Saw this comment on another video about Ekko and it seemed amazing to me: 'I request that you rewatch the Ekko scenes in this act with the goal of trying to see how Ekko feels about Jinx. When he's talking to Powder, it seems clear to me that Ekko admires Jinx, even though she's done a lot of horrible things. He seems to think this alternate version is wasting her talent (probably out of guilt). Alt-Ekko has mostly (if not only) known peace, so this repressed Powder might make sense for him. Our Ekko knows war and struggle, and I think he ultimately wants HIS world and HIS (ignited) Powder. Also notice that when he's flying into battle, Ekko has the X, one of Jinx's most iconic symbols, over his heart. As far as I saw, the X isn't Powder's symbol, so I don't actually think it's referring to her. In the same way, in that final scene where Ekko is resisting Viktor's control, he looks like he's giving in until he see's a pink and blue grin in the sky. That REALLY seems like a Jinx symbol rather than Powder. So I think despite the praise he gets for "focusing on the present", Ekko thinks that's been a flaw in his mentality. I think he admires the dramatic change Jinx has been able to cause, even though a lot of it has been bad. I think the fact that Powder wants to assist others when she has ideas that can change the world bothers him because it's basically what he's been doing. He's a brilliant mind on par with any of the other scientists in the show, but he's only been concerned with conserving as much as possible, to limit damage. He gave up on the idea that things could progress. Powder is stagnation, or was until she met this Ekko. Jinx is revolution. So when Ekko sees that grin in the sky, he's thinking "What would JINX do?" and he knows Jinx wouldn't just go quietly. He knows she would go out blowing something up. So he cranks up his Z-Drive, unleashes Chronobreak and throws that ish right in Victor's face. Maybe Ekko knew exactly what would happen he did it. But I see it more like him pulling the pin on a grenade after having been beat down and pressed into the ground. I wonder why that seems so familiar...'
I absolutely fucking LOVE THIS, thank you for sharing this comment. It kinda clicked in my head while reading that Ekko accepted Jinx in the way that Vi didn't -- in the way that Vi still wants Powder, he sorta yearned for Jinx and her ability to create great progress, in her own way. And its kinda powerful, and makes me want to ANALYZE THE CRAP OUT OF THIS. Thank you so much for sharing, again!
Great commentary. I would add that Ekko also impacted the "new" jynx we saw. We can see Ekko symbol all over Jynx balloon and in her arm. He inspired her to be better instead of "i want you to became powder again".
@@lydiscott I live for your analyses and for Ekko, so please don't feel compelled to make a 6-hour video about this, but if you do, I'll be the first to watch it, just saying...
I know this is bascially blasphemy in the fandom but here goes: 9 episodes are not enough to cover opppression,revolution, police brutality, Caitlyn's Hitler arc AND her redemption and reconicialtion with Vi, civil war, all out war, the Black Rose and the Arcane. As a result everything but the Arcane and the Black Rose fell flat IMO. They should've dedicated a whole season to everything til Caitlyn's peak evilness and have the third season be about her redemption and the war with Noxus etc. This way they didn't do any of the major themes and dare I say relationships any justice. Ekko/Powder, Jinx and Vi, Caitlny and Vi, Caitlyn and Jinx, Sevika and Jinx it all felt super rushed and like shit just happened because it needed to happen not because it built up naturally.
its not even nearly enough...like black rose?? Totally pointless to even introduce LeBlanc when most arcane fans still dont know who she is :D or what black rose is :D Ambessas motivatuions didnt make alot of sense , why would she want entire world of zombies? Caitlyn and Vi s*x scene was one of the most disturibing things I have seen in a hwile....considering thatim an older sister to psychotic little sister who has tried stuff like this in the past...i W found Vis reaction soo unbelievable or sociopathic even... you dont just accept your little sisters d*ath...and then go and f**k... my bf isnt even on my mind when my little sistyer goes trough a crisis like this ...also the way it happened it was like straight up taken from Lol fanart of Cait and Vi having s*x-...so it was soo obvuious what a fanservice it was while scene didnt need to be there at all.... especially in that same cell her sister was just rotting in... then the fact that Zaun and Piltover just get along like that....like why? how? after decades of oppression and poisoning its all just forgotten with 5 minutes... yeah Im sorry but theres soo many problems here that you just cant ignore, also Jinxs sacr9ifice I hate how it was done... it basically happened cause Vi was acting stupid...eventhough just 1 episode ago she was gladly running from Warwick .... now she suddenly has a mental breakdown, it was soo obvious that this wa written so Jinx could somehow die and then later they kinda hint that no she is actually alive which not only cheapens the sacrifice but also makes it feel like why would dshe do that to Ekko of all people? Faking your death is pretty horrible thing to do to your loved ones
It shouldn't be blasphemy. Season 2 had very clear pacing issues. The creators are gonna be telling more stories set in this universe, and we really need to hold these guys accountable for their mistakes lest they make more of these mistakes in the future.
@@HK-gm8pe To be very fair, Vi didn't know her little sister was gonna commit suicide. I didn't mind Vi and Caitlyn hooking up. My bigger issue had more to do with the steps and beats that led up to that part in their relationship arc. I felt there really needed to be more friction between Vi and Caitlyn, especially in regards to Caitlyn's dictator arc, before they eventually and inevitably hook up in the end. I really didn't like the "unite the two cities by giving them a common enemy" plot. Like that's supposed to address any of the systemic issues plaguing both cities
Season 1 just felt like a much more personal story. It was an intimate look into their lives, their motivations, their flaws, and how despite their best intents every single character is flawed in some way. Nobody is an outright cartoon villain, or a pure and pristine hero. Season 2 needed more time to tie up all the plot threads and unresolved character arcs. We don’t need to see everyone get a happy ending, or even a ‘where are they now’ segment, but my biggest question after the finale is what happened to Zaun? Surely there are still a plethora of issues to be resolved, despite a truce against a common enemy.
@@thegreatlemonman5209 yeah but it would cool if they make something like a novel to explore what happens and also Jinx is PROBABLY alive. There’s also some plot lines and stuff that feel rushed so a novel could be great imo. But I’d love a show on Yasuo
I liked most of season 2 but the finale felt too fast. Stuff like Jinx's final developmemt, Vi's reaction to it, Ambessa's death etc all could have used more time in the oven.
Yeah, like, I feel like there was more character interaction we could've gotten. I really wish we'd seen Jinx and Ekko talk after he stopped her from pulling the pin on that grenade. I feel like that was a really important, fulfilling moment we will never see.
It also felt weird to just cut away from most of the character resolutions and drama and so on going on to the angels/hivemind business? Like it took all of those and then just "oop, nevermind, all of you are being uploaded to the matrix regardless and there's nothing you can do" ... and then that only jayce and viktor's conflict/one conversation-ish was what did everything ... and then not getting to see almost any of the wrap-up emotional post-processing beyond maybe the most marginal bit of Cait and Vi
Some people said that Season 2 felt like it should’ve had 12 episodes instead of 9, and I’m inclined to agree. Stuff like Mel’s recruitment by the Black Rose, Vi’s mental spiraling, and Caitlyn’s time as a dictator should’ve been given more time. Not to mention new characters like Loris and Maddie just being introduced and then killed off with very little development. Overall, I did still enjoy Season 2 though.
And Viktor cosplay Uchiha Madara to get talk no jutsu from Jayce is ugg. Feels like writers don't know what to do with Pilt vs Zaun conflict and they just slap Naruto plot line in to end the thing
Arcane needed at least one more season. The transition from "class struggle" to "cosmic entity" was to rushed. EP 7 was a masterpiece but the rest... Sevika didn't even had voice lines in the end. Great season, awesome show but could have been even better...
I think that the point in the change in "class struggle" to "cosmic entity" is like S1 dont have any impacy, only to show the Characters. And yea the Subtrama about noxus and specially the black Rose and Mel magician was a waste of time
@@d4s0n282 nah... they should've limited the number of characters in season 1... and minor characters should remain minor characters. no amount of additional season would cure this.... this will only drag the other characters' arc.
I suppose on the whole I am "content" with what we got. I don't feel cheated, I still find new things when I look through it again, it is rife with beautiful parallels both in the writing and in the blocking of shots. Ekko's story, despite being a short element of it is the most beautiful and surprisingly fleshed out simply due to who is character is. I think my biggest criticism is that they lacked the time to really make me believe or care about some elements. I felt we lacked seeing the Piltover v Zaun element I was hoping for, Cait's villain arc felt resolved a bit too easily, we barely see Vi at rock bottom and what it truly does to her. I really honestly believe a third season would have been more than enough to round things out and keep the quality of storytelling consistent with Season 2 being primarily Piltover vs Zaun and Season 3 being Piltover/Zaun vs Noxus. Also needed more found family time with Jinx, Isha, and Sevika. Not a bad season of a show by any means but while I'll always give Season 1 a 10/10, Season 2 comes out with more of an 8/10.
@@chrishaven1489 I get that. It did detract from the story. Personally I kinda thought the Noxus influence would be not very big before season 2 came out simply because I thought Ambessa had only one ship and that her role would be influencing Piltover/lending what few troops she had.
I feel like most of the problems are connected to overall theme of Arcane. Forgiveness, embracing impperfections and becoming a better person by learning from your past can only work if ... characters learn from their mistakes and forgive each other. Fixing things does not carry the same tragic emotional punch as repeating mistakes. The most powerful moment for me was Isha sacrifice for this exact thing. It works because it's tied directly with Jinx. Jinx changed which allowed her to teach Isha all the great things. Isha does the very same thing Powder did in s1e3 but pulled it off thanks to her confidence and good mentor. It says the same amount of things about Isha as it does about Jinx herself.
As a non League player I felt the whole Black Rose plot could have been removed completely and it would have given so much breathing space for the other plots. When you think about it, a mage organization seeking some mcguffin or something to gain power, isnt even innovative or interesting. It's also very vagely told, and kinda boring. I think its only there as fan service to LoL players who care who Leblanc is, and to add two more champions to the game (as if the game didn't have enough of them). It also serves the purpose of keeping the narratives open to make more money with more series, but in any case, the whole Black Rose plot is not there to aid the rest of the story, but rather to take away from it. They could have come up with another reason for Ambessa to want to control Piltover and recover all those precious minutes we spent seeing leblanc rambling and mel gaining her powers, and use them to further other plots more in the theme of social injustice and rebellion, which were the primary themes of the series.
Yeah, Black Rose definitely feels like a setup for the future and not so much important here. Other than Mel helping protect Jayce in the council chamber, she didn't have an actual impact on the main battle. LeBlanc implied she was supposed to help prevent this apocalypse but she had zero affect on what Viktor did. Would have loved those scenes to have been swapped for something more focused on the main story.
In an interview with an Arcane writer, he said they're looking at Noxus, Ionia, and Demacia for future projects; so I'm guessing since Black Rose kinda has their hands all over the Runeterra, or centered in Noxus, is why they're introducing LeBlanc and the Black Rose now. There's quite a few characters around Runeterra that are connected to, crossed paths with, fought with, etc with the Black Rose. And I personally didn't mind Black Rose, it was a subplot line and I think they left enough clues/hints where people can figure out they're a secret society collecting "weapons" (mages), the audience doesn't need to know their purpose and goal is preventing necromancer warlord Mordekaiser from coming back while he's cooking under Noxus. But we'll see
@@iamnemoo I know that's their purpose, but I hope they change it for the next series and give them a better one. Preventing a necromancer who is coming back sounds more like the type of simplistic good vs evil that marvel does, rather than the intricacies in moral ambiguity of arcane. I'd rather see an organisation with a realistic and clear goal rather than "let's get power" or "let's stop the end of the world", etc. I get that simple stuff like that works for a videogame like LoL where plot isn't even important, but in arcane it just felt too shallow.
@@Ian-hm4ldthe nuance in the black rose comes from their methods and motives to stop mordekaiser once he comes back, they are genuinely cruel and dont really care that much about the life in runeterra, theyre just scared shitless of mord For instance, they created a whole training academy where they locked literal children into fighting eachother to death until they develop magic powers I know its not your point, but i wanted to point out the arcane writers can do amazing complex stuff with them, the same way they did for S1, since before that piltover and zaun's lore didnt really dwelve into the nitty gritty of police brutality, opression and class struggle that the show went into, the writers took a somewhat underdeveloped plot beat and made it into a complex political storyline They can do the same thing again
I felt like if tgey were doing it should have had more pop up either in season 1 or them doing an extra season or not having it at all. Tho I assume it's important for the in gane characters. I've never played LOL so I'm not sure.
I agree 100%. I felt like the build up that Jinx was going to be the main villain didn't close out right. Then having Ambessa and Victor becoming co-main villains seemed rushed. Season 1 (10/10) Season 2 (8/10)
For me, Mel was vastly under utilized in season 2. In season 1 she was intriguing, mysterious manipulative, while also being empathetic and headstrong. I was so confused that her personality was reduced to magic empath and that she spent most of her screen time being expository dumped on to explain the disappearance of her brother with the few episodes they had left. Her plot felt the most rushed and like the writers were waiting to do something with her but they just couldn’t figure out what. I keep seeing people praising foreshadowing but imo they rely too much on something being parallel but it isn’t actually in favor of what has been set up with established character behavior
Mel was, in general, looking at the two seasons, a great character. I'm biased here because I'm also a big fan of her style in general. But I also enjoyed her story and development. S2 was not giving her a big part beside her stopping Ambessa. They tried to set up the future with her, which is alright. 9 episodes can just show and focus on that much - you have limits and it does not help to lament that with more time they could have done better. Mel was never the main story; she just enriched it on important aspects on the side of Piltover. Still one of my favourites of many shows - but again, I'm biased simply on her design, the normal one, and also the golden power stuff. The white, the gold, the black...
I guess it's a matter of taste - I just don't like the Infinity Wars style Final battle to save the world kind of finale. It somehow always feels hollow and too abstract. And it definitely doesn't feel like something that belongs in the show we saw in season 1. So for me it's not really a matter of having more episodes. Sure, additional time would have helped to better explain Viktor's motivation and all the multiverse, multiple timelines stuff, but ultimately I just would have preferred that they didn't take the story in that direction at all and instead just focus on wrapping up the Piltover vs Zaun and Vi vs Jinx stories.
@@blacktigerpaw1 I'm honestly a bit baffled by the introduction of this idea in the last act. Viktor and Jayce in season 1 pursue hextech (recklessly perhaps) because they wan't to improve people's standard of living, curing diseases and so on. Like, very concrete, practical things. What the hell has that got to do with erasing all imperfections? They never say that in season 1. In fact, does Viktor actually ever say that? Feels like retcon to me. The introduction of the whole Glorious Evolution theme felt poorly setup IMO.
Hmmmm. They're gonna tell more stories set in this world. It would help the creators in the long run if you held them accountable for their "imperfections" with the goal of improving in the future. Instead of just saying "well, nothing's perfect, let's move on."
Jayce is so detached from viktor that he forgot arcane Viktor’s story was about his lack of control of anything and not og Viktor’s “humanities imperfections” belief
@@blacktigerpaw1except viktor was disabled before they realized he was terminal. jayce reacted to the news like he never expected it. and when viktor first started adding shimmer to augment himself, what happened? it went to strengthening his legs. repairing the imperfection, not just keeping him alive. that’s how i interpreted what jayce was saying - i understand how people might find it tone deaf, but i read it as jayce referring to viktor’s DISABILITY, not his illness. and as a disabled person, i really like that mindset, i hate the outlook of pretending like there’s nothing “wrong” with my body because objectively there is. my body is imperfect. but that imperfection absolutely shaped me into the person i am today. but i’ll give it to you that the line would work better if viktor didn’t have lung cancer, or whatever illness was killing him
I don't disagree with anything you said; all spot on (except for Vi and Catelyn getting it on for the first time, that we know of, in a grimy jail cell that housed Vi's own sister for an undisclosed amount of time while she's literally trying to kill herself; that didn't sit well with me). I also think the season was good but not a masterpiece like S1. And it boiled down to the lack of character moments. Almost everyone's favorite episode, mine included was episode 7. It was by far the most intimate and character driven episode. S2 as a whole tried to do too much in too little time.
I laughed so hard I spat out my drink reading your thoughts on the intimate jail cell scene 😂 none of that even crossed my kind first time through but youre completely right its so out of place
It had fewer episodes so that didn't help. But I don't feel cheated I'd happily watch the show again and still enjoy it just wish we had a few extra episodes to flesh it out a bit more. I'm interested by other shows they plan on doing.
I do not mind the cell scene. The only question here might be how certain it was that Jinx would kill herself. Need to watch that part again; I think it is definitely obvious for the viewer, but not certain if it is the case for Vi. Could it be understood that she is just going away? But I think her last sentence was strongly hinting towards suicide. Thats a big point, but this one a side, I do not have a problem at all. Neither Vi nor Cait are squeamish. Vi lived in such a cell for what, 6 years? It is war all around; the end might be near and even your sister just told you, go be with Cait. Well, you just do it; nothing I lose sleep over-with the one exception I've mentioned at the start-this would indeed be a deal breaker.
It is CRAZY that Ekko and Vi have no dialogue in season 2. The show was able to get lift off with a shift from plot driven to character driven story telling. Well, for a show that’s character driven, some of these characters don’t interact much.
I noticed this too. No mention of Ekko from Vi after he disappeared. He literally saves everyone's ass and is alone at the end. I kinda wish they had included Vi sitting on that ledge with him, an arm around him while he burns the paper. That would have been enough to acknowledge their connection without taking up more runtime.
They didn’t have them talk because that would mean ekko would have found out that the girl vi told him to trust became hitler while he was gone and made zaun worse than it ever was If they talked ekko would have been pissed at vi and called Caitlyn out on her bs but of course we need caitvi above all else so they never do
@@coldfury2652 Cait was never like Hitler; stop with that stupid comparison. She enforced martial law in a warlike scenario. Zaun aint a bunch of Jews, and her using grey ain't what the Nazis did. Nuances matter and if you are stuck on such simplistic exeggeration, no wonder you get disappointed. And they did call her out for it, watch the show when Vi wakes up, or with Loris leaving. But you guys need to see the world more realistically and not just in black and white. Desperation is a big driver; making mistakes as well and try to make the best out of something. We got this in S1 with Jayce; we got this in S2 to an extent with Caitlyn and Vi in general as well. Zaun made Zaun worse then it ever was - through Jinx, through their chem barons and through their stubbornness to not give up Jinx. Piltover made it also worse, but just as a reaction. Cait tried to contain it first and later on gets manipulated through grief to step over the line, which is still not much over the line. Firelights fought against their own; no wonder Piltover fought against them after getting attacked over and over.
I honestly was disappointed by the last 2 episodes. While ep 7 was a stroke of genius and probably the most beautiful episode of the show ep 8&9 were far too fast and they put too much emphasis on the epic spectacle. This led to a significantly atrophied character arc for everyone so that at the end I didn‘t even care at all about Jinx death (which should have been the most emotional scene of the whole show!). Still Arcane as a whole is a masterpiece of storytelling, animation-excellence and character-development and the meh-ending won‘t change that for me 🤘🏻 Prolly would have needed half a dozen more episodes to fully round it up.
I've never cried as much as watching this show only to feel really uninvested in the final two episodes. It's hard to pun down exactly why but while watching for the first time I had thoughts like "And THIS is what the writers chose to do right now?" That's a bad sign. It's like I had trusted the characters more than the writers. That was not my Vi. That was not my Ambessa. That was not my Victor. The intricate build-up did not deserve the end it was given. It felt tacky, cartoonist and left me so disappointed. But only because they made me have such incredibly high expectations. Still a great series. If only they stuck the landing. -sigh-
I know that this is basically fanfiction but I think that the story could have been a lot more satisfying if they had just nixed the Black Rose stuff. It adds too much complexity. Mel's arc could have been about her trying to outmaneuver her mother and landing smack in the middle of Zaun/Piltover politics. Imagine Ambessa elevates Caitlyn to a dictator and despite Mel's warnings she accepts it in a blind rage against the people, who in her view, killed her mother. Mel could have gone (or been shoved out) of the upper city to seek allies in Zaun and been confronted by the pain caused by the system she created. She could have developed her empathy/shield powers while attempting to protect Zaunites from enforcer thugs. She could have linked up with Sevika the two of them could have struck an uneasy alliance that could credibly explain the Zaunites participation in the final fight.
Wait, this is galaxy brain. I loved that Mel got to be a badass mage but it was definitely a side plot in a season wayyy too full of side plots. This would tie in so much better and keep the piltover/Zaun conflict central.
Ugh you're so right and I hate we didn't get this. It would've been so much more interesting and a lot more organic follow up to Mel's role in season 1 as politician than "and then magic"
In short arcane ultimately kinda falls into cinematic universe problem. Instead of trying tell a closely knitted story between the two cities which season 1 was all about, they tried setting up everything for the future stories and lost focus. Entire jinx vs vi and piltover vs zaun plot was overshadowed by time travel, glorious evolution, noxus, black rose and magic and ended up not really landing a satifying conclusion to all those plots.
Difficult decision here - League of Legends is a much bigger and more connected world and with certain champions in the centre of a show, you are somewhat forced. But in general, I'm always more of a closely knitted story fan; nonetheless, this universe with Viktor as one main plot was limited. Still also not a fan of multiverses that much. I can see them dialing back in the future for more seperated shows/ stories. It's a learning curve, nobody probably new where the journey would go with Arcane, how much space they will have to develop anything. So you make a decision and have to live with the outcome of it and the turns it will take even if you can't see them at that moment.
He doesn't "throw away" the perfect life with his dream girl. He knows he doesn't belong there and that he has probably displaced the Ekko of that world and even if he was willing to abandon his own world, he would not be able to live with himself, knowing that his selfishness quite possibly doomed this softer Ekko to a life, most likely near-instant death, in his own universe.
Also, I think it undermines the deeper lesson of the episode if Ekko stays. That alternate universe still had its issues. Vi's dead in that world. But despite her death, the characters moved on to try and build a better world. "Sometimes moving forward means leaving a few things behind." Despite how bad things can get, we can still end up building a better world. Ekko brings that lesson back to save Jinx's life.
Ekko sacrifices his own happiness to fight for his people. I don't think that decision is too hard for people who already would give anything for their people. And this "trip" just showed him that even his Jinx might have potential. Him abandoning his people/timeline, I think, is way more difficult for him. Easy decision for everyone who truly loves. Ain't about what you possess; its about what your loved ones can have.
When I first watched the ending, I was fuming. I literally could not fall asleep until like 5 am. lmao Then I rewatched some scenes, vented a bit on reddit, watched some reviews and I calmed down a bit. Honestly I spent half of my sunday in depression listening to the soundtrack. Then I came to terms with the ending and appreciated it a bit more. Christian Linke spent so much time in the last week answering questions and explaining what happened that it's very clear that we needed more Arcane. One more season, one more arc, 10 more minutes. Most people didn't dislike s2 in itself but just the rushed pace. And if a creator has to answer questions and criticisms all day (he even responded to my reddit post saying that they lacked the time and budget) ... well let's just say I'm glad he said they would learn from this experience and I'm also glad that he knows that as a whole, Arcane is amazing and I hope that one day we get to see a Jinx/Ekko spin-off or continuation of their storyline. Would also love if they did something more with Vander/Warwick (he's the one character who I feel got a really undeserved ending. Both character wise and in terms of how they set up his redemption arc. Arcane is amazing. It's a beautiful show with incredible animation, soundtrack and a great story. One of the best and most emotional things I've ever watched. And the first 7 episodes of s2 were fantastic! I was more hyped during s2 than I ever was during the first season - if there were a few more episodes I'd have loved how they had increased the scope of the whole show and how much action & plot we get into so few episodes. But in the final two episodes, they overdid it a bit. There were still amazing moments during these episodes though! Nevertheless, studio Fortiche and Riot really cooked. I will always love this show.
The main consensus with everyone who watched season 2 is "I would've preferred xyz more imo." Every reviewer, and every commenter has their personal nitpicks. But I think this is just a testament to how good the show is. The bottom line is that on a personal level, we just want to see more of this show. But I don't think the show was "rushed," this was just how the creators thought it be best to tackle this season. I believe that everything they did wasn't out of "rushing," or "budget." This was just how they chose to make this season, and I think it's phenomenal, and I enjoyed it more than season 1. I think the pacing of this season is the same as season 1, but there's just crazier things happening in season 2. So everyone wants certain parts a tad bit more fleshed out. Me personally, I was ecstatic about everything except with black rose. I'll be doing a review on the season and characters myself, although I have little to know subs to my name lol. But overall, phenomenal show and storytelling, 11/10 must watch.
I think a few more episodes (And less meddling from Riot execs) would've been good for the finale. They wrapped it up pretty quick and I feel like it shifted into a plot focused rather than character focused narrative, which came at the expense of the time needed to get the sort of nuanced and layered character interactions we see in season 1. That being said, S2 E7 was my favorite episode from the whole show, and Arcane is still my favorite show as a whole.
If you don't mind me asking, what's your source on the pacing issues being caused by Riot execs meddling with the show? I'm not questioning your honesty, but there's a lot of misleading and deceptive ragebait going around about Arcane's production, and I just want to make sure you aren't using one of those as your source
Not sure if I can put it above The Monster You Created or The Base Violence Necessary for Change but E7 is absolutely the best in the season. And I think most would agree. It’s the one episode that slowed tf down and focused on what made S1 a masterpiece: the characters. I think just about everyone is in agreement that more time was needed to tell the story effectively. How much time is debatable but one season wasn’t enough. Personally I found the season good, not great, but ultimately a little disappointing.
