“Arcane – League of Legends” is a curious beast. It is based on a game that doesn’t have a set narrative of its own. Rather its world being developed works as a platform for fighting. However, the world being developed and the backstory information for each of those characters act as the substrate for this adaptation, with the narrative taking its own swerves of storytelling. But what truly sets “Arcane” apart from the rest of these animated adaptations is Fortiche Studios’ animation, specifically the different styles of animation jostling and co-existing within the same space. In this article, I will dive into what takes place in Arcane (season 2). Please be aware that the article contains spoilers, so reader discretion is advised.
Arcane (Season 2) Recap:
Season 2 is divided into distinctive three acts, with each act consisting of three episodes that move the story forward, while succinctly differentiating itself. It also works contextually due to Netflix’s plan of dividing the nine-episode season into three different arcs. Thus the recap too will follow that methodology.
Arcane (Season 2) Act 1
Episode 1 – Heavy is the Crown
After last season’s cliffhanger, where we see Jinx (Ella Purnell) weaponizing a gemstone and firing a rocket at the Piltover Council, as a result of her losing Silco (Jason Spisak) at her own hands, the rocket attack destroys the council meeting room. Both Jayce (Kevin Alejandro) and Mel (Toks Olagundoye) survive, along with council members Shoola and Salo, albeit Salo is grievously injured. However, the rest of the council members, including Caitlyn Kiramman’s (Katie Leung) mother Cassandra, passed away as a result of this incident.
Jayce, meanwhile, seeing Viktor (Harry Lloyd) mortally wounded, bypasses their plan to destroy the hexcore, which they had promised to do after experimentation with hexcore resulted in the death of Viktor’s assistant Sky (Kimberly Brooks). Instead, Jayce activates the hexcore and uses it to begin healing Viktor and save his life by putting him in a healing coma.
The aftermath of this incident resulted in talks of granting Zaun’s sovereignty breaking down. With the death of Silco, Jayce’s deal is also dead, and now the injured Salo, along with Ambessa (Ellen Thomas), plans to retaliate against Zaun. Mel, despondent, agrees, though not entirely, refusing to let Hextech weaponry be used until absolutely necessary. Meanwhile, Caitlyn, now the unwilling head of the Kirraman name and burning with revenge against Jinx, tries to convince Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) to join the enforcers and help her attack Zaun.
Vi staunchly refuses as a result of her parents’ death at the hands of these same enforcers and bitterly leaves Caitlyn, further angry because she couldn’t reconcile that Caitlyn could bring up this idea considering their relationship. But Vi later begins to reconsider when, in the middle of her drunken wallowing, she is visited by Junior Officer Maddie Nolen (Katy Townsend) and her partner Steb, who are fanboying to her presence and revealing that Caitlyn had vouched for Vi’s presence in the enforcers.
At the memorial for the fallen councilors, both Vi and Jayce realize that cloaked figures are sliding in through the crowds to attack Mel and the gathering. Jayce is attacked by Chem-Baroness Renni on account of his responsibility for the death of her son (season 1, episode 8). It leads to a massive battle between Vi and the enforcers facing off against the Chem-tanks. As Vi and Jayce both try to fight, the enforcers led by Caitlyn try to evacuate the councilors, until Ambessa and her Noxian guards arrive to save the day, brutally executing the Chem-tanks, with Ambessa delivering the killing blow to Renni.
In the aftermath of that, as the remaining council assembles underground, discussing the use of Hextech weaponry, Caitlyn, reinvigorated by Vi’s encouragement to move forward with her mother’s legacy in her own way, uses the Kirraman Key to study the vast resources about her family and information related to Piltover. Formulating a plan, she teams up with Jayce to arm a special enforcer squad with Hextech weaponry, with the surprise being Vi joining her, to ensure Jinx is brought to justice.
Episode 2 – Watch it all burn
Meanwhile at Zaun, the death of Silco leads to a battle of territories in the Undercity between the different Chem-barons, with the lone Sevika (Amirah Vann) pleading to maintain unity. The proposal to hand over Jinx to Piltover in exchange for ceasing hostilities is refused by Sevika, who further refuses to battle Jinx and kill her, even as she finds herself wallowing in frustration at her damaged prosthetic. Meanwhile, Jinx, hurt by the loss of her mentor Silco, wanders aimlessly through the alleys of Undercity but manages to protect orphan girl Isha, chased by men working for one of the Chem-Barons, Chross. Isha, curious, refuses to leave and continues to tag along with Jinx.
