Arcane: It Was Almost Perfect

Last year saw the release of the much anticipated second season of Riot Games’ Arcane. Following an incredibly successful and critically acclaimed first season, the announcement that this would in fact be the end of this story came as a surprise to many. The intricately crafted first season opened many storylines, and some fans worried about the writers’ ability to complete the story in just nine 40-minute episodes. Unfortunately, it seems they were right to worry. While the first season’s biggest flaw was it convincing people to make the grave mistake of downloading League of Legends, the second and final installment falls flat in more material ways.

Warning: The following review contains spoilers for both seasons of Arcane.

Arcane’s first season ended on a huge cliff-hanger, with Jinx’s Super Mega Death Rocket! (I swear that’s what it’s called in the game) being launched straight into the Piltover Council Chambers after affirming her identity, not as Powder, but as Jinx. The council had just voted unanimously to grant Zaun independence provided they turn Jinx in—Silco and the rest of Zaun had finally found a way to overcome the oppressive class-conflict that is the show’s core. But this was never going to happen because, as the Zaunites say, “We don’t turn in our own.”

This holds true through to the next season which, following a Zaunite attack on the fallen councilors’ memorial service, Caitlyn uses The Grey to essentially gas the undercity in an attempt to capture Jinx. Ironically, she uses gas masks her mother made because, in the words of Kiramann Senior, “The people of the underground deserve to breathe.” Considering her mother’s hostility towards and complicity in the oppression of the people of Zaun, this signifies a drastic shift in Caitlyn’s approach to the undercity. While the first season primarily followed her journey towards viewing Zaunites as people, once she is hurt by them, she immediately falls back to her old prejudices, to a point where her cruelty surpasses even her own mothers. This is emphasized by Caitlyn’s ascension to dictatorship at the end of the act. The sudden reversal of her character arc reflects the complexities of unlearning bigotry, as well as a critique of how privileged people often fall to extremism once faced with even just an ounce of what the oppressed suffer.

As Caitlyn enters her fascist arc, Jinx spends the second act avoiding any responsibilities to the revolution. Despite Sevika, the last stronghold of Zaunite resistance, pleading with her to help realize both her fathers’ visions, Jinx remains uninterested. She instead focuses on her new role—a maternal one, as an older sister to Isha. With this, our experience of her character shifts dramatically; instead of the deeply traumatized Jinx, the “monster” that Vi created, we have a rather tame version who experiences few (if any) of the hallucinations that were a core part of her first-season experience. It’s not until Isha is captured by the topsiders that Jinx is forced to resume her role, breaking protestors and dissidents out of Stillwater. This serves as a bitter reminder that, no matter how hard they may try, Zaunites, and by extension oppressed people in general, cannot escape their oppressors. The fight Jinx inherited remains hers, no matter how badly she wants to give it up.

This grim realization is interrupted by a detour, however, and with Vander’s return as Warwick and the introduction of Viktor’s new healing abilities, the second act is filled with hope. After what feels like an eternity of fighting, Vi and Jinx finally reconnect as they hope to rebuild the family they had lost in the first season. The story shifts back to its core—the relationship between Jinx and Vi, with all the mess in the background. But in this universe, only one thing is inevitable. As Ambessa leads her army of Noxians to capture Warwick, a rattled Jayce blasts Viktor, and Isha sacrifices herself to keep Jinx alive. Piltover ruins our main characters’ lives once more. They came just short of claiming everything they wanted; it was almost perfect. Zaunites really can’t have anything.

Season 2 of Arcane mostly lives up to its predecessor. For the most part, the show has been, dare I say, flawless. This continues into the start of act three, the final installment which somehow manages to fit in two more detours. The first one, the seventh episode, follows Ekko, Heimerdinger, and Jayce as they enter the Hexcore. Personally, this was my favorite episode of the series, although I was getting really frustrated whenever Jayce appeared on my screen. Ekko’s paradise world was just so much more interesting than Jayce’s lonesome arc in my opinion. Watching Powder and Ekko interact in an alternate, near-perfect universe is maybe the happiest I’ve been while watching something in a long time, regardless of my mourning what our main characters could have had.

The other detour, however, is where this perfect streak ends. The rest of the season, by focusing primarily on Viktor’s plot and preventing “The Glorious Evolution” from bringing ruin to Piltover, ultimately struggles to bring the series to a satisfactory end. In this pivot, it abandons the heart of the story: the class conflict between Piltover and Zaun and, more importantly, the sibling relationship between Jinx and Vi. It cowers away from the seeds of revolution previously sown. Jinx’s alleged death (she most likely didn’t die, don’t worry) winds up falling flat, with Isha’s death being the more impactful of the two. Sevika, the last true remnant of Silco and Vander’s resistance efforts, gets hardly any screen time save a couple fight scenes and one quick nod of her getting a seat at Piltover’s council at the end of the episode. Likewise, Caitlin’s descent into fascism and invasion of Zaun seems to be forgiven just like that. While the finale had good moments and was animated phenomenally, it fails to meet the standard that had previously been set by the show. This has left the audience much like the characters—unsatisfied, mourning what could have been, with an extra season or maybe even just three more episodes. We were so close—it was almost perfect.

I’ve had some time to think about this ending now, and while I don’t think it’s quite as bad as the botched ending of, say, Game of Thrones, it is frustrating to see something that was going so strong fall so flat. Now, it was still visually great, and the plot made sense—but it was rushed, and frankly it lost sight of what made the show tick. It always hurts for something so good to end like this. That being said, the finale in no way kills the rest of the show. It had a pretty amazing run for the most part. In the end, we need to appreciate that it’ll be a long time before anything this good graces our screens again.