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A collage featuring key settings from the “Arcane” series.
A collage featuring key settings from the “Arcane” series.
Vivian Williams

Why “Arcane” is a cinematic masterpiece

The final installment of “Arcane” came out in November in three acts, completing the masterpiece of an animated TV show.
Introduction

The second and final season of “Arcane” dropped on Netflix between Nov. 9 and 23, in three acts consisting of three episodes each. Season two had everything: action, tears, romance and heartbreak. The show rightfully earned its 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, four Emmy awards and nominations for nine Annie awards.

It’s based on “League of Legends,” a 5v5 strategy game set in the fantasy world of Runeterra, which has 12 different regions. “Arcane” takes place in Piltover and Zaun, nicknamed the topside and the undercity, respectively. It’s a classic dystopian society: the topside is for the elite, and the undercity is a slum-like area.

After rewatching the whole show over winter break, here are our thoughts on the series.

Season one

From the start, the show is fire — literally. The creators decided to introduce the characters and the setting when the town is burning and the main characters, Powder and Vi, have just lost their parents to the war. That is definitely one way to start a show.

The mood does get a tiny bit lighter for the rest of the first act. The looming fear of enforcers stays constant, and that’s reflected in both the gloomy colors of the undercity and the way that characters interact with each other. Corruption is apparent by the way topsiders act and treat undercity people.

The third episode, aka the end of Act One, is one of the most heartbreaking plot twists we’ve seen. Seeing Vander taken away from Powder and Vi is painful enough, add on top of that Powder getting left behind, getting confronted by Silco and Vi’s fear of losing the closest thing to a dad she has left, and the plot for this episode is set up to be pretty depressing.

And it got worse. Seeing Powder perched on the side of the building makes a viewer feel a sense of doom. Then everything starts blowing up, a physical manifestation of the disaster the episode has been leading up to. After Vi gave a devastating goodbye to Vander, she lashed out at Powder, hitting her then saying, “Milo was right. Did you hear me? You are a Jinx.” And then the next worst thing happens, the final domino falls: Powder ends up with the enemy, Silco.

Act two starts after a 10 year timeskip, and a lot has changed. Vi’s in prison, Caitlyn has grown up as a sheltered but righteous detective, Jayce is a brilliant inventor and Viktor is his genius assistant. We wonder what we have all missed.

Jayce and Viktor’s research, now known as Hextech, goes out to the world. Jayce becomes a councilor after ousting Heimerdinger, one of his more… controversial decisions. He makes a lot of those, which is extremely frustrating.

We meet Ekko, another main character from Vi’s past who’s started a resistance group called the firelights, living in a separate and improved area of the undercity.

We also meet Mel, a councilor Jayce has a romantic relationship with. She’s the only one that, throughout the season, supports Jayce regardless because she genuinely wants to help the undercity, not just for personal gain.

Caitlyn’s got a similar goal. She frees Vi from prison and they uncover Silco’s growing Shimmer operation while firsthand witnessing the horrible condition of the undercity. They also flirt (a lot) and develop a… situationship, setting up for a hard launch in season two. It’s nice that the show’s not very romance-heavy, but still has some captivating side plots without taking the entire spotlight.

Viktor gets ill in the middle of the season, leaving Jayce distressed. Viktor ends up going to see Singed, one of the characters in the show that seems truly evil—he genetically modified creatures for science, not caring for their pain.

The season comes to an end with a chaotic ninth episode. Viktor attempts to destroy the Hexcore, further evolved Hextech, after he loses control of its power and it vaporizes his innocent assistant, Skye. He tells Jayce that he needs to destroy it because “in the pursuit of great we failed to do good,” and he agrees.

Skye’s death was a shock to Viktor, sending him into a downward spiral that continues for the rest of the show. Honestly, we didn’t see her much before but before her death she is on her way to confess her feelings for him. She ends up showing up a lot in season two as a ghost and a comfort for him, and it’s never confirmed if that’s in a romantic way or not, but it still feels weird since they barely knew each other when she was alive.