Viktor awakens from his coma to find himself coated with a metallic body as a result of the hexcore. While disoriented due to being saved by the hexcore, he is still disappointed by Jayce’s choice of not having destroyed it, revealing the death of Sky to a shocked Jayce. He bids farewell to Jayce and instead makes his way to the alleyways of Zaun, where Shimmer-addicted Zaunites are lying around, starving. Viktor’s aura makes the addicts wary of his presence, who begin following him as he is led by Sky’s ghostly voice whispering in his ear.
As Viktor enters a camp surrounded by decrepitude as a result of Shimmer addicts, he uses the power of the Hexcore within him to heal one of the addicts, Huck, of his addiction. It is definitely implied that even as Viktor inspires a cult-like following among the addicts, in essence replacing one addiction for another, he is governed himself by the Hexcore, who takes on the personification of Sky.
The firelights, led by Ekko, who had always been behind strategies to rehabilitate Shimmer addicts and directly working against Silco and his chem-barons, are now struggling with the increasing number of refugees retreating to the firelights’ hideout as a result of the civil war between the Chem-Barons. Ekko and Heimerdinger also notice that leaves from the large tree at the center of the Firelight’s hideout have begun to fall and are showing signs of corruption. Heimerdinger, recognizing the pattern as already having been seen before, takes Ekko’s assistance in sneaking into the alchemy lab and discussing it with Jayce.
Meanwhile, the presence of dense smog—titled the Grey—had begun to blindside the chem-barons, where they would be attacked by mysterious figures. Jinx finally realizes who these mysterious figures are when her hideout is suddenly breached by them and gassed by the smog. She realizes that these are the enforcers, now armed with Hextech weaponry, but Jinx suffers from essentially a panic attack upon witnessing Vi adorned in Hextech armed enforcer costume.
Jinx, unyielding as ever, stares down the chaos around her, her voice trembling as she confesses the shocking truth: it was her hand that ended Silco’s life. The revelation stuns Smeech, his usual bravado faltering for a fleeting moment. But the reprieve is brief; Sevika, flanked by Isha, arrives with cold precision, gunning him down without hesitation. Yet the chaos is far from over—earlier, Smeech had tipped off the enforcers about Jinx’s whereabouts, setting the stage for a deadly ambush. Jinx, in return, gifts Sevika her new invention—a new prosthetic arm. Sevika uses the prosthetic arm’s brutal capabilities to kill Smeech off, while Jinx promises to “finish off what’s left of her family.”.
Episode 3 – Finally Got the Name Right
Caitlyn had planned to redirect the Grey—a mixture of factory pollutants—from Piltover to Zaun. She is completely driven by revenge against her mother’s death, which worries Vi, who is concerned that Caitlyn too would change, like her sister. Caitlyn promises not to. However, when faced with Jinx and Sevika, or at least ambushed by the two of them, Caitlyn finds it harder to keep her promise as she tries to battle Sevika while trying to aim and kill Jinx as Jinx finds herself plummeting by an enraged Vi.
Vi hesitates only when Isha suddenly jumps in the middle of the two sisters to protect Jinx, and Vi further tries to jump to protect the duo from Caitlyn, who doesn’t hesitate to shoot at Jinx and Isha. In the commotion, Sevika detonates Jinx’s patented paint bombs, opening air ducts and sucking out all the Grey, spreading it over Piltover. The resultant commotion leads to a fallout between Caitlyn and Vi, as Caitlyn had been enraged at letting Jinx walk away from her grasp.
Meanwhile, the Black Rose, a secret cabal of Noxia, sends in an assassin to kill Ambessa, but both Ambessa and her bodyguard are able to overpower him. In response, the Black Rose manages to kidnap Mel, who had been in the middle of investigating her mother’s attempts to take over the council by perhaps engineering the Memorial attack with the aid of Salo. However, the Black Rose, utilizing magic, seemingly manages to kidnap Mel and her assistant and trap her in a different dimension.
