vulnerability beneath all the bloodshed. Throughout the entire act, Caitlyn begins to discover exactly what role she has to play, and whether she should continue on this misguided path of revenge or stand by the people who really matter to her.
The use of music is once again spectacular, with a moment finally matching the emotional energy of the first season in how it combines narrative and music in tandem.
Vi meanwhile, has fallen into yet another spiral of loneliness and despair as she decides to become a pitfighter in Zaun where she dons black hair dye, a sick new jacket, and chooses to suppress her emotions with violence instead of dealing with the root cause.
While some fans believe she has donned gothic makeup to be truly dramatic about her doomed situationship with Caitlyn, to me, it feels more akin to a professional wrestling persona. Either way, it leads to a badass musical sequence filled with brutal moments of combat and a butch edge that you can’t help but find irresistible. Well, if you’re a useless lesbian like I am, at the very least.
One thing that did underwhelm me in this second act is how quickly Vi and Jinx are willing to put aside their differences, even if it’s in service of a greater familial good. It feels like they’re not having the right conversations when so many lines have been crossed and people have been killed.
Blood is thicker than water and all of that clichéd stuff, but part of me wanted to see Vi and Jinx experience a more embattled rivalry before finally coming back together. It’s bizarre and rushed, while Warwick also doesn’t feel thoroughly developed when you stop to consider everything that has taken place in the years since he first left this world behind.
Jayce is still trapped within the arcane, having spent what seems like years trying to solve its secrets and find his way home. In doing so, he discovers that the powers Viktor is using to heal society’s ills could have grave consequences and convinces himself to stop him by any means necessary. Like so many of the core relationships in Arcane, there’s a clash of ideologies that pushes two people who once loved each other apart in service of the greater good, even if it means doing terrible things.
I can’t stress exactly how fast and chaotic the final act is likely to be. There is no telling whether there will be another time skip, or Arcane is going to throw everything at us in a way that is both brilliant, daring, and unexpected. It has so much ground to cover.
Viktor has established an entire commune within Zaun that people have come to call home, and later on in the act has Vi, Jinx, Caitlyn, along with a few others take shelter there. Seeing all of these characters band together is amazing, yet so many of their respective arcs aren’t given quite enough room to breathe.
Caitlyn’s Mom Has Got Things Going Wrong
My qualms with the narrative pacing are unfortunate when the character writing and animation work that accompanies it is stellar. You can see exactly what Vi and Caitlyn are thinking and feeling with each passing frame, either through subtle eye movements or the grand gestures they often make to get their points across.
Combine this with masterful use of colour, spectacular set pieces, and music that reinforces the mood at every turn and this still puts Arcane in a league all its own. A show that needs multiple viewings to be properly appreciated and one I have no doubt fans will be pouring over for months to come.
But as all the pieces are put into place for the final act, I’m left wondering whether Riot and Fortiche will have enough time to do their story justice, and where exactly each character will end up when all is said and done. Given where this act concludes, and the tragic circumstances that’ll soon come to pass, we are in for one hell of a ride.
Set in the League of Legends universe, Arcane focuses on sisters Violet and Powder (later Jinx) as they end up on opposite sides of a growing conflict between the wealthy utopia of Piltover and its dark undercity whose citizens wish to break away from their oppressors. Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, and Kevin Alejandro star in this animated adventure.