Also in this episode, Vi breaks up with Caitlyn and funnels her anger into a fight with Sevika, resulting in a showdown for the ages. Jayce attempts to make a peace deal with Silco in exchange for the undercity’s independence, demanding Jinx in return.

Halfway through the episode Jinx kidnaps Vi, Caitlyn and Silco, and they have a heated confrontation. It ends after Jinx accidentally shoots Silco, her second father figure. For the death of a villain, this is one of the saddest scenes in the show.

Simultaneous to the confrontation, the council votes in favor of Jayce’s proposition for peace after a fierce debate, painting a hopeful image.

Of course it’s impossible for this show to have a happy ending, because Jinx, in her grief, shoots an exploding Hextech missile at the council building right after the peace vote is finished.

Season two

Season two starts similar to the first — in the middle of a disaster. The capitol is in ruins after Jinx’s bomb. Bodies lay trapped among the rubble, and Caitlyn’s mom is among them, sending her spiraling into grief with an urge to end Jinx for good.

It really hits us here how complex Jinx’s character is. She’s the definition of “hurt people, hurt people,” being responsible for the deaths of many, but we’ve also seen how messed up her upbringing was and the literal mental demons she deals with in season one. “Arcane” did a really good job of representing complex personality disorders through Jinx’s character. Her hallucinations are drawn really accurately, and we get to see how terrifying and destructive they actually are.

Viktor’s another example of this. After his Jesus era, as some on the internet call it, he becomes a “villain” and attempts to brainwash everyone for his own “glorious evolution.” However, this is the solution he genuinely believed was best for all of humanity.

Even Singed has his own reasons for messed up experiments—he was trying to save his daughter.

These character arcs really speak to how the show as a whole writes the good vs. evil plot. It’s done so well—you never really have a clear sense of who to root for and just feel along for the ride. All of the characters, even the villains, are in pursuit of something “good.” Most of them are just never executed correctly.

The most confusing plotline was Mel’s journey with the Black Rose, a group of sorceresses that were responsible for the death of her brother Kino. It felt like it came out of nowhere, and while it was great to see her find her true identity as a sorceress, was it necessary to add another complex, half-finished story? The point of this was to set up future shows, but it felt like it was jammed into “Arcane” without proper transitions.

Throughout season two, we see character relationships evolve. After a slow burn in season one, Caitlyn and Vi finally get together by the end of the show, but not without struggles along the way. Immediately after their first kiss, they confront Jinx and Sevika, which ends with Caitlyn so caught up in her pursuit of Jinx, she doesn’t care about who gets caught in the crossfire. In this case it is Isha (who we’ll talk about later) and the almost murder of a child was a little too much for Vi. Both girls are deeply affected, Caitlyn becomes a bit of a dictator, assuming a role leading an army in pursuit of Jinx, and Vi goes and becomes a pit fighter, deep in her feelings and also in alcohol.

Another notable romance of the season was Jinx’s relationship with Ekko. They ended up on opposite sides of the war after being friends in their childhood. In episode seven, Heimerdinger, Jayce and Ekko are transported to alternate realities after messing with the Arcane. While Jayce is fighting for his life in a desolate future, Heimerdinger and Ekko end up in a reality without Hextech.

In said reality, Milo, Claggor, Vander and Silco from season one are all alive and not evil. Powder and Ekko are also implied to be in a relationship. Ekko sees an alternate version of her that wasn’t possible in his war torn reality, and he develops feelings. They share a dance and a kiss towards the end of the episode before he travels back to his own world.

Going back to Isha, dear Isha. Through her attachment to Jinx, we see a side of Jinx that we don’t see, it’s something almost motherly or sisterly. She got a chance to be a sister to Isha that Vi was no longer able to be to her. Isha became very protective of Jinx, clinging to her when Caitlyn is trying to shoot her. Her death is one of the saddest in the whole series.