Meanwhile, at the alchemy lab, Jayce, Heimerdinger, and Ekko’s study on corruption leads to Jayce explaining to Ekko Viktor’s theory on wild runes, which is an involuntary response by the arcane. Jayce builds on that theory by his belief that his overuse of the arcane to build more Hextech has caused such an involuntary response, and the cracks of that are exhibited in Ekko’s hideout of the Firelights, where the dimensional rift between the physical realm and the arcane is thinner. In the hex vault, the trio manages to transcend the physical realm and discover a massive wild orb. The interaction with this wild orb seemingly transports the trio to a separate plane of existence.
Back at Piltover, Ambessa leverages the assassination attempt on her, as well as the attack on the memorial, to leverage her power in the council and impose martial law. She is revealed to be the force behind the attack on the memorial, having incited Renni to attack her as revenge against the death of her son. Ambessa also realizes that Caitlyn’s aggressiveness would make her much more pliable to her cause and thus catapults her to the top, appointing her as the commander-in-chief. Meanwhile, across the three episodes, we witness the inventor of Shimmer, Singed, inflicting a group of wolves in a cave with toxic gases and later experimenting on them. The final episode shows Singed having created a massive human-wolf hybrid.
Arcane (Season 2) – Act II
Episode 2 – Paint the Town Blue
It seems that a couple of months have passed, and while the Piltovian-Noxian coalition, led by an aggressive Caitlyn tries to search for Jinx and occupy Zaun, the rebellion within Zaun results in Jinx being lauded as a hero, and the face of a rebellious movement. Caitlyn, now in a relationship with Maddie Nolen, is however worried about Ambessa’s own political ambitions. She has tried to conduct her own experiments with Hextech but has failed because her scientists aren’t as good, capable, or knowledgeable enough as Jayce. And unfortunately for Ambessa that hole cannot be fulfilled, because Jayce, along with Ekko and Heimerdinger, have not been seen since the day martial law had been imposed.
Jinx meanwhile has found a new friend in Isha, who idolizes her to the extent of dying her hair blue and trying to pretend to be Jinx at gatherings to ensure the fire of revolution keeps burning, even as its leader seems completely disinterested in leading any revolt. At the front of Vander’s statue, a gathering of the rebels would be led by Sevika, and Isha would again make an appearance. However, this gathering would be interrupted by the appearance of enforcers led by Ambessa’s right-hand man, Rictus. Amidst the commotion, Singed, who had also appeared to attend the rally, would be captured as well. However, Singed would cut the palm of his hand and leave a trail of blood for his wolf-hybrid monster to follow.
Sevika immediately informs Jinx, and it’s a testament to the latent humanity slowly coming out of the fog of the shimmer-laden personality that Jinx decides to rescue her. The duo decide to disguise themselves as an enforcer escorting a prisoner, with Jinx taking the role of the enforcer escorting in Sevika, managing to infiltrate Stillwater Prison. As they manage to enter the prison, Jinx frees all the captive Zaunites but is somewhat shocked when she sees the Zaunites calmly respond to her with muted thanks before walking away, almost giving her the validation and respect she had craved.
It’s perhaps the only strength she would have to move forward, because unbeknownst to her, Singed’s monster has been following the blood trail, with the viewer being given a front-row seat through the monster’s eyes as an almost blood-soaked art piece, as the monster crashes through and begins to kill the enforcer guards. Jinx sends Sevika and Ishaa to safety while fighting with the monster, until the light blinking from one of her gauntlets breaks off the spell plaguing the monster, who identifies Jinx as Powder, making us realize the monster titled Warwick is actually Vi and Powder’s adoptive father, Vander.
Episode 5 – Blisters and Bedrock
Meanwhile, Vi, who has dyed her hair black, has started fighting for money, all to ignore the heartbreak and sorrow plaguing her, using all the rage festering within her as strength. She is accompanied by Loris, her ex-enforcer treatment who silently protects her even as she lambasts him during alcohol-induced rage fits. Amidst one of these post-drunken fights, as Vi recovers, she is visited by Jinx, who informs her that Vander is alive.
Angry and skeptical at her sister, she nevertheless accompanies Jinx and Isha, noting surprisingly how much Ishaa is devoted to Jinx, even trying to break the fights between the two of them by trying to hurt Vi. As they head down towards the moss-affected tunnels, they soon come across Warwick, who had taken refuge there. A massive battle breaks out between the two sisters and Warwick, with Warwick managing to break out of his stupor for seconds upon recognizing Powder, but almost immediately reverting back to his mindless state upon smelling blood again, until Vi shouts his name. As the smoke clears, Jinx watches in trepidation until she realizes that Warwick/Vander is hugging Vi, who invites her in that embrace, which she tearfully complies with, followed by Isha.
