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I personally don't have a problem with Jinx getting a redemption arc. I thought that was interesting character development. The only problem was it wasn't............developed. At least not properly. The show needed more time for that character arc to cook properly.
Season 2 of Arcane is honestly exactly what I'd expect from a show based on league of legends before watching season 1, but the last thing I'd expect season 2 of Arcane to be
It works because S1 has a fantastic ending. Sure it can feel like a cliffhanger but if it's seen as an ending it feels like the natural conclusion of the whole story.
I am not the typical audience for a show like Arcane, so when S1 first appeared, it flew right by me. But people kept saying, "That show is so much better than its source." So I said, "ok, I will give it the three-episode test. Damn, did they see me coming? What followed was a show that showed how to lead by character, the importance of stakes, story economy, and how to use specific techniques to get across a vast amount of information. I even raved about it to friends, something I don't usually do. I didn't get to S2 immediately, but voices were saying, "Oh wow!" After watching, I just kept saying, "It will end up making sense; they are building to something." I am glad you made this; I was beginning to feel like I was the only one.
Same story with me. Have no connection to LoL as a whole, but after watching a number of video essays on Arcane I decided to finally give it a try. And I was completely blown away by how good it is. I really really rarely watch anything mass media produced, but Arcane was an exception, like a reachable oasis in tge middle of a dense desert. Had hopes for S2, even throughout arc 2, believed they'd explain everything and it all will make sense in the end. But...well, I have never felt as unamused and waiting for it all to end as I felt upon watching finale Truly what could've been
I thought the whole story was written before the start of S1! But it feels like the writers got intimidated by the awesomeness of S1 and stepped into every writing trap for S2. They tried to make it look very artistic with all those music scenes, but forgot the basic principles of writing. A great scene like Viktor running along the port is completely unimaginable in S2.
Man....that Viktor scene gave me chills. Both because for him, it was something unimaginable, a fantasy that HE made reality. But also because you could see it as the moment he fell into the very dangerous trap that Heimerdinger warned him of, to become absorbed in possibility, and no longer seeing the reality.
They wrote season 2 in 2020, during the pandemic, and most of the writers of season 1 did not return for season 2 because they couldn't have those writer's room, because apparently zoom calls are inconvenient for some reason. So season 2 was written by Christian Linke, the other guy, and Amanda Overton, with some input from other writers on per episode basis. So basically season 2's plot was written by Linke. We know from the "Bridging the gap" documentary that in season 1 Riot felt Linke's writing was not good, so they forced him to hire the professional writers, hence the superb writing in season 1. So in season 2, with those writers gone, we see what Linke's writing can lead to. this is how season 1 would have looked like, if Riot wouldn't have intervened.
@sportenapfeltorten2095 you can see the 'story by' on IMDb season 1 compared to season 2, and also Amanda Overton told the story on a stream a month ago.
The thing that bothers me the most is that in between episode or sometimes scenes, we are never let to understand how much time has passed, like the scene of the gassing of Zaun i thought there might have been hours or a couple of days at most, the break between Cait and Vi and then Cait with Maddie were those weeks or months, Season 1 had one time jump and then the rest happened in 2 or three days at most from there to the end of season 2 might have been 3 month to 1 year or even more, which feels confusing like being trap in a washing machine of time.
Oh definitely it really seemed like a huge jump during Vi's depression fight sequence. Woulda been nice to actually witness that drawn out in detail. It's almost like nearly all critical information was reduced to music videos
I suspect that, whenever one of the main characters altered their look, that was supposed to indicate a somewhat significant time jump. It didn't work at all and I was constantly confused as well.
This show DESPERATELY needed a third season. The saddest thing about S2 is you can clearly see glimpses of the amazing stories they wanted to tell. Could've actually been one of " the greats" of TV
Agreed. Though I’m not certain about the notion that the writers of Season 2 were actually committed to telling a great story, which unfortunately was hampered by other obstacles in the production process. I honestly have a more cynical opinion on how Season 2 was written.
Not glimpses in my opinion. All the storylines were, conceptually, pretty much exactly the ones that needed to be for a memorable sequel. But it was so absurdly rushed it doesn't even feel that way in the end.
They could have cut the entire Black Rose story line, all but 2 minutes of episode 7, the entire "anomaly" subplot, 90% of the commune, and Jinx' little muppet. Then they could have used that time to focus on Caithlynn's rule of Piltover, Vi's descent into depression, and maybe the conquest of Zaun. Oh, and maybe don't have a technologically advanced and organised Piltover be subjugated by sword wielding idiots with bows, only to have said idiots be beaten by the disorganised and badly armed Zaunites. Only to have that redone by the BS robots from Victor. Seriously, 90% of that battle could have been prevented if Jayce spoke to Victor instead of shooting him in the chest. A converstaion future Victor would no doubt have preferred.
@@AndresMagnone I wouldn't have minded Act 2 being an entire Season on its own. The ending of Episode 6 would have worked pretty damn well as a Season cliffhanger.
Season 2 was terribly rushed. I feel like they just wanted to move on to other League of Legends characters as soon as possible, so they decided to squeeze all these massive character arcs into a few minutes worth of storytelling and abruptly end Arcane. Awesome video as usual, your analyses always tell more than the original media you're analysing
So annoying how "Arcane had to end" so what they can just move on to new stuff? Like ummmm no thank you finish the Piltover/Zaun story properly please then maybe we can look at different stuff
@@HeckDescender2184 could be similar to what happened with D&D from game of thrones where the arcane staff got an offer from a big company or something and just decided to rush the last bit they have left so they could move on to the next project asap
@@orrissonpereira1070 I really, really, hope you're wrong. Unfortunately, we're struck with the very real possibility that the first season of Arcane might've been just lightning in a bottle, an isolated incident, and that possibility disappoints me immensely
I like the idea of calling it "roombuilding" now. That's what worldbuilding has been reduced to. Writers praised for building a single functional chair while the rest of the house is on fire. But oh how pretty the chair looks, right? Whatever.
It's crazy how Piltovers top law enforcement became: Girl who's been doing the job a year, lesbian girlfriend ex-con, some drunk vet, a ginger recruit she wants to bang, silent fish. What's that? setting up the 20 champions from Piltover? Glasc is a chembaron? Nah we killed all of those. Viktor creates Blitzcrank? Sorry he became time travelling Moses, also that wasn't Ryze :(
Remember how grounded Season 1 was? How it felt like an actual world where people lived their different lives? That it was fucking possible to understand everything that was happening without getting a stroke?
The first season felt believable and even the magic had its own rules to make it feel more like a science, but then the second season crammed in the Black Rose and Time Travel and all this other stuff way too early.