@@iSmartMan1 Nah, I can feel the Riot execs meddling with the show. I've seen it before. Riot has a history of meddling with narratives in the name of selling skinlines; Brawler Vi, Commander Caitlyn, Augmented Warwick, the new Viktor VGU. It wouldn't surprise me if the writers had to bend over backwards to accommodate these skins into the story
@chrishaven1489 I'm just saying, that wouldn't make much sense with how Fortiche's production process works, and while Riot meddling with the show could change my opinion on the show's quality, I'll need something more solid than vibes before I incorporate that into my assessment.
11:15 I really like the reversal of the Zaunite getting to have a fun, chill time while a Topsider has to go through an incredible amount of suffering in a location that is physically deep in the ground
about vi's character development: she ended up in a much better place than she started, and that was while hitting rockbottom. her arc wasn't upwards, it was downwards and she recovered. Ekko is, indeed, the best character. i wouldn't have liked to see him in the counsil, he lacks experience. Sevika has a lot more experience and Ekko can take her place when the time comes.
Vi's character development was missing a few beats imo. She turned on Jinx a little quickly for me. I love the ViCait relationship and I love how they made up in the end, but I do think that relationship arc was missing a few beats of friction between them, primarily revolving around Caitlyn's dictator arc.
I would have liked to see both honestly. The council is out of a competent scientist. Jayce is gone; Viktor well never was on the council but capable is gone; lets not mention Jinx and Singed for obvious reasons, but Heimer is gone. Ekko would make sense to continue this tradition and Zaun definitely deserves a second spot. And Ekko has grown, I think he is more ready than Jayce was when he became part of the council.
I've been going over reviews and reactions over the last couple of days, and something that stood out was an interview of Christian Linke, in which he basically confessed that they just wanted to move on from Arcane, because they have already spent close to 9 years on this project and wanted to focus their attention on other things. Sadly I have heard this rhetoric before and every time it leads to a rushed finale and half baked conclusions to the story of the show. S2 is not bad, but considering how much they had to cover in order to flesh out every single plot point, the end result is a rushed mess, that took a couple of shortcuts just because they wanted to put a bow on it and neatly wrap it up. Maybe my opinion is controversial , but the show did not deliver from a storytelling standpoint. If I have to rate it, it's a 7/10, it pains me to say. (S1 is goated 10/10)
" he basically confessed that they just wanted to move on from Arcane, because they have already spent close to 9 years on this project and wanted to focus their attention on other thing" This......makes me angry. This season deserved a lot better than what it got
@@malafakka8530 "Wanting to move on" is the reason why the Game of Thrones final season fell flat on its face. Lets try not to repeat the mistakes of the past
@chrishaven1489 I was a bit confused, but still, wanting to move is perfectly fine. Not everybody wants to spend so many years on one project. You should only make sure that everything gets wrapped up nicely or that you leave it in capable hands. I just wouldn't have expected that they spent 9 years on this.
Fun fact! There was a deleted scene regarding Ekko talking Jinx out of suicide, where he tells her about the good version of herself (Powder) and Jinx recognizes the monkeys on his Zdrive and agrees to join the fight, but it was obviously cut out.
Some of my observations and comments in light of your video: 1. I noticed that both in the main and alternative world, Jinx is happiest and healthiest when she grows out of her dependency on Vi. I think in Season 1, when Vi ditches Powder, she ditches the Powder personality and constructs the Jinx personality because Vi was the emotional anchor for Powder and now she was gone, and the rest of the season has her grappling with who to be when Vi re-enters her life. Even in Season 2 Act 1, her life is still defined by her conflict with Vi, to the point of wanting Vi to kill her. But in S2A2, she's no longer fixated on Vi. Even when she asks Vi to help with Vander, Vi feels like the outsider to the very healthy and happy Jinx/Isha duo. When Vi accidentally hits Isha, Jinx literally pushes Vi away to run to Isha, and from the expression on her Vi's face, I reckon she's thinking "this is what Jinx has become with a sister that believed in her, and I could have been that sister". But back to the original point, this is the healthiest version of Jinx we see in the main world, a Jinx that has left behind the Vi-dependant Powder and, with the support and love from Isha, become her own person as Jinx. In the alternate world, Powder also grows out from Vi's shadow, out of necessity since Vi dies in that world. But in leaving behind her dependency on Vi, she grows up mentally healthy and sound and happy. I wonder if this is meant to illustrate that even in relationships with people who love you, dependency is never healthy. 2. I think the strongest evidence for Jinx surviving were 2 points you didn't mention. 2a. At the end Caitlyn is seen holding a fragment of Jinx's grenade and thinking deeply as she looks at the plans for the hexgate. Caitlyn is shown throughout the show to have remarkable deductive abilities when reviewing the scene of an incident, so the fact that she's investigating something about Jinx's supposed death is already a huge hint - perhaps that no body was found. She then focuses on the shaft that Jinx and Vander were falling through, and then zooms to the diagram of the "Air duct and cooling system" that branch from that shaft, and it's then that she seems satisfied. 2b. During Necrit's interview with Christian Linke after Act 3 was aired, when Chris is pressed on the issue of whether Jinx is alive, his answer is "Figure it out. Figure it out." I think we were meant to initially think Jinx died, then after taking a closer look at the hints, work out that she actually probably survived. 3. I love that, given how quickly things progressed, we never really see Jinx recover from her depression at Isha's death. Even when she makes her big entrance with Ekko, when she looks up from under her hood, there's no smile or look of triumph, just the saddest eyes. Depression takes a long time to heal, and grieving the loss of a loved or a relationship one takes time, and I'm glad the writers acknowledged that by allowing Jinx to fly off into the sunset to have time to heal and recover before we, hopefully, see her again in one of the spin-offs. 4. Absolutely with you on Ambessa. I love her characterisation in her music video - she's an absolute badass. But I also hate everything she does in the show, even understanding that she's trying to gain power to protect Mel from the Black Rose and avenge Kino. If only she was able to see and trust in Mel's strength without Mel having to defeat(kill?) her first. 5. I believe Mel has been confirmed to be the next champion to be added to the League of Legends roster. 6. Speaking of attention to detail, did you know that almost every opening in season 2 has hidden frames relevant to each episode? There's a youtube clip out there comparing all the openings simultaneously. 7. Did you know that Heimerdinger's voice actor actually sang that song in episode 7!? So good! 8. The "woke-mind virus" allegation might have come from speculation that Jayce and Viktor were portrayed as becoming a couple in the end. Christian Linke however confirmed in an interview with Necrit that Jayce and Viktor never become a romantic couple, and that they were meant to be a protrayal of a very deep non-romantic friendship between bros. Not sure if I can post a link to the interview, but it's at about minute 41 that he starts the discussion.
Oh, 1 more observation: in the big battle, the Enforcers were wearing blue while the Noxians were wearing red. In League of Legends, the minions on 1 side wear blue while the minions on the other side wear red. COINCIDENCE? 😹
Necrit made a video with Christian Linke and he straight up told him that the season felt rushed, and Linke said that every second of animation adds to the budget. So if we had 12 episodes instead of 9 Arcane would've beaten its own record for most expensive animated series
@@lydiscott I would've accepted a wait until January to let the writers, animators, and the whole team cook up a 12-ep S2 (4 eps her Act instead of 3), even if it meant the animation took a bit of a hit. The story is a beautiful clay sculpture, but the second half feels smushed together to fit its display case. Nothing in it was bad, just needed some more time to breathe.
@@lydiscottThe problem with having animation quality this consistently amazing is it can't be downgraded without sticking out like a sore thumb. It took them 9 years to make these 2 seasons, and because of how Fortiche's production pipeline works, any major story changes would either have to be committed to months (or even years) before the scenes get animated OR they would have to add months to the production time to replace scenes that had already been animated. People keep trying to find someone to blame for meddling to explain why parts of this season feel "rushed", but none of them really account for the fact that the pacing issues they see couldn't have been caused by ill-considered executive decisions trying to cut down on costs or production time, since those kinds of changes would have increased the costs and production time instead of reducing them.
I’ve been trying to puzzle this out for myself too. It’s a fine season. There are awesome elements. But the overall loaf is half baked. Like they left half of their story out of their story. Why don’t I understand why Ambessa, Viktor, real-or-hexcore Sky, Maddie, Caitlyn, etc. make the decisions or leaps that they do? Why did such amazing characters feel like they were getting pushed by the plot (the writers) instead of the other way around? I don’t know. Maybe it’s, if you’re going to make your story in the mystery genre instead of a tragedy this time, you need to realize that even more is riding on how you conclude and tie it all together. Or how you don’t.
Also disapointed there wasn't more local politics lol it kinda ended up becomig an international.. magical apocalypse?.. Conflict?? Mostly im sad the characters didn't get as much focus as they did compared to the plot this season? Definitely agree they could've used another season or at least another arc to rly get that emotional attachment down pat, ya kno? But yeah, still held up tbh but im not like Excited to rewatch it like i was w s1
I do think that they did a good job with subtle representations of Caitlyn’s changing opinions. HOWEVER, I think in general we needed 1-2 more episodes to see how greatly things changed inbetween episodes 3 and 4. Additionally, I wish the finale ended up being a whole hour and a half. They did an incredible job balancing the action with story for such a short episode finale, but that extra time could’ve made it even better.
I really loved season 2. I agree with most of your points. The sticking point for me is Vi. It feels that much of the outcome of her story is about Jinx letting go of Vi, and Caitlyn letting go of her hate of Jinx, thus "freeing" Vi in a sense. Which IS good. But I had hoped Vi to come to some sort of decision on her own to make a change of some sort. But rather it seems she is just unable to let go of Jinx, of the people she loves, to a fault. She just made the same decisions. Maybe that's the point they wanted to make with her, but I had hoped that she could eventually find the means to move on, on her own terms. And I feel that this is missing a little. She ends up in a good place, but it doesn't feel that she made a meaningful step to deal with her traumatic experiences. It's why the last scene between Vi and Cait felt hollow to me. It looks sweet, but Vi is still very hurt. I think the scene is balancing grief and their love, which ends up making the scene unfulfilling. Neither of these important points for Vi are fleshed out enough, and the scene suffers, in my mind at least. I think I would be less torn up about it if there was an additional scene dedicated to Vi grieving, so that the scene with Vi and Caitlyn could present the start of Vi's healing. Or maybe I'm overthinking that scene. Caitlyn slowly losing her smile as the scene fades away also makes me wonder what she's really thinking. The scene ends with more questions than answers. mini-rant notwithstanding, I really love season 2. I just wish Vi had a little more agency at the end I guess. Edit: I think if the final scene between Vi and Caitlyn was something like Caitlyn setting up a small memorial for Vi's family, just between them. Maybe they light incense like Powder does for Vi in the alternate timeline. It would be a scene that allows Vi to grieve, but also demonstrates Caitlyn's love for Vi by supporting her in her healing. I think something like that would work a little better, and it's all contained to a single scene. But what's done is done.
I think "Flawed Masterpiece" applies here. Everything we needed for this story to work and hit us right where they wanted to hit us was there in the end, but there are definitely moments when, especially on first watch, you kind of scratch your head and think to yourself, "Wait, what? Why?" So many moments where just a few additional character beats to carry us from one point to another would have smoothed out some of the jarring edges... but always, on reflection, it makes sense. If Season 1 was a 10 out of 10, Season 2 is a 9.4 out of ten for a final rating of 10 out of 10 for the series. I M O
TLDR of my gripes; - Writers trying to have their cake and eat it too (trying to have two things at once, making both fall flat, like Caitlyn’s dictator arc) - Too many plot twists, too many dramatic scenes, and too much fanservice crammed together. Nothing ever really hits and it just becomes exhausting - Too many plot lines, not enough time! This season really disappointed me because of how season 1 seemed to set it up. Season 1 ends will Silco dead and Powder officially becoming Jinx with that whole dramatic shot of her sitting down, and then she blows up the counselor’s building. So you kinda think “Whoa, there’s no going back! Powder is dead!” But then, nope. Jinx is just kinda… bored with violence and adopts Isha. And she’s just… so normal now and suddenly wants to live the quiet life. It’s so anticlimactic. Like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to have this cool scene of Jinx officially becoming Jinx, but also wanted her to be instantly redeemed. That’s a big thing with this season actually. Wanting to have your cake and eat it too. With Caitlyn, she starts kinda descending into committing police brutality and seems like she may become a fascist. At the end of episode 3, she takes Ambessa’s hand and it’s like “Oh man! Caitlyn’s totally gonna go like, dictator mode!” But no. She doesn’t. She doesn’t even really do anything as the official leader of Piltover. The most morally reprehensible thing she does is gassing the underground (which is SUPER fucked up, and I was so excited to see how far she would go) but that’s before her rise to power. Then she sees Vi again and just completely turns on Ambessa. You know… the person who’s supposed to be “controlling” her? Putting smoke in her head? But no, we gotta just rush back into CaitVi. Another mini example that I’m kinda just bringing cause it made me SO FREAKING MAD is the whole CaitVi sex scene. As a lesbian, I was rooting for a tasteful, spicy scene between these two queens, but man oh man all I could think about was how Jinx is about to go off herself?? She runs away, locking Vi up so she won’t come after her, saying to “not worry about her anymore” and she’s gonna “end the cycle” which, to me, is obviously her saying she’s going to kill herself. But the minute Vi is free? She fucks her girlfriend!!! In the same cell her suicidal sister was just in!!!! Crazy!!! Like they want to have this dramatic scene where Jinx is running away to commit suicide, but also want to have a flipping CaitVi sex scene!!! Keep in mind I’ve only watched the season once and am #crazy and delusional, but man my blood is BOILING!!!! I was so excited for a Zaun vs Piltover storyline, but then we just got a bunch of random other shit instead that I won’t even get into. It honestly seems like the writers were going for a subjective approach, kinda just shoving in a bunch of plot twists, dramatic moments, and fanservice to appease the audience, but it ruined the structure and “pacing” and made it so hard to watch and ultimately ruined the story. I honestly had to take break between each episode, it felt like I was running marathon watching each episode!! Sigh. Idk. I may come around and be less of a negative Nancy after I watch it again, but I definitely think this season is way worse than season 1 and overall a beautiful, messy disappointment. (I also did like some stuff!! The first three episodes were pretty good! That final scene with Victor and Jayce, chefs kiss, but the negatives greatly outweigh the positives for me)
you perfectly summarized my feelings toward s2, especially caitlyn's dictator arc. she did NOTHING interesting despite that dramatic ending to ep 3. the caitvi reunion was anticlimactic too. why did she not apologize for, idk, hitting her girlfriend?? i still love caitvi but everything about their relationship development felt off
@@notcha8080 GASP it feels so good to not be alone!! I used to love CaitVi (still do), it was such an interesting and fun dynamic and I liked seeing myself represented as someone who is a lesbian and relates to Caitlyn, but now it’s just… they butchered them!! They butchered my girls!!!
@@Megatron9145 fr i’m so happy they’re endgame and am forever grateful to everyone who made that possible. but i’d be lying if i said their emotional arcs didn’t feel lackluster
Re: Violyn sex scene; Vi not understanding Jinx's inner emotional turmoil is a pretty well-established throughline in the show. Vi was ALREADY somewhat emotionally unprepared for her parentified role as a teenager, and then she went to prison for like 5 years. So it's a situation where, not only is she *deeply* emotionally stunted, she also just doesn't really know Jinx the way she did when they were kids. They were forced to spend their adolescenses apart, and as a result they don't understand each other very well, even if they do love each other deeply. Thar's why I kind of think that neither Vi nor Caitlyn had much of a real understanding of what was going on. Vi doesn't understand Jinx, and Cait doesn't even know her at all. Judging by their dialogue immediately beforehand, I think their understanding of the situation was that Jinx had just run away because fk being in prison. My interpretation isn't.. particularly favorable towards Vi's intelligence, but that's what I got from it
Unrelated note but the one scene I don't really get is the final Jinx "sacrifice", or what leads to it. Vi last scene is her making a mistake (plotwise) of getting too close to Warwick despite of Jinx telling her to run. It kind of forces them into the situation where Jinx sacrifices herself. I know that she is alive but if she was not, Vi would be the one responsible for that because of ... Because of what? Good character arcs tend to be completed by the end of the story. Vi's arc is not completed if she's making a mistake. That is if she has a character arc? I don't really know how to describe it but her sticking to Warwicks body is a plot driven mistake that serves no purpose character-wise unless I'm missing something
I heard someone describe it like this. Vi cannot give up on people, on anyone. She can't even give up on a metal beast that is clearly not her father. Jinx sees this and has it even further reinforced that Vi will never stop trying to "fix" or "save" Jinx either. So she decides to save Vi by faking her own death, essentially freeing Vi from that unbreakable attachment that prevents her from moving on from anyone. It's Vi's need to protect and save those close to her that is her "prison" and Jinx wants to help free her from that.
@@equestrianrosie The writers foreshadow this in Ep 7 when Powder tells Ekko that Vi is actually very afraid of losing anyone. She cannot leave Warwick without attempting to save him, even if logically it was completely futile.
The scale of the drama in EP9 was more than can be reasonably dealt with in any story without becoming somewhat ridiculous. Surprised you particularly liked the "your ailments make you what I like about you" thing for two reasons, Viktor was literally dying from his condition so it's kinda like lauding how profound he becomes through dying or "you know what I like about you? your dying thing" and also the liking people for their disabilities seems particularly cheesy. That's only because he's got his brilliance to compensate, like a girl could compensate a not so pretty character with being particularly good looking.
yea, that line of reasoning from Jayce didn't land for me. maybe it's because I am permanently disabled so I thought more about it than surface level. More like, of course Viktor was broken. But he was amazing despite that.
As a physically disabled person I found it very condescending that an abled bodied character had to “teach” this lesson to the disabled person, rather than giving the disabled person the agency to come to that conclusion themselves. It was equally condescending in the way it attempted to depict how disabled people cope with their disability, the whole thing came across an abled bodied person projecting their uninformed ideas of how disabled people must think about being disabled rather than an honest attempt to represent the lived experiences of the disabled. The writers for this show prove that sensitivity consultants exist for a damn good reason, they should’ve used one. Reducing someone’s disability (a fatal one at that) to an “imperfection” the disabled person needed to embrace and love about themselves is just grossly infantilising and dismissive. Additionally, it’s rather absurd if not outright insulting to make a disabled character become a eugenicist. Who the hell thought that was a good story idea for a disabled character?? His evil eugenicist arc completely derailed the original narrative importance of Viktor’s health being a direct consequence of Piltover neglecting the under city and exposing them to toxic air. It was emblematic of systemic injustice as this implies it could’ve been avoided if the undercity wasn’t neglected, which should’ve resulted in Jayce coming to grips with his moral responsibility to the people of Zaun. He literally does nothing when Caitlyn is gassing the undercity with the very toxic air that gave Viktor a terminal illness. But that plot point about the cause of Viktor’s terminal illness never gets addressed. It’s like the writers forgot about it entirely.
@@Sanakudou "Additionally, it’s rather absurd if not outright insulting to make a disabled character become a eugenicist. Who the hell thought that was a good story idea for a disabled character??" He didn't turn eugenicist, he maximised the abolishment of suffering. I would completely understand an afflicted person becoming an eugenicist. Viktor's thing in the beginning however was the environment, not the genes, and in the end the problem of sentient life shaped by evolution.
Id give both seasons the same score. I was mindblown for just about the entire finale. The bit about Viktors final evolution, but also being the mage who gave that thing to Jayce was the best culmination of a tv show/movie i can remember. They nailed that sequence
Sevika is a very interesting character. Initially, we believe she's a narcissist who's only looking out for herself. However, we realize she cares more than that when she saves Silco and kills the other chem baron. In season 1, she acts like she doesn't care for Jinx and thinks she's a nuisance; however, she still sympathetic to Silicon when Jinx disappears. In season 2, she realizes that Jinx is more than just a tool for Silco and was always meant to symbolize change. Something I love about Sevika is her personality; she wants to act selfishly but cares so much for Zaun and Jinx that when a chem baron suggests just handing Jinx over, she straight up denies him, even knowing she killed Silco. Sevika knew how important a symbol was for Zaun, and begged Jinx to be that symbol, knowing that she, despite how desperately she wished she couldn't be.
The chem barons actually did not die in the music video, what was shot at them was a net launcher, like the one Vi hit Ambessa with. You can see where from her gun it launches and it's also the same hexagonal pattern that covered Ambessa. Great video, I have similar feelings about the show and i actually do play league/knew the lore. I think it was the writers fault for making the class divide between Piltover and Zaun turn out to be more of a backdrop then the main focus of the story. Like, they built this premise that made it feel like it was supposed to be about the 2 cities, they leaned in hard on showing how piltover is constantly screwing over Zaun, but then in the end they make them have a common enemy to force them to unite in the end. I know, i know, the show is called Arcane. The magic is the main driving force behind many of the main charcters. I just think the writers leaned in too hard on the fight between the 2 cities in season 1 and then in season 2 the magic is the stronger focus. Another act could have tied things together much better. I still love the show and want to rewatch it again to gather my thoughts better. Thanks for the video I enjoyed hearing your thoughts.
17:20 and everything else about thinking twelve episodes to flesh this season’s characters, themes, and plot elements would have been better is something I’ve been so back and forth on throughout the season’s release, but especially following the finale. On the one hand, as you mentioned, I absolutely agree that it would have aided the overall experience of the story as it would allow us to get into more details on each of those fronts rather than being presented broad strokes through music video montages. On the other hand, as you also mentioned, it’s clear the animation took precedence when it comes to the budget, and after seeing the finale in particular, it would suck to see that be diminished by having to allocate time and resources to three more episodes. I was consistently in awe at the visuals, and I love that they were able to put so much focus there. That’s where things are a toss-up for me. As someone who loves thorough and consistent character work, fleshing out character arcs and the broader consequences of their actions would have been awesome, and part of me really wishes that had been given more attention. As someone who loves animation, I got a (sometimes literally) jaw-dropping experience which part of me absolutely adores, and I know a trade off would need to be made to satisfy the other part of me. That’s largely where I’m most conflicted with this season. They had to prioritize one or the other, and I’m at war with myself of whether the right decision was made on that front.
I personally haven't seen a lot of people online talking about how the Firelights' tree dying because of Hextech is a climate change thing. I read the Firelights' reduced role in this season as being attributable to that. You can actually see/hear the Firelights' tree dying when there's that scene with Bat Dad adding Ekko to the mural. Actually, I think that scene is meant to be them *leaving* the tree. It's never been as silent there as we see it in its final shots, so I think it's been severely damaged or entirely killed by the HexTech pollution. Hence the crown above Ekko's mural - He's the last face to go up there before they have to leave
I feel like the studio was pressured into sticking to the same “40min per episode” as if we wouldn’t like an extra 20. If they made each episode at least an hour, it would be enough to bump it from 7 or 8 to a 9 out of 10. We needed more of dictator Cait, pit fighter Vi and some scenes of Jinx rallying Zaun or her conversation with Ekko. If S1 was 10/10, S2 is 8/10.
Season 1 as a whole was a 10/10. Season 2 Act 1 was a 9.5/10. Season 2 Act 2 was like a 6/10. Season 2 Act 3 I would say was an 8/10. Season 2 as a whole was around an 8 or 8.5/10. If Season 1 hadn't been nearly perfect, I think people would be a whole lot less conflicted. But we got what amounts to like a premium steak dinner from the finest restaurant, and then followed it up with a pretty good cheeseburger.
Great video! I love this show, but the past few days have been kinda rough, TBH-on account of feeling empty and the existential dread the show has left me with. About the point you made about Vi and how she's just there being pushed around, I kinda agree with you, but I keep wondering: what could she do? IMO, her core character stays the same, and she wants the same things as before-finding Powder and having a relationship with Caitlyn. But in both cases, she hits a wall before or during Act 1. Although Vi is probably the strongest character in the whole show, in both of these cases, she has no agency. At one point, her goal becomes saving Vander, but she loses agency there too when a whole army comes after them. So I don't know how one would try to change her POV without redefining the character or introducing new plot points. I'm curious what you think about that. Another point you made about the fate of the chem-barons and how one could miss some of the details-I think the show deliberately makes it so that you don't watch it just once. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I personally enjoy finding the details on a later watch.