At the prison, both Ambessa and Caitlyn are shocked at the brutal aftermath of the monster’s carnage. Singed, however, remained in the jail cell, and he bargained with the opportunist Ambessa, who offered to grant him immunity in exchange for all his weapons, exclusively Warwick. As Singed takes Ambessa and Caitlyn to his laboratory, Caitlyn finally realizes the true identity of Singed – Dr. Corin Rebbeck – the inventor of the drug Shimmer. Singed acquiesce to that revelation, the Piltovian scientist acknowledging Shimmer being one of the primary drugs that he had invented to wake his terminally ill daughter Orianna out of her coma.
Her experimentation would have him cross paths with Silco, who would weaponize Shimmer to bring Zaun to his control. For Singed, the experimentation on Vander into wolf-human hybrid Warwick is one of the first instances of a major successful experiment, the final puzzle to break her daughter’s coma. However, he acknowledges that the right catalyst to bring humanity out of the blood-thirsty monster is still an element he had been unsuccessful in creating until Jinx and Vi came into the picture.
Meanwhile, Mel, kidnapped by Black Rose, finds herself waking up in the prison tower. She also realizes that she isn’t alone, but rather trapped with another individual who has been trapped in the prison longer than her. As he walks into the light, she recognizes him as her brother Kino, who had apparently died according to her mother. Her brother explains that he had been sent into captivity by the Black Rose because of a secret he had known about their mother – an affair Ambessa had that resulted in an illegitimate child that the Black Rose is heavily interested in.
But further conversations with Kino, as well as her attempt to break out of this ocularum by identifying the runes on the wall, makes her realize that this “Kino” is actually an impostor, conjured up by Black Rose to identify the Noxian child they had been searching for, Upon realizing the deception, she destroys her brother and manages to break out of the cell, only to find herself being bound by chains in the same dimension she had witnessed her assistant being killed. However Mel manages to break out of the chains by ejecting a lot of unfamiliar energy, and she disappears.
Meanwhile at the Hex Vault, an older and clearly traumatized Jayce returns from the dimension he had been presumably imprisoned in, and appears to shock the cured Salo. Salo’s cure and the runes on his forehead resembling that of Viktor’s body affected by the hexcore confuse Jayce. Salo explains that Viktor had managed to heal Salo from the Hextech when he had requested his assistant to search for one such healer, and he believes that Viktor’s handling of hextech could change the fabric of society towards the people. However, it seems Jayce’s perspective has shifted more towards Viktor’s pre-healing mindset. He believes that the Hexcore is an abomination, and emphatically disagrees with Salo, to the extent of killing him.
Episode 6 – The Message Hidden Within the Pattern
The episode opens immediately where the previous one ends. However, Salo had also been a vessel for Viktor to project himself and converse with Jayce. Jayce’s aggressive response, leading to the death of Salo, troubles him, making him realize that Jayce is being controlled by something else. Ambessa and Caitlyn meanwhile had been training in hand-to-hand combat styles, and Ambessa also had been advising her in mental warfare.
But their conversation would be interrupted by Singed informing them that Vander had been spotted at the commune to seek Viktor’s help in rehabilitating Vander. Viktor, now calling himself the herald, taps into Vander’s humanity within Warwick. Realizing through a trek of Vander’s memory lane and the emotional core of his family, he decides to work on Vander day after day, on the condition that he be kept chained.
Meanwhile, Ambessa, who requires Singed’s abilities as a methodology to upgrade her weaponry, agrees to act as a backup and lay “siege” outside Viktor’s commune, while Singed has a conversation with Viktor. The conflict between the two characters stems from the ideological. Having traversed on a higher plane—literally—Viktor believes that he can fast-track the evolution of humanity, while Singed’s persuasion to give Vander up is only due to Singed’s personal wish rather than something resembling scientific. But Singed points out the logic: if something untoward happens to Viktor, it will be his community that suffers.