@@gimmeyourrights8292 Ah right the First season with teleportation and a serum with 20 different variants that you have to guess which one thier using depending on if they hulk out or not. also somehow the entirety of season 1 ep4-9 happened in a week if all of that is believable to you and season 2 somehow isn't... Maybe you got significantly stupider in the time of Season 2
@@nathanielchatley9061Thats a fantastic strategy that has always worked the one you have there. "The piece of shit that i like is equal to the good shit everyone likes". Because trying to drag down a piece of media to the low level that something else has reached is a fantastic way of organizing a defense for that something, and not at all a tacit recognition of how weak your position is. Dude, make yourself a favour. If you are to insult someone, try to do it without proyecting. When you are insulting a proyection of yourself, you are not insulting who you think you are insulting. Its funny for the rest of us, yes, but also cringe. Ok? Ok.
@nathanielchatley9061 There was a way they made that grounded, Hextech was a science that had mathematic instructions in order to make it work, Shimmer was basically Magic steroids. The magic in the first season was a steampunk version of things that already exist, it was low fantasy levels of worldbuilding that easily guide people into the world. Stuff like time travel and multiverses are high concept elements of sci-fi and fantasy, that can lose a lot of people if they aren't executed well, there's a huge difference between steroids that turn you into the hulk and entire timelines where everything that happened in your life happened in reverse.
The funny thing is I rewatched season 1 like 7 times, but once I finished season 2 I never picked it back up again. Season 1 was considered great because of the writing, thats why Silco, a character with no ties to the game, was and is considered one of the shows best characters. The moment i watched the season 2 episode where jinx was talking to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, I knew shit hit the fan.
Did you notice she wasn't talking to the audience, but instead the now dead Silco, but the audience benefited from witnessing it as if she were actually breaking the fourth wall? I think people are being a bit reactive and not really paying attention enough to see this show isn't being lazy, even in season 2. A lot of the points being made in this video didn't completely land solid for me. Sometimes a second season, especially when 3 years after the first, isn't going to hit some people as well as the first, because it's going to be something different, because the story and characters have progressed, and they don't want to keep giving us more of something too much the same as we got before. I do think it could have benefited from another episode or 2, to more tidily tell the story, but what they did to compensate for this was still good enough. I didn't need to watch a whole episode of Vi pummeling opponents in a boxing ring and getting drunk out of her mind for weeks. I've been rewatching season 2 and enjoying it. It's true Jinx is guilty of terrible things and hasn't really fully redeemed herself. That said, by the end of season 2, she's on her way to becoming actually a good person. Too late? For some. Who decides who gets a second chance?
She didn't break the fourth wall. She was trying to talk to Silco. I have plenty of issues with this season, but thinking Jinx is talking to the audience is a comprehension problem
@@BattleAngelFan99 "Sometimes a second season, especially when 3 years after the first, isn't going to hit some people as well as the first, because it's going to be something different, because the story and characters have progressed, and they don't want to keep giving us more of something too much the same as we got before" ......None of this makes sense. It's been 3 years, so of course the story's not gonna hit hard? That's not how story's work. The story's gonna be different? Well.....sure. But it has to build on top of the character writing that came before it. This season didn't do that. It demolished a lot of the established character writing from the first season. The characters didn't progress, they were forced into certain plot points irrespective of whether it made sense for their characters or not. "I didn't need to watch a whole episode of Vi pummeling opponents in a boxing ring and getting drunk out of her mind for weeks" I needed to watch that. That's a significant shift in Vi's life. I've never seen that before. Even in prison, Vi had something to fight for. She lost all of that after the first act, I kinda needed to see what Vi's life looked like now. When we saw Jinx after the timeskip in the first season, the show dedicated almost half an episode showing us what Jinx's daily life looked like, her relationship with Silco and Sevika and her place in Silcos operation before progressing her arc forward. We got none of that with Vi. A small snippet of Vi at her lowest, then off to her buddy adventure with Jinx like none of it happened. That's not character progression. That's an exposition scene with the same narrative impact as reading it on Vi's wikipage.
@@chrishaven1489 Yeah i know she was talking to Silco at the beginning of ep2, but didnt that narration feel a bit like a wink-wink to the audience for you? Also when she grabs the camera in that beetle fight when she is talking to Isha didnt that also make you feel like she was kindof breaking the fourth wall?
@@chrishaven1489 Could be I've had enough time wasted on dark times forced on me in my life that I don't need to experience it in fiction to know and understand it. Just a perspective thing I guess. I thought they did a good job of summing up what had become of Vi without wasting time on something that basically was a waste of time for her character.
I remember being so surprised that the team that worked on this was responsible for making music videos, because in season 1 they were only dotted in here and there, but with season 2 it’s impossible not to know because they’re so much more pervasive
I remember in episode 3 when Vi sends the rest of the goon squad away, shield guy is limping. And I was like wait nothings even happened why is he hurt, nothing hit him. It wasn't till Efap I realized, oh, something did, in the fucking music video. Oh god, those were actually meant to convey story beats happening.
i thought i was the only one who felt like that about the new season. it is especially obvious in the finale, i was almost expecting a skin announcement at the end.
Same. Arcane unexpectedly get the Star Wars spin offf show treatment. I remember Schnee making a whole video on how Show Jinx was only superficially a manic pixie nightmare girl.... that really aged well.
Mel's S2 story was shockingly terrible. Mel was never a "badass MCU mage," she was a shrewd political operator who had a peaceful philosophy that contrasted with Ambessas ruthless, violent one. Mel was determiend to outmaneuver her thuggish mother **her own way.** Having her become a dumb "BADASS MAGE" is so jarring it's like they didnt even understand the (great) character they crafted in Season 1.
