Following the release of its third and final act, there’s a good chance that you’re looking to have the Arcane season 2 ending explained. I don’t blame you for that. The season has, after all, barrelled through continued arcs from the first season with its first two acts, beginning with an insurgency from the undercity of Zaun being violently suppressed by the wealthy technocracy of Piltover – a conflict stoked by the likes of Ambessa and her associates for their own gain. For all of these different wheels in motion, the show has kept itself focused around the turbulent sisterhood between Jinx (Ella Purnell) and Vi (Hailee Steinfeld), who at the season’s opening found themselves on opposite sides of that ideological divide.
Their relationship is a catalyst for, but also victim too, a number of other plotlines which converge in the Arcane season 2 ending, which I’m going to do my best to straighten out as we go through what happened in the show’s explosive and often blisteringly fast-paced final act. We’ll cover what happened to Jinx at the end of Arcane, whether Caitlin dies in Arcane season 2, and plenty more.
Of course, Arcane season 2 act 3 spoilers follow from here on what is undoubtedly one of the best Netflix shows of 2024.
Arcane season 2 act 2 recap
The second act, after a significant timeskip, saw the tragically brief return of Vander, albeit as a bloodthirsty mutant monster. This new form was created by a genetic experiment by a man named Singed, who in a rather Mr Freeze-like twist reveals that he’s doing all of this so he can save the life of his daughter, kept in suspended animation while he researches a cure. Vander’s feral rage made him dangerous, so Vi and Jinx, along with Jinx’s new little surrogate sister Isha, retreat to a commune founded by Viktor, who attempts to cure Vander. Unfortunately, other plot lines converge upon the same location: Caitlyn is still hunting for Jinx after the death of her mother, and brings Ambessa with her. Ambessa decides to storm the compound. At the same time, Jayce has returned from his vacation in the Hex Core, taking some pretty radical actions – first killing Salo, and then attempting to kill his best friend Viktor, a move which undoes Vander’s therapy and leads him on another rampage. Isha sacrifices herself in order to protect Jinx and Vi from the carnage. Read our Arcane season 2 review to learn more.
What happened in Arcane season 2 Act 3?
With the beginning of Act 3 the series jumps in time again, but in the episode “Pretend Like It’s The First Time” (seventh of the season, first of Act 3), it goes in two directions simultaneously. It follows Ekko and Heimerdinger as they go back in time (a little bit), and Jayce goes into the future. The extra catch is that they’re in a parallel universe. Ekko and Heimerdinger are in a time where everything is actually pretty nice, while Jayce is stranded in a post-apocalypse, one where HexTech blew up Piltover and turned the survivors into zombies. Both parties make it back to the present with somewhat different perspectives.
Back in the present, Vi wakes up after the attack on Viktor’s commune. Despondent after losing Isha and Vander (again), Jinx turns herself in to Caitlyn for arrest. Vi attempts to reach out to her sister, offering to free her and maybe get her to use her gifts to atone, Jinx doesn’t share Vi’s hope that she might be able to change her ways or public perception of her. Jinx gets out and locks Vi in the jail cell, Caitlyn finds her there – Fortiche gives the people what they want and they hook up.
Meanwhile, Mel is revealed to be a mage, a power concealed from her until her kidnapping by the Black Rose, a secret organization of witches from her mother Ambessa’s home country of Noxus. They invite her to join them, and her answer is ambiguous as she weighs up the dangers of The Black Rose versus the danger her mother represents, threatening to destroy the city of Piltover through her single-minded actions. Returning to her mother, Mel confronts Ambessa over the death of her brother in her feud with the Black Rose..
After the destruction of his commune, Viktor has turned from robot messiah into something more cult-like, deciding that his evolution is something he should assimilate everybody into. He offers partnership with Ambessa, who asks that he grant her extra troops with which to annex Piltover – automatons powered by his abilities. In response to this threat, Jayce tries to appeal to the people of Zaun and the rest of Piltover’s council to put aside their animosity, rally defenses and protect the city. Most decide to flee, while a handful stay to fight. After retreating to her old warehouse, Jinx attempts suicide before Ekko intervenes with his new time travel device.
From here, it’s time for battle: Ambessa and her Noxian army, now augmented with extra forces from Viktor, stage their invasion. Vi, Caitlyn and Jayce try to defend the city, resistance holds out for a little while but they ultimately fail. Maddie betrays Caitlyn and the Piltover Enforcers, attempting to execute her on Ambessa’s behalf before Mel intervenes. Jinx arrives with Ekko, the Firelights, and rest of the Zaunites to stage a counterattack, freeing the Enforcers. Viktor, transformed beyond recognition, arrives to fight Jayce for control of the Hexgates, while his army of automatons begins assimilating the Zaunite reinforcements. Caitlyn and Mel square off with Ambessa in a duel. Caitlyn loses an eye, but Mel steps in, defeating Ambessa and the head of the Black Rose.
Viktor and Jayce arrive at the top of the tower, which he realizes is the scene he witnessed when he traveled into the future, the ‘zombies’ in the future were just the automatons but more rusty. Ekko intervenes in their fight and throws his brand new time machine into Viktor’s face, seemingly linking the past and the future for a second. Turns out that the hooded figure Jayce saw in the future was an aged Viktor, who gave him a mission to save him from himself by showing him that same post apocalypse and his regret over having caused it. The two then join in this astral plane powered by the HexTech, undoing Viktor’s brainwashing of everybody and both disappearing into nothing (they both get sucked inside the rune on Jayce’s wrist). The automatons all stop functioning while the Noxian army submits to Mel.