Vi, who along with Jinx had been contemplating shifting to this commune and finding peace along the way, finds her hopes dashed as she follows the suspicious-looking Singed to the Noxian camp hiding in the caves, only to be caught by Caitlyn. Caitlyn brings Vi to Ambessa, while Singed theorizes about crafting a serum that could hinder Viktor’s attempts at evolution. Ambessa prepares to interrogate Vi, while Caitlyn accompanies Singed, only for Vi to turn the tables on Ambessa and incapacitate her, while Caitlyn knocks Singed out. But Ambessa’s right-hand man, Rictus, manages to capture Caitlyn.
It is revealed that both Vi and Caitlyn have begun to reconcile, with Vi’s mission to protect her father overriding Caitlyn’s mission to hunt the monster responsible for the massacre at the prison. Jinx, who was cognizant of Vi’s plan, had been keeping watch on Caitlyn’s movements as both Singed and Caitlyn would creep forward to Vander, and as Rictus captures Caitlyn, Jinx manages to save the day by attacking Rictus. As Rictus readies to attack her, Warwick/Vander steps forward and attacks Rictus.
Unbeknownst to them all, Jayce had managed to teleport himself to the commune, where, affected by his trip to the dimension that the wild rune had transported them to, he is clearly governed by aggression and with the purpose of incapacitating Viktor. Jayce, in his manic state, uses his hextech hammer to blast Viktor’s body while he is meditating, seemingly killing him.
Viktor, who we had already seen is very capable of taking over other physical bodies, seemingly shuffles off the mortal coil and takes refuge in the astral plane. However, Viktor’s “death” temporarily disrupts the entire commune, as Singed had predicted. As a result, as the healed members of the commune groan in pain, Ambessa takes advantage of the commotion and attacks.
But more importantly, Warwick’s beastly nature takes over Vander and, overpowered by Singed’s experimentation, begins to burn hotter in rage. In that beastly form, he eviscerates Rictus. As Viktor from the astral plane recounts how humanity’s reliance on emotions is what ultimately leads them to their downfall, Ambessa’s forces attack and are almost slaughtered by Warwick. Both Vi and Jinx fail at reaching through to Vander, and ultimately Isha attempts to save them by stealing hextech gems from Jinx and overloading her gun, which she uses to fire, and destroy a majority of the Noxian army and Vander, but also perishes in the crossfire.
Arcane (Season 2) – Act III
Episode 7 – Pretend Like It’s The First Time
The questions raised at the end of Act I and Act II are finally answered in this episode. In one instance, we see Ekko having been transported into an alternate reality where hextech hadn’t been invented, all the crew members of Vander are alive, and Ekko and Powder (not Jinx) are partners, working together on a project.
Heimerdinger had also been teleported to this same universe, but while Ekko would just appear and presumably take over the body of alternate Ekko, Heimerdinger had been in this universe for over 1100 days, playing an electronic version of the mandolin and basically enjoying life in this steampunk universe where Hextech hadn’t been invented. However, hextech gems had been first brought to the crew’s attention by a job presented by alternate universe Ekko, and that job had been responsible for the death of Vi in this universe.
Ekko, however, can’t rest, realizing that he would have to return to his universe. He initially conducts reconnaissance along the location where the job had taken place, finding fragments of hextech in the walls, which he gathers, and plans to activate the wild rune that would send them back to his dimension. However, he realizes that he requires Powder’s help, and reminding her of this universe’s Vander’s belief that Powder is wasting her potential working behind a bar, he also paints a beautiful mural of Vi, reasoning it as a byproduct of a dream.
Powder, Ekko, and Heimerdinger work with the fragments but only manage to activate the wild rune of the fragments enough to construct a time-reversal device by reversing the runes that Jayce had been researching. Heimerdinger realizes that they need a power boost, and while he works on it, Powder and Ekko attend the party, where they do share an intimate moment, with the show even hinting at Ekko’s growing feelings towards Powder if Powder hadn’t gone down the road of Jinx.
The time reversal device had a limit of 4 seconds, with Ekko getting a front-row seat of Heimerdinger’s body getting torn apart if the device’s power extends beyond that. However, even with the improved power that Heimerdenger had been able to build using a new power source, it turned out to be only enough to send back Ekko. Heimerdenger leaves the platform and bypasses more power into the device, allowing Ekko to eject out of the alternate Ekko’s body into the wild-rune-covered time platform. However, in that process, Heimerdenger is eviscerated, though it is entirely possible he had been transmitted to another dimension. As Powder, who had followed Ekko, cradles the alternate Ekko’s body, Ekko manages to travel back to his home dimension.