My initial disappointment with S2 was mainly with the antagonists, because they lacked a clear motivation and agency for me. (Especially when compared to Silco, easily one of the greatest antagonists in recent media history.) The more time passes the more I realize how instead every single character arc is flawed in major ways. The season is basically reduced to stunning visuals and a hand full of memorable scenes, which lack proper build up and in and of themselves do not make a great show in the slightest.
omg thank you. i rarely see people complain about mel’s treatment, like its not nearly enough. i’ve NEVER seen a character so thoroughly stripped down to bare bones nothing across seasons so badly. my god. i was really looking forward to her this season bc i feel like season one was mostly groundwork for her character that i was so sure would pay off later. especially since she’s the last person we see and focus on in season one (jinx’s 🦈 explosion). but nope. she is a mage. that’s the episode. even in the political-y scenes with the council she just like stands there and looks terrified a lot. (which to be fair the intro foreshadowed/not being positive here) like when caitlyn comes in with the decorated officer stuff. like PLEASE say/do something i am begging for characterization scraps that aren’t just “⚜️😟⚜️ ➡️ 🧙♀️🪄”
LoL Players: “Jinx is fun, but she does feel like a bit of a dull take on the insane, nuts, modern harley quinn archetype. I’m so glad Arcane created more of a character for such an icon of this game.” Writers of season 2: “ye but, isn’t she so quirky… and kinda cool… and should have a kid. She’s not the bad guy right?” 😐
what i'm saying lol, i love both versions of jinx, league's is just a fun rambunctious girl letting the canon loose everywhere she goes, she's suppose to be fun so i don't mind the similarities between her and harley quinn. arcane's jinx is suppose to be a deeper exploration of that kind of psyche, one that came from actual circumstances / choices jinx herself and others around her made. sure she still has her fun quirks but using that entirely to cover up her grey morality and it's unfolding is such an assassination to her character. clearly the writers were trying to have the best of both worlds but their execution just does a disservice to both and what makes them individually unique
She was isolated by a terrible man for years, enjoyed killing people and said she had no problem orphaning kids right before she adopts one? Her being a “good” big sister figure made no sense.
"You can't replace a steak with garlic powder." YES. FUCKING. THANK. YOU. I HATED all the annoying ass music video scenes. I deadass got so fed up with them I just started skipping whenever music w lyrics came on. And it sucks because I did end up liking a few of the songs from this season, but the sheer over saturation of MV scenes made it unbearable to watch after a while. Like, oh boy the fifth music video in the last fifteen minutes? You shouldn't have! The first season had annoying music and MV scenes too, but they used them much more sparingly and knew when to turn it off. In this season , it's like a child got a hold of the aux cord and started blasting randomly at the most inappropriate moments.
I think someone in EFAP brought this up: the MVs in the first season are mostly during the climaxes of the story, so it's not replacing storytelling, it enhances.
Funny thing is, the music videos aren't the problem. They were the bandaid solution to patch up the show's rushing storytelling. Which sucks. The music and the writing in the first season were symbiotic, they enhanced each other. But in this season, the music had to do most of the heavy lifting because the writing didn't have the time to build up those emotionally impactful moments as much as they should have. So the creators had to cheat and use music and stylized animation to do it. The show really, really, needed more room for the writing to breathe. It really needed to be a three season story, not two
Like, remeber when not ever episode needed to have a music video? Remember when said music videos where mean to _highlight_ the story and not serve as a shortcut for it?? I miss that...
Season 1 writers wanted to build a world and have each of these characters affect it and each other so that everything kept building to a head. Season 2 writers wanted to smash action figures together.
It's a very bad sign that, even during the hype of first watch and optimism, you detect things are off. "Oh that seemed weird well it's okay lets keep going". I tried to barrel on but once it got to Act 3 I just...didn't care. I couldn't tell what the fuck any of the character motivations were or why they're doing what they're doing, let alone what the fuck was up with Viktor and suddenly being the final boss. God, I had to grieve this season.
You should be paying more attention then because the show, having so little time to tell the story only gave you the important information. You didn't pick it up and you are now complaining. Too bad.
@@Itisoverthere-rw No, no, no, no. We picked up on the information. The information's not the problem. The problem is how that information was delivered. If the story details and the information were all that mattered, then if the creators gave you nothing but music montages for the whole season, you'd be fine with it because all the "important information" would still be there.
@chrishaven1489 I wasn't even talking about the montages but since you mentioned them, sorry but they are part of the story. If you needed an entire arc of Vi and the squad beating the chem barons to accept the event that happened so you don't miss it that's your issue. A show isn't bad because you failed to see the information it gave you and because you don't like the means of delivery.
@@Itisoverthere-rw But I didn't miss it. I got it. I understood the events. I told you, it's not about the information, it's about the way it's delivered. If that's enough for you, then you'd be perfectly fine if the creators gave you a string of music videos to explain the story and nothing else. And you'd still call it good. Would you have a problem with that? Or are you gonna die on that hill and tell me that you would absolutely love to watch Arcane in the form of a music video marathon?
@@Itisoverthere-rwYou are a pretty angry guy it seems. Pathetic all your attempts at simping for the awful season. No arguments or attemp of arguments. It seems almost impossible that someone saw s1, that had proper storytelling, and is so blinded that is unable to see the difference, trying to accuse anyone with brain cells of being dumb because the storytelling this season was more of a dump of info instead of a story proper. At this point you have to ask if they saw s1 to be this obtuse with the main complain with s2.
honestly 😭 i think this horrific season being fresh in everyone’s memory has made people say that Vi is terrible and not a well written character actually. and never has been. she is the jinx indeed. i’ve been fighting for my life in my group chats for this fictional character 😔 get behind me, Violet as of season one of riot/fortiche/netflix arcane: league of legends
I never knew how toxic a fan base could be until after s2, there's probably gonna be some people thinking you're a terrible person for not liking people getting gassed with rock music blasting over it. Stay strong!
I was tricked just like how I was tricked into thinking star wars the force awakens was good. This season needed 3 seasons to flush this out and it's obvious that they. Needed more time
@@bass-dc9175 What they needed was to cram so many outside players in just one season, the Black Rose or any of the Mel being a mage stuff had no place being in the show.
Yeah, I felt like I was going insane when I saw all the great feedback for s2. I guess that maybe most tv shows are generally bad nowadays, and that if people see any symbolism or philosophical messages, they automatically think it's deep, brilliant writing? S2 does have those things, but the delivery is still sloppy. It feels like every writer had their own ideas, and they tried to make everyone happy by including bits of all of them instead of really committing to one. @@wolfbane7497
Arcane accomplished Game of Thrones going from the first 4 seasons straight to season 8. It's a nose dive in quality I have never seen before, and Arcane will probably always be remembered for it!
Arcane season one just had so many quotes that unintentionally apply to season 2. "In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good." "What could have been" "Oh the misery" "When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish" "Betrayal, that pain that feels like it’ll eat you from the inside out, can either break you or forge you into something greater.” “I recognize that any worthwhile venture involves risk.” "Sometimes death is a mercy." Season 2 is a writers wet dream ... But only his. It is a selfish butchering of a risky show, muted and simplified, a betrayal of the original, only to try and prove that your work is greater than the old. Being canceled would have been a mercy. At least then we would ask "what can arcane become" instead of what could have been.
I understand he was most of the problem, but what about the other one? The girl? (I can’t remember her name 😭) She was the one who ran CaitVi into the ground! I mean, she admitted that the only reason she liked Vi’s hate for enforcers because it made for a good setup for an enemies to lovers story, which makes so much sense when you watch season two!