The entirety of the season was fine for me but my biggest issue with it is the ending. Personally, my main gripe was with Jinx’s ending and the resolution of the Piltover/Zaun conflict. Put simply, I really don’t like the fake-out-death direction they took for her character. Whether she really died or faked her death to get a new start to "stop the cycle", I think it’s a disappointing conclusion to the the set-up of her character. I’d say it’s not even due to the pacing in this situation as some could argue. Arcane always had fast pacing but it could be excused because the plot beats along the way were still cohesive, if not rushed. Here, I truly believe it’s not the right conclusion for her story. To explain myself, until now, Jinx’s story was about proving herself and searching for someone she could be useful to. At first, it was with the gang but, when this backfired, she searched for that validation in the arms of Silco. He ultimately ended up giving it to her but unfortunately passed away. She then starts season 2 completely aimless and at her lowest point yet. She fortunately then finds comfort with Isha and finally finds a connection she finds worth caring about. At the same time, the undercity starts to view as a symbol of rebellion and sees the value of her. Isha perceives that too and pushes her to take responsibility and be the leader Silco always dreamed of who could rally Zaun against Piltover. Until now, it’s great. With the passing of Isha, I expected Jinx to go through some huge turmoil but ended up realizing Isha’s final wish and stepping up to be that leader the people of Zaun needed. It would have been such a perfect conclusion to her story and made her entire arc go full circle. The girl who everyone thought was a jinx ended up being the hero everyone put their hopes on. That would’ve been so great but this isn’t what we got. Instead, we have this weird in-between where Ekko has a discussion with her off-screen to join the battle and she did end up pulling up to save the day but it’s not really accentuated as an act of her finally assuming her responsibility. She just feels like she’s doing it out of obligation and doesn’t really get her heart into it. It would’ve been so much better IMO if Ekko just gave her the initial push and then she made the choice to unite the people of Zaun to help the final battle while everyone was preparing to exit the city following Jayce’s speech. That’s an active character decision that would’ve cemented her arc instead of this passive, nonimpactful choice to assist everyone. And let’s not even talk about how forced and contrived her death felt. It’s not bad in itself but coming from Arcane, a show that excelled at making every direction its plot took feel earned and logical’ it feels very forced. Finally, I’ll just say that having Sevika on the council at the end as a way to close the classism plotline feels also underwhelming because of the way the council works. It’s a majority rule. In any situation where the interest of Zaun and the interest of Piltover would be put into conflict, the latter would always come out on top. The ending is almost depressingly bleak in that outcome when you think about it because it just feels like Sevika is put there just for show… EDIT: there’s also the case of Caitlyn at the end. Her whole heel-turn arc feels very undercooked when looking at this season in retrospect. We barely get any time to explore that facet of her before she reverts back to her usual stage. IMO, her becoming the final villain that Jinx and Vi would team up with to defeat would have been way better. Instead, we got this weird half-commitment where Cait only dipped her toe into becoming a dictator. If they didn’t want to stick with her being bad, they shouldn’t have made her character change in that direction in the first place. Right now it just feels weird because she still called the people of Zaun animals and still has a lot of implicit bias towards them but the story completely ignores that and acts like it was all Ambessa’s doing.
Perfectly said. On Caitlin especially, I would have liked to see them lean into her fascist side. It was a turn that shocked me but also felt natural given her frustration over the Zaun conflict and her generally black and white view of the world. Of course she would use the law to its extreme to go after jinx/Zaun’s criminal element, especially after the attack at the memorial. It would have been better if we had a third season to explore the war and we see she’s not quite as ruthless as Ambessa and has some redemption toward the end by turning on her when it goes too far. I could see her like a Silco - someone who wanted to defend her people but let the monster out in that pursuit.
I am desperately waiting for the time when pointing out what isn't there in season 2 and how it failed will stop being a national treason. Right now is the time of "guys am I the only one who thought S2 was the best thing ever?!!!" crowd. S2 sets up so much, it is simply not possible to cram it all in one season with the same level of quiality as S1. And because the story still needs to work and go forward, writers had to fall back on some major contrivances. S2 is full of cliches and tried and boring tropes of the genre. And I have zero doubt - if plotlines were given time to breathe Arcane would've pulled all of them off. But it's really really tough to close my eyes on shortcuts made in the story, and the major tone shift, and abandonment of previous stories, when no work has been done to justify them all, because everything had to be inside of 9 episodes. As is it just feels so awkward, and beloved characters suffer because of it.
I unfortunately dislike on a lot of things you praised here. I know a lot of people like Jinx's ending, but I couldn't disagree more. Jinx felt like the writers' emotional punching bag especially in Act 3. Her character in Act 2 went through a lot of genuinely positive growth only for it to be stripped away for her in the cruelest possible. Isha dying effectively did nothing for the plot besides making Jinx suicidal again for Ekko to save her. Her talk with Silco in episode 8 rings hollow to me because she already broke the cycle of killing at the beginning of Act 2. She leaves the life of Jinx behind to be a caretaker for Isha. Even when she's brought back, she stages a nonlethal prison break, seeks out Vi solely out of her own kindness, and surrounds herself with people who care for her. She does everything right according to the story and she is punished for it. And what we're left with instead is Jinx either being dead or leaving everyone she loves behind. That's the worst ending she could've gotten in my opinion. Caitlyn and Vi's romance is the weakest part of the season, which sucks because they were so good in season 1. Vi feels like a side character in a story that should focus on her. You know that discourse around Caitlyn being reduced to just "Vi's girlfriend" in season 1? Now that's actually true but in reverse. Vi loses nearly all sense of agency by allowing Caitlyn to use the Gray against Zaun and feeling no resentment for being left behind in Act 1. The most she gets in terms of standing up for herself is that one argument in episode 8, which just isn't enough for me. The worst example of this is when they bang in the prison cell. Jinx, who's clearly depressed and suicidal, leaving Vi to "break the cycle." Vi is sad about this for a few minutes but then Caitlyn shows up, flirts a bit, and they immediately have sex in the cell where Vi's sister was self-harming in. The whole scene is just tone-deaf and ooc. Vi's identity crisis was a nothing arc and did nothing but give fans a bew look to gawk at. It's really a shame since Vi was my 2nd favorite in the first season, but now I'm not sure she's still in top 10. The pacing isn't exactly the problem with this season, it's a bloat. There's simply too many plotlines that are worthy for an entire season of their own but are sewn together at the cost of properly fleshing them out. Viktor's evolution and the Black Rose plots get the worst of it. ESPECIALLY the Black Rose plot. It's absolutely the weakest part of the season and is obviously there to set up the Noxus spinoff Christian and the crew are clearly more eager to engage in. Mel feels like a glorified League hero teaser for the game instead of a character with a compelling story. Her character was best as a politician but as soon as was revealed to be some super powerful mage, she mainly relies on cool points now. Viktor's story is so good, but it suffers from having the middle part of his journey omitted. In season 1, we learned about the Arcane alongside Viktor, but after the timeskip, we're completely in the dark and now he can do skypecalls from the astral plane. It feels like a whole act was skipped and as a result feels rushed. I can go on and on, but I'll be here all day. I still think this season is good more than it isn't, but the bad is just too much to ignore. It's almost distracting. Definitely a 7/10 at best unfortunately. Extreme highs and devastating lows.
I do not get why the use of Grey is considered such a crime. I see it as a smart way to protect the entire population of Zaun and target the criminal parts of it directly. Using it strategically to control a situation that would not be under control otherwise and result in much more harm. This way they were able to arrest so many people instead of a full-out fight with a lot more bodies. Just to add, I don't see a problem with the prison cell scene - only if it was absolutely clear that Jinx is going for suicide. I think indeed it was very obvious, at least for the viewers, but also for Vi, because of the words Jins uses. But I can't remember. But let's say she thinks her breaking the cycle means going away - than I have absolutely no problem with what happens afterwards. "The cell where her sister was self-harming" is such a viewer perspective that does not pay respect to the characters. For one, Jinx is doing that her whole life and secondly, we know this; Vi does not know this and if she honestly thinks it, just means Jinx is abandoning everyone and leaving it is alright. She was (obviously not) ready to kill her sister, so letting her go after Jinx decides to leave is a relief for someone in the position like Vi. You can see that she is angry about herself because Jinx escapes; she is not thinking about her killing herself. And Cait is freeing her of that thought, that it was her mistake by admitting she let her go. Imagine the release of emotions simply on that.
I think I’ll never be fully okay with CaitVi because we never see Caitlyn outright apologize for any of her actions, whether it be deciding to gas the Undercity or be abusive to Caitlyn. The whole contrast to Vi in Season 1 saying “this city will respect us” with Powder to saying “I’m the dirt under your nails” to Caitlyn, the most outright oppressive person Vi hangs around, is such a…shift that I don’t think the show handled too well.
I also have a bundle of thoughts about this season and i'm trying to organize my feelings. But some things that i believe to be important(sorry about the english, not a native speaker): -Arcane was, initially, designed to be a stand alone history apart from lol canon. After season 1 sucess, they decided to change this(my friends that play lol loved the lore from runeterra but always complaining about a lack of cohesion). I personally loved Viktor arc, Noxus as a treat buut i feel we could have more time focused on the conflict between Zaun and Piltover. - It's not my area of expertise but i believe we have to also put in the equation the cost of the show x netflix as a plataform. There is the business side and riot wanting to expand the universe to other regions. -Ekko was incredible, the GOAT. But i also think he works so well in this season because he has everything you love about the show: He is kinda of a "street level" hero trying to do the right thing. But ate the same time, the Z-drive makes him a important part of the more "mystic" plot. He is the champion of Zaun but he is trying to make a better live for everyone. I love how he, from everyone, is able to not only reach to hermeidinger, a centuries old being, but also jynx!. He is the bridge between a tragic past and a better future.
There’s a few things I would’ve changed and it did at times feel like they condensed some stuff that could’ve gone into one more season. That being said Ekko is the GOAT of this series. And to think, we haven’t even see the full world Arcane is set in.
i expected nothing from season 1, i watched it weeks after it fully released, but it blew my fucking socks off with how fast it made me endeared to all the characters, the underlying class war in everything, the tale between the sisters, etc etc. season 2 probably fit my expectations a bit more, in that there wasn't enough time for those really down on the ground emotional moments that illustrated how well written these characters could be and what i don't expect from animated shows and what made season 1 so mind blowing as a league of legends story. season 2 IS good and better than most shows but is probably more the pace i initially expected, if yanno what i mean. not bad, not better, just different. ofc everyones criticisms are very valid, but i still can't help but give this show the benefit of the doubt in that they did their best with what they had.
People attacking anyone but netflix allowing only 9eps or the fact that they had 3 years and not 6 to make this are just silly. The writing is great. Yes it could have used more episodes or even a season 3 but... again then ppl would cry it would have taken at least another year or two. Maybe even three. I will give them that Ambessa was poorly handled not just rushed. Why she'd join victor, why she was even needed given that his minions were uber strong and her death felt nonsensical but... Thats really the only place I can fault the writing in any serious manner. Eps 1,2,3 are all very good. 4,5,6 are fast but the peaks are so high they're fantastic overall. Ep7 10/10 Eps 8 and 9 are where you can have legimitmate issues like Ambessa and well the eps being a little fast moving. All I'd do though is just release a Caitlyn and Vi ep where we see them apart during the timeskip. We'd also get more of Loris and Maddie. Maybe some more on Ambessa. Then we need 1 full ep of Ekko and Jinx in the normal reality. As in what happened after he talked her down showing how they brought together the forces of zaun for the final battle. Intermittently it could show Ambessa and Victor actually preparing to attack piltover.
I disagree on your take on Ambessa, maybe? The way I see it Ambessa came to Piltover looking for a weapon powerful enough to defeat the enemies that had back her into a corner, and she saw hextech as that weapon. She wants control of Piltover because she wants hextech, but when she finally gets the control of the city, all the people able to make hextech dissapear, so she starts to look for new weapons. This leads her to work with Singe to use his creature as a weapon, and Singe wants to work with Viktor to get what he needs to cure death. Ambessa ultimetly joins Viktor because she sees in him the weapon she's been looking for since she was introduce.
@@antonhallergren588 I get it, during the end fight I kept thinking "you know you are going to die from this too, right?", I attribute to pride but it does feel odd for someone so calculating as Ambessa. I think that if Mel had been capture more recently it would work better, with her getting more desperate and being more backed into a corner, not having time to consider who/what was she joining forces with.
Yeah, the one thing that kind of bothered me was the zaunites and firelights joining in on the big fight at the end out of nowhere, and sure, you could argue that Ekko and Jinx rallied everyone together to fight against armageddon, but we didn't see that, we didn't see Ekko bonding with Jinx after her suicidal attempts. We didn't get ONE normal conversation between Ekko and Jinx in the whole series, which imo is a crime. Also, I felt nothing for Isha when she went out. As you said, she just arrived out of nowhere and quickly bonded with Jinx, but there was not enough meat on the stick for me to really care about her. And the whole Black Rose plot was so disjointed from everything else that was happening. I am also not somepne familiar with League of Legends game, so I even rolled my eyes a couple of times every time the screen cut to Mel (which I also agree, her design is the best in the show). Either flesh that plotline out more or don't include it at all. But.... My god, episode 7 carried the whole season imo. Masterfully shot, acted, animated, directed, everything. I'd argue it's the best episode of the entire show. The juxtaposition of Jayce going through actual hell and Ekko living a dream was peak cinema. Great points all around, wel articulated and explained for someone who isn't a native english speaker like myself. Kudos for this fantastic video, keep up the great work!
They want to make Mel the hottest girl in the show so but if Caitlyn original design is use then she is not so they purposefully make Caitlyn looks ugly. I will never forgive this
For me, season two fell rather flat, whereas season one literally blew me away. In season two, there were too many characters and too many things happening at once. There wasn't enough time to let the characters and themes breathe and honestly, some characters did things that didn't make much sense to me. There wasn't enough build-up, and it just felt like they flipped from previous motivations just so the plot could happen.
4:58 The purple blip is from the bomb. You see it at the beginning of the episode when she's trying to blow herself up and Ekko keeps stopping her. Although, there's also a bunch of blue lines that shoot out from the bomb in the opening sequence and (I think) no blue lines in the final shot, so who knows
These are things I wanted to see in arcane 1 Jinx being more of symbol for Zaun. 2 an episode of Vi alone. 3 the war between Zaun and Piltover. 4 More of Sevika character.5 more interactions of Ekko and Jinx.6 Jinx being the final villain of the story.7 final battle of Vi vs Jinx.8 More of Warwick personal arc of finding his own humanity. More of the Cembarons as villains.10 More of Jinx,s mental states like season 1.
6:45 deserved and earned? Vi knows that Jinx is off to go end herself, decides that thats the perfect time to bang someone (in the same PRISON stall that the presumably dead/dying Jinx was last seen). It is the most misplaced, disrespectful, and in your face sex scene possible and had no place getting 3 minutes of screen time.
Cait doesn't kill the chem barons in the montage; she catches them in the net Vi later uses on Ambessa. Isha ruins my suspension of disbelief with her into. She falls out of the sky and into Jinx'es life? Come on, guy's... do better. Jinx and Vi's showdown being at the exact same time Jayce triggers the anomaly? Argh! S1 and most of S2 do such a good job of avoiding convenience that these feel like a slap in the face. The scene of Vander, Silco and Felicia in the bar was a feel good but it diminished for me the reasons the men take the kids in. Looking after the kids of a "sister" is responsible but not as goodhearted as looking after kids orphaned by Vander's actions. Silco taking in Powder because he saw a parallel with his betrayal by Vander was amazing. It adds sooo much depth to the villain. Now Powder is his dead friend's kid. Not worth it even for the flashback of Silco over mom's dead body on the bridge. Quibbles. A matter of preference. Still my favourite show.
I don't think you can class Jayce triggering the anomaly at the same time as the Jinx/Vi showdown as a convenience. Yes, it's a crazy coincidence, HOWEVER, it doesn't affect the outcome of the fight, it just makes it more flashy for us to watch. The Hextech being janky for the fight doesn't affect the characters or the plot in any real way. Not liking Isha falling into Jinx's lap I can understand (even if it doesn't bother me).
An interesting theory I saw elsewhere is is that the paper Ekko burnt wasn't for Jinx but rather for Heimerdinger, who we know with 99% certainty is gone. If the character is not physically seen to die then it's not 100% but we know Ekko returns to the main timeline and Heimer doesn't. Ekko is presumably the only character who knows Heimer is gone, and if we assume one paper = one name, Ekko would have had to burn two as a tribute to both Heimer and Jinx. There had to have been a ton more off-screen interaction between Ekko and Jinx after he stops her from passing away herself, during which she could have told him she was going to disappear after the conflict, because following the above rule of physical proof of death, Jinx is not confirmed dead and the ending provides ample evidence that she's still alive.
It's interesting that for some, Sevika becoming a councilperson was a satisfying ending to her character arc. To me this ties directly into your point about the season losing focus on the Zaun/Piltover conflict. For someone like Sevika--who has assumedly gone her entire life under the literal boot of Piltover--who been subjected to violence by enforcers and chemical warfare by careless, resource-hungry councilpeople, her becoming a councilperson without so much as a "lol, our bad guys" from any remaining councilpeople was sooooo farfetched, and honestly disrespectful. S1, and act 1 of S2 to an extent, was such a fantastic commentary on classism, state violence, and the struggle for power & self-determination in a subjugated nation. While it was cool to explore Mel's lore, and I absolutely LOVED the Jayce+Viktor plotline, losing the juice of the Zaun/Piltover conflict left the show's ending with such a deflated feeling. No real resolution occurred onscreen, no agreement was brokered, no reparations were paid... and then the funeral procession happened in Piltover??? When so many Zaunites lost their lives to protect a city that never cared about them??? And then Sevika up and joins the council??? I agree that she'e the de-facto leader of Zaun, and that she deserves to lead her people to liberation, but doing so as part of the governing body that legislated Zaunites out of existence is peak neoliberal BS. Also, as a separate note to one of your other points: the Caitlin/Vi sex scene was great and I'm happy it pissed so many conservatives off, the timing of it could NOT be worse. Right after Jinx told Vi that she was having suicidal ideations and then locked Vi in the cell to presumably carry out her plan, Vi goes 'nah I have some time to mack on my cop gf' like HUH??? VI GO GET YOUR SISTER BRO!?!?!?
Best lesbian portrail. It's just people being in love and lustful just like any other couple you'd see in a show. Like you can't say it's that much more explisit or different compared to Mel and Jace. There is no weird speech or extra theatrics. Just lesbians being lesbians as the world intented.
I love Vi x Cait, but let’s be honest here: this season is very, VERY Caitlyn heavy and we needed more time with characters. Hell they introduced a new bestie for Vi and he didn’t even get a single line. I don’t even think he has a name.
This is definitely possible... but the framing of the scene keeps me from being 100% on board with that interpretation. The scene of him sitting next to where he sat with AU Powder and sadly looking at her empty spot kind of seems to indicate (to me) that he's missing her specifically. If it was meant to be Heimerdinger's name on that paper, it would make more sense to show him in some science-related setting, rather than a setting that is specifically associated with Jinx/Powder
1. They brought vander back but kept him in this limbo where we as the audience were waiting to see some more human version of him interact with his daughters and we never got that. I feel it almost would have been better to let him just stay dead, but have the beast recognize that jinx also had the same serum used to bring her back from the dead, allowong her to escapehim the first time, then work from there. 2.Viktor becoming infused eith hextech was cool but I feel they escalated him too far. I think it would have been more feasable to show that over time, everyone healed by it gets corruptee in some way, then have viktor reject it and join back up with Jayce, and skip him becoming some all-powerful villain out of nowhere. This would have kept the plot focused on Zaun vs Piltover. Also he was changing form like every 2 episodes (crippled then hextech enhanced then fused with hexcube then partially metal then hextech monk then ethereal god form then final masked form) 3. I wish Jayce had more cool fight scenes, he was obviously was central to the plot, had a cool giant hammer, yet only really got to fight with it once when him and Vi attacked the shimmer factory. I was hoping for him to pull out something crazy against viktor in the final episode but it just boiled down to talking in the ether. 4.There waa a TON of whiplash when it came to the loyalty triangle between Vi, Caitlin, and Jinx 5. Maybe im missing something, but I still dont understand why Himerdinger vaporized himself to send Ekko back. There was no indiction that the machine needed him to exit the time bubble to make it successful. 6.Overall the pacing was rrally good for the first half of S2, but the pacing keeps increasing towards the last 4 episodes or so until I loterallt had to check to make sure I wasnt accidentally skipping over anything but I wasnt
In general, it seems wise to avoid introducing time travel or multiverse concepts near the end of a story. Arcane used to be so grounded and compelling in season 1. Attack on Titan did this too and the only way I could enjoy it was to shut off my brain.
Exactly. The grounded political conflict between piltover / zaun and the relationships between vi/cait/jinx was what was compelling about s1 to me. I'm usually a fan of fantasy but they completely lost me with the interdimensional magical mumbo jumbo here
Arcane felt like a bunch of music videos put together lmfao The art, style, and animation is fucking A1!!! Literally perfect but a lot of things felt so rushed SHOUTOUT TO EKKO
To me, the ONLY way Sevika partners with Jinx is if she doesn't know she killed Silco, and I find it impossible that Caitlyn and Vi just kept their mouth shut about that. Sevika should absolutely know Jinx did it, and she should hate her for it. It ABSOLUTELY should have been a story beat. I feel like it was absent either because it didn't move the story where they wanted it or they didn't have time. The latter is why people say season 2 has pacing issues. The former is why people say they destroyed a lot of the characters in season 2. Sacrificed for the story they were going to tell one way or another.
So before I dive into every little detail I want to ask a simple question: What would 3 episodes add to the larger narrative? The following comment is my answer not only to that but also to show that season 1 if you think about it has the exact same issues season 2 has and why in the end it doesn’t matter at all because the story was never the goal of Arcane. So first things first: Arcane season 1 has 9 episodes because of many factors. The first one is that the writers followed a 3-3 story (3 acts build in introduction, climax and catastrophe). This is mainly a stylistic choice a young team made so it can focus more of its energy towards telling a story instead of figuring out the plot. Arcane being the first animated series of the team is full of all of these little short cuts (as almost all characters closely follow archetypes that in the end are changed in one key aspect while being followed with incredible precision). Because all these short cuts they needed to create depth in other parts of the story. So first they layered it in 2 important ways 1. We have the Piltover/Zaun split. 2. We have the split between Vi and Powder (also a story/song split). These layers paired with the insane amount of characters create an very delicate construct that is tightly connected through the main story point being Hextech/Shimmer. This character web creates 3 pols that are focused around 3 characters each: Piltover with Cait, Viktor and Jayce; Zaun with Jinx, Silco and Vander and then those who are in between the two: Ekko, Powder and Vi. Each of them have their supporting characters like Sky, Heimerdinger or Singed that are all also intertwined, creating a solid foundation of what drove the story forward. Everywhere we look we see groups of three (yes Powder and Jinx while being the same person isn’t the same character). That is even the case later in season 2: Ambessa, Black Rose, Mel; Jayce, Heimerdinger, Ekko; etc and the few times this isn’t the case (like Caits strike team) it is used to create this deep sensation that something is wrong (in that case Vi never should have been part of this team). Under the premise that season 2 is season 1 re-contextualized there is no room for a 4th act or a 4 episode beat per act. The only other structure that they could have tried would have been a 5 act 5 episode split but this would introduce to many story beats. So season 2 always needed to follow the same structure. So now to the fun part: Season 1 and season 2 are identical and therefore they have the same problems. Season 2 feels rushed and story beats feel off somehow: Season 1 had in some parts a way faster pacing like for example episode 9 than most of season 2 had. Why didn’t feel season 1 „off“, because the focus and the story beats prior where understandable and tragic. What differed from that in season 2? We lost focus around the characters. Why did that happen? Because of a misunderstanding of season 1. Sure the story is about Duality so you think Arcane has two main protagonist. And while thats correct its not Vi and Jinx. Its Jinx and Powder. Vi is just a really fleshed out side character to Powder. Just a quick reminder: This is just my observation, I absolutely love Arcane I mean this lengthy comment should be prove enough of this. Vi is one of my favorites in Arcane doesn’t really change the fact that Jinx and Powder are in the driver seat (season 2 ep 7 proves that point like crazy as Vi is dead and the story still was able to flow). Well this means that everything any character does goes back to Powder and her decisions. The second critique I often see is that (side) characters felt like plot devises. And I hate to break it to you but all characters in any story are. Like season 1 had Sky as a prime example or the girl Jinx shot during episode 4 mistaken her for Vi. These characters have no greater impact surrounding the character web and are mer attachments to characters (Sky to Viktor and this girl to Ekko). So saying that Isha is a plot devise is absolutely correct. However to ask themselves why it is there or to ask themselves why it is necessary nobody wants to ask this question. So why did Sky work and Isha didn’t? Maybe because Isha got more screen time and was destined to die? Probably but this is because Viktor in season 1 wasn’t important enough to have more screen time. Because I mentioned it I can continue with a short overview what Isha did to the story with just episode 2: 1. She is like Powder a girl that was destined to work in the mines. Her jump in episode 2 resembles Powders jump for freedom however Isha has no one to save her and she falls. 2. Jinx needed an anchor to want to stay alive so something needed to happen. To say it was convenient that Isha feel on Jinx is wrong to say as this just shows a bit more of worldbuilding as Husk is out of the question atm chilling half dead at Viktors camp. 3. Isha being mute allows Jinx to therapy herself as Isha serves as a projection leading up to episode 7 „what could have been“. 4. The fact that Isha is Powder all over again with the same flaws (like following danger even if told not to do it) gives a lot of inside into the world like for example that Jinx was just a phenomenon for Zaun meaning season 1 episode 9 was always going to happen. Outside of episode 2 we gain even more stuff like for example her song being in Chinese can be a reference to Ionia (as I was told is inspired by Chinese culture) while also being a devise that we cannot understand her world view with our words cementing Jinx as the hero Isha saw in her. I need to go now but if you have any questions and want my point of view on it please ask them. For now I leave this comment with a quick mention that we should quit forcing ourself to understand everything about Arcane at a first watch through. Give it time and thought and a lot of stuff will make sense. As the writers trust us and we as the audience should do it as well. Have a nice day AEther
I was disappointed with this season for feeling rushed. But even then there's one massive gripe I have and consider an unforgivable oversight. I hate "and then magic" plotlines. Mel can use the power of empathy or shield and blast? She can see through a master illussionist and attack her through it? And then, for unexplained reasons the Arcane plotline ends with "Viktor! I promise!" and then he timetraveled and caused this mess in the first place? What the fuck. If magic has no rules, limitaitons or explanations then it invalidates every scene it is not in. "Magic could solve your health issues", "we'll jus resurrect her", "explain everything using telepathy in a blink".