Meanwhile, Jayce had been transported to what seems to be a dystopian future of Piltover, which had been destroyed by the Arcane. We witness humanoid-looking androids suddenly awakening and chasing Jayce along the desolate landscape, with the remains of human bodies frozen in perpetual ash. As Jayce tries to run away, he falls through the edge of a cliff and hits the ground, breaking his leg. Unable to move, he finds himself trapped there for months, with Arcane growing almost like mosses as time passes by, him having to eat wild lizards affected by Arcane while also believing himself to be losing his mind.
After, presumably a month, Jayce, who had managed to build himself a sling for his leg from the frame of his hextech-infused hammer, manages to finally climb to the top of the cliff and resumes his journey, where he finally comes across a body frozen within the arcane with a hammer looking suspiciously like his own. He then meets with the hooded figure, whom he believes he had been hallucinating, but finally realizes that the hooded figure had brought him here.
This had been the same hooded figure who had first gifted him the rune stone when he was a child, the same rune stone that he wears on his wrist. Conversations with the hooded figure presumably make him realize that Viktor’s actions would lead to this iteration of the universe, and he grabs the hammer from the body and is transported back to the past by the figure, promising to change the events of the future.
Episode 8 – Killing is a Cycle
Continuing from where we left off Mel destroying the chains conjured by the Black Rose, we find Mel standing at the center of a conjuring circle in a wooded encampment, with a sorceress watching over her. A golden glow envelops her, explaining her power as that of an empath mage. Mel’s birth and her power are no accident, as according to the sorceress, Ambessa had known about her latent abilities and had planned to utilize them as a weapon for her own ambitions. The Black Rose manages to convince Mel to join her ranks, gifting her with a necklace as a sign of her acceptance.
When Vi wakes up after the fallout of the battle at the commune, she finds herself at the palace at Piltover, looked after by Loris. Apparently, Jinx had surrendered after Isha’s death, and Caitlyn is now confused as to her next course of action. Caitlyn’s interrogation of Jinx remains futile as well because Jinx is neither forthcoming nor combative with her interaction. Instead, Jinx weakly begs forgiveness from Caitlyn, revealing that she had no idea her mother had been in attendance when Jinx fired that rocket.
Meanwhile, Ambessa and Viktor strike up an unholy alliance. Viktor finds himself only growing in power from the astral plane, using it to take over his followers. He allies himself with Ambessa, granting her soldiers in the form of androids, while he would be given access to the hex vault where Viktor would gain access to the arcane, in essence taking over his dream of the evolution of humanity. He tries to negotiate with a returned Jayce and Mel, who had reunited after their long journey and close calls with the mysteries of the arcane, but their interaction with an android infused with Viktor’s spirit leads to Mel and Jayce barely managing to destroy the android.
Meanwhile, Vi creeps down to the jail to convince Jinx to help in the ensuing battle, but Jinx instead locks Vi in. Her vision of Silco, reminding her that the only way to break free from her cycle of violence is to walk away from it, deeply resonates with her. Taking his words to heart, she ominously tells Vi that she will break the cycle before turning and walking away. A few hours later, Caitlyn comes down to the jail and frees Vi. The two of them manage to reconcile and consummate in the jail cell.
Jayce and Mel try to convince the leaders of Piltover and Zaun to work together to battle against the larger threat of the androids infused by Viktor and led by Ambessa. While some citizens agree, a majority of the leaders, including Sevika, refuse. We see many citizens of the Undercity leaving Piltover, but as night dawns, a few citizens from the Undercity do agree to join in the fight.
Meanwhile, Mel sneaks into Ambessa’s camp to confront Kino’s death, but Ambessa still stands by her decision as she believes it has been the only way to protect one of her children, and she has chosen Kino for the sacrifice. Mel tries to convince Ambessa to lay down her ambition as it doesn’t extend to Piltover, but Ambessa refuses, too blinded by power. And not a moment too soon, because she and Viktor’s army are now ready for war.
Episode 9 – The Dirt Under Your Nails
The plan to walk away from the cycle of violence for Jinx had been to essentially burn everything down and kill herself. She moves forward in her plan, and after having doused her lab with fuel, she prepares to destroy everything, except she stops. Ekko had managed to teleport himself back to his universe, and now with his time-reversal device, he attempts to reverse every time Jinx tries to kill herself, ultimately getting through to her and convincing her to join in the fight.