@@twistedwonderland1043 In and of itself there's absolutely no issue with the CaitVi romance and "enemies to lovers" trope. It adds complexity and conflict. They just jinxed it (pun intended) by not making Vi the centerpoint, as she is the actual culmination point of the conflict.
I did not expect Season 2 to be as bad as it was, as anyone was, but here we are. We truly do live in the worst timeline (as friggin milked as that saying is at this point). What could've been indeed.
It was so easy to see how so many of those 'yeah, it's not borderline perfect as S1, but it's still pretty great' opinions would turn into 'it was a disappointment' after a few months. The die hard fanboys with blinds on would heap praise on anything, but this was a dud. I was like 'this is a 6.5 at best' once I initially finished it, now I'd rate it a 5.
I admit I thought in similar ways. Not going as far as calling it "great", but maybe "still pretty good, but no match for S1". But I have an excuse! As an artist I was constantly mesmerized by the visuals. That probably made me enjoy the episodes way more than the story actually merited.
I’ve never been as hopeful or excited for any season of any show before release as I was for season 2 of Arcane. I thought since the same people were making it as the first season that there was no way they could screw it up. I won’t be making that mistake again.
Yeah I spent 3 years checking for updates, reading fanfiction and even regretfully watched the leaks, I was really expecting to see all of that pay off.
Disappointments like S2 Arcane make me appreciate Vince Gilligan even more, who managed to keep Breaking Bad and Better call Saul coherent over several seasons.
It's worth noting Gilligan had more seasons to work with. Imagine telling Walter White's story in two-three seasons. Or Saul's story in the same timeframe. That's kinda what happened to these characters in Arcane. Seaons worth of character development shoved into one and you get the mess that was this season
@@chrishaven1489 Wich is, from what I know, the creators own fault. Instead of sticking with the, let me call it "piltover saga", they wanted to tell "new stories" and wrap it up. The equivalent of that would be Gilligan getting bored with Breaking Bad after one season in order to start working on Better call Saul.
@@chrishaven1489Pretty sure they had a choice, didn't they? Seems like they really wanted to move on to other stories and expand the universe. They set up a whole civil war but chose to introduce new elements and spread out the whole focus instead of actually giving the established stories a good ending.
It's shocking to see a season of television so intensely disinterested in telling their story. The most important or interesting events play off screen. "A punchline without a setup" is the perfect description.
I used to think that season 2 just needed more episodes or time to explore its themes. But since I learned that the writers room only retained two of the season 1 writers, I no longer believe that. Season 2 has been written with a complete lack of understanding of why the characters and themes were written the way they were in season 1, which has led to a huge disconnect in season 2. Once you get to act 2, so much of the build up of season 1 is discarded that you could watch it without any prior knowledge and fill in the blanks yourself. (Which is honestly what the writers expect you to do for a lot of the set up in season 2 as well.) Season 1 told a beautiful, intimate story about family, relationships and the effects of class struggle. Season 2 told a story which included time travel and alternate dimensions that ended with everyone ignoring their differences to fight Ultron ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@NicheXCC Briefly looking at the writing credits, it seems that there are a few writers that don't either don't return for S2 or are credited in fewer episodes. Ash Branon & Conor Sheehy are credited as writers for all episodes in S1 but none in S2. Amanda Overton is credited for all episodes in S1 but only 3 in S2, those being Ep01, Ep07, Ep08. Edit: I should mention that S2 (from what I can tell) doesn't have "new" writers. So it is technically correct to say that S2 has the same writers as S1, it just doesn't have all of them. Edit 2: If Interstellar is correct then what I said in the first Edit isn't.
@NicheXCC Below is a list of the writers for both seasons, excluding showrunners Christian Linke and Alex Yee from Riot. Season 1: Ash Brannon, Conor Sheehy, David Dunne, Ben St.John, Mollie St.John, Amanda Overton, Nicholas Luddington Season 2: Amanda Overton, Nicholas Luddington, Giovanna Sarquis, Graham McNeill, Henry Jones, Kristina Felske Source: IMDB Arcane Series Writing Credits These names appear in the shows opening title under Written By and Story By in season 1, and Written By in season 2.
The best parts of the season were in music video montages, Caitlyn attending her mother's funeral, the Zaunite gang war, Caitlyn slipping into police brutality, and Vi's descent would've been amazing if they were properly explored instead of cramming all of these factions where there was no room for them.
The main reason in the downgrade in quality imo is the villain, Silco was a cool well written character and in a sea of "relatable villains" he was a breath of fresh air, we can actually sympathise with his cause, the woman king on the other hand wants...power? Ugh
No, I'd say the downgrade had more to do with shoving two seaons worth of story into a single season, and rushing a lot of character arcs because of it. Fixing Ambessa's motivations wouldn't have fixed the other issues plaguing this season
Not really viktor is the real let down ambessa doesn't just want power she wants to protect her family that was set up in season 1 also on macro level she believes magic is cowardly and that real warriors like her should rule so she sees hextech as a way make magic a weapon for everyone and strip mages of their advantage. When she was the villain it was good when the plot became about viktors cringe ultron mcu shit i checked out
@@moe5020 ....Eeeeeh. Personally, I thought Ambessa was super-interesting when she was a background threat, trying to push Piltover into making more hextech weapons. And I thought her desire to protect her family also made her interesting. But then they turned her into another power-hungry mcu villain that turns out she's actually willing to sacrifice her son to achieve her goals. That was such a downgrade from her nuanced motivations. I actually don't have a massive problem with Viktor being a robot overlord, largely because that's kinda the way he's supposed to end up, BUT, it needed more time for him to naturally progress into his "final form". That transformation was rushed af. AND Viktor should've also been a background threat as well. World ending threats don't always have to be forefront threats. If the big, bad villain of the first season was a Zaunite, it would've made all the sense in the world if the big, bad guy of the following season(s) was a Piltovan. The Piltovan equivalent of Silco, someone who hated Zaun just as much as Silco hated Piltover. But instead, a lot of Piltover's crappy actions were relegated to the Noxians doing most of the bad stuff. That was such a stupid departure of this show's themes and conflicts. The creators really wanted to expand this world at the cost of neglecting the current part of the world the story is supposed to be focusing on. Idiots.
@@chrishaven1489 100% was missing some of the piltover v zaun struggle, which was one of the biggest setups in season 2. Caitlyn becoming a brutal leader would've been perfect for this and could've put Vi back to defending Zaun because this is what she feared, but instead joins the police?? Then the whole takeover was glossed over and now Zaun just joined piltover against Viktor in the end without any meaningful connection between the two.