Every time you watched season 1 it just got better. Every time you watch season 2 it will get worse. There are so many problems with the writing, the characters... everything but the visuals. Let's just look at Jayce as one of the worst examples: - Why was he excluded from one of the most important decisions in the show - to "invade" Zaun? He is still a councilor and the last season ended with him being the most ardent advocate for Zaun's independence. The show just forgets all about Jayce's political power. - The entire reason Jayce switched his position on Zaun in season 1 was because he accidentally killed the chem baron's kid. But when the attack on the memorial happens, Jayce just never tells anyone that it was because of him. Instead he just let's everyone assume that those darn Zaunites don't want peace. Even worse, he makes another 180° turn and starts supporting an invasion of Zaun with hex tech weapons again. In other words: Attacking Zaun is good, but if I kill a kid it's bad, but if the mom tries to avenge it, attacking Zaun is good again. Jayce used to have actual reasons for changing his mind. He used to be a deep character. - We just never get ANY reconciliation between Jayce and Heimerdinger. Jayce subverted Heimerdinger's entire life's work. But he might have also saved his life because he wasn't there during the Explosion. This would have been a very important scene - but nah, they are just friends again, and it's more important to show Heimerdinger making up funny code phrases. - Why would Jayce AND Viktor forget about ventilation in the Hex Vault? A lack of ventilation is literally the cause of Viktors illness. This is just kind of stupid. He deserves to go to goopy hell. From this point forward the show tells Jayce's story in non-chronological order. But if you think about it chronologically, it just makes absolutely no sense: - Jayce goes to bad place and falls in hole. He then spends a long time to get out of hole. Why waste scenes on this, in a season strapped for time? What point does this serve but to make him look all disheveled when he returns and to fill time while Ekko is off in happy land? - Jayce then meets Viktor, who tells him that only he can make the alternate version of him see the error of his ways. Jayce then promises to do that. He is then returned and immediately tries to break that promise by killing one of Viktors disciples and being generally very hostile. He then goes to Viktor and tries convincing him by blowing him up. Remember, Jayce is one of the smart characters. But hey, maybe he was just confused from shifting timelines? - After recovering from his confusion, Viktor once again tries talking to Jayce in robot form. Jayce could maybe tell Viktor about his experiences, maybe let Viktor read his memories, if Jayce knows he can do that, but he instead decides to spout vague nonsense and tries shooting him again to see if that helps. - Jayce now knows that Viktor is after the Hex Core. So in preparation he decides to do nothing about that for the next 16 hours, because otherwise there would be no dramatic scene between Viktor an Jayce later. You don't need to teleport airships to evacuate the city, they can just leave the regular way. There is absolutely no reason not to immediately shut down the Hex Core the day before the Noxian attack and even if there was, there is absolutely no reason to do it alone when the enemy has previously demonstrated their abilities by infiltrating your seat of government undetected. Almost everything breaks on a second watch through. None of Jayce's actions make any sense or are in character. He just has completely new motivations every time we see him. It's like somebody gave the writers a lobotomy between seasons.
his actions are bizarre, but there are a couple things to take note of. Jayce knows this apocalypse will be far reaching so people trying to flee "the regular way" almost certainly wouldn't accomplish much. Not to mention going by sea might not have been possible since that's where Noxus was invading from. His waiting till the last minute to single-handedly attempt to shut down the Hexgates still seems like a plot device, you're right. But even if someone else had been there or he'd turned it off earlier, Viktor could have turned it back on in one go like shown. I kinda figured Jayce would blow it up? But no. About his repeatedly attacking Viktor, the show does make it very clear that Jayce is fighting against hallucinations and a really screwed up headspace whenever he is around him. But these visions seem to lessen with time. Each time he sees Viktor he becomes a bit more levelheaded, eventually not hallucinating at all during their final confrontation. And only once inside Viktor's hivemind is he able to really calm down and try to reason with him. It's like he could not think clearly until everything else was stripped away. This is a lot to infer, and I agree it could have been shown better, but this series tries really hard to "show not tell." There are definite weak points but I've actually enjoyed the season more with my couple rewatches rather than less. Because though you see the flaws more, you also see the ways that they could be interpreted differently. Idk, just my take.
@@equestrianrosie Well, he only knows the apocalypse reaches at least to the outskirts of Piltover. Using airships "the regular way" still let's you fly very far in a day and the "fly" part also avoids the Noxian ships. Viktor couldn't have turned the Hex Core on, if they had just taken the fuel rods (or whatever they were) somewhere else. Blowing it up is also a viable option, that could have been used to even greater effect. Imagine Jayce destroying the Machine, just for Viktor to reform it with his magic. That would have been a reasonable power for Viktor to have, one that still could have caught Jayce by surprise. The big question about the visions is: why does Jayce have them? It can't just be the timeline shift, otherwise both him and Ekko would have had them both times they shifted. Was it because of the time he spent in the hole? Then why didn't time wizard Viktor save him to prevent him from going mad? That's actually another problem I just discovered. Why did that version of Viktor let Jayce suffer needlessly in the hole? There was no lesson there, only apparently hallucinations. Time wizard Viktor is basically omnipotent. He must have known. If your explanation was actually supposed to be the reason why Jayce is incapable of arguing, that just means that Viktor is now both malevolent AND stupid. But even then, I feel like you are basically writing the story for them at this point. That might actually be the reason you enjoyed more on you rewatch - your head tried to fix all the problems and the resulting show was better than the one you were actually watching.
@@Grzzgwzz head canon, as they say. I'm definitely giving them the benefit of the doubt, you're not wrong. I think there actually was a point to Jayce falling in the hole though. I don't believe it is a coincidence that he ends up with a jacked up leg, a brace, and had to crawl his way out by not giving up on himself. That reflects Viktor's life path. Jayce lived just a few weeks or months in his shoes. Pair that with an old and essentially reformed Viktor telling him to please show his old self the folly of his ways and Jayce has more reason to try and save Viktor, not just destroy him. Also, we don't see Ekko's mind when he returns to his original dimension. Maybe he was tripping initially too. He sure was when he first showed up in the AU.
Why do you assume Viktor told Jayce "that only he can make the alternate version of him see the error of his ways"? I interpreted those scenes as indicating Viktor told Jayce he had to stop other Viktor at all costs. Hence going straight for killing him. I don't think the show makes old Viktor out to be omni-potent. But that's fine, if it didn't work for you, I'm not here to convince you otherwise. I reckon what people think about this season will be wildly different depending on how you interpreted the very fast, dense plot points.
@@rexanael243 "I thought I could bring an end to the world's suffering. But when every equation was solved all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude. There is no prize to perfection. Only an end to pursuit. In all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this." Not really an interpretation when he directly says it. He solved all equations, and realized the world was left empty, meaningless. So he went to all timelines, explored all possibilities and found Jayce, his dearest friend and partner, was the only person who could "show" him that conclusion, that embracing the Glorious Evolution was flawed. Plenty of other people could have killed Viktor before Singed got his hands on him. Killing him wouldn't require Jayce and only Jayce.
Disagree It's all premeditated and deliberately written the way you witnessed it. The world is so large and alive that you can take any group of characters in it and build their own story. In my opinion what was prevalent in season 2 was to compliment season 1. Rarely do sequels best the original. These are some smart writers, and despite any limitations they told the story they wanted to tell; masterfully. I don't believe that their goal was to best and overshadow their own masterpiece. With season 2 I opinion that they did justice by their adventure/ fantasy Season 2 shows how militant forces always capitalize on the division of others, and while everyone is focusing on their tribal feudes; new characters reach the shores of what you believed this story was alluding to, ready for the first opportunity to crush what was previously established. Control over the people is never the final step. Godhood will always be that. Meanwhile ... we rebrand and rebuild. Season 2 was a tribute, a true sequel in sequel fashion, and it allows us to relieve season 1 with new eyes.
I really hope Jinx survived and fled on that ship. Her entire life has been nothing but chaos and heartbreak. She's suffered enough. She deserves a chance at a new life. A chance to be happy and to figure out all of her shit in peace for once.
For me it felt like they had two seasons cramed into one. Season 1 Unrest - family Season 2 Civil war - friends This is the season they built up in the first 5 episodes. This is the showdown between Piltover and Zaun. This should have been solved before. The whole feeling you got in the last two episodes about everyone coming together for the big fight felt... wrong, not earned. Had they had 3 seasons in total, they could build up to season 3 in this season. Then when it was duked out between the cities you would have... Season 3 Heavenly war - nation Here we would hit the ground running with the Victor debacle and his rise to godhood. Here would we build up with the workings between the Noxian army and Victor on one side and Piltover and Zaun, bloodied, bruised from season 2 and not even able to catch their breath. At the same time Ambessa wondering if she got more than she bargain with with Victor and wondering if she and her army will be turned before the end. Then you have the huge battle in the end with Jayce and Victor. It would be a better progress in my mind.
I think at least 1 more episode would have been perfect. I dont know if youve seen Cyberpunk Edgerunners, but i feel like that show as well could have used an extra episode or 2 just to flesh things out. In any case both are my favorite animated shows and they did an amazing job with them. Cant wait for more
Jayce's lines at the end weren't bad per se, but Viktor's failing body _was_ literally holding him back, he was dying. Can't really blame Viktor for trying to fix that when the alternative is death
season 2 was amazing but i was let down by the piltover/zaun conflict and vi's lack of development. i can't believe season 1 did all this great political worldbuilding just to breeze past it in the finale. sevika on the council doesn't do much for a city that's been oppressed for generations. i wonder if riot prioritized setting up a future noxus show over resolving the story's fundamental conflict. that sucks if true. i also agree that the "end of the world" stakes made the finale feel lame---i'm saying that as a fan of the viktor/hextech plot. there wasn't enough focus on the sisters' relationship. season 1's finale was much more impactful to me and it wasn't even a fight scene, just 4 characters sitting at a table arguing.
My main problem with the show is how fast things move. A lot of times in s2 I would miss the details because I was thinking about the scene before, or sometimes even the before episode. I do plan on re-watching s2 all acts back to back so I can really appreciate the details, the art, and the story as a whole. Another problem I had with how fast things move is that some new characters that were introduced where just brushed off and not really given much of a story. For example: Maddie. I feel like if she was given more of a story instead of just, "Random junior officer, who slept with her boss," she wouldn't be so hated because I feel like she had actual potential for being an interesting character. Instead we were introduced to her in act 1, then again in ep 4 where she was revealed to be sleeping with Cait, and she wasn't really shown again until her betrayal of Piltover where she just died later. So the betrayal didn't even feel like one, because she was so under cooked as a character that most people didn't really care.
I wouldn't even say that it was really good. Just good maybe. I think part of it is my problem because I didn't quite remember certain details from the first season, but I felt this was rushed and needlessly complicated at times. I just didn't care much for any of the characters in this season. I would need to watch both seasons again to give a more balanced opinion, but right now, I don't feel as if that is going to happen anytime soon.
If possible I hope I can add context to the story of league of legends in terms of piltover and zaun with a bit of league as a whole. P/Z use to be apart of shurima. It was known as Osha va’ zaun worshiping Janna. when the empire of shurima fell it became independent and was called zaun. As the city progressed it built over zaun and became piltover. Disaster occurred when trying to build a waterway through the city causing half of the city to fall into a deep canyon where the waterway was. The part of the city that fell would eventually rebuild underground and go back to being called zaun. For world ending treats, piltover and zaun are one of the regions that had non as the story for it was about the twin cities themselves like in season one. They also interacted with the other regions. Piltover explorers go into shurima or bilgewater to find treasure. Zaun has treaties with noxus, where they trade chemical weapon like shimmer for noxus prisoners to work in the zaun mines. For world ending treats the story of league isn’t really about them. They exist but are part of the world in equal amount to personal stories like jinx and vi. In game however it is critiqued by the community that there are way to many. The void in shurima, The void in freljord, The darkin. Mordekaiser, and the shadow isles. The world did not need another, especially piltover and zaun. Season 2 sadly destroys so much of the worlds story that it is saddening where 1 fits in so well. A great example is viktor. He isn’t a world ending treat. he sees weakness in flesh but will help those in need like children that become disfigured from working as child labor, given them new part only if they want them. Another character is Warwick, who is still alive in league but was killed of in arcane. Arcane was the origin story of these characters, but as the influence of game of thrones and marvel came it ruined what made arcane its own thing while killing characters in their own origin story. All in all I hope this can help I have to say s1 10/10 but s2 5/10 due to leaving Piltover and Zaun and at Arcane’s strong direction for a story that kills chapter for the sake of killing them like game of thrones and the marvel age of ultron end fight. If anyone wants to see what the story of piltover and zaun is like I would recommend looking into legends of runeterra. They made so much art and stories for league of legends that sadly s2 undoes if this show is canon
I think they overused montages in this season to get through a lot of plot. in s1, the montages were culminating events that made you feel lots of emotions and show how plotlines come crashing together. This time, they serve to cut down runtime for not much added emotional impact (theyre super good montages! But with 3 episodes we could have gotten a more interesting look at how stuff went down, rather than just that it went down) for example, dynasties and dystopia is this really interesting and stylized fight sequence, but the music cuts out when ekko has to actually get violent. I wish hellfire was similar where we get the quick visual breakdown of caitlyns plan while the lyrics go “can i do the right thing for the wrong reason”, but then we get an actual scene of cait leading kill strikes on the chembarons and maybe vi second guessing her complicitness in enforcer brutality on her home turf
Hot take I did not like how Ekko was the one to talk Jinx out of doing herself in. Maybe it could work for me if they show them interract more but the only time they were on screen together was that one time when they have a death battle on the brigde, Ep 7 showed Ekko feeling towards Jinx but we never have the same thing for Jinx. Also I might have missed it, but how did Ekko know Jinx is going to do what she did? as far as I know he wasnt in this dimension throughout act 2.
I also thought this was disrespectful to the 2nd act, since it seems like her character development there was just reverted, and personally her decision to commit s*cide makes Isha's sacrifice feels rather pointless
Yea, a problem with a rushed show. But Ekko and Jinx were childhood friends. The fight scene between them in season 1 shows flashbacks of them playing together. I think it had to be Ekko though, because Vi can't do it. Jinx and Vi's relationship is just counter productive, which is why Vi had to move on. But Arcane needed like 3 more episodes to fill info.
@@iamnemoo valid point, maybe I was too consumed by my own expectation that I didn't like the show direction. I thought that Jinx was going to overcome this by herself, because I see Jinx becoming much more confident and less self loathing towards the end of act 2, and her experience with Isha and the being the hero would give her some hope to get herself out of rock bottom.
Absolutely agree. There is so much of the quality of season 1 found throughout the story in the animation, emotional beats, character moments, creative locations, fight scenes, and world building. But so much of it is diminished and dragged along by the rushed pacing and bazillion plot points and character arcs. It definitely needed to be more than 9 episodes. 12 could have worked, but with the amount of new ideas and characters they brought in, they could have easily done an extra 2 seasons at the same quality and pacing as season 1. Viktor's transition from compassion to stoic nihilism, the unification of Zaun under the firelights and Sevika, Jayce unifying everyone under one banner against the arcane, Mel's black rose arc, Caitlyn's rise to power and slow compromise of her morals. Every single of these could have used a whole season to flesh out and would have been amazing stories with the pacing and attention to detail given of season 1. Arcane season 2 is still an awesome season of TV but its so bittersweet for me. Seeing so many glimpses of the same brilliance of season 1 to only have it bogged down by what was probably a combination of rushed deadlines, stretch budget, and possibly studio interference makes me feel the loss of what we could have gotten if the showrunners had the space to tell the story that they wanted to.
I'm fine with how S2 went mainly because, even if it's the end of Arcane it is still the spring board for more stories, and I think that's part of how it has to be shaped. There's aspects of finality to it, but it's also leaving some things unresolved. And it was pretty clear from the get go, even in S1, that even with all the personal and political drama these were all going to pale in comparison to the looming threat of the hex-core. They basically threw a Lament Configuration into the middle of a season of the Wire. The SCOPE of these things are very different. I will say that the show did hit the speedbump of what can happen with a lot of multiverse plots in that it winds up siloing your characters. The Ekko+Heimerdinger episode is the biggest effect of this, and even agree it is one of the best of the whole season, you are left with this lingering issue of "Only 2/3 of these characters actually MATTER for the story I've been watching". As great as it was to see these other characters, and to gain some understanding of who they are things had been different, it still leaves a bit of hollowness because these AREN'T the characters we are invested in. And the same can be said with Viktor in his space realm, Mel in her mage prison, Singed for the whole first act just running in the episode stingers off somewhere COMPLETELY else. There was this weird ebb and flow between EVERYONE being smushed together and then EVERYONE off doing their own thing, cut off from the rest, ending with everyone smushed back together. Ambessa being the ultimate villain was kind of an interesting swerve considering everything going on. Like, we knew she was a problem, a menace, but being the APEX villain, in a way a larger threat than Viktor since she was far more intentionally malicious than he ever was, wouldn't have been my guess at the end of S1. But she winds up being an Iago to Caitlyn (And in turn making Caitlyn into Vi's Othello), Claudius to Mel, King Minos to Singed, and even pulling some Keyser Soze shit on top of everything. And all of this still flowed perfectly from everything we knew about her from S1 and wove together a bunch of plot points that had been otherwise somewhat disconnected. The Piltover/Zaun conflict I kind of knew was going to resolve from the "Out of Context"/"Black Swan Event" development. The idea that this petty pissing match has to get put to bed because something bigger and meaner is gonna kill EVERYONE otherwise. But I also love that it's very clearly not just OVER. When Sevika takes her (oh so deserved) seat on the council, you still see one of the other councilors give her a dirty look.
I do have one side thought that I find just greatly amusing: from a meta-textual perspective, Maddie got done dirty. In conception of this character, she's just the freshy soldier, a stock character archetype. And having Cait hook up with her in the mid-point makes sense as a signal of how wrong things are with where Cait is. BUT, at the same time, they knew the shippers would gnaw their way through the drywall about her. And so they give her this "secretly villainous" aspect which MOSTLY makes sense but also immediately justifies any and all hate for her (even if the real reason for a lot of the hate is that she's messing with the OTP). And this in turn means she gets one of the most brutally depicted deaths on the show. I had commented even in Act 1 that the show did some fascinating work of having these horrible deaths, but they're just IMPLIED. The guard getting gutted by a chainsaw, whatever Sevika did to Smeech, all these things where you KNOW what's happening even if they don't show it. But Maddie gets a direct on screen headshot!
In Episode 6 Ambessa says to Vi: "Vi, you are such a curiosity. The one who was able to capture Caitlin's heart. I owe you thanks, your Absence provided a vacuum i was able to fill." This is such a Maddy foreshadow i completely missed on my first time watching. I love arcane is full of those kinds of moments.
Is it fair to say I don’t mind the world ending conflict storyline cause I honestly feel like Piltover and its hardheaded ass would not step down and work with Zaunites and see their potential (not just the council but citizens) unless there was some severely bad shit coming their way and they couldn’t walk around it. There hasn’t been a better time for Piltovans to have to attempt to trust the Zaunites and go through hardships together, grieve together, and need to work together. There’s more of a chance for Piltovans to see the good in Zaun. And for Zaun they finally get the chance to be people to their sister city. It’s probably one of the few times they feel like they can go topside safely cause they know the Piltovans want their help. Is it the ideal situation? No absolutely not Were there probably some A holes during the battle? Yes But Piltover really needed a swift kick in the ass. They can’t avoid mages and they are actually really helpful and not all evil. The tech in Zaun is really useful and not just bad. The people there aren’t what they think they are and are just as good as Piltovans.
To me this season left me with almost identical feelings as season 1. It was break neck, there were things I wish were expanded on, and the ending was open ended. Ultimately once my feelings had settled I came to the conclusion that season 1 was a masterpiece in fiction. I think season 2 will settle in a similar place, but for different reasons. Also with the spin offs I have hope that the story will continue to evolve. They ended arcane because the story of hextech causing a world ending event was over. The series wasn't called two cities (or something similar), so to me the story of piltover and zaun and their divide will continue to be expanded upon at some point. Could be proven wrong, but that's my belief.
12 episodes would have been better but 3 seasons would have been best. I feel like they rushed through the season 1 loose ends in acts 1 and 2 and act 3 felt like a completely different show
2:00 glad so many people share the same opinion as I. It is in fact the best episode and in my opinion actually way more positive, than people describe it to be.
Over 100 years ago we had pictures or photography. Then moving pictures or motion pictures. We’ve had paintings much longer than that, so why did it take so long to have moving paintings. That’s Arcane, it’s gorgeous to watch.
Because of the poor handling of her character in 2nd season is the main reason for the fans' "bad sister" blame. Vi was the most unpredictably practicable character in this season, they did not even tried to develop the arc and biggest missed opportunity. and that can be seen in Hailee Steinfeld's expressions in the interviews. I understand that Vi is purposeless after episode 3, but how she got the purpose back? for whom? jinx? vander? or family? or cait? They only gave us some facial expression, where we needed some dialogues, in my opinion a rage out against Cait or even an emotional break down infront of Jinx could make some difference. Instead they chose utter silence. Even in the final battle, god they didn't even try to use her🤦. They handled Caitlyn arc pretty well, but in ACT II they should've done more for the flip. Most satisfying Arc they gave us for Jinx and Viktor. and like season 1, we got silco here ambessa.
Also regarding the 'save the world' from -Ultron and his robots- Viktor and his servants plotline, even if that is a main part of League, the creators need to realize videogames are a completely separate medium and storytelling that works for videogames doesn't work for tv/film. I posted this on another video: The problem with the 'save the world' type climaxes is the audience KNOWS the protagonists can't fail, and there's no real tension as a result. Look at The Dark Knight trilogy. The climax of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises both involve the complete destruction of Gotham City--the 'world' for those specific movies. Which obviously can't happen, because what are you left with? But what's the climax of The Dark Knight? Two boats. One with criminals, one with civilians. Less than 1000 people. Each has a remote to blow up the other boat and if they don't by midnight, they both blow up. In this case the audience has doubt; and that doubt creates an UNBELIEVABLE amount of tension. Because the question isn't 'HOW will the protagonists succeed', it's 'WILL THEY succeed'. Arcane needed to go smaller and more personal (like season 1) for the climax. Bigger isn't always better.
true, you know they will prevent the apocalypse. but in this case, how many of them would still be alive afterward? some fans figured champion characters wouldn't be killed off. boy were they wrong
@ That’s exactly right. You know they succeed, but the question becomes at what cost. Personally I found more tension in the dinner scene climax of S1 because you didn’t know what Powder/Jinx was going to do in the moment. For a brief second you didn’t know who she chose to shoot, and you don’t know if she’ll go back to Powder or fully become Jinx.
@ Not to say the prevent the apocalypse climaxes can’t be done well, far from it. Lord of the Rings is a great example. You know that ring is going into the fire in the end, but what’s it going to cost to get it there. And I think Arcane S2 could have been something similar with another season of developing the characters.
Saw this comment on another video about Ekko and it seemed amazing to me:
'I request that you rewatch the Ekko scenes in this act with the goal of trying to see how Ekko feels about Jinx. When he's talking to Powder, it seems clear to me that Ekko admires Jinx, even though she's done a lot of horrible things. He seems to think this alternate version is wasting her talent (probably out of guilt). Alt-Ekko has mostly (if not only) known peace, so this repressed Powder might make sense for him. Our Ekko knows war and struggle, and I think he ultimately wants HIS world and HIS (ignited) Powder.
Also notice that when he's flying into battle, Ekko has the X, one of Jinx's most iconic symbols, over his heart. As far as I saw, the X isn't Powder's symbol, so I don't actually think it's referring to her. In the same way, in that final scene where Ekko is resisting Viktor's control, he looks like he's giving in until he see's a pink and blue grin in the sky. That REALLY seems like a Jinx symbol rather than Powder.
So I think despite the praise he gets for "focusing on the present", Ekko thinks that's been a flaw in his mentality. I think he admires the dramatic change Jinx has been able to cause, even though a lot of it has been bad. I think the fact that Powder wants to assist others when she has ideas that can change the world bothers him because it's basically what he's been doing. He's a brilliant mind on par with any of the other scientists in the show, but he's only been concerned with conserving as much as possible, to limit damage. He gave up on the idea that things could progress. Powder is stagnation, or was until she met this Ekko. Jinx is revolution.
So when Ekko sees that grin in the sky, he's thinking "What would JINX do?" and he knows Jinx wouldn't just go quietly. He knows she would go out blowing something up. So he cranks up his Z-Drive, unleashes Chronobreak and throws that ish right in Victor's face. Maybe Ekko knew exactly what would happen he did it. But I see it more like him pulling the pin on a grenade after having been beat down and pressed into the ground. I wonder why that seems so familiar...'
I absolutely fucking LOVE THIS, thank you for sharing this comment. It kinda clicked in my head while reading that Ekko accepted Jinx in the way that Vi didn't -- in the way that Vi still wants Powder, he sorta yearned for Jinx and her ability to create great progress, in her own way. And its kinda powerful, and makes me want to ANALYZE THE CRAP OUT OF THIS. Thank you so much for sharing, again!
Great commentary. I would add that Ekko also impacted the "new" jynx we saw. We can see Ekko symbol all over Jynx balloon and in her arm. He inspired her to be better instead of "i want you to became powder again".