The plan is to ensure Jayce has enough time to shut down the Hex Vault before Viktor manages to successfully besiege Piltover with Ambessa’s aid. As the battle begins in earnest, we witness Ambessa’s forces bringing forth a massive cocoon, presumably housing Viktor. As hextech weapons work overtime to stop Ambessa’s forces and the androids, the Zaunite soldiers try to stop the ground forces, led by Caitlyn.
However, Caitlyn is betrayed by Maddie, who is revealed to have been working for Ambessa this whole time as a pawn instructed to presumably get closer to her. As Ambessa instructs Maddie to kill Caitlyn, a magic shield ricochets the bullet shot by Maddie and kills her. The shield also announces the entrance of Mel, who, along with Caitlyn, forces her mother to don her mask and the gauntlets with magic-defending runes to attack and subdue the two of them.
Meanwhile, the androids begin to overwhelm Vi and the enforcers, with Loris manning the hextech guns already being killed. However, they are aided by Jinx, who appears in a hot air balloon and begins attacking the androids, aided by Ekko gliding in a rocket-controlled skateboard. The rest of the Zaunites begin to engage in the battlefield as well.
As the aid revives Vi’s forces, they return fire and manage to destroy the massive cocoon, only to realize that it has been a distraction. While Viktor had already teleported inside the Hex vault, the reanimated Warwick (a result of Viktor’s magic corrupted by Shimmer) begins to attack Vi and later jumps on Jinx’s hot-air balloon, causing it to topple and crash onto the obelisk at the top of the tower.
Arcane (Season 2) Ending Explained:
How was Ambessa finally defeated?
As the battle between Caitlyn and Mel teaming up against the hardened Ambessa begins to get more bloody and skewing more towards the hardened warrior, Caitlyn risks nearing Ambessa, getting hurt and overwhelmed, and even seeing how Ambessa breaks through Mel’s shield due to the runes attached to her gauntlet. Caitlyn manages to get closer to Ambessa, risking losing her eye in the process but manages to take away the runes.
Vulnerable to magic, Mel banishes Ambessa to the mercy of the Black Rose. But as the leader prepares to execute her plan, Mel appears in the dimension and reveals that she is not on the side of the Black Rose, removing her necklace and blinding the dimension with golden light, managing to free her mother from the Black Rose dimension. Ambessa succumbs to her injuries and dies, but not before acknowledging her own proverb – “The Wolf has no weakness”, by proclaiming her daughter as the true wolf. Ambessa’s passing corresponds with Noxian soldiers raising their arms in the proclamation of Mel as their leader.
What was Viktor’s plan?
Jayce tries to get through the power-addled Viktor to leave this mission, but Viktor is resolute. He plans to control every mind like a singular hive-mind, streamlining by removing every weakness (read emotion), and resorting to a plan more resembling collectivism rather than individualism. This tracks with Viktor’s character arc throughout the series, where Viktor had always viewed humanity and its emotional reliance as a weakness, akin to the disease that plagued his body since his birth.
But of course, Jayce isn’t ready to give down, and as Viktor prepares to float to the top of the tower where he would reveal the wild-rune to the world and expand it, allowing him to tap into the mind of every human, Jayce follows him by flying with the help of his hammer, trying to stop him. The two of them mid-battle don’t notice that they have also passed the obelisk where Jinx and Vi were fighting together against the mindless Warwick, even as the obelisk begins to creak and break apart.
How did Jayce and Ekko manage to stop Viktor?
Ekko and Jayce, unbeknownst to each other, manage to work together to stop Viktor. As Viktor reaches the top, managing to release the arcane into the wild, it allows him to tap into the mind of each and every character in the world (presumably). Ekko, while navigating using his skateboard and his time-reversal device, manages to stop the soldiers from attacking him and knocking him out multiple times, until he finally manages to break through and throws the time-reversal device at Viktor’s face, destroying his mask as well as his concentration. Realizing the time travel device as a previously not-studied anomaly piques his curiosity, which allows Jayce to break through Viktor.
Jayce, under the control of the hive mind and witnessing through the mind-scape the world under Viktor, reveals to Viktor the truth about Hextech. The hooded figure that had gifted the rune to Jayce had been Viktor himself, who had traveled back in time after realizing the extrapolation of his grand evolution results in the dystopia that Jayce had witnessed.