I could not support Jinx’s redemption arc. It felt like the writers were gonna stick to the source material of Jinx being sympathetic but unapologetically evil as she is in the game, but then the random plot device of Isha randomly came in to “fix” her and they tried to shed her in a good light when she didn’t do much to deserve it. She feels like a different character in S1 and not in a development kind of way, even though that was their intention. The trailers made it seem like she was going to carry the responsibility of being a symbol of Zaun and she did for like 4 seconds and then it was sidelined and rushed to her being a “hero”
No, no, no, no, no. Giving Jinx a redemption arc wasn't the problem. That's actually interesting. The problem was how fast they did it. It needed more time to cook properly. Time is the key problem with this season, there wasn't enough of it, and a result everyone's character arcs were rushed af
I think she was supposed to be liked, but she was not supposed to be seen as a good person or a hero. I wish they had left her as the morally gray (at best) she was in season 1, or made her a full on villain. Hero was not the route to go…
@@waverlyaltis7171 Jinx being a hero isn't the problem. The problem was the journey towards that "heroism". The show needed three seasons to fully explore what a heroic Jinx would look like. The second season should've focused on Caitlyn and Vi hunting Jinx down, with Vi having conflicted loyalties between Caitlyn and jinx. And the longer Jinx evades the enforcers, the more notorious she becomes, and the more she inadvertently inspires the people of Zaun to fight back against the enforcers. And the Jinx vs Vi fight would happen at the end of the season. Then the third season should've focused on Vi and Jinx being forced to work together to find and cure Vander, while Caitlyn's running through her dictator arc and trying to hunt them down. And the plot of trying to cure Vander would run in tandem with Jinx's redmeption arc. Jinx and Vander are both monsters with broken minds in need of healing.
Vi's downward spiral made me just roll my eyes. They really went with the cliched "getting punched just to feel anything" bs. And Caitlyn's suicide skwad to capture Jinx was hilarious. Who the heck were most of those people? Some furry, a child soldier, a hobo that Vi went on a bender once? Did she pick the first people she saw? And that kid that cured Jinx's shizofrenia by landing on her head? Already forgot her name, cause she wasn't even a character, more a plot device. Could've been a puppy.
fun fact, no one actually ever says that character's name in the show. It's in the subtitles during a scene where the dialogue is muted because (you guessed it) non-diegetic music is playing, and in the credits for the episodes she's in. That's it.
The hobo Vi went on a bender with once was very confusing to me. He had to potential to be an exploration into the underbelly of Piltover itself. Season 1 showed Piltover as a glittering city on a hill with no imperfections except it oppression of Zaun, but the hobo shows up another side of Piltover itself. What does Piltover think of its own lower class? How do enforcers treat hobo drunks who sleep off hangovers on public property? But instead we got a rando with no motivation and no character who doesn't interact with anyone else beyond his first scene and doesn't even rise to the level of a plot device.
Unfortunately they won't learn their lesson from it, the large majority of the audience loved and praised it, so they're going to keep on cutting corners and writing poorly from now on. I was always convinced that Arcane season 1 was only good because of how long it was in production, they had so much time to improve it and tighten it up, whereas season 2 was rushed out absurdly fast in comparison - so of course it suffered from that. The general audience however only listen to their emotions, and will judge it based on how they felt while watching it, and don't want to listen to any factual issues with it.
It took that long to animate it - it shouldn't take 4-5 years to write a good story for 8-9 episodes. It was rushed and poorly written, but lack of time was not the problem - they chose to rush to the finish and tell a slapdashed story, nobody forced them.
@@Nast33 That's part of the issue I'd say: you don't write the story for 8-9 episodes in order to cramp out a season. The entire story should have been written before the first frame is rendered - at least in form of an overarching storyboard. You must know where your story is headed at any point in order for it to appear as a coherent whole. But that doesn't seem to be the way things are done these days.
@@lonestarr1490 Did I say anything contrary to that? I literally said they cut corners and wrote poorly, they didn't spend the time on it like they did with the first season.
S1 spent so much time building up the horror that a war between Pilltover and Zaun would be, and then on the cusp of peace, Jinx blows up the council. How did we not get to see a war between Zaun and Pilltover? I don't understand what they were thinking.
@@mitzee8621 When I point that out people will just tell me the show was never about the conflict between Piltover or Zaun it was about the Arcane or they say there were many plotlines and that conflict was just one of them; like it wasn't something major or that neither of the plot lines affect each other. Just because somethings in the title doesn't mean its the only thing you have to focus on or disregard everything else.
@@gristlyknave831 Anyone who is trying to claim the conflict between Pilltover and Zaun was just one of many plotlines is insane. Literally, every single plotline in S1 revolved around it. It was the central thread that brought all the other stories together.
@@mitzee8621Yeah the show literally started and ended with that conflict. The very first scene is Jinx and Vi discovering their parents had been killed by enforcers during an uprising against Piltover, then getting adopted by the man who led it. The end is Jinx launching a missile at the government of Piltover. Idk how you could possibly make it more obvious what the central conflict is when it's literally at the centre of everything.
@@Itisoverthere-rw well I meant it from the writers' perspective; you get a climax that has been set up and coming from the very beginning and well established characters have to deal with it. + you could say seele got exactly what they wanted so there u go
@michemicalromance It's been about the mental collapse of the characters because its creator was always making it for himself. The remake confirmed it as the clown out his wife in it. Evangelion was always a scam. All the religious symbolism and the world building in the background were empty and there just to trick the audience. It's disappointing that it worked.
One of the worst sins of this season is the lack of accountability. Jinx is a terrorist; Caitlyn becomes a war criminal. And both of them got to go free with... what do you call it? A slap on the wrist!
I'm noticing this a lot in modern media. First time was with the infamous final season of Game of Thrones. It seems like how the characters view one another isn't really taken into consideration anymore. Now it's all about how the audience is supposed to view them and all the characters are forced to play into it. It's like a decline of empathy on the writers side, which makes the strings they pull visible (which is never a good thing).
people always complaing about something is not realistic , especially when its some dreamlikefantasy -fiction, then it cant be realistic enough for some reason... and now thats the most realistic thing ever and you have nothing better to do than complain... where is accountability in real life child?
jinx is a mentally ill teenager and a member of the oppressed lower class blowing up cops and council members, she gets to either die or fake her death caitlyn is a privileged grown woman in a position of power gassing people and trying to shoot children and she gets everything she wants let's not pretend like these are comparable
@@AutomanicJack Its not about not being realistic, is about consistency. If you have shown to me in the first season that in this world acts have consequences, and you totally throw that of the window in the second, yea things wont sit right with me, child.