@@lydiscott I live for your analyses and for Ekko, so please don't feel compelled to make a 6-hour video about this, but if you do, I'll be the first to watch it, just saying...
@daequonburnett8195 Good one! Where'd you see that comment?
@@WoJoFe It was in the comment section of this video: ua-cam.com/video/to57_qMauLg/v-deo.html
I know this is bascially blasphemy in the fandom but here goes:
9 episodes are not enough to cover opppression,revolution, police brutality, Caitlyn's Hitler arc AND her redemption and reconicialtion with Vi, civil war, all out war, the Black Rose and the Arcane.
As a result everything but the Arcane and the Black Rose fell flat IMO. They should've dedicated a whole season to everything til Caitlyn's peak evilness and have the third season be about her redemption and the war with Noxus etc.
This way they didn't do any of the major themes and dare I say relationships any justice. Ekko/Powder, Jinx and Vi, Caitlny and Vi, Caitlyn and Jinx, Sevika and Jinx it all felt super rushed and like shit just happened because it needed to happen not because it built up naturally.
Yeah, you pretty much nailed it!
its not even nearly enough...like black rose?? Totally pointless to even introduce LeBlanc when most arcane fans still dont know who she is :D or what black rose is :D Ambessas motivatuions didnt make alot of sense , why would she want entire world of zombies? Caitlyn and Vi s*x scene was one of the most disturibing things I have seen in a hwile....considering thatim an older sister to psychotic little sister who has tried stuff like this in the past...i W found Vis reaction soo unbelievable or sociopathic even... you dont just accept your little sisters d*ath...and then go and f**k... my bf isnt even on my mind when my little sistyer goes trough a crisis like this ...also the way it happened it was like straight up taken from Lol fanart of Cait and Vi having s*x-...so it was soo obvuious what a fanservice it was while scene didnt need to be there at all.... especially in that same cell her sister was just rotting in... then the fact that Zaun and Piltover just get along like that....like why? how? after decades of oppression and poisoning its all just forgotten with 5 minutes... yeah Im sorry but theres soo many problems here that you just cant ignore, also Jinxs sacr9ifice I hate how it was done... it basically happened cause Vi was acting stupid...eventhough just 1 episode ago she was gladly running from Warwick .... now she suddenly has a mental breakdown, it was soo obvious that this wa written so Jinx could somehow die and then later they kinda hint that no she is actually alive which not only cheapens the sacrifice but also makes it feel like why would dshe do that to Ekko of all people? Faking your death is pretty horrible thing to do to your loved ones
It shouldn't be blasphemy. Season 2 had very clear pacing issues. The creators are gonna be telling more stories set in this universe, and we really need to hold these guys accountable for their mistakes lest they make more of these mistakes in the future.
@@HK-gm8pe To be very fair, Vi didn't know her little sister was gonna commit suicide.
I didn't mind Vi and Caitlyn hooking up. My bigger issue had more to do with the steps and beats that led up to that part in their relationship arc. I felt there really needed to be more friction between Vi and Caitlyn, especially in regards to Caitlyn's dictator arc, before they eventually and inevitably hook up in the end.
I really didn't like the "unite the two cities by giving them a common enemy" plot. Like that's supposed to address any of the systemic issues plaguing both cities
I can’t believe this is considered blasphemy
Season 1 just felt like a much more personal story. It was an intimate look into their lives, their motivations, their flaws, and how despite their best intents every single character is flawed in some way. Nobody is an outright cartoon villain, or a pure and pristine hero.
Season 2 needed more time to tie up all the plot threads and unresolved character arcs. We don’t need to see everyone get a happy ending, or even a ‘where are they now’ segment, but my biggest question after the finale is what happened to Zaun? Surely there are still a plethora of issues to be resolved, despite a truce against a common enemy.
Arcane is a great show. I just wish it had more than two seasons
Y U P
Well there’ll be other show sooo
@@skytheemperor it isn't about quantity. I would've preferred a more complete closing of the show otherwise it'll just feel like marvel slop.
@@thegreatlemonman5209 yeah but it would cool if they make something like a novel to explore what happens and also Jinx is PROBABLY alive. There’s also some plot lines and stuff that feel rushed so a novel could be great imo. But I’d love a show on Yasuo
just a bit more runtime to give certain plotlines more room to breath would have been great.
I liked most of season 2 but the finale felt too fast. Stuff like Jinx's final developmemt, Vi's reaction to it, Ambessa's death etc all could have used more time in the oven.
Yeah, like, I feel like there was more character interaction we could've gotten. I really wish we'd seen Jinx and Ekko talk after he stopped her from pulling the pin on that grenade. I feel like that was a really important, fulfilling moment we will never see.
It also felt weird to just cut away from most of the character resolutions and drama and so on going on to the angels/hivemind business? Like it took all of those and then just "oop, nevermind, all of you are being uploaded to the matrix regardless and there's nothing you can do" ... and then that only jayce and viktor's conflict/one conversation-ish was what did everything ... and then not getting to see almost any of the wrap-up emotional post-processing beyond maybe the most marginal bit of Cait and Vi
Some people said that Season 2 felt like it should’ve had 12 episodes instead of 9, and I’m inclined to agree. Stuff like Mel’s recruitment by the Black Rose, Vi’s mental spiraling, and Caitlyn’s time as a dictator should’ve been given more time. Not to mention new characters like Loris and Maddie just being introduced and then killed off with very little development. Overall, I did still enjoy Season 2 though.
And Viktor cosplay Uchiha Madara to get talk no jutsu from Jayce is ugg. Feels like writers don't know what to do with Pilt vs Zaun conflict and they just slap Naruto plot line in to end the thing
"The biggest problem with Arcane is that there is not enough Arcane".
Yeah, that's pretty much it
Arcane needed at least one more season.
The transition from "class struggle" to "cosmic entity" was to rushed.
EP 7 was a masterpiece but the rest... Sevika didn't even had voice lines in the end.
Great season, awesome show but could have been even better...
It only needs 2 seasons if not for that stupid and unnecessary Noxian subplot introduced late in Season 1
I think that the point in the change in "class struggle" to "cosmic entity" is like S1 dont have any impacy, only to show the Characters.
And yea the Subtrama about noxus and specially the black Rose and Mel magician was a waste of time
I kinda spaced out with the cosmic entity plot line. I was like "cool, I guess" but I cared so much more about what the sisters were going through
@@CzarsSalad I dont agree, there needed to be a tie in for rest of universe personally
@@d4s0n282 nah... they should've limited the number of characters in season 1... and minor characters should remain minor characters. no amount of additional season would cure this.... this will only drag the other characters' arc.
I suppose on the whole I am "content" with what we got. I don't feel cheated, I still find new things when I look through it again, it is rife with beautiful parallels both in the writing and in the blocking of shots. Ekko's story, despite being a short element of it is the most beautiful and surprisingly fleshed out simply due to who is character is.
I think my biggest criticism is that they lacked the time to really make me believe or care about some elements. I felt we lacked seeing the Piltover v Zaun element I was hoping for, Cait's villain arc felt resolved a bit too easily, we barely see Vi at rock bottom and what it truly does to her. I really honestly believe a third season would have been more than enough to round things out and keep the quality of storytelling consistent with Season 2 being primarily Piltover vs Zaun and Season 3 being Piltover/Zaun vs Noxus. Also needed more found family time with Jinx, Isha, and Sevika.
Not a bad season of a show by any means but while I'll always give Season 1 a 10/10, Season 2 comes out with more of an 8/10.
Well said!!
Personally, I didn't want to see Noxus there at all other than as a background element to the story
@@chrishaven1489 I get that. It did detract from the story. Personally I kinda thought the Noxus influence would be not very big before season 2 came out simply because I thought Ambessa had only one ship and that her role would be influencing Piltover/lending what few troops she had.
I feel like most of the problems are connected to overall theme of Arcane. Forgiveness, embracing impperfections and becoming a better person by learning from your past can only work if ... characters learn from their mistakes and forgive each other. Fixing things does not carry the same tragic emotional punch as repeating mistakes.
The most powerful moment for me was Isha sacrifice for this exact thing. It works because it's tied directly with Jinx. Jinx changed which allowed her to teach Isha all the great things. Isha does the very same thing Powder did in s1e3 but pulled it off thanks to her confidence and good mentor. It says the same amount of things about Isha as it does about Jinx herself.
As a non League player I felt the whole Black Rose plot could have been removed completely and it would have given so much breathing space for the other plots. When you think about it, a mage organization seeking some mcguffin or something to gain power, isnt even innovative or interesting. It's also very vagely told, and kinda boring. I think its only there as fan service to LoL players who care who Leblanc is, and to add two more champions to the game (as if the game didn't have enough of them). It also serves the purpose of keeping the narratives open to make more money with more series, but in any case, the whole Black Rose plot is not there to aid the rest of the story, but rather to take away from it. They could have come up with another reason for Ambessa to want to control Piltover and recover all those precious minutes we spent seeing leblanc rambling and mel gaining her powers, and use them to further other plots more in the theme of social injustice and rebellion, which were the primary themes of the series.
Yeah, Black Rose definitely feels like a setup for the future and not so much important here. Other than Mel helping protect Jayce in the council chamber, she didn't have an actual impact on the main battle. LeBlanc implied she was supposed to help prevent this apocalypse but she had zero affect on what Viktor did. Would have loved those scenes to have been swapped for something more focused on the main story.
In an interview with an Arcane writer, he said they're looking at Noxus, Ionia, and Demacia for future projects; so I'm guessing since Black Rose kinda has their hands all over the Runeterra, or centered in Noxus, is why they're introducing LeBlanc and the Black Rose now. There's quite a few characters around Runeterra that are connected to, crossed paths with, fought with, etc with the Black Rose. And I personally didn't mind Black Rose, it was a subplot line and I think they left enough clues/hints where people can figure out they're a secret society collecting "weapons" (mages), the audience doesn't need to know their purpose and goal is preventing necromancer warlord Mordekaiser from coming back while he's cooking under Noxus. But we'll see
@@iamnemoo I know that's their purpose, but I hope they change it for the next series and give them a better one. Preventing a necromancer who is coming back sounds more like the type of simplistic good vs evil that marvel does, rather than the intricacies in moral ambiguity of arcane. I'd rather see an organisation with a realistic and clear goal rather than "let's get power" or "let's stop the end of the world", etc. I get that simple stuff like that works for a videogame like LoL where plot isn't even important, but in arcane it just felt too shallow.
@@Ian-hm4ldthe nuance in the black rose comes from their methods and motives to stop mordekaiser once he comes back, they are genuinely cruel and dont really care that much about the life in runeterra, theyre just scared shitless of mord
For instance, they created a whole training academy where they locked literal children into fighting eachother to death until they develop magic powers
I know its not your point, but i wanted to point out the arcane writers can do amazing complex stuff with them, the same way they did for S1, since before that piltover and zaun's lore didnt really dwelve into the nitty gritty of police brutality, opression and class struggle that the show went into, the writers took a somewhat underdeveloped plot beat and made it into a complex political storyline
They can do the same thing again
I felt like if tgey were doing it should have had more pop up either in season 1 or them doing an extra season or not having it at all. Tho I assume it's important for the in gane characters. I've never played LOL so I'm not sure.
I agree 100%. I felt like the build up that Jinx was going to be the main villain didn't close out right. Then having Ambessa and Victor becoming co-main villains seemed rushed. Season 1 (10/10) Season 2 (8/10)
This!
Jinx being the final villain ended in S2Ep3 where have you been1?
I'll take dad over people giving you a 6 or a 5 out of 10 and yes those people exist Sadly
Why did you think Jinx would be the main villain?
The writing was on the wall in season 1. Too many minor characters that have main character motivations.
For me, Mel was vastly under utilized in season 2.
In season 1 she was intriguing, mysterious manipulative, while also being empathetic and headstrong.
I was so confused that her personality was reduced to magic empath and that she spent most of her screen time being expository dumped on to explain the disappearance of her brother with the few episodes they had left.
Her plot felt the most rushed and like the writers were waiting to do something with her but they just couldn’t figure out what.
I keep seeing people praising foreshadowing but imo they rely too much on something being parallel but it isn’t actually in favor of what has been set up with established character behavior
Mel was, in general, looking at the two seasons, a great character. I'm biased here because I'm also a big fan of her style in general. But I also enjoyed her story and development. S2 was not giving her a big part beside her stopping Ambessa. They tried to set up the future with her, which is alright. 9 episodes can just show and focus on that much - you have limits and it does not help to lament that with more time they could have done better. Mel was never the main story; she just enriched it on important aspects on the side of Piltover. Still one of my favourites of many shows - but again, I'm biased simply on her design, the normal one, and also the golden power stuff. The white, the gold, the black...
I guess it's a matter of taste - I just don't like the Infinity Wars style Final battle to save the world kind of finale. It somehow always feels hollow and too abstract. And it definitely doesn't feel like something that belongs in the show we saw in season 1. So for me it's not really a matter of having more episodes. Sure, additional time would have helped to better explain Viktor's motivation and all the multiverse, multiple timelines stuff, but ultimately I just would have preferred that they didn't take the story in that direction at all and instead just focus on wrapping up the Piltover vs Zaun and Vi vs Jinx stories.
Whatever people say, Arcane's already made its rebuttal: "There's beauty in imperfections"
The full context of that statement is wild. It' like telling a leukemia patient their diseases makes them beautiful. Very tone deaf, Jayce.
@@blacktigerpaw1 I'm honestly a bit baffled by the introduction of this idea in the last act. Viktor and Jayce in season 1 pursue hextech (recklessly perhaps) because they wan't to improve people's standard of living, curing diseases and so on. Like, very concrete, practical things. What the hell has that got to do with erasing all imperfections? They never say that in season 1. In fact, does Viktor actually ever say that? Feels like retcon to me. The introduction of the whole Glorious Evolution theme felt poorly setup IMO.
Hmmmm. They're gonna tell more stories set in this world. It would help the creators in the long run if you held them accountable for their "imperfections" with the goal of improving in the future. Instead of just saying "well, nothing's perfect, let's move on."
Jayce is so detached from viktor that he forgot arcane Viktor’s story was about his lack of control of anything and not og Viktor’s “humanities imperfections” belief
@@blacktigerpaw1except viktor was disabled before they realized he was terminal. jayce reacted to the news like he never expected it. and when viktor first started adding shimmer to augment himself, what happened? it went to strengthening his legs. repairing the imperfection, not just keeping him alive. that’s how i interpreted what jayce was saying - i understand how people might find it tone deaf, but i read it as jayce referring to viktor’s DISABILITY, not his illness. and as a disabled person, i really like that mindset, i hate the outlook of pretending like there’s nothing “wrong” with my body because objectively there is. my body is imperfect. but that imperfection absolutely shaped me into the person i am today.
but i’ll give it to you that the line would work better if viktor didn’t have lung cancer, or whatever illness was killing him
I don't disagree with anything you said; all spot on (except for Vi and Catelyn getting it on for the first time, that we know of, in a grimy jail cell that housed Vi's own sister for an undisclosed amount of time while she's literally trying to kill herself; that didn't sit well with me). I also think the season was good but not a masterpiece like S1. And it boiled down to the lack of character moments. Almost everyone's favorite episode, mine included was episode 7. It was by far the most intimate and character driven episode. S2 as a whole tried to do too much in too little time.
I laughed so hard I spat out my drink reading your thoughts on the intimate jail cell scene 😂 none of that even crossed my kind first time through but youre completely right its so out of place
It had fewer episodes so that didn't help. But I don't feel cheated I'd happily watch the show again and still enjoy it just wish we had a few extra episodes to flesh it out a bit more. I'm interested by other shows they plan on doing.
I do not mind the cell scene. The only question here might be how certain it was that Jinx would kill herself. Need to watch that part again; I think it is definitely obvious for the viewer, but not certain if it is the case for Vi. Could it be understood that she is just going away? But I think her last sentence was strongly hinting towards suicide. Thats a big point, but this one a side, I do not have a problem at all. Neither Vi nor Cait are squeamish. Vi lived in such a cell for what, 6 years? It is war all around; the end might be near and even your sister just told you, go be with Cait. Well, you just do it; nothing I lose sleep over-with the one exception I've mentioned at the start-this would indeed be a deal breaker.
It is CRAZY that Ekko and Vi have no dialogue in season 2. The show was able to get lift off with a shift from plot driven to character driven story telling. Well, for a show that’s character driven, some of these characters don’t interact much.
I noticed this too. No mention of Ekko from Vi after he disappeared. He literally saves everyone's ass and is alone at the end. I kinda wish they had included Vi sitting on that ledge with him, an arm around him while he burns the paper. That would have been enough to acknowledge their connection without taking up more runtime.
They didn’t have them talk because that would mean ekko would have found out that the girl vi told him to trust became hitler while he was gone and made zaun worse than it ever was
If they talked ekko would have been pissed at vi and called Caitlyn out on her bs but of course we need caitvi above all else so they never do
@@coldfury2652 Cait was never like Hitler; stop with that stupid comparison. She enforced martial law in a warlike scenario. Zaun aint a bunch of Jews, and her using grey ain't what the Nazis did. Nuances matter and if you are stuck on such simplistic exeggeration, no wonder you get disappointed. And they did call her out for it, watch the show when Vi wakes up, or with Loris leaving. But you guys need to see the world more realistically and not just in black and white. Desperation is a big driver; making mistakes as well and try to make the best out of something. We got this in S1 with Jayce; we got this in S2 to an extent with Caitlyn and Vi in general as well. Zaun made Zaun worse then it ever was - through Jinx, through their chem barons and through their stubbornness to not give up Jinx. Piltover made it also worse, but just as a reaction. Cait tried to contain it first and later on gets manipulated through grief to step over the line, which is still not much over the line. Firelights fought against their own; no wonder Piltover fought against them after getting attacked over and over.
I honestly was disappointed by the last 2 episodes. While ep 7 was a stroke of genius and probably the most beautiful episode of the show ep 8&9 were far too fast and they put too much emphasis on the epic spectacle. This led to a significantly atrophied character arc for everyone so that at the end I didn‘t even care at all about Jinx death (which should have been the most emotional scene of the whole show!).
Still Arcane as a whole is a masterpiece of storytelling, animation-excellence and character-development and the meh-ending won‘t change that for me 🤘🏻 Prolly would have needed half a dozen more episodes to fully round it up.
Well said! Kinda reminds me of mass effect in that sense. Great series, even if the ending wasn't exactly what we all hoped it would be.
@ That‘s the exact same example I was thinking about when contemplating Arcanes ending!
@@NomadSoulNC ill never not play those games and think "what if we had the dark energy plot they were building in mass effect 2" ahhhh
@ 🤣🙈 Yeah… It kind of made so much more sense than „Yo, we built some synthetics to kill you in order to save you and not be killed by synthetics…“ 😳🙈
I've never cried as much as watching this show only to feel really uninvested in the final two episodes. It's hard to pun down exactly why but while watching for the first time I had thoughts like "And THIS is what the writers chose to do right now?" That's a bad sign. It's like I had trusted the characters more than the writers. That was not my Vi. That was not my Ambessa. That was not my Victor.
The intricate build-up did not deserve the end it was given. It felt tacky, cartoonist and left me so disappointed. But only because they made me have such incredibly high expectations. Still a great series. If only they stuck the landing. -sigh-
I know that this is basically fanfiction but I think that the story could have been a lot more satisfying if they had just nixed the Black Rose stuff. It adds too much complexity. Mel's arc could have been about her trying to outmaneuver her mother and landing smack in the middle of Zaun/Piltover politics. Imagine Ambessa elevates Caitlyn to a dictator and despite Mel's warnings she accepts it in a blind rage against the people, who in her view, killed her mother. Mel could have gone (or been shoved out) of the upper city to seek allies in Zaun and been confronted by the pain caused by the system she created. She could have developed her empathy/shield powers while attempting to protect Zaunites from enforcer thugs.
She could have linked up with Sevika the two of them could have struck an uneasy alliance that could credibly explain the Zaunites participation in the final fight.
Wait, this is galaxy brain. I loved that Mel got to be a badass mage but it was definitely a side plot in a season wayyy too full of side plots. This would tie in so much better and keep the piltover/Zaun conflict central.
Ugh you're so right and I hate we didn't get this. It would've been so much more interesting and a lot more organic follow up to Mel's role in season 1 as politician than "and then magic"
In short arcane ultimately kinda falls into cinematic universe problem. Instead of trying tell a closely knitted story between the two cities which season 1 was all about, they tried setting up everything for the future stories and lost focus. Entire jinx vs vi and piltover vs zaun plot was overshadowed by time travel, glorious evolution, noxus, black rose and magic and ended up not really landing a satifying conclusion to all those plots.
Difficult decision here - League of Legends is a much bigger and more connected world and with certain champions in the centre of a show, you are somewhat forced. But in general, I'm always more of a closely knitted story fan; nonetheless, this universe with Viktor as one main plot was limited. Still also not a fan of multiverses that much. I can see them dialing back in the future for more seperated shows/ stories. It's a learning curve, nobody probably new where the journey would go with Arcane, how much space they will have to develop anything. So you make a decision and have to live with the outcome of it and the turns it will take even if you can't see them at that moment.
He doesn't "throw away" the perfect life with his dream girl. He knows he doesn't belong there and that he has probably displaced the Ekko of that world and even if he was willing to abandon his own world, he would not be able to live with himself, knowing that his selfishness quite possibly doomed this softer Ekko to a life, most likely near-instant death, in his own universe.
An unfitting turn of phrase on my part! Love this!
Also, I think it undermines the deeper lesson of the episode if Ekko stays. That alternate universe still had its issues. Vi's dead in that world. But despite her death, the characters moved on to try and build a better world. "Sometimes moving forward means leaving a few things behind." Despite how bad things can get, we can still end up building a better world. Ekko brings that lesson back to save Jinx's life.
Ekko sacrifices his own happiness to fight for his people. I don't think that decision is too hard for people who already would give anything for their people. And this "trip" just showed him that even his Jinx might have potential. Him abandoning his people/timeline, I think, is way more difficult for him. Easy decision for everyone who truly loves. Ain't about what you possess; its about what your loved ones can have.
When I first watched the ending, I was fuming. I literally could not fall asleep until like 5 am. lmao
Then I rewatched some scenes, vented a bit on reddit, watched some reviews and I calmed down a bit. Honestly I spent half of my sunday in depression listening to the soundtrack.
Then I came to terms with the ending and appreciated it a bit more.
Christian Linke spent so much time in the last week answering questions and explaining what happened that it's very clear that we needed more Arcane. One more season, one more arc, 10 more minutes. Most people didn't dislike s2 in itself but just the rushed pace. And if a creator has to answer questions and criticisms all day (he even responded to my reddit post saying that they lacked the time and budget) ... well let's just say I'm glad he said they would learn from this experience and I'm also glad that he knows that as a whole, Arcane is amazing and I hope that one day we get to see a Jinx/Ekko spin-off or continuation of their storyline. Would also love if they did something more with Vander/Warwick (he's the one character who I feel got a really undeserved ending. Both character wise and in terms of how they set up his redemption arc.
Arcane is amazing. It's a beautiful show with incredible animation, soundtrack and a great story. One of the best and most emotional things I've ever watched. And the first 7 episodes of s2 were fantastic! I was more hyped during s2 than I ever was during the first season - if there were a few more episodes I'd have loved how they had increased the scope of the whole show and how much action & plot we get into so few episodes. But in the final two episodes, they overdid it a bit. There were still amazing moments during these episodes though!
Nevertheless, studio Fortiche and Riot really cooked. I will always love this show.
The main consensus with everyone who watched season 2 is "I would've preferred xyz more imo." Every reviewer, and every commenter has their personal nitpicks. But I think this is just a testament to how good the show is. The bottom line is that on a personal level, we just want to see more of this show. But I don't think the show was "rushed," this was just how the creators thought it be best to tackle this season. I believe that everything they did wasn't out of "rushing," or "budget." This was just how they chose to make this season, and I think it's phenomenal, and I enjoyed it more than season 1.
I think the pacing of this season is the same as season 1, but there's just crazier things happening in season 2. So everyone wants certain parts a tad bit more fleshed out. Me personally, I was ecstatic about everything except with black rose.
I'll be doing a review on the season and characters myself, although I have little to know subs to my name lol. But overall, phenomenal show and storytelling, 11/10 must watch.
I think a few more episodes (And less meddling from Riot execs) would've been good for the finale. They wrapped it up pretty quick and I feel like it shifted into a plot focused rather than character focused narrative, which came at the expense of the time needed to get the sort of nuanced and layered character interactions we see in season 1. That being said, S2 E7 was my favorite episode from the whole show, and Arcane is still my favorite show as a whole.
Very well said, i love your point about character focused vs plot focused.
If you don't mind me asking, what's your source on the pacing issues being caused by Riot execs meddling with the show? I'm not questioning your honesty, but there's a lot of misleading and deceptive ragebait going around about Arcane's production, and I just want to make sure you aren't using one of those as your source
Not sure if I can put it above The Monster You Created or The Base Violence Necessary for Change but E7 is absolutely the best in the season. And I think most would agree. It’s the one episode that slowed tf down and focused on what made S1 a masterpiece: the characters. I think just about everyone is in agreement that more time was needed to tell the story effectively. How much time is debatable but one season wasn’t enough. Personally I found the season good, not great, but ultimately a little disappointing.