Viktor’s traversal through multiple timelines revealed that Jayce or versions of a similar character would be able to break free of Viktor’s stupor from going down this line of evolution, which would ultimately result in the curb of individualism. Managing to break Viktor’s stupor, the two friends in the astral plane utilize the rune and almost symbolically, undo Viktor’s effects on Piltover, but also disappear within that plane into a seeming nothingness.
Does Jinx die?
The battle between the two sisters and Warwick stopped mid-air while they were controlled by Viktor. Viktor’s stupor is broken, and both Warwick and Vi fall on a platform, whose ledge begins to get away, while Jinx manages to climb onto a sturdier ledge. As Jinx begs Vi to leave Warwick, Vi tries to wake Vander up, but the mindless beast begins to attack Vi. As Vi finds herself almost overpowered, Jinx finally attacks Warwick, throwing both of them off the ledge. Jinx hangs on to Vi’s hand tightly, and Warwick’s claws envelop him. Stating “Always with you, sis”, Jinx removes the hextech crystal from Vi’s gauntlet, rendering the gauntlet useless, and both Jinx and Warwick fall into the hextech engine powering the city, seemingly destroying the two of them, with Vi losing both her family members.
What is in the future for the Runterra and Arcane universes?
As Piltover and Zun recover and rebuild, and mourn the loss of their loved ones, the council is reformed, with Sevika becoming a representative for Zaun and attaining a seat at the council. While Ambessa had passed away, with Mel having realized her true potential, we see her fiddling with her mother’s face mask, hinting at the feud with the Black Rose presumably getting resumed with Mel leading the charge.
The presence of a three-eyed raven within the arcane-infused ruins at Piltover hints at the Arcanum presence still alive and well. Meanwhile, Singed has finally taken the teachings of Viktor and has begun to infuse the essence of his daughter within one of the androids, infusing it with her personality.
Finally, we see Caitlyn researching hextech weaponry and how it had become integrated with the city structure of Piltover. We see Vi and her sailing away from Piltover, while their conversations imply their relationship, has survived and will be impossible to break, even as a future fight looms on the horizon. Only time will tell what the fight will be.
Arcane (Season 2) Review:
Since Arcane’s debut, the show has excelled in animation, with Fortiche Studios leveling up from the cinematics that Riot Games would commission for each update. This season, the multi-style animation, existing and even jostling for existence in the same frame, from the 3D animation to the pencil scrawls, to the water-color abstract animation styles, shuffling between hyper-detailed and irreversibly abstract and one-color tone highlighting each dimension, “Arcane” is an animation exhibition. It is an absolute towering achievement of visual style that almost offsets some of the major storytelling flaws of this season.
Heavily serialized in terms of storytelling, the choice to double down on the three-act structure, with the first two acts taking a time jump, further muddies the waters. The three-episode structure accompanying each act heightens the somewhat rushed nature of the story itself. For some characters like Ambessa, their choices do govern the plot. Still, in some instances, the plot as well as the overarching theme governs the choices of the characters without delving into the emotional upheaval these characters experience.
While the explanations for these emotional upheavals do seem to be explained in montages, it cannot be denied that montage sequences designed as pop-music-laden music videos with visually striking imagery allow for even familiar filmmaking techniques to be adorned with a new flair. It doesn’t take away from the fact that some pertinent backstories seem woefully underdeveloped (the Black Rose plot setting up Mel and Ambessa storyline), while in some instances the episodes do seem overstuffed because of the structuring of the season itself. However, “Arcane” is still blessed with fantastic voice acting, and an uncanny ability to nail emotional denouement.
The endings of all three acts are highly emotional, with Act II ending decidedly reaching its zenith. It is perhaps no coincidence that the central relationship between the two sisters still carries the emotional wallop. While Jayce and Viktor’s bromance becomes more of a road to an emotional confrontation, Viktor’s pivot as the eventual antagonist and the emotional evolution of the two characters only occur by Act III.
“Arcane” season 2 is flawed and, at times, also feels rushed. But it is so decidedly well-made, and so unapologetic about its influences and its stylistic choices, that one can’t help but be buoyed by the sheer energy and sincerity in every frame. This world will continue, even as this corner of the League of Legends Universe is seemingly over.
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