@@horniman1054 if you compare the seasons you also will acknowledge that in the first season at the begnning there was some order and from episode to episode the order got overthrown more and more until we end in war where we all know that morale says goodbye and crimes get punished with crimes. so thats consistent imo.. you cant compare the seasons and act like the world in the seasons did not change, child.
EDIT: And the thing is, S1 had a music video section with "Dynasties and Dystopia" and it was arguably the best fight scene in the show. Why? Because it was used to add tension and weight to the soured relationship between Ekko and Jinx for a SPECIFIC scene, and the scene doesn't end with the music video. The scene continues after the music video finishes, and it continues with its grimness and ugliness. The music video gives weight to one specific moment in an interesting way, as well as making the next bit where Ekko and Jinx actually fight a much darker contrast to the childish game, instead of acting as a summary of a whole bunch of events. It was ugly. And that was important. ORIGINAL COMMENT: I like to say that "Arcane S2 was too pretty for its own good." The music videos, the way every frame could be a PC background, all detract from the ugliness of the themes S1 deeply explored. I rewatched S1, and it has some UGLY shots. Viktor's declining health in his face, Silco's scar, the corpses and blown off arms and spitting teeth on the floor, certain fight scenes like Sevika vs Vi, the shimmer monsters, are all UGLY. And it adds to the weight of those scenes and characters because it gives them the grimness and weight that they need. There is no reason for the surface-level prettiness of S2. An example of a medium that uses beautiful imagery is the psychological-horror video game OMORI, where the dream world is beautiful and colourful and fantastical and dreamy. And it's deliberately like that in order to make an unsettled feeling that there is something much more sinister below the surface to all of this. S2 is pretty not for any thematic reason, but just because it wants to be, and because there is no reason for it to be pretty, it heavily dilutes all of the scenes that should have weight. Think of when Jinx is on that sacrificial altar, and Vi is standing over her with the glove, ready to kill her. You don't feel the weight of that scene. It's simply not ugly enough. The shots are too beautiful to feel the weight that VI is about to kill HER SISTER. It also warps relationships between certain characters- S1 Jayce and Viktor were very much so like brothers. But because this show is so dreamy and fantastical now, there's a blur in the line between Jayce and Viktor. Their scenes together are so intimate and whimsical due to the art, that I totally understand those that see Jayce and Viktor as being gay despite them being very clearly platonic. The show toes that boundary too much, and I'm amused the writers were surprised that a significant portion of the fandom thinks the pair were gay. You did that.
I've noticed that too lately. While we all agree the animation is the only thing that should be praised in S2, it's dreamy, colourful, sometimes Ghibli style is another reason why S2 is so detached from S1
Breaking Bad and Better call Saul are famous for essentially not having a soundtrack (exceptions are there but the point stands) scenes are given emotional weight because of the writing, the performances and everything in between. Arcane S2 is the opposite... it believes it can create the same weight by simply slapping a song over a first draft of a scene and call it a day... doesn't work apparently
Those shows don’t have the typical “soundtrack”. But they’re filled to the brim with compilation. But they work because Vince clearly shows how much time passes and how the characters experience them. They also capture more mondain things like a days meth cooking or Saul tidying up his new lawyer firm. They never rush over insane plot lines like Walter and Jesse expending their territory, working for Gus or going into hiding with a 2 minute long music video.
i'm so glad you brought jinx's mental ilness up, so far i haven't seen anyone mention it. to me it really felt like they got her mental state backwards in season 2. by the end of s1 she was already clinically insane and couldn't even make out what was real and what wasn't and she embraced her identity as jinx only to somehow become sane and reject that very same identity between the first 3-4 episodes of s2? literally her whole theme was the spiral of madness that she was falling into, becoming more and more unstable and insane and having that insanity boosted by singed infusing her body with shimmer. in s2 they bring up her shimmer infusion by showing she has insane speed, but they forget that part of the point of that was that it chemically altered her brain beyond insanity?
Act 2 alone could have been a season long arc. They've admitted now that they want to explore different locations in a new series so why the rush to end (and in the process ruin) Arcane?!?!
You have spent zero time thinking about this buddy. The story would be fine if they made longer episodes to add the necessary connecting scenes, dialogue and the little additions needed to make it all flow organically. They weren't going to give them that extra time and they had to finish it in one season. That's the result. An extended edition would fix all the issues if they decided to do it but I don't think Riot amd Netflix care about that. This should be a lesson about studio interference and limitations, not the attack on the creatives it has become.
@@HeckDescender2184Being rushed doesn't mean it was ruined buddy. Return of the Jedi is a rushed mess but I don't see people crying that it ruined the trilogy.
finally someone talks about the horrible music videos, the music choices are horrible it makes it really hard to rewatch if I have to get through those horrible music videos again
I actually thought they should never have done a season two. Season one is a beautiful tragedy between the sisters. It’s accomplished by making jinx unredeemable. So a season 2 continuation, especially one like this, could never work
Worse things are hiw unbelievable some storylines are Vi going to gas her people? Jinx suddenly bonding with a random kid? Sweet guy Viktor tries to kill everyone? Jinx becoming an icon? Zhaun and Piltover becoming friends? Ehhh....
You gotta have em well placed to say this... Bravo. I once dared point out the flaws in the season myself, and I barely survived to tell the tale. There's a bunch of toxic fanatics of this show, as is the case for most (deservedly) glorified shows.
Pause this season on any random frame and you've got a beautiful poster to put on your wall. Play them in sequence with audio and you've got an absolute travesty that will drain your world of color, darkness will slowly fade in from the edges until you feel hopeless and alone, curled up in the middle of an expansive nothingness, your oraffices will begin to bleed a black oil, all heat will leave the universe, and you'll remain conscious of everything that is happening in and around yourself but die inside.
I hate to be that guy, but you should probably eat a snickers. As much as I enjoyed your elaborate prose, but it's not a good idea to throw all relations out of the window. Yes, Arcane season 2 is bad. But it's not Star Wars sequels level of bad. Nor is it Rings of Power or GoT season 8 level of bad.