The last episode mainly consisted of a battle in Piltover, with both topside and the people of Zaun united against Ambesssa’s troops allied with Viktor. Ambessa had formed this alliance because she wanted to use Viktor’s power to solve her issues with the Black Rose afterwards, but the plan failed and she died in Mel’s arms at the end.

Music and art

The “Arcane” season two soundtrack is something that’s good on its own, and added onto the show is something truly phenomenal. The creators incorporated the battle scenes with what is known in the K-pop community as “noise music” and the more melancholy ones with sadder songs.

The music was also accompanied by different art styles. After the death of Caitlyn’s mom, we see Cait grieve in a scene of charcoal, where only a few things are bringing light.

Art was also used to rub salt in the wound of Isha’s death. You see the moment that Isha decides to attempt to kill Warwick, and the pain on Jinx’s face as she screams after her. Then, in between the clips of her running to her death, clips drawn in a different animation style, more watercolor-like, play in intermission. They depict all the joy the two had together running, dancing, building and just spending time together, as siblings. Isha smiles as she points the gun, she seems in peace, before she dies.

That art style provided the contrast between the war torn scene and the more colorful, lighthearted scenes that were playing. It makes her death hit harder, because the viewer is instantly reminded of all she meant to Jinx.

What’s next?

The finale left many ends untied. What happened to Singed’s daughter? What’s next for Piltover? But, the internet’s focused on one thing—is Jinx really dead? The general consensus is no.

This is the evidence: there’s a trail of shimmer after the explosion leading towards an escape vent later revealed by a blueprint of the tower. The show also concludes with a ship flying across the sky that happens to be the same one Powder said she would fly one day in the very first episode.

So what’s next for the world of Runterra? “Arcane” showrunner Christian Linke revealed that the next show based off of League has been in development for a year. He narrowed it down to three of the possible remaining 11 regions: Noxus, Ionia or Demacia.

Based on the ending of “Arcane,” the next show is likely set in Noxus, because of Ambessa’s death and Mel’s unfinished storyline. Her new abilities are yet to be fully explored. Even in the actual game, her champion is still under testing. “Arcane” also never gives us a resolution to Black Rose. The next show will focus on this conflict.

As for Ionia and Demacia, both are highly unstable regions in game lore and have completely different settings of their own. Only time will tell which one’s story is told first. It’s also likely Jinx and Singed will make a reappearance in at least one of these new shows, since their stories aren’t fully wrapped up at the end of  “Arcane.”

Summary

When you add a complex plot, to soundtracks of banger after banger, to a combination of beautifully blended art styles, you get a fantastic show and that’s something we got with “Arcane.”

The show’s only flaw was that the plot got so complex at times that it was hard for someone that had never played “League of Legends” before to understand it. Even for people that play “League of Legends,” the show diverged from the game lore so much it was also confusing. But in some cases (Evelyn) people don’t really care.

Because of such a plot, there’s so much to say about this show one couldn’t possibly fit it all into one article. But if you come away with one thing, let it be that all the money spent to produce “Arcane” was entirely worth it, and it is one of the best animated series on Netflix, ranking number one in 85 countries.

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About the Contributors
Abby Guo
Abby Guo, Podcast and Tech Editor, Video Co-Editor
Abby is a senior and this is her third year on staff. She is the Podcast and Tech Editor as well as the Video Co-Editor!
Evelyn Kraber
Evelyn Kraber, Managing and Features Editor
Evelyn Kraber is a junior this year and the Managing and Features Editor for the website. Outside of journalism, they're a part of Theatre West and orchestra. When not in the halls of West High, they enjoy reading, cooking and doing pretty much anything with music.
Vivian Williams
Vivian Williams, Artist and podcaster
Vivian is a sophomore and this is her first year on staff as an artist and podcaster!
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