@@iSmartMan1 Nah, I can feel the Riot execs meddling with the show. I've seen it before. Riot has a history of meddling with narratives in the name of selling skinlines; Brawler Vi, Commander Caitlyn, Augmented Warwick, the new Viktor VGU. It wouldn't surprise me if the writers had to bend over backwards to accommodate these skins into the story
@chrishaven1489 I'm just saying, that wouldn't make much sense with how Fortiche's production process works, and while Riot meddling with the show could change my opinion on the show's quality, I'll need something more solid than vibes before I incorporate that into my assessment.
11:15 I really like the reversal of the Zaunite getting to have a fun, chill time while a Topsider has to go through an incredible amount of suffering in a location that is physically deep in the ground
about vi's character development: she ended up in a much better place than she started, and that was while hitting rockbottom. her arc wasn't upwards, it was downwards and she recovered.
Ekko is, indeed, the best character. i wouldn't have liked to see him in the counsil, he lacks experience. Sevika has a lot more experience and Ekko can take her place when the time comes.
Vi's character development was missing a few beats imo. She turned on Jinx a little quickly for me. I love the ViCait relationship and I love how they made up in the end, but I do think that relationship arc was missing a few beats of friction between them, primarily revolving around Caitlyn's dictator arc.
Also Jinx is alive
I would have liked to see both honestly. The council is out of a competent scientist. Jayce is gone; Viktor well never was on the council but capable is gone; lets not mention Jinx and Singed for obvious reasons, but Heimer is gone. Ekko would make sense to continue this tradition and Zaun definitely deserves a second spot. And Ekko has grown, I think he is more ready than Jayce was when he became part of the council.
I've been going over reviews and reactions over the last couple of days, and something that stood out was an interview of Christian Linke, in which he basically confessed that they just wanted to move on from Arcane, because they have already spent close to 9 years on this project and wanted to focus their attention on other things. Sadly I have heard this rhetoric before and every time it leads to a rushed finale and half baked conclusions to the story of the show. S2 is not bad, but considering how much they had to cover in order to flesh out every single plot point, the end result is a rushed mess, that took a couple of shortcuts just because they wanted to put a bow on it and neatly wrap it up. Maybe my opinion is controversial , but the show did not deliver from a storytelling standpoint. If I have to rate it, it's a 7/10, it pains me to say.
(S1 is goated 10/10)
" he basically confessed that they just wanted to move on from Arcane, because they have already spent close to 9 years on this project and wanted to focus their attention on other thing"
This......makes me angry. This season deserved a lot better than what it got
I can understand if they wanted to move on and I don't know any details but what did they need 9 years for? 2 seasons?
@@malafakka8530 "Wanting to move on" is the reason why the Game of Thrones final season fell flat on its face. Lets try not to repeat the mistakes of the past
@@chrishaven1489 uhm, yes? Who said anything about that or otherwise????
@chrishaven1489 I was a bit confused, but still, wanting to move is perfectly fine. Not everybody wants to spend so many years on one project. You should only make sure that everything gets wrapped up nicely or that you leave it in capable hands. I just wouldn't have expected that they spent 9 years on this.
Fun fact! There was a deleted scene regarding Ekko talking Jinx out of suicide, where he tells her about the good version of herself (Powder) and Jinx recognizes the monkeys on his Zdrive and agrees to join the fight, but it was obviously cut out.
Some of my observations and comments in light of your video:
1. I noticed that both in the main and alternative world, Jinx is happiest and healthiest when she grows out of her dependency on Vi.
I think in Season 1, when Vi ditches Powder, she ditches the Powder personality and constructs the Jinx personality because Vi was the emotional anchor for Powder and now she was gone, and the rest of the season has her grappling with who to be when Vi re-enters her life. Even in Season 2 Act 1, her life is still defined by her conflict with Vi, to the point of wanting Vi to kill her.
But in S2A2, she's no longer fixated on Vi. Even when she asks Vi to help with Vander, Vi feels like the outsider to the very healthy and happy Jinx/Isha duo. When Vi accidentally hits Isha, Jinx literally pushes Vi away to run to Isha, and from the expression on her Vi's face, I reckon she's thinking "this is what Jinx has become with a sister that believed in her, and I could have been that sister". But back to the original point, this is the healthiest version of Jinx we see in the main world, a Jinx that has left behind the Vi-dependant Powder and, with the support and love from Isha, become her own person as Jinx.
In the alternate world, Powder also grows out from Vi's shadow, out of necessity since Vi dies in that world. But in leaving behind her dependency on Vi, she grows up mentally healthy and sound and happy. I wonder if this is meant to illustrate that even in relationships with people who love you, dependency is never healthy.
2. I think the strongest evidence for Jinx surviving were 2 points you didn't mention.
2a. At the end Caitlyn is seen holding a fragment of Jinx's grenade and thinking deeply as she looks at the plans for the hexgate. Caitlyn is shown throughout the show to have remarkable deductive abilities when reviewing the scene of an incident, so the fact that she's investigating something about Jinx's supposed death is already a huge hint - perhaps that no body was found. She then focuses on the shaft that Jinx and Vander were falling through, and then zooms to the diagram of the "Air duct and cooling system" that branch from that shaft, and it's then that she seems satisfied.
2b. During Necrit's interview with Christian Linke after Act 3 was aired, when Chris is pressed on the issue of whether Jinx is alive, his answer is "Figure it out. Figure it out." I think we were meant to initially think Jinx died, then after taking a closer look at the hints, work out that she actually probably survived.
3. I love that, given how quickly things progressed, we never really see Jinx recover from her depression at Isha's death. Even when she makes her big entrance with Ekko, when she looks up from under her hood, there's no smile or look of triumph, just the saddest eyes. Depression takes a long time to heal, and grieving the loss of a loved or a relationship one takes time, and I'm glad the writers acknowledged that by allowing Jinx to fly off into the sunset to have time to heal and recover before we, hopefully, see her again in one of the spin-offs.
4. Absolutely with you on Ambessa. I love her characterisation in her music video - she's an absolute badass. But I also hate everything she does in the show, even understanding that she's trying to gain power to protect Mel from the Black Rose and avenge Kino. If only she was able to see and trust in Mel's strength without Mel having to defeat(kill?) her first.
5. I believe Mel has been confirmed to be the next champion to be added to the League of Legends roster.
6. Speaking of attention to detail, did you know that almost every opening in season 2 has hidden frames relevant to each episode? There's a youtube clip out there comparing all the openings simultaneously.
7. Did you know that Heimerdinger's voice actor actually sang that song in episode 7!? So good!
8. The "woke-mind virus" allegation might have come from speculation that Jayce and Viktor were portrayed as becoming a couple in the end. Christian Linke however confirmed in an interview with Necrit that Jayce and Viktor never become a romantic couple, and that they were meant to be a protrayal of a very deep non-romantic friendship between bros. Not sure if I can post a link to the interview, but it's at about minute 41 that he starts the discussion.
Oh, 1 more observation: in the big battle, the Enforcers were wearing blue while the Noxians were wearing red. In League of Legends, the minions on 1 side wear blue while the minions on the other side wear red. COINCIDENCE? 😹
@@gabrieltang1776In the final battle of the show, everyone is miserable. This is a reference to how League of Legends makes you feel.
Necrit made a video with Christian Linke and he straight up told him that the season felt rushed, and Linke said that every second of animation adds to the budget. So if we had 12 episodes instead of 9 Arcane would've beaten its own record for most expensive animated series
I’d have accepted a downgrade in the animation even, if it meant the writers could cook more LOL Ahhhhh dang it
@@lydiscott I would've accepted a wait until January to let the writers, animators, and the whole team cook up a 12-ep S2 (4 eps her Act instead of 3), even if it meant the animation took a bit of a hit. The story is a beautiful clay sculpture, but the second half feels smushed together to fit its display case. Nothing in it was bad, just needed some more time to breathe.
@@lydiscottThe problem with having animation quality this consistently amazing is it can't be downgraded without sticking out like a sore thumb. It took them 9 years to make these 2 seasons, and because of how Fortiche's production pipeline works, any major story changes would either have to be committed to months (or even years) before the scenes get animated OR they would have to add months to the production time to replace scenes that had already been animated. People keep trying to find someone to blame for meddling to explain why parts of this season feel "rushed", but none of them really account for the fact that the pacing issues they see couldn't have been caused by ill-considered executive decisions trying to cut down on costs or production time, since those kinds of changes would have increased the costs and production time instead of reducing them.
They should've gotten another season
@@chrishaven1489 They planned on two seasons from the beginning, so I guess blame the writers?
I’ve been trying to puzzle this out for myself too. It’s a fine season. There are awesome elements. But the overall loaf is half baked. Like they left half of their story out of their story. Why don’t I understand why Ambessa, Viktor, real-or-hexcore Sky, Maddie, Caitlyn, etc. make the decisions or leaps that they do? Why did such amazing characters feel like they were getting pushed by the plot (the writers) instead of the other way around? I don’t know. Maybe it’s, if you’re going to make your story in the mystery genre instead of a tragedy this time, you need to realize that even more is riding on how you conclude and tie it all together. Or how you don’t.
Also disapointed there wasn't more local politics lol it kinda ended up becomig an international.. magical apocalypse?.. Conflict??
Mostly im sad the characters didn't get as much focus as they did compared to the plot this season?
Definitely agree they could've used another season or at least another arc to rly get that emotional attachment down pat, ya kno?
But yeah, still held up tbh but im not like Excited to rewatch it like i was w s1
I do think that they did a good job with subtle representations of Caitlyn’s changing opinions. HOWEVER, I think in general we needed 1-2 more episodes to see how greatly things changed inbetween episodes 3 and 4. Additionally, I wish the finale ended up being a whole hour and a half. They did an incredible job balancing the action with story for such a short episode finale, but that extra time could’ve made it even better.
I really loved season 2. I agree with most of your points.
The sticking point for me is Vi.
It feels that much of the outcome of her story is about Jinx letting go of Vi, and Caitlyn letting go of her hate of Jinx, thus "freeing" Vi in a sense. Which IS good. But I had hoped Vi to come to some sort of decision on her own to make a change of some sort. But rather it seems she is just unable to let go of Jinx, of the people she loves, to a fault. She just made the same decisions. Maybe that's the point they wanted to make with her, but I had hoped that she could eventually find the means to move on, on her own terms. And I feel that this is missing a little.
She ends up in a good place, but it doesn't feel that she made a meaningful step to deal with her traumatic experiences. It's why the last scene between Vi and Cait felt hollow to me. It looks sweet, but Vi is still very hurt. I think the scene is balancing grief and their love, which ends up making the scene unfulfilling. Neither of these important points for Vi are fleshed out enough, and the scene suffers, in my mind at least.
I think I would be less torn up about it if there was an additional scene dedicated to Vi grieving, so that the scene with Vi and Caitlyn could present the start of Vi's healing.
Or maybe I'm overthinking that scene. Caitlyn slowly losing her smile as the scene fades away also makes me wonder what she's really thinking. The scene ends with more questions than answers.
mini-rant notwithstanding, I really love season 2. I just wish Vi had a little more agency at the end I guess.
Edit: I think if the final scene between Vi and Caitlyn was something like Caitlyn setting up a small memorial for Vi's family, just between them. Maybe they light incense like Powder does for Vi in the alternate timeline. It would be a scene that allows Vi to grieve, but also demonstrates Caitlyn's love for Vi by supporting her in her healing. I think something like that would work a little better, and it's all contained to a single scene. But what's done is done.
I think "Flawed Masterpiece" applies here. Everything we needed for this story to work and hit us right where they wanted to hit us was there in the end, but there are definitely moments when, especially on first watch, you kind of scratch your head and think to yourself, "Wait, what? Why?"
So many moments where just a few additional character beats to carry us from one point to another would have smoothed out some of the jarring edges... but always, on reflection, it makes sense.
If Season 1 was a 10 out of 10, Season 2 is a 9.4 out of ten for a final rating of 10 out of 10 for the series.
I M O
TLDR of my gripes;
- Writers trying to have their cake and eat it too (trying to have two things at once, making both fall flat, like Caitlyn’s dictator arc)
- Too many plot twists, too many dramatic scenes, and too much fanservice crammed together. Nothing ever really hits and it just becomes exhausting
- Too many plot lines, not enough time!
This season really disappointed me because of how season 1 seemed to set it up. Season 1 ends will Silco dead and Powder officially becoming Jinx with that whole dramatic shot of her sitting down, and then she blows up the counselor’s building. So you kinda think “Whoa, there’s no going back! Powder is dead!” But then, nope. Jinx is just kinda… bored with violence and adopts Isha. And she’s just… so normal now and suddenly wants to live the quiet life. It’s so anticlimactic. Like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to have this cool scene of Jinx officially becoming Jinx, but also wanted her to be instantly redeemed. That’s a big thing with this season actually. Wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
With Caitlyn, she starts kinda descending into committing police brutality and seems like she may become a fascist. At the end of episode 3, she takes Ambessa’s hand and it’s like “Oh man! Caitlyn’s totally gonna go like, dictator mode!” But no. She doesn’t. She doesn’t even really do anything as the official leader of Piltover. The most morally reprehensible thing she does is gassing the underground (which is SUPER fucked up, and I was so excited to see how far she would go) but that’s before her rise to power. Then she sees Vi again and just completely turns on Ambessa. You know… the person who’s supposed to be “controlling” her? Putting smoke in her head? But no, we gotta just rush back into CaitVi.
Another mini example that I’m kinda just bringing cause it made me SO FREAKING MAD is the whole CaitVi sex scene. As a lesbian, I was rooting for a tasteful, spicy scene between these two queens, but man oh man all I could think about was how Jinx is about to go off herself?? She runs away, locking Vi up so she won’t come after her, saying to “not worry about her anymore” and she’s gonna “end the cycle” which, to me, is obviously her saying she’s going to kill herself. But the minute Vi is free? She fucks her girlfriend!!! In the same cell her suicidal sister was just in!!!! Crazy!!! Like they want to have this dramatic scene where Jinx is running away to commit suicide, but also want to have a flipping CaitVi sex scene!!!
Keep in mind I’ve only watched the season once and am #crazy and delusional, but man my blood is BOILING!!!! I was so excited for a Zaun vs Piltover storyline, but then we just got a bunch of random other shit instead that I won’t even get into. It honestly seems like the writers were going for a subjective approach, kinda just shoving in a bunch of plot twists, dramatic moments, and fanservice to appease the audience, but it ruined the structure and “pacing” and made it so hard to watch and ultimately ruined the story. I honestly had to take break between each episode, it felt like I was running marathon watching each episode!! Sigh. Idk. I may come around and be less of a negative Nancy after I watch it again, but I definitely think this season is way worse than season 1 and overall a beautiful, messy disappointment.
(I also did like some stuff!! The first three episodes were pretty good! That final scene with Victor and Jayce, chefs kiss, but the negatives greatly outweigh the positives for me)
Holy crap who ordered the yappucino?
you perfectly summarized my feelings toward s2, especially caitlyn's dictator arc. she did NOTHING interesting despite that dramatic ending to ep 3. the caitvi reunion was anticlimactic too. why did she not apologize for, idk, hitting her girlfriend?? i still love caitvi but everything about their relationship development felt off
@@notcha8080 GASP it feels so good to not be alone!! I used to love CaitVi (still do), it was such an interesting and fun dynamic and I liked seeing myself represented as someone who is a lesbian and relates to Caitlyn, but now it’s just… they butchered them!! They butchered my girls!!!
@@Megatron9145 fr i’m so happy they’re endgame and am forever grateful to everyone who made that possible. but i’d be lying if i said their emotional arcs didn’t feel lackluster
Re: Violyn sex scene; Vi not understanding Jinx's inner emotional turmoil is a pretty well-established throughline in the show. Vi was ALREADY somewhat emotionally unprepared for her parentified role as a teenager, and then she went to prison for like 5 years. So it's a situation where, not only is she *deeply* emotionally stunted, she also just doesn't really know Jinx the way she did when they were kids. They were forced to spend their adolescenses apart, and as a result they don't understand each other very well, even if they do love each other deeply.
Thar's why I kind of think that neither Vi nor Caitlyn had much of a real understanding of what was going on. Vi doesn't understand Jinx, and Cait doesn't even know her at all. Judging by their dialogue immediately beforehand, I think their understanding of the situation was that Jinx had just run away because fk being in prison.
My interpretation isn't.. particularly favorable towards Vi's intelligence, but that's what I got from it
Unrelated note but the one scene I don't really get is the final Jinx "sacrifice", or what leads to it. Vi last scene is her making a mistake (plotwise) of getting too close to Warwick despite of Jinx telling her to run. It kind of forces them into the situation where Jinx sacrifices herself. I know that she is alive but if she was not, Vi would be the one responsible for that because of ... Because of what? Good character arcs tend to be completed by the end of the story. Vi's arc is not completed if she's making a mistake. That is if she has a character arc?
I don't really know how to describe it but her sticking to Warwicks body is a plot driven mistake that serves no purpose character-wise unless I'm missing something
I heard someone describe it like this. Vi cannot give up on people, on anyone. She can't even give up on a metal beast that is clearly not her father. Jinx sees this and has it even further reinforced that Vi will never stop trying to "fix" or "save" Jinx either. So she decides to save Vi by faking her own death, essentially freeing Vi from that unbreakable attachment that prevents her from moving on from anyone. It's Vi's need to protect and save those close to her that is her "prison" and Jinx wants to help free her from that.
@@equestrianrosie The writers foreshadow this in Ep 7 when Powder tells Ekko that Vi is actually very afraid of losing anyone. She cannot leave Warwick without attempting to save him, even if logically it was completely futile.
@@equestrianrosie That makes sense to me. Thank you for the comment :D
The scale of the drama in EP9 was more than can be reasonably dealt with in any story without becoming somewhat ridiculous. Surprised you particularly liked the "your ailments make you what I like about you" thing for two reasons, Viktor was literally dying from his condition so it's kinda like lauding how profound he becomes through dying or "you know what I like about you? your dying thing" and also the liking people for their disabilities seems particularly cheesy. That's only because he's got his brilliance to compensate, like a girl could compensate a not so pretty character with being particularly good looking.
yea, that line of reasoning from Jayce didn't land for me. maybe it's because I am permanently disabled so I thought more about it than surface level. More like, of course Viktor was broken. But he was amazing despite that.
@@equestrianrosiei completely agree as someone who has cerebral palsy
As a physically disabled person I found it very condescending that an abled bodied character had to “teach” this lesson to the disabled person, rather than giving the disabled person the agency to come to that conclusion themselves.
It was equally condescending in the way it attempted to depict how disabled people cope with their disability, the whole thing came across an abled bodied person projecting their uninformed ideas of how disabled people must think about being disabled rather than an honest attempt to represent the lived experiences of the disabled. The writers for this show prove that sensitivity consultants exist for a damn good reason, they should’ve used one. Reducing someone’s disability (a fatal one at that) to an “imperfection” the disabled person needed to embrace and love about themselves is just grossly infantilising and dismissive.
Additionally, it’s rather absurd if not outright insulting to make a disabled character become a eugenicist. Who the hell thought that was a good story idea for a disabled character??
His evil eugenicist arc completely derailed the original narrative importance of Viktor’s health being a direct consequence of Piltover neglecting the under city and exposing them to toxic air. It was emblematic of systemic injustice as this implies it could’ve been avoided if the undercity wasn’t neglected, which should’ve resulted in Jayce coming to grips with his moral responsibility to the people of Zaun. He literally does nothing when Caitlyn is gassing the undercity with the very toxic air that gave Viktor a terminal illness. But that plot point about the cause of Viktor’s terminal illness never gets addressed. It’s like the writers forgot about it entirely.
@@Sanakudou well said
@@Sanakudou "Additionally, it’s rather absurd if not outright insulting to make a disabled character become a eugenicist. Who the hell thought that was a good story idea for a disabled character??"
He didn't turn eugenicist, he maximised the abolishment of suffering.
I would completely understand an afflicted person becoming an eugenicist. Viktor's thing in the beginning however was the environment, not the genes, and in the end the problem of sentient life shaped by evolution.
Id give both seasons the same score.
I was mindblown for just about the entire finale. The bit about Viktors final evolution, but also being the mage who gave that thing to Jayce was the best culmination of a tv show/movie i can remember. They nailed that sequence
Sevika is a very interesting character. Initially, we believe she's a narcissist who's only looking out for herself. However, we realize she cares more than that when she saves Silco and kills the other chem baron. In season 1, she acts like she doesn't care for Jinx and thinks she's a nuisance; however, she still sympathetic to Silicon when Jinx disappears. In season 2, she realizes that Jinx is more than just a tool for Silco and was always meant to symbolize change.
Something I love about Sevika is her personality; she wants to act selfishly but cares so much for Zaun and Jinx that when a chem baron suggests just handing Jinx over, she straight up denies him, even knowing she killed Silco. Sevika knew how important a symbol was for Zaun, and begged Jinx to be that symbol, knowing that she, despite how desperately she wished she couldn't be.
Ekko was the MVP.
The chem barons actually did not die in the music video, what was shot at them was a net launcher, like the one Vi hit Ambessa with. You can see where from her gun it launches and it's also the same hexagonal pattern that covered Ambessa.
Great video, I have similar feelings about the show and i actually do play league/knew the lore.
I think it was the writers fault for making the class divide between Piltover and Zaun turn out to be more of a backdrop then the main focus of the story. Like, they built this premise that made it feel like it was supposed to be about the 2 cities, they leaned in hard on showing how piltover is constantly screwing over Zaun, but then in the end they make them have a common enemy to force them to unite in the end.
I know, i know, the show is called Arcane. The magic is the main driving force behind many of the main charcters. I just think the writers leaned in too hard on the fight between the 2 cities in season 1 and then in season 2 the magic is the stronger focus.
Another act could have tied things together much better. I still love the show and want to rewatch it again to gather my thoughts better.
Thanks for the video I enjoyed hearing your thoughts.
17:20 and everything else about thinking twelve episodes to flesh this season’s characters, themes, and plot elements would have been better is something I’ve been so back and forth on throughout the season’s release, but especially following the finale. On the one hand, as you mentioned, I absolutely agree that it would have aided the overall experience of the story as it would allow us to get into more details on each of those fronts rather than being presented broad strokes through music video montages. On the other hand, as you also mentioned, it’s clear the animation took precedence when it comes to the budget, and after seeing the finale in particular, it would suck to see that be diminished by having to allocate time and resources to three more episodes. I was consistently in awe at the visuals, and I love that they were able to put so much focus there.
That’s where things are a toss-up for me. As someone who loves thorough and consistent character work, fleshing out character arcs and the broader consequences of their actions would have been awesome, and part of me really wishes that had been given more attention. As someone who loves animation, I got a (sometimes literally) jaw-dropping experience which part of me absolutely adores, and I know a trade off would need to be made to satisfy the other part of me. That’s largely where I’m most conflicted with this season. They had to prioritize one or the other, and I’m at war with myself of whether the right decision was made on that front.
I personally haven't seen a lot of people online talking about how the Firelights' tree dying because of Hextech is a climate change thing. I read the Firelights' reduced role in this season as being attributable to that. You can actually see/hear the Firelights' tree dying when there's that scene with Bat Dad adding Ekko to the mural.
Actually, I think that scene is meant to be them *leaving* the tree. It's never been as silent there as we see it in its final shots, so I think it's been severely damaged or entirely killed by the HexTech pollution. Hence the crown above Ekko's mural - He's the last face to go up there before they have to leave
I feel like the studio was pressured into sticking to the same “40min per episode” as if we wouldn’t like an extra 20. If they made each episode at least an hour, it would be enough to bump it from 7 or 8 to a 9 out of 10. We needed more of dictator Cait, pit fighter Vi and some scenes of Jinx rallying Zaun or her conversation with Ekko. If S1 was 10/10, S2 is 8/10.
Season 1 as a whole was a 10/10.
Season 2 Act 1 was a 9.5/10.
Season 2 Act 2 was like a 6/10.
Season 2 Act 3 I would say was an 8/10.
Season 2 as a whole was around an 8 or 8.5/10.
If Season 1 hadn't been nearly perfect, I think people would be a whole lot less conflicted. But we got what amounts to like a premium steak dinner from the finest restaurant, and then followed it up with a pretty good cheeseburger.
Great video! I love this show, but the past few days have been kinda rough, TBH-on account of feeling empty and the existential dread the show has left me with.
About the point you made about Vi and how she's just there being pushed around, I kinda agree with you, but I keep wondering: what could she do? IMO, her core character stays the same, and she wants the same things as before-finding Powder and having a relationship with Caitlyn. But in both cases, she hits a wall before or during Act 1. Although Vi is probably the strongest character in the whole show, in both of these cases, she has no agency. At one point, her goal becomes saving Vander, but she loses agency there too when a whole army comes after them. So I don't know how one would try to change her POV without redefining the character or introducing new plot points. I'm curious what you think about that.
Another point you made about the fate of the chem-barons and how one could miss some of the details-I think the show deliberately makes it so that you don't watch it just once. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I personally enjoy finding the details on a later watch.
The entirety of the season was fine for me but my biggest issue with it is the ending. Personally, my main gripe was with Jinx’s ending and the resolution of the Piltover/Zaun conflict. Put simply, I really don’t like the fake-out-death direction they took for her character. Whether she really died or faked her death to get a new start to "stop the cycle", I think it’s a disappointing conclusion to the the set-up of her character. I’d say it’s not even due to the pacing in this situation as some could argue. Arcane always had fast pacing but it could be excused because the plot beats along the way were still cohesive, if not rushed. Here, I truly believe it’s not the right conclusion for her story.