@@lonestarr1490 I suppose that's up to the individual in how much it affects them. While I was being purposely dramatic, I was much more emotionally involved in the characters than I was for GoT. I'm not going to do a step-by-step comparison to see which is worse, but I feel like those two are on a similar level of objectively bad. But I merely enjoyed GoT, I wasn't all that moved by it, and it had been on a downward trend for a couple seasons prior to its cliff jump. With GoT, I was annoyed, but it really didn't affect me or surprise me as much. Now, with Star Wars, I wasn't so much "dark void" feeling as I was "blazing inferno" feeling. It was less "Why did this happen?" and more "How dare you?!?" This season was really bad, but you're probably right that the SW sequels were worse. They couldn't even figure out the general navigational direction of up, let alone everything else. RoP, I didn't bother past the first episode. It's just non-canon fanfic on a massive budget. It's just not taken at all seriously by me. I don't even know many people trying to excuse it, the way I do with the others. It's a billion dollar joke show. I didn't throw _everything_ out. I said it looks nice. And there's some decent isolated scenes. But I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
More true words couldn't be spoken, during the Season finale I found myself occasionally having «Next slide please» occuring in my mind upon gazing at the battle 💀💀
This video has made me start to think a lot about Arcane S2. I still love this show and how it has ended but DAMN how many things I either dismissed or just ignored about it without giving too much thought. I think most of the problematic narrative decisions come from the fact that Riot Games have decided to make Arcane an official canon of Lol universe (even though it's been perfectly existing as a complete separate version of it). That's why characters doesn't feel like themselves anymore since Rioters want them to be recognisable and closer to the source material "just-like-in-that-video-game".
Nutsa was in the EFAPs that reviewed season 2. I have been a watcher of the podcast since 2018 and this is their worst review to date. Don't take what she says at face value. She is in a confirmation bias spiral just like the rest of the EFAP crew. You can tell if you watch any of the highlights from the reviews and listen to the bullshit they complain about. The season has quite the writing issues. It tries to cover too much ground in too little time and they skip scenes, reduce dialogue, lamp shade events etc. However, EFAP will reach the conclusion that it was shit. Their perspective is fucked. As for Riot, making the show canon etc. That's Riot's problem. It has nothing to do with Arcane. If they are retards and they have to shove the popular show in their setting because they don't care about their own canon that's an issue the LoL players have to deal with.
Mostly agree. However I don't think the flaws stem from Riot wanting to make it the "new canon" so to speak, I believe that it has to do more with the runtime and episode count limitations they had, and how they had to cram it all in such a short span of episodes, and how short they were made it all worse...
They literally changed the lore of the game because of the season so i dont think that was the problem, and the lore of the game was quite decent so dont taint it like that xD.
personally i believe that pacing issues were just not the sole evil for how s2 came out to be but fundamentally due to the writer's decision on how to progress their characters arc. what they seem to prioritize and think what's best to execute doesn't feel like they truly understood what made these characters, this setting, this plot and its themes a masterpiece in s1. or maybe we could link this all back to riot's corporate greed to maximize character marketability instead of challenging them to be unappealing but truly loyal to their arc set-ups from s1... idk tho...
Turns out the writing team was cut down massively from season 1, people think Linke was the master mind but no, seeing him take on everything in s2 shows he didn't have the same chops
Season 1 felt like it was written by Sophocles Season 2 felt like it was written by the people who watched season 1 through tiktok edits. Characters are stripped off of most of their motives and values. They're dolls and the plot sucks
To me, the characters in S2 are quintessential examples of hollow 2-dimensional characters, but reading reviews and comments made me think I had watched a completely different show. I liked some of the moments in isolation, but I wasn't a fan of Arcane because I like watching tangentially related ~5-minute clips.
Sophocles. Good one. I always sold the show to my friends telling them it was a greek tragedy. S2 was written by three dudes really high brainstorming ideas without caring if it makes sense. A lot of them are cool, but there isn't a system, structures and a lot of time doesn't make sense.
I'm still processing Season 2, need to watch it again. When I finished it, I think I felt disappointed, but in a way that made me unable admit that I was disappointed.
I think that this how a lot of people who are unrepentantly defending the season as "AMAZING" are feeling, but are unable to admit. Appreciate you voicing your thoughts! It honestly sucks so much how downhill Season 2 went.
>Isha and Warwick are not characters, they are plot devices >it's stupid how they blame "the circle of violence" on Jinx rather than the system, she should've stayed alive and build something new like Ekko said they would >Zaun teaming up with Piltover is stupid, them joining the Noxus side would've made a lot more sense
Season 1 didn't feel like a game adaptation, it felt like a rich story about human relationships, politics, corruption and trauma. Season 2 feels like a glorified game adaptation who drowns in its love for itself and completely loses sight of what it was supposed to tell.
I thought i was insane because I felt unsatisfied by this season and everyone kept saying it was a masterpiece and so good and bla bla bla. Like girl?? Hello did we watch the same thing?
I swear if it was live action it would not be praised as much. I hope the animators were paid fairly and were not overworked or anything cus damn did they do a lot of the heavy lifting.
JUSTICE FOR GOATMAN! He only wanted to science! But I know he's in a better place with Rictus and his boi Smeech. Also RIP to Shield-Man: The Hobo Enforcer, AKA Fake Vander, AKAAKA Vander's Piltover cousin. Out of all of the "Scooby Squad" you were the coolest.
Shield-Man was the epitome of character underdevelopment. He could have been a closet on wheels instead and all the scenes would have played out exactly the same way.
@@lonestarr1490 So I saw some comments on here yesterday of someone mentioning a "Loris". I thought: "who the hell is that?" Looked it up and turns out that is Shield-Man's name! HAHAHAH I swear it is never said in the show! It really says something when you find out a character's name from a YT comment.
YAY !!! You have uploaded !!! Hope you have had a Merry Christmas and are doing well. I really video essays as you make them with many interesting points that explain in a crisp. For me, I feel like Arcane 2 had the "sauce" to be great, however, it should have just cut down the unnecessary set-up of other storylines that shift focus away from the main plot about the conflicts between Piltover and Zaun. In fact, this lesson should be told to pretty much all the writers in general as they are more focused on making something that can profit later for them in the future than making something good at the present. It is always the post-credits, set-up and next times that annoy me so much !!! What happened to good stories with a main plot that begins and ends in that same story ?!?!?! Even "small" shows are guilty of this like Hazbin Hotel; and services like Netflix (ironically) thrive from this dumb process. That is why episode 7 of Arcane 2 is universally considered the best as it is character-focused on two different perspectives of similar characters (Ekko of Zaun and Jayce of Piltover) looking at their own actions in vastly different results (Ekko in his dream life and Jayce's undesirable consequences) and is directly related to the Piltover-Zaun conflict.
Slow clap... This critique is genius and it taught me I'm stupid for liking season 2. Season 1 perfection must have been accidental. This content creator needs more recognition, subscribed.