Vi and Jinx crash into the tower along with Vander, reanimated by Viktor’s magic. The two battle him together as Vi tries to save their adoptive father one last time, to no avail. Jinx sacrifices herself to save her sister, tumbling over a precipice. The show cuts away to the aftermath as Piltover and Zaun mourn their dead together. Sevika is welcomed onto the Piltover Council as a representative of the Undercity in a tentative show of unity. Mel embraces her Noxian heritage but also her background as a mage, seemingly assuming her mother’s place at the head of the Noxian army. Caitlyn has a cool eye patch, poring over building blueprints for the HexGates where Jinx and Vander fell. Her and Vi vow to stay together as they fly an airship over the ocean to lands unknown.
Who dies in Arcane season 2?
Quite a few people! The final episode promises all-out war with all the carnage that entails, and delivers on it as members of the main and supporting cast go down in droves. Before that point, Heimerdinger sacrifices himself to send Ekko home to the main universe and the present day. Loris is killed by arrows during Ambessa’s invasion of Piltover, while the traitorous Maddie is killed after her bullet intended to execute Caitlyn ricochets. Ambessa dies in Mel’s arms, beaten by her and Caitlyn in a duel (during which Mel also kills the mysterious witch leading the Black Rose). Jayce and Viktor sacrifice themselves together to save the city from Viktor’s own machinations, the two absorbed into one of the runes giving them power. Vander, or at least his puppet body, dies again.
What happened to Jinx at the end of Arcane?
If you’re wondering what happened to Jinx at the end of Arcane, well, the ending leaves a slight bit of ambiguity as to whether she survives or not. Jinx is presumed dead after giving her life to save Vi from Vander, both of them tumbling into the Hexgate tower. Given that the series creators have said it’s unlikely that there will be an Arcane season 3, and that the series’ story is so closely tied to the leading character, we’re left to assume that Jinx died in Arcane season 2.
What is the Black Rose in Arcane?
A secret Noxian witch coven (Noxus is another neighboring empire, left mostly unseen in Arcane, which focuses squarely on the city of Piltover), the Black Rose had a history with Ambessa, blackmailing her by negotiating with the lives of her son and daughter. Her son dies, Mel lives, and discovers she has the powers of a mage. They try to cut a deal with Mel to kill her mother, Mel seemingly accepts before deciding that she’s against both, killing Ambessa and the leader of the coven in one fell swoop. So much for them!
What is the deal with HexTech?
The overuse of the seeming miracle contraptions of HexTech – a combination of science and… the arcane… was revealed to have some unfortunate blowback, sapping the life from the planet – the full consequences of which are of course being felt by the undercity of Zaun, rather than the wealthy of Piltover. It gets worse – we never quite find out what it means that “the Arcane is waking up”, but Viktor gets control over this unstable power and tries to use it to assimilate humanity into what he sees as a utopian vision of the future, one without conflict (but also without choice). A vision of the future shows that it ends pretty badly.
What happened to Jayce, Ekko, and Heimerdinger in Arcane season 2?
After disappearing into the Hex Vault with Ekko and Heimerdinger, Jayce emerged from it in Arcane season 2 Act 2 as a radically changed man, brutally killing Viktor, a man who he fought tooth and nail to save, for reasons left unexplained… until now. Ekko is the first person we see in Act 3, trapped in a parallel world – an idealized one where everything’s great, Silco and Vander forgave each other, the only catch is that Vi is dead. Ekko’s a scientist preparing a project for a competition, he’s with Jinx (who still goes by Powder) and their childhood friends Mylo and Claggor are still alive (Vander too). Heimerdinger and him were flung back in time and into another universe, it’s pretty nice there. Notably, HexTech doesn’t exist (Jinx/Powder kept the crystals from that job, which went a different way and changed everything). Still, Ekko accidentally invents time travel, which has an upper limit of 4 seconds, otherwise people start exploding. Heimerdinger dies as he interacts with the energy source of the makeshift HexGate he and Ekko build, sacrificing himself to send the boy home.
Jayce however, was “elsewhere” – a far-flung future where Piltover is in ruins, presumably destroyed by a nuclear-sized HexTech explosion, bodies calcified where they stood when the bomb went off. Some, however, still move – hollow zombie creatures (which are later revealed to be the rusty remnants of Viktor’s automatons). Jayce has an utterly awful time, trapped at the bottom of a ravine with a broken leg, left eating mutant lizards and other gross unknown fauna while Ekko enjoys pancakes in the past. He meets a hooded figure at the top of the HexGate tower in Piltover, which seems to be the center of the calamity which destroyed the city. That hooded figure turned out to be a still-alive (and still pretty human) Viktor, who sends Jayce back in time to stop all of this.
Will there be more Arcane?
Probably not? The creative leads have insisted that two seasons was always the intention with Arcane, though also reflecting that they also wanted to move on because the show has been so focused on a relatively small group of characters within a very large roster, so never say never. Though the second season often found itself without a lot of time to do so, most of its storylines and character arcs have come to their conclusion. These endings are somewhat open-ended, but not so much in an “Arcane will return” sense, only in the sense that the character’s lives will continue on after the carnage of this final season.