To explain myself, until now, Jinx’s story was about proving herself and searching for someone she could be useful to. At first, it was with the gang but, when this backfired, she searched for that validation in the arms of Silco. He ultimately ended up giving it to her but unfortunately passed away. She then starts season 2 completely aimless and at her lowest point yet. She fortunately then finds comfort with Isha and finally finds a connection she finds worth caring about. At the same time, the undercity starts to view as a symbol of rebellion and sees the value of her. Isha perceives that too and pushes her to take responsibility and be the leader Silco always dreamed of who could rally Zaun against Piltover.
Until now, it’s great. With the passing of Isha, I expected Jinx to go through some huge turmoil but ended up realizing Isha’s final wish and stepping up to be that leader the people of Zaun needed. It would have been such a perfect conclusion to her story and made her entire arc go full circle. The girl who everyone thought was a jinx ended up being the hero everyone put their hopes on.
That would’ve been so great but this isn’t what we got. Instead, we have this weird in-between where Ekko has a discussion with her off-screen to join the battle and she did end up pulling up to save the day but it’s not really accentuated as an act of her finally assuming her responsibility. She just feels like she’s doing it out of obligation and doesn’t really get her heart into it. It would’ve been so much better IMO if Ekko just gave her the initial push and then she made the choice to unite the people of Zaun to help the final battle while everyone was preparing to exit the city following Jayce’s speech. That’s an active character decision that would’ve cemented her arc instead of this passive, nonimpactful choice to assist everyone. And let’s not even talk about how forced and contrived her death felt. It’s not bad in itself but coming from Arcane, a show that excelled at making every direction its plot took feel earned and logical’ it feels very forced.
Finally, I’ll just say that having Sevika on the council at the end as a way to close the classism plotline feels also underwhelming because of the way the council works. It’s a majority rule. In any situation where the interest of Zaun and the interest of Piltover would be put into conflict, the latter would always come out on top. The ending is almost depressingly bleak in that outcome when you think about it because it just feels like Sevika is put there just for show…
EDIT: there’s also the case of Caitlyn at the end. Her whole heel-turn arc feels very undercooked when looking at this season in retrospect. We barely get any time to explore that facet of her before she reverts back to her usual stage. IMO, her becoming the final villain that Jinx and Vi would team up with to defeat would have been way better. Instead, we got this weird half-commitment where Cait only dipped her toe into becoming a dictator.
If they didn’t want to stick with her being bad, they shouldn’t have made her character change in that direction in the first place. Right now it just feels weird because she still called the people of Zaun animals and still has a lot of implicit bias towards them but the story completely ignores that and acts like it was all Ambessa’s doing.
Perfectly said. On Caitlin especially, I would have liked to see them lean into her fascist side. It was a turn that shocked me but also felt natural given her frustration over the Zaun conflict and her generally black and white view of the world. Of course she would use the law to its extreme to go after jinx/Zaun’s criminal element, especially after the attack at the memorial.
It would have been better if we had a third season to explore the war and we see she’s not quite as ruthless as Ambessa and has some redemption toward the end by turning on her when it goes too far. I could see her like a Silco - someone who wanted to defend her people but let the monster out in that pursuit.
I am desperately waiting for the time when pointing out what isn't there in season 2 and how it failed will stop being a national treason. Right now is the time of "guys am I the only one who thought S2 was the best thing ever?!!!" crowd.
S2 sets up so much, it is simply not possible to cram it all in one season with the same level of quiality as S1. And because the story still needs to work and go forward, writers had to fall back on some major contrivances.
S2 is full of cliches and tried and boring tropes of the genre. And I have zero doubt - if plotlines were given time to breathe Arcane would've pulled all of them off. But it's really really tough to close my eyes on shortcuts made in the story, and the major tone shift, and abandonment of previous stories, when no work has been done to justify them all, because everything had to be inside of 9 episodes.
As is it just feels so awkward, and beloved characters suffer because of it.
I unfortunately dislike on a lot of things you praised here.
I know a lot of people like Jinx's ending, but I couldn't disagree more. Jinx felt like the writers' emotional punching bag especially in Act 3. Her character in Act 2 went through a lot of genuinely positive growth only for it to be stripped away for her in the cruelest possible. Isha dying effectively did nothing for the plot besides making Jinx suicidal again for Ekko to save her.
Her talk with Silco in episode 8 rings hollow to me because she already broke the cycle of killing at the beginning of Act 2. She leaves the life of Jinx behind to be a caretaker for Isha. Even when she's brought back, she stages a nonlethal prison break, seeks out Vi solely out of her own kindness, and surrounds herself with people who care for her. She does everything right according to the story and she is punished for it. And what we're left with instead is Jinx either being dead or leaving everyone she loves behind. That's the worst ending she could've gotten in my opinion.
Caitlyn and Vi's romance is the weakest part of the season, which sucks because they were so good in season 1. Vi feels like a side character in a story that should focus on her. You know that discourse around Caitlyn being reduced to just "Vi's girlfriend" in season 1? Now that's actually true but in reverse. Vi loses nearly all sense of agency by allowing Caitlyn to use the Gray against Zaun and feeling no resentment for being left behind in Act 1. The most she gets in terms of standing up for herself is that one argument in episode 8, which just isn't enough for me.
The worst example of this is when they bang in the prison cell. Jinx, who's clearly depressed and suicidal, leaving Vi to "break the cycle." Vi is sad about this for a few minutes but then Caitlyn shows up, flirts a bit, and they immediately have sex in the cell where Vi's sister was self-harming in. The whole scene is just tone-deaf and ooc. Vi's identity crisis was a nothing arc and did nothing but give fans a bew look to gawk at. It's really a shame since Vi was my 2nd favorite in the first season, but now I'm not sure she's still in top 10.
The pacing isn't exactly the problem with this season, it's a bloat. There's simply too many plotlines that are worthy for an entire season of their own but are sewn together at the cost of properly fleshing them out. Viktor's evolution and the Black Rose plots get the worst of it. ESPECIALLY the Black Rose plot. It's absolutely the weakest part of the season and is obviously there to set up the Noxus spinoff Christian and the crew are clearly more eager to engage in. Mel feels like a glorified League hero teaser for the game instead of a character with a compelling story. Her character was best as a politician but as soon as was revealed to be some super powerful mage, she mainly relies on cool points now.
Viktor's story is so good, but it suffers from having the middle part of his journey omitted. In season 1, we learned about the Arcane alongside Viktor, but after the timeskip, we're completely in the dark and now he can do skypecalls from the astral plane. It feels like a whole act was skipped and as a result feels rushed.
I can go on and on, but I'll be here all day. I still think this season is good more than it isn't, but the bad is just too much to ignore. It's almost distracting. Definitely a 7/10 at best unfortunately. Extreme highs and devastating lows.
I do not get why the use of Grey is considered such a crime. I see it as a smart way to protect the entire population of Zaun and target the criminal parts of it directly. Using it strategically to control a situation that would not be under control otherwise and result in much more harm. This way they were able to arrest so many people instead of a full-out fight with a lot more bodies.
Just to add, I don't see a problem with the prison cell scene - only if it was absolutely clear that Jinx is going for suicide. I think indeed it was very obvious, at least for the viewers, but also for Vi, because of the words Jins uses. But I can't remember. But let's say she thinks her breaking the cycle means going away - than I have absolutely no problem with what happens afterwards. "The cell where her sister was self-harming" is such a viewer perspective that does not pay respect to the characters. For one, Jinx is doing that her whole life and secondly, we know this; Vi does not know this and if she honestly thinks it, just means Jinx is abandoning everyone and leaving it is alright. She was (obviously not) ready to kill her sister, so letting her go after Jinx decides to leave is a relief for someone in the position like Vi. You can see that she is angry about herself because Jinx escapes; she is not thinking about her killing herself. And Cait is freeing her of that thought, that it was her mistake by admitting she let her go. Imagine the release of emotions simply on that.
I think I’ll never be fully okay with CaitVi because we never see Caitlyn outright apologize for any of her actions, whether it be deciding to gas the Undercity or be abusive to Caitlyn. The whole contrast to Vi in Season 1 saying “this city will respect us” with Powder to saying “I’m the dirt under your nails” to Caitlyn, the most outright oppressive person Vi hangs around, is such a…shift that I don’t think the show handled too well.
I also have a bundle of thoughts about this season and i'm trying to organize my feelings.
But some things that i believe to be important(sorry about the english, not a native speaker):
-Arcane was, initially, designed to be a stand alone history apart from lol canon. After season 1 sucess, they decided to change this(my friends that play lol loved the lore from runeterra but always complaining about a lack of cohesion). I personally loved Viktor arc, Noxus as a treat buut i feel we could have more time focused on the conflict between Zaun and Piltover.
- It's not my area of expertise but i believe we have to also put in the equation the cost of the show x netflix as a plataform. There is the business side and riot wanting to expand the universe to other regions.
-Ekko was incredible, the GOAT. But i also think he works so well in this season because he has everything you love about the show: He is kinda of a "street level" hero trying to do the right thing. But ate the same time, the Z-drive makes him a important part of the more "mystic" plot. He is the champion of Zaun but he is trying to make a better live for everyone. I love how he, from everyone, is able to not only reach to hermeidinger, a centuries old being, but also jynx!. He is the bridge between a tragic past and a better future.
There’s a few things I would’ve changed and it did at times feel like they condensed some stuff that could’ve gone into one more season.
That being said Ekko is the GOAT of this series.
And to think, we haven’t even see the full world Arcane is set in.
i expected nothing from season 1, i watched it weeks after it fully released, but it blew my fucking socks off with how fast it made me endeared to all the characters, the underlying class war in everything, the tale between the sisters, etc etc. season 2 probably fit my expectations a bit more, in that there wasn't enough time for those really down on the ground emotional moments that illustrated how well written these characters could be and what i don't expect from animated shows and what made season 1 so mind blowing as a league of legends story. season 2 IS good and better than most shows but is probably more the pace i initially expected, if yanno what i mean. not bad, not better, just different. ofc everyones criticisms are very valid, but i still can't help but give this show the benefit of the doubt in that they did their best with what they had.
People attacking anyone but netflix allowing only 9eps or the fact that they had 3 years and not 6 to make this are just silly.
The writing is great. Yes it could have used more episodes or even a season 3 but... again then ppl would cry it would have taken at least another year or two. Maybe even three.
I will give them that Ambessa was poorly handled not just rushed. Why she'd join victor, why she was even needed given that his minions were uber strong and her death felt nonsensical but... Thats really the only place I can fault the writing in any serious manner.
Eps 1,2,3 are all very good.
4,5,6 are fast but the peaks are so high they're fantastic overall.
Ep7 10/10
Eps 8 and 9 are where you can have legimitmate issues like Ambessa and well the eps being a little fast moving.
All I'd do though is just release a Caitlyn and Vi ep where we see them apart during the timeskip. We'd also get more of Loris and Maddie. Maybe some more on Ambessa.
Then we need 1 full ep of Ekko and Jinx in the normal reality. As in what happened after he talked her down showing how they brought together the forces of zaun for the final battle. Intermittently it could show Ambessa and Victor actually preparing to attack piltover.
I disagree on your take on Ambessa, maybe? The way I see it Ambessa came to Piltover looking for a weapon powerful enough to defeat the enemies that had back her into a corner, and she saw hextech as that weapon. She wants control of Piltover because she wants hextech, but when she finally gets the control of the city, all the people able to make hextech dissapear, so she starts to look for new weapons. This leads her to work with Singe to use his creature as a weapon, and Singe wants to work with Viktor to get what he needs to cure death. Ambessa ultimetly joins Viktor because she sees in him the weapon she's been looking for since she was introduce.
@@mariatorres-by6du True but she seemed far too rational to just use something as deadly as Victor on a whim without conisderation.
@@antonhallergren588 I get it, during the end fight I kept thinking "you know you are going to die from this too, right?", I attribute to pride but it does feel odd for someone so calculating as Ambessa. I think that if Mel had been capture more recently it would work better, with her getting more desperate and being more backed into a corner, not having time to consider who/what was she joining forces with.
Yeah, the one thing that kind of bothered me was the zaunites and firelights joining in on the big fight at the end out of nowhere, and sure, you could argue that Ekko and Jinx rallied everyone together to fight against armageddon, but we didn't see that, we didn't see Ekko bonding with Jinx after her suicidal attempts. We didn't get ONE normal conversation between Ekko and Jinx in the whole series, which imo is a crime.
Also, I felt nothing for Isha when she went out. As you said, she just arrived out of nowhere and quickly bonded with Jinx, but there was not enough meat on the stick for me to really care about her.
And the whole Black Rose plot was so disjointed from everything else that was happening. I am also not somepne familiar with League of Legends game, so I even rolled my eyes a couple of times every time the screen cut to Mel (which I also agree, her design is the best in the show). Either flesh that plotline out more or don't include it at all.
But.... My god, episode 7 carried the whole season imo. Masterfully shot, acted, animated, directed, everything. I'd argue it's the best episode of the entire show. The juxtaposition of Jayce going through actual hell and Ekko living a dream was peak cinema.
Great points all around, wel articulated and explained for someone who isn't a native english speaker like myself. Kudos for this fantastic video, keep up the great work!
They want to make Mel the hottest girl in the show so but if Caitlyn original design is use then she is not so they purposefully make Caitlyn looks ugly. I will never forgive this
For me, season two fell rather flat, whereas season one literally blew me away. In season two, there were too many characters and too many things happening at once. There wasn't enough time to let the characters and themes breathe and honestly, some characters did things that didn't make much sense to me. There wasn't enough build-up, and it just felt like they flipped from previous motivations just so the plot could happen.
Very unfortunate, I was praying this wouldn't happen when I first saw them developing the black rose plotline.
4:58 The purple blip is from the bomb. You see it at the beginning of the episode when she's trying to blow herself up and Ekko keeps stopping her. Although, there's also a bunch of blue lines that shoot out from the bomb in the opening sequence and (I think) no blue lines in the final shot, so who knows
Ambessa's constant boasting or gloating wore thin very quickly. It kind of ruined the depth they developed with her character for me.
These are things I wanted to see in arcane 1 Jinx being more of symbol for Zaun. 2 an episode of Vi alone. 3 the war between Zaun and Piltover. 4 More of Sevika character.5 more interactions of Ekko and Jinx.6 Jinx being the final villain of the story.7 final battle of Vi vs Jinx.8 More of Warwick personal arc of finding his own humanity. More of the Cembarons as villains.10 More of Jinx,s mental states like season 1.
6:45 deserved and earned? Vi knows that Jinx is off to go end herself, decides that thats the perfect time to bang someone (in the same PRISON stall that the presumably dead/dying Jinx was last seen). It is the most misplaced, disrespectful, and in your face sex scene possible and had no place getting 3 minutes of screen time.
Fair reason to dislike the scene, however
Sesbian lex
Bit disappointed that Vander/Purified Warwick didn't get a happy ending. But otherwise it was a good season and an adequate conclusion.
Cait doesn't kill the chem barons in the montage; she catches them in the net Vi later uses on Ambessa.
Isha ruins my suspension of disbelief with her into. She falls out of the sky and into Jinx'es life? Come on, guy's... do better. Jinx and Vi's showdown being at the exact same time Jayce triggers the anomaly? Argh! S1 and most of S2 do such a good job of avoiding convenience that these feel like a slap in the face.
The scene of Vander, Silco and Felicia in the bar was a feel good but it diminished for me the reasons the men take the kids in. Looking after the kids of a "sister" is responsible but not as goodhearted as looking after kids orphaned by Vander's actions. Silco taking in Powder because he saw a parallel with his betrayal by Vander was amazing. It adds sooo much depth to the villain. Now Powder is his dead friend's kid. Not worth it even for the flashback of Silco over mom's dead body on the bridge. Quibbles. A matter of preference. Still my favourite show.
I don't think you can class Jayce triggering the anomaly at the same time as the Jinx/Vi showdown as a convenience. Yes, it's a crazy coincidence, HOWEVER, it doesn't affect the outcome of the fight, it just makes it more flashy for us to watch. The Hextech being janky for the fight doesn't affect the characters or the plot in any real way.
Not liking Isha falling into Jinx's lap I can understand (even if it doesn't bother me).
An interesting theory I saw elsewhere is is that the paper Ekko burnt wasn't for Jinx but rather for Heimerdinger, who we know with 99% certainty is gone. If the character is not physically seen to die then it's not 100% but we know Ekko returns to the main timeline and Heimer doesn't. Ekko is presumably the only character who knows Heimer is gone, and if we assume one paper = one name, Ekko would have had to burn two as a tribute to both Heimer and Jinx.
There had to have been a ton more off-screen interaction between Ekko and Jinx after he stops her from passing away herself, during which she could have told him she was going to disappear after the conflict, because following the above rule of physical proof of death, Jinx is not confirmed dead and the ending provides ample evidence that she's still alive.
It's interesting that for some, Sevika becoming a councilperson was a satisfying ending to her character arc. To me this ties directly into your point about the season losing focus on the Zaun/Piltover conflict. For someone like Sevika--who has assumedly gone her entire life under the literal boot of Piltover--who been subjected to violence by enforcers and chemical warfare by careless, resource-hungry councilpeople, her becoming a councilperson without so much as a "lol, our bad guys" from any remaining councilpeople was sooooo farfetched, and honestly disrespectful. S1, and act 1 of S2 to an extent, was such a fantastic commentary on classism, state violence, and the struggle for power & self-determination in a subjugated nation. While it was cool to explore Mel's lore, and I absolutely LOVED the Jayce+Viktor plotline, losing the juice of the Zaun/Piltover conflict left the show's ending with such a deflated feeling. No real resolution occurred onscreen, no agreement was brokered, no reparations were paid... and then the funeral procession happened in Piltover??? When so many Zaunites lost their lives to protect a city that never cared about them??? And then Sevika up and joins the council??? I agree that she'e the de-facto leader of Zaun, and that she deserves to lead her people to liberation, but doing so as part of the governing body that legislated Zaunites out of existence is peak neoliberal BS.
Also, as a separate note to one of your other points: the Caitlin/Vi sex scene was great and I'm happy it pissed so many conservatives off, the timing of it could NOT be worse. Right after Jinx told Vi that she was having suicidal ideations and then locked Vi in the cell to presumably carry out her plan, Vi goes 'nah I have some time to mack on my cop gf' like HUH??? VI GO GET YOUR SISTER BRO!?!?!?
Best lesbian portrail. It's just people being in love and lustful just like any other couple you'd see in a show. Like you can't say it's that much more explisit or different compared to Mel and Jace. There is no weird speech or extra theatrics. Just lesbians being lesbians as the world intented.
I love Vi x Cait, but let’s be honest here: this season is very, VERY Caitlyn heavy and we needed more time with characters. Hell they introduced a new bestie for Vi and he didn’t even get a single line. I don’t even think he has a name.
Loris. It’s said exactly 1 (one) time lmao
02:48 Who's name do you think he's releasing? At first you might think Jinx/Powder, but I think he's doing it for Heimerdinger.
This is definitely possible... but the framing of the scene keeps me from being 100% on board with that interpretation. The scene of him sitting next to where he sat with AU Powder and sadly looking at her empty spot kind of seems to indicate (to me) that he's missing her specifically. If it was meant to be Heimerdinger's name on that paper, it would make more sense to show him in some science-related setting, rather than a setting that is specifically associated with Jinx/Powder
As for the "anti woke" crowd, don't be too harsh on then or they might sue you for abuse of the mentally disabled
1. They brought vander back but kept him in this limbo where we as the audience were waiting to see some more human version of him interact with his daughters and we never got that. I feel it almost would have been better to let him just stay dead, but have the beast recognize that jinx also had the same serum used to bring her back from the dead, allowong her to escapehim the first time, then work from there.
2.Viktor becoming infused eith hextech was cool but I feel they escalated him too far. I think it would have been more feasable to show that over time, everyone healed by it gets corruptee in some way, then have viktor reject it and join back up with Jayce, and skip him becoming some all-powerful villain out of nowhere. This would have kept the plot focused on Zaun vs Piltover. Also he was changing form like every 2 episodes (crippled then hextech enhanced then fused with hexcube then partially metal then hextech monk then ethereal god form then final masked form)
3. I wish Jayce had more cool fight scenes, he was obviously was central to the plot, had a cool giant hammer, yet only really got to fight with it once when him and Vi attacked the shimmer factory. I was hoping for him to pull out something crazy against viktor in the final episode but it just boiled down to talking in the ether.
4.There waa a TON of whiplash when it came to the loyalty triangle between Vi, Caitlin, and Jinx
5. Maybe im missing something, but I still dont understand why Himerdinger vaporized himself to send Ekko back. There was no indiction that the machine needed him to exit the time bubble to make it successful.
6.Overall the pacing was rrally good for the first half of S2, but the pacing keeps increasing towards the last 4 episodes or so until I loterallt had to check to make sure I wasnt accidentally skipping over anything but I wasnt
In general, it seems wise to avoid introducing time travel or multiverse concepts near the end of a story. Arcane used to be so grounded and compelling in season 1. Attack on Titan did this too and the only way I could enjoy it was to shut off my brain.
Exactly. The grounded political conflict between piltover / zaun and the relationships between vi/cait/jinx was what was compelling about s1 to me. I'm usually a fan of fantasy but they completely lost me with the interdimensional magical mumbo jumbo here
Arcane felt like a bunch of music videos put together lmfao
The art, style, and animation is fucking A1!!! Literally perfect but a lot of things felt so rushed
SHOUTOUT TO EKKO
To me, the ONLY way Sevika partners with Jinx is if she doesn't know she killed Silco, and I find it impossible that Caitlyn and Vi just kept their mouth shut about that. Sevika should absolutely know Jinx did it, and she should hate her for it. It ABSOLUTELY should have been a story beat. I feel like it was absent either because it didn't move the story where they wanted it or they didn't have time. The latter is why people say season 2 has pacing issues. The former is why people say they destroyed a lot of the characters in season 2. Sacrificed for the story they were going to tell one way or another.
So before I dive into every little detail I want to ask a simple question: What would 3 episodes add to the larger narrative?
The following comment is my answer not only to that but also to show that season 1 if you think about it has the exact same issues season 2 has and why in the end it doesn’t matter at all because the story was never the goal of Arcane.
So first things first:
Arcane season 1 has 9 episodes because of many factors. The first one is that the writers followed a 3-3 story (3 acts build in introduction, climax and catastrophe). This is mainly a stylistic choice a young team made so it can focus more of its energy towards telling a story instead of figuring out the plot.
Arcane being the first animated series of the team is full of all of these little short cuts (as almost all characters closely follow archetypes that in the end are changed in one key aspect while being followed with incredible precision). Because all these short cuts they needed to create depth in other parts of the story.
So first they layered it in 2 important ways
1. We have the Piltover/Zaun split.
2. We have the split between Vi and Powder (also a story/song split).
These layers paired with the insane amount of characters create an very delicate construct that is tightly connected through the main story point being Hextech/Shimmer.
This character web creates 3 pols that are focused around 3 characters each: Piltover with Cait, Viktor and Jayce; Zaun with Jinx, Silco and Vander and then those who are in between the two: Ekko, Powder and Vi.
Each of them have their supporting characters like Sky, Heimerdinger or Singed that are all also intertwined, creating a solid foundation of what drove the story forward.
Everywhere we look we see groups of three (yes Powder and Jinx while being the same person isn’t the same character). That is even the case later in season 2: Ambessa, Black Rose, Mel; Jayce, Heimerdinger, Ekko; etc and the few times this isn’t the case (like Caits strike team) it is used to create this deep sensation that something is wrong (in that case Vi never should have been part of this team).
Under the premise that season 2 is season 1 re-contextualized there is no room for a 4th act or a 4 episode beat per act.
The only other structure that they could have tried would have been a 5 act 5 episode split but this would introduce to many story beats.
So season 2 always needed to follow the same structure.
So now to the fun part:
Season 1 and season 2 are identical and therefore they have the same problems.
Season 2 feels rushed and story beats feel off somehow:
Season 1 had in some parts a way faster pacing like for example episode 9 than most of season 2 had.
Why didn’t feel season 1 „off“, because the focus and the story beats prior where understandable and tragic.
What differed from that in season 2?
We lost focus around the characters.
Why did that happen?
Because of a misunderstanding of season 1.
Sure the story is about Duality so you think Arcane has two main protagonist. And while thats correct its not Vi and Jinx.
Its Jinx and Powder.
Vi is just a really fleshed out side character to Powder.
Just a quick reminder: This is just my observation, I absolutely love Arcane I mean this lengthy comment should be prove enough of this. Vi is one of my favorites in Arcane doesn’t really change the fact that Jinx and Powder are in the driver seat (season 2 ep 7 proves that point like crazy as Vi is dead and the story still was able to flow).
Well this means that everything any character does goes back to Powder and her decisions.
The second critique I often see is that (side) characters felt like plot devises.
And I hate to break it to you but all characters in any story are. Like season 1 had Sky as a prime example or the girl Jinx shot during episode 4 mistaken her for Vi.
These characters have no greater impact surrounding the character web and are mer attachments to characters (Sky to Viktor and this girl to Ekko).
So saying that Isha is a plot devise is absolutely correct. However to ask themselves why it is there or to ask themselves why it is necessary nobody wants to ask this question.
So why did Sky work and Isha didn’t?
Maybe because Isha got more screen time and was destined to die? Probably but this is because Viktor in season 1 wasn’t important enough to have more screen time.
Because I mentioned it I can continue with a short overview what Isha did to the story with just episode 2:
1. She is like Powder a girl that was destined to work in the mines. Her jump in episode 2 resembles Powders jump for freedom however Isha has no one to save her and she falls.
2. Jinx needed an anchor to want to stay alive so something needed to happen. To say it was convenient that Isha feel on Jinx is wrong to say as this just shows a bit more of worldbuilding as Husk is out of the question atm chilling half dead at Viktors camp.
3. Isha being mute allows Jinx to therapy herself as Isha serves as a projection leading up to episode 7 „what could have been“.
4. The fact that Isha is Powder all over again with the same flaws (like following danger even if told not to do it) gives a lot of inside into the world like for example that Jinx was just a phenomenon for Zaun meaning season 1 episode 9 was always going to happen.
Outside of episode 2 we gain even more stuff like for example her song being in Chinese can be a reference to Ionia (as I was told is inspired by Chinese culture) while also being a devise that we cannot understand her world view with our words cementing Jinx as the hero Isha saw in her.
I need to go now but if you have any questions and want my point of view on it please ask them.
For now I leave this comment with a quick mention that we should quit forcing ourself to understand everything about Arcane at a first watch through.
Give it time and thought and a lot of stuff will make sense.
As the writers trust us and we as the audience should do it as well.
Have a nice day
AEther
I was disappointed with this season for feeling rushed. But even then there's one massive gripe I have and consider an unforgivable oversight.
I hate "and then magic" plotlines. Mel can use the power of empathy or shield and blast? She can see through a master illussionist and attack her through it? And then, for unexplained reasons the Arcane plotline ends with "Viktor! I promise!" and then he timetraveled and caused this mess in the first place? What the fuck.
If magic has no rules, limitaitons or explanations then it invalidates every scene it is not in. "Magic could solve your health issues", "we'll jus resurrect her", "explain everything using telepathy in a blink".
Arcane is great but I think we all have problem with Caitlin arc. It doesn't make any sense for her to switch like that (imo)
Every time you watched season 1 it just got better. Every time you watch season 2 it will get worse.
There are so many problems with the writing, the characters... everything but the visuals. Let's just look at Jayce as one of the worst examples:
- Why was he excluded from one of the most important decisions in the show - to "invade" Zaun? He is still a councilor and the last season ended with him being the most ardent advocate for Zaun's independence. The show just forgets all about Jayce's political power.
- The entire reason Jayce switched his position on Zaun in season 1 was because he accidentally killed the chem baron's kid. But when the attack on the memorial happens, Jayce just never tells anyone that it was because of him. Instead he just let's everyone assume that those darn Zaunites don't want peace. Even worse, he makes another 180° turn and starts supporting an invasion of Zaun with hex tech weapons again. In other words: Attacking Zaun is good, but if I kill a kid it's bad, but if the mom tries to avenge it, attacking Zaun is good again. Jayce used to have actual reasons for changing his mind. He used to be a deep character.
- We just never get ANY reconciliation between Jayce and Heimerdinger. Jayce subverted Heimerdinger's entire life's work. But he might have also saved his life because he wasn't there during the Explosion. This would have been a very important scene - but nah, they are just friends again, and it's more important to show Heimerdinger making up funny code phrases.
- Why would Jayce AND Viktor forget about ventilation in the Hex Vault? A lack of ventilation is literally the cause of Viktors illness. This is just kind of stupid. He deserves to go to goopy hell.
From this point forward the show tells Jayce's story in non-chronological order. But if you think about it chronologically, it just makes absolutely no sense:
- Jayce goes to bad place and falls in hole. He then spends a long time to get out of hole. Why waste scenes on this, in a season strapped for time? What point does this serve but to make him look all disheveled when he returns and to fill time while Ekko is off in happy land?
- Jayce then meets Viktor, who tells him that only he can make the alternate version of him see the error of his ways. Jayce then promises to do that. He is then returned and immediately tries to break that promise by killing one of Viktors disciples and being generally very hostile. He then goes to Viktor and tries convincing him by blowing him up. Remember, Jayce is one of the smart characters. But hey, maybe he was just confused from shifting timelines?
- After recovering from his confusion, Viktor once again tries talking to Jayce in robot form. Jayce could maybe tell Viktor about his experiences, maybe let Viktor read his memories, if Jayce knows he can do that, but he instead decides to spout vague nonsense and tries shooting him again to see if that helps.
- Jayce now knows that Viktor is after the Hex Core. So in preparation he decides to do nothing about that for the next 16 hours, because otherwise there would be no dramatic scene between Viktor an Jayce later. You don't need to teleport airships to evacuate the city, they can just leave the regular way. There is absolutely no reason not to immediately shut down the Hex Core the day before the Noxian attack and even if there was, there is absolutely no reason to do it alone when the enemy has previously demonstrated their abilities by infiltrating your seat of government undetected.
Almost everything breaks on a second watch through. None of Jayce's actions make any sense or are in character. He just has completely new motivations every time we see him. It's like somebody gave the writers a lobotomy between seasons.
his actions are bizarre, but there are a couple things to take note of. Jayce knows this apocalypse will be far reaching so people trying to flee "the regular way" almost certainly wouldn't accomplish much. Not to mention going by sea might not have been possible since that's where Noxus was invading from. His waiting till the last minute to single-handedly attempt to shut down the Hexgates still seems like a plot device, you're right. But even if someone else had been there or he'd turned it off earlier, Viktor could have turned it back on in one go like shown. I kinda figured Jayce would blow it up? But no.
About his repeatedly attacking Viktor, the show does make it very clear that Jayce is fighting against hallucinations and a really screwed up headspace whenever he is around him. But these visions seem to lessen with time. Each time he sees Viktor he becomes a bit more levelheaded, eventually not hallucinating at all during their final confrontation. And only once inside Viktor's hivemind is he able to really calm down and try to reason with him. It's like he could not think clearly until everything else was stripped away. This is a lot to infer, and I agree it could have been shown better, but this series tries really hard to "show not tell." There are definite weak points but I've actually enjoyed the season more with my couple rewatches rather than less. Because though you see the flaws more, you also see the ways that they could be interpreted differently. Idk, just my take.
@@equestrianrosie Well, he only knows the apocalypse reaches at least to the outskirts of Piltover. Using airships "the regular way" still let's you fly very far in a day and the "fly" part also avoids the Noxian ships. Viktor couldn't have turned the Hex Core on, if they had just taken the fuel rods (or whatever they were) somewhere else. Blowing it up is also a viable option, that could have been used to even greater effect. Imagine Jayce destroying the Machine, just for Viktor to reform it with his magic. That would have been a reasonable power for Viktor to have, one that still could have caught Jayce by surprise.
The big question about the visions is: why does Jayce have them? It can't just be the timeline shift, otherwise both him and Ekko would have had them both times they shifted. Was it because of the time he spent in the hole? Then why didn't time wizard Viktor save him to prevent him from going mad? That's actually another problem I just discovered. Why did that version of Viktor let Jayce suffer needlessly in the hole? There was no lesson there, only apparently hallucinations. Time wizard Viktor is basically omnipotent. He must have known. If your explanation was actually supposed to be the reason why Jayce is incapable of arguing, that just means that Viktor is now both malevolent AND stupid. But even then, I feel like you are basically writing the story for them at this point. That might actually be the reason you enjoyed more on you rewatch - your head tried to fix all the problems and the resulting show was better than the one you were actually watching.
@@Grzzgwzz head canon, as they say. I'm definitely giving them the benefit of the doubt, you're not wrong. I think there actually was a point to Jayce falling in the hole though. I don't believe it is a coincidence that he ends up with a jacked up leg, a brace, and had to crawl his way out by not giving up on himself. That reflects Viktor's life path. Jayce lived just a few weeks or months in his shoes. Pair that with an old and essentially reformed Viktor telling him to please show his old self the folly of his ways and Jayce has more reason to try and save Viktor, not just destroy him.
Also, we don't see Ekko's mind when he returns to his original dimension. Maybe he was tripping initially too. He sure was when he first showed up in the AU.
Why do you assume Viktor told Jayce "that only he can make the alternate version of him see the error of his ways"? I interpreted those scenes as indicating Viktor told Jayce he had to stop other Viktor at all costs. Hence going straight for killing him. I don't think the show makes old Viktor out to be omni-potent.
But that's fine, if it didn't work for you, I'm not here to convince you otherwise. I reckon what people think about this season will be wildly different depending on how you interpreted the very fast, dense plot points.
@@rexanael243 "I thought I could bring an end to the world's suffering. But when every equation was solved all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude. There is no prize to perfection. Only an end to pursuit. In all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this." Not really an interpretation when he directly says it. He solved all equations, and realized the world was left empty, meaningless. So he went to all timelines, explored all possibilities and found Jayce, his dearest friend and partner, was the only person who could "show" him that conclusion, that embracing the Glorious Evolution was flawed. Plenty of other people could have killed Viktor before Singed got his hands on him. Killing him wouldn't require Jayce and only Jayce.
Disagree
It's all premeditated and deliberately written the way you witnessed it.
The world is so large and alive that you can take any group of characters in it and build their own story.
In my opinion what was prevalent in season 2 was to compliment season 1. Rarely do sequels best the original. These are some smart writers, and despite any limitations they told the story they wanted to tell; masterfully. I don't believe that their goal was to best and overshadow their own masterpiece. With season 2 I opinion that they did justice by their adventure/ fantasy Season 2 shows how militant forces always capitalize on the division of others, and while everyone is focusing on their tribal feudes; new characters reach the shores of what you believed this story was alluding to, ready for the first opportunity to crush what was previously established. Control over the people is never the final step. Godhood will always be that. Meanwhile ... we rebrand and rebuild. Season 2 was a tribute, a true sequel in sequel fashion, and it allows us to relieve season 1 with new eyes.
I really hope Jinx survived and fled on that ship. Her entire life has been nothing but chaos and heartbreak. She's suffered enough. She deserves a chance at a new life. A chance to be happy and to figure out all of her shit in peace for once.
For me it felt like they had two seasons cramed into one.
Season 1 Unrest - family
Season 2 Civil war - friends
This is the season they built up in the first 5 episodes. This is the showdown between Piltover and Zaun. This should have been solved before. The whole feeling you got in the last two episodes about everyone coming together for the big fight felt... wrong, not earned. Had they had 3 seasons in total, they could build up to season 3 in this season. Then when it was duked out between the cities you would have...
Season 3 Heavenly war - nation
Here we would hit the ground running with the Victor debacle and his rise to godhood. Here would we build up with the workings between the Noxian army and Victor on one side and Piltover and Zaun, bloodied, bruised from season 2 and not even able to catch their breath. At the same time Ambessa wondering if she got more than she bargain with with Victor and wondering if she and her army will be turned before the end. Then you have the huge battle in the end with Jayce and Victor.
It would be a better progress in my mind.
I think at least 1 more episode would have been perfect. I dont know if youve seen Cyberpunk Edgerunners, but i feel like that show as well could have used an extra episode or 2 just to flesh things out. In any case both are my favorite animated shows and they did an amazing job with them. Cant wait for more
Jayce's lines at the end weren't bad per se, but Viktor's failing body _was_ literally holding him back, he was dying. Can't really blame Viktor for trying to fix that when the alternative is death
season 2 was amazing but i was let down by the piltover/zaun conflict and vi's lack of development. i can't believe season 1 did all this great political worldbuilding just to breeze past it in the finale. sevika on the council doesn't do much for a city that's been oppressed for generations. i wonder if riot prioritized setting up a future noxus show over resolving the story's fundamental conflict. that sucks if true.
i also agree that the "end of the world" stakes made the finale feel lame---i'm saying that as a fan of the viktor/hextech plot. there wasn't enough focus on the sisters' relationship. season 1's finale was much more impactful to me and it wasn't even a fight scene, just 4 characters sitting at a table arguing.
My main problem with the show is how fast things move.
A lot of times in s2 I would miss the details because I was thinking about the scene before, or sometimes even the before episode. I do plan on re-watching s2 all acts back to back so I can really appreciate the details, the art, and the story as a whole. Another problem I had with how fast things move is that some new characters that were introduced where just brushed off and not really given much of a story.
For example: Maddie. I feel like if she was given more of a story instead of just, "Random junior officer, who slept with her boss," she wouldn't be so hated because I feel like she had actual potential for being an interesting character. Instead we were introduced to her in act 1, then again in ep 4 where she was revealed to be sleeping with Cait, and she wasn't really shown again until her betrayal of Piltover where she just died later. So the betrayal didn't even feel like one, because she was so under cooked as a character that most people didn't really care.
I wouldn't even say that it was really good. Just good maybe. I think part of it is my problem because I didn't quite remember certain details from the first season, but I felt this was rushed and needlessly complicated at times. I just didn't care much for any of the characters in this season. I would need to watch both seasons again to give a more balanced opinion, but right now, I don't feel as if that is going to happen anytime soon.
If possible I hope I can add context to the story of league of legends in terms of piltover and zaun with a bit of league as a whole. P/Z use to be apart of shurima. It was known as Osha va’ zaun worshiping Janna. when the empire of shurima fell it became independent and was called zaun. As the city progressed it built over zaun and became piltover. Disaster occurred when trying to build a waterway through the city causing half of the city to fall into a deep canyon where the waterway was. The part of the city that fell would eventually rebuild underground and go back to being called zaun.
For world ending treats, piltover and zaun are one of the regions that had non as the story for it was about the twin cities themselves like in season one. They also interacted with the other regions. Piltover explorers go into shurima or bilgewater to find treasure. Zaun has treaties with noxus, where they trade chemical weapon like shimmer for noxus prisoners to work in the zaun mines.
For world ending treats the story of league isn’t really about them. They exist but are part of the world in equal amount to personal stories like jinx and vi. In game however it is critiqued by the community that there are way to many. The void in shurima, The void in freljord, The darkin. Mordekaiser, and the shadow isles. The world did not need another, especially piltover and zaun.
Season 2 sadly destroys so much of the worlds story that it is saddening where 1 fits in so well. A great example is viktor. He isn’t a world ending treat. he sees weakness in flesh but will help those in need like children that become disfigured from working as child labor, given them new part only if they want them. Another character is Warwick, who is still alive in league but was killed of in arcane. Arcane was the origin story of these characters, but as the influence of game of thrones and marvel came it ruined what made arcane its own thing while killing characters in their own origin story. All in all I hope this can help I have to say s1 10/10 but s2 5/10 due to leaving Piltover and Zaun and at Arcane’s strong direction for a story that kills chapter for the sake of killing them like game of thrones and the marvel age of ultron end fight. If anyone wants to see what the story of piltover and zaun is like I would recommend looking into legends of runeterra. They made so much art and stories for league of legends that sadly s2 undoes if this show is canon
I think they overused montages in this season to get through a lot of plot. in s1, the montages were culminating events that made you feel lots of emotions and show how plotlines come crashing together. This time, they serve to cut down runtime for not much added emotional impact (theyre super good montages! But with 3 episodes we could have gotten a more interesting look at how stuff went down, rather than just that it went down) for example, dynasties and dystopia is this really interesting and stylized fight sequence, but the music cuts out when ekko has to actually get violent. I wish hellfire was similar where we get the quick visual breakdown of caitlyns plan while the lyrics go “can i do the right thing for the wrong reason”, but then we get an actual scene of cait leading kill strikes on the chembarons and maybe vi second guessing her complicitness in enforcer brutality on her home turf
Hot take I did not like how Ekko was the one to talk Jinx out of doing herself in. Maybe it could work for me if they show them interract more but the only time they were on screen together was that one time when they have a death battle on the brigde, Ep 7 showed Ekko feeling towards Jinx but we never have the same thing for Jinx. Also I might have missed it, but how did Ekko know Jinx is going to do what she did? as far as I know he wasnt in this dimension throughout act 2.
I also thought this was disrespectful to the 2nd act, since it seems like her character development there was just reverted, and personally her decision to commit s*cide makes Isha's sacrifice feels rather pointless
Yea, a problem with a rushed show. But Ekko and Jinx were childhood friends. The fight scene between them in season 1 shows flashbacks of them playing together. I think it had to be Ekko though, because Vi can't do it. Jinx and Vi's relationship is just counter productive, which is why Vi had to move on. But Arcane needed like 3 more episodes to fill info.
@@iamnemoo valid point, maybe I was too consumed by my own expectation that I didn't like the show direction. I thought that Jinx was going to overcome this by herself, because I see Jinx becoming much more confident and less self loathing towards the end of act 2, and her experience with Isha and the being the hero would give her some hope to get herself out of rock bottom.
Absolutely agree. There is so much of the quality of season 1 found throughout the story in the animation, emotional beats, character moments, creative locations, fight scenes, and world building. But so much of it is diminished and dragged along by the rushed pacing and bazillion plot points and character arcs. It definitely needed to be more than 9 episodes. 12 could have worked, but with the amount of new ideas and characters they brought in, they could have easily done an extra 2 seasons at the same quality and pacing as season 1.
Viktor's transition from compassion to stoic nihilism, the unification of Zaun under the firelights and Sevika, Jayce unifying everyone under one banner against the arcane, Mel's black rose arc, Caitlyn's rise to power and slow compromise of her morals. Every single of these could have used a whole season to flesh out and would have been amazing stories with the pacing and attention to detail given of season 1.
Arcane season 2 is still an awesome season of TV but its so bittersweet for me. Seeing so many glimpses of the same brilliance of season 1 to only have it bogged down by what was probably a combination of rushed deadlines, stretch budget, and possibly studio interference makes me feel the loss of what we could have gotten if the showrunners had the space to tell the story that they wanted to.
I'm fine with how S2 went mainly because, even if it's the end of Arcane it is still the spring board for more stories, and I think that's part of how it has to be shaped. There's aspects of finality to it, but it's also leaving some things unresolved. And it was pretty clear from the get go, even in S1, that even with all the personal and political drama these were all going to pale in comparison to the looming threat of the hex-core. They basically threw a Lament Configuration into the middle of a season of the Wire. The SCOPE of these things are very different.
I will say that the show did hit the speedbump of what can happen with a lot of multiverse plots in that it winds up siloing your characters. The Ekko+Heimerdinger episode is the biggest effect of this, and even agree it is one of the best of the whole season, you are left with this lingering issue of "Only 2/3 of these characters actually MATTER for the story I've been watching". As great as it was to see these other characters, and to gain some understanding of who they are things had been different, it still leaves a bit of hollowness because these AREN'T the characters we are invested in.
And the same can be said with Viktor in his space realm, Mel in her mage prison, Singed for the whole first act just running in the episode stingers off somewhere COMPLETELY else. There was this weird ebb and flow between EVERYONE being smushed together and then EVERYONE off doing their own thing, cut off from the rest, ending with everyone smushed back together.
Ambessa being the ultimate villain was kind of an interesting swerve considering everything going on. Like, we knew she was a problem, a menace, but being the APEX villain, in a way a larger threat than Viktor since she was far more intentionally malicious than he ever was, wouldn't have been my guess at the end of S1.
But she winds up being an Iago to Caitlyn (And in turn making Caitlyn into Vi's Othello), Claudius to Mel, King Minos to Singed, and even pulling some Keyser Soze shit on top of everything.
And all of this still flowed perfectly from everything we knew about her from S1 and wove together a bunch of plot points that had been otherwise somewhat disconnected.
The Piltover/Zaun conflict I kind of knew was going to resolve from the "Out of Context"/"Black Swan Event" development. The idea that this petty pissing match has to get put to bed because something bigger and meaner is gonna kill EVERYONE otherwise. But I also love that it's very clearly not just OVER. When Sevika takes her (oh so deserved) seat on the council, you still see one of the other councilors give her a dirty look.
I do have one side thought that I find just greatly amusing: from a meta-textual perspective, Maddie got done dirty. In conception of this character, she's just the freshy soldier, a stock character archetype. And having Cait hook up with her in the mid-point makes sense as a signal of how wrong things are with where Cait is. BUT, at the same time, they knew the shippers would gnaw their way through the drywall about her. And so they give her this "secretly villainous" aspect which MOSTLY makes sense but also immediately justifies any and all hate for her (even if the real reason for a lot of the hate is that she's messing with the OTP). And this in turn means she gets one of the most brutally depicted deaths on the show. I had commented even in Act 1 that the show did some fascinating work of having these horrible deaths, but they're just IMPLIED. The guard getting gutted by a chainsaw, whatever Sevika did to Smeech, all these things where you KNOW what's happening even if they don't show it. But Maddie gets a direct on screen headshot!
In Episode 6 Ambessa says to Vi:
"Vi, you are such a curiosity. The one who was able to capture Caitlin's heart.
I owe you thanks, your Absence provided a vacuum i was able to fill."
This is such a Maddy foreshadow i completely missed on my first time watching.
I love arcane is full of those kinds of moments.
FORGOT ABOUT THAT THATS SO COOL
Is it fair to say I don’t mind the world ending conflict storyline cause I honestly feel like Piltover and its hardheaded ass would not step down and work with Zaunites and see their potential (not just the council but citizens) unless there was some severely bad shit coming their way and they couldn’t walk around it. There hasn’t been a better time for Piltovans to have to attempt to trust the Zaunites and go through hardships together, grieve together, and need to work together. There’s more of a chance for Piltovans to see the good in Zaun. And for Zaun they finally get the chance to be people to their sister city. It’s probably one of the few times they feel like they can go topside safely cause they know the Piltovans want their help. Is it the ideal situation? No absolutely not
Were there probably some A holes during the battle? Yes
But Piltover really needed a swift kick in the ass. They can’t avoid mages and they are actually really helpful and not all evil. The tech in Zaun is really useful and not just bad. The people there aren’t what they think they are and are just as good as Piltovans.
it’s hard not to be really disappointed when ur a vi fan…😭 my fav is all washed up
Fr, I wanted like at least ten to fifteen more minutes of her VALID crash out. Instead we got a two minute long instagram edit
@ exactly, that mattered for all of like 10 minutes 😭
To me this season left me with almost identical feelings as season 1. It was break neck, there were things I wish were expanded on, and the ending was open ended. Ultimately once my feelings had settled I came to the conclusion that season 1 was a masterpiece in fiction. I think season 2 will settle in a similar place, but for different reasons. Also with the spin offs I have hope that the story will continue to evolve. They ended arcane because the story of hextech causing a world ending event was over. The series wasn't called two cities (or something similar), so to me the story of piltover and zaun and their divide will continue to be expanded upon at some point. Could be proven wrong, but that's my belief.
They really went from "SURPRISE! HEELTURN!" to absolute SATISFACTION in moments. Brilliant.
12 episodes would have been better but 3 seasons would have been best. I feel like they rushed through the season 1 loose ends in acts 1 and 2 and act 3 felt like a completely different show
2:00 glad so many people share the same opinion as I. It is in fact the best episode and in my opinion actually way more positive, than people describe it to be.
Over 100 years ago we had pictures or photography. Then moving pictures or motion pictures. We’ve had paintings much longer than that, so why did it take so long to have moving paintings. That’s Arcane, it’s gorgeous to watch.
Rewatch it. Trust me. Everything feels clearer
Because of the poor handling of her character in 2nd season is the main reason for the fans' "bad sister" blame. Vi was the most unpredictably practicable character in this season, they did not even tried to develop the arc and biggest missed opportunity. and that can be seen in Hailee Steinfeld's expressions in the interviews. I understand that Vi is purposeless after episode 3, but how she got the purpose back? for whom? jinx? vander? or family? or cait? They only gave us some facial expression, where we needed some dialogues, in my opinion a rage out against Cait or even an emotional break down infront of Jinx could make some difference. Instead they chose utter silence. Even in the final battle, god they didn't even try to use her🤦. They handled Caitlyn arc pretty well, but in ACT II they should've done more for the flip. Most satisfying Arc they gave us for Jinx and Viktor. and like season 1, we got silco here ambessa.
Also regarding the 'save the world' from -Ultron and his robots- Viktor and his servants plotline, even if that is a main part of League, the creators need to realize videogames are a completely separate medium and storytelling that works for videogames doesn't work for tv/film. I posted this on another video:
The problem with the 'save the world' type climaxes is the audience KNOWS the protagonists can't fail, and there's no real tension as a result. Look at The Dark Knight trilogy. The climax of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises both involve the complete destruction of Gotham City--the 'world' for those specific movies. Which obviously can't happen, because what are you left with? But what's the climax of The Dark Knight? Two boats. One with criminals, one with civilians. Less than 1000 people. Each has a remote to blow up the other boat and if they don't by midnight, they both blow up. In this case the audience has doubt; and that doubt creates an UNBELIEVABLE amount of tension. Because the question isn't 'HOW will the protagonists succeed', it's 'WILL THEY succeed'. Arcane needed to go smaller and more personal (like season 1) for the climax. Bigger isn't always better.
true, you know they will prevent the apocalypse. but in this case, how many of them would still be alive afterward? some fans figured champion characters wouldn't be killed off. boy were they wrong
@ That’s exactly right. You know they succeed, but the question becomes at what cost. Personally I found more tension in the dinner scene climax of S1 because you didn’t know what Powder/Jinx was going to do in the moment. For a brief second you didn’t know who she chose to shoot, and you don’t know if she’ll go back to Powder or fully become Jinx.
@ Not to say the prevent the apocalypse climaxes can’t be done well, far from it. Lord of the Rings is a great example. You know that ring is going into the fire in the end, but what’s it going to cost to get it there. And I think Arcane S2 could have been something similar with another season of developing the characters.