Jinx being a hero to zaunites does make sense cause shes fight the oppressors from piltover, most people dont know her personally and how psycho she necessarily is, but given the fight against piltover I dont think they would care even if they knew. But I do agree that they changed her character from season 1 to 2 a lot. Like at the end of season 1 she settles on being jinx and powder is dead, but then in season 2 we get more powder than jinx for a lot of the show. Like all of her character development in season 1 was just thrown in the trash. Caitlyn going full dictatorship does make sense, she been hunting jinx for a while and then jinx blows up the council killing her mom(leaving the family inheritance and position of power in her arms), the chem baron attack the funeral. That would fill most people with a reasonable amount of rage and want for revenge and between the power she inherited and the semi power vacuum from after the attack and ambessa pushing her to violence. It all makes sense. But the issue is we then get one music video of her gassing zaun and a failed attack on jinx and then shortly after shes suddenly "tired of fighting"???. Not enough time and events have gone by for her character to develop into that tired of fighting mind set and it also happens very abruptly after finding Vi again who low key betrayed her. I dont see and issue with the lesbian relationship but the kissing and sex scene where so poorly placed. Everything else you talked about I think you nailed pretty well.
It makes sense in theory, but those changes take time and all of this was skipped over in the show. People thought of Caitlyn as a spoiled brat who wants to play cop in S1, now they suddenly trust her to be their leader?
also Caitlyn just instantly switch sides the moment she sees Vi again and betrays Ambessa. There is a "logical" explanation for this, being that previously Singed told her "why does one commit unspeakable acts? for love" but it just feels so off and not satisfying as a tie up for their breakup at all. Caitlyn never apologizes for hitting Vi in the stomach either, and Vi's trauma is just brushed off the whole season. uuughh
@eltongoaustriaco8268 yes and no, the council was a peace time council that knew nothing of war and was still in shock from two back to back massive terrorist attacks, conditions like that will cause leaders to think irrationally. And you have to remember Caitlyn was also being backed by Ambessa who came from a nation of war. There's even more to it with Ambessa staging the second attack to make everyone more fearful and angry for revenge and fast tracking the war. So with all that happening it's not really development and change that needs time to set up. Without Ambessas manipulation Caitlyn would never have become the leader.
i really despise negative feedback when it isn’t warranted. i’m afraid this negative feedback is warranted. i’m not going to say season 2 was a dumpster fire yet because i need to rewatch it incase im missing something, but i can say i was left feeling very confused and unsatisfied. i think your feedback is pretty accurate in explaining why myself and many others felt this way…
I forgot I subbed to you so I clicked on this video and then I saw your avatar and I got overjoyed. You make entertaining reviews. I like your animations and editing style. Its a fun and cynical sense of humor
Someone else finally mentioned how ekko loving jinx makes no sense😭 feels like they were trying so hard to make popular fan ships happen even though it didnt make sense to the story
@@blacktigerpaw1 In her defense, they attacked her. She never went out of the way to hunt and kill them. Ekko's buddies were trying to blow up Silko's business, and kill her. I get why people think she is a terrorist, because she does go out of the way to kill Enforcers and try to kill government officers, but hey, they killed her parents, and they are definitely evil oppressors in the eyes of the undercity people. So for them, yeah, she is a hero.
@@gonzalomartinez2449 Maybe, but she also nuked the chances of an independent Zaun, and some Zaunites may blame her for introducing martial law. We never got to see such conflicting narratives.
@@gonzalomartinez2449 Eh the firelights only tried to actively kill her after she killed their friends in front of them(and i think its only one of them, because the person jinx killed was very precious to him). They actually use non-lethal methods as its shown in the first season. And i think killing someone that didnt actually tried to kill you while they are running away defenceless can be called hunting down.
I really appreciated your review of jynx!! I really thought they missed so many oppertunities to explore a really fascinating character. And I really disliked Isha's inclusion as an extension of that missed oppertunity. She really did nothing for me personally and I was really hoping the writers wouldn't go the obvious part of killing her off
If you wanna hear more of Nutsa talking about Jinx, there is an earlier video of hers talking about Kylo Ren and Jinx and comparing how one is a poorly written broken character but the other isn't. You should check it out!
Also while I have issues with Vi this season and you have a valid point about her not havign any real sense of agency. I would argue that what pushed her off the edge wasn't Caitlyn breaking up with her. Rather that its how that now the Caitlyn's gone she has nothing to live for, her sister is gone, her family is gone, her lover is gone. As you said about "Vi connections to family and love ones" all of those people are now no longer in her life and so she has nothing now. Hence why she is at rock bottom.
You nailed so many things on the head here as to why I just felt confused and wondering “why” throughout most of the show, especially the second half. also the title for this is amazing I clicked just for that
It was the very first thing I considered when finishing S1. "This is surprisingly good. I hope the success of season 1 doesn't cause Riot to lose sight of what is was trying to achieve (deeper exploration of leagues lore) in favor of what it usually does (milk every penny out of anything people gravitate towards)." I guess the writing was on the wall since the beginning. As someone who up to recently played a lot of league, its was quite evident that season one was just lightning in a bottle. It caught even riot by surprise. Season 1 had some in-game stuff post-launch, while season 2 was being hyped months in advance. With events and flashy skin lines. The fact that they even started re-writing the lore of champions in league to fit more in line with arcane (the opposite of what arcane was supposed to do) were already the first warning signs that this show would soon morph from labor of love to - to nobodies surprise - a product.
I felt exactly the same after the first high of the premiere and start thinking about what could have been if the show wasn't bottomlined into 2 seasons.
Amazing video!!!! It's great to see someone make a short analysis of a show with such precision. This show is a wreck and it's a great video to show someone in order to point out the biggest flaws because for some reason 30 hours of EFAP is "too much".
Jinx has never taken accountability for anything, and it makes her a spoiled brat to me in this series. She's a perpetual victim, and I just don't care how quirky that makes her lol.
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I preferred the original video title: 'In the Pursuit of Great, Arcane Forgot to Do Good.'
@@zachryder3150the original title was "in the pursuit of great arcane season 2 forgot to do good"
This is an effect of social media and a life spent looking at a screen.
@@zachryder3150 💯
I personally don't have a problem with Jinx getting a redemption arc. I thought that was interesting character development. The only problem was it wasn't............developed. At least not properly. The show needed more time for that character arc to cook properly.
"Cities become rooms, characters become caricatures, events become montages, themes become monologues"
Couldn't have put it better. Really a shame
Season 2 of Arcane is honestly exactly what I'd expect from a show based on league of legends before watching season 1, but the last thing I'd expect season 2 of Arcane to be
Damn that is a very good point! Based comment!
Yeah...that is a disappointingly accurate description.
That’s a really good way to put it
In other words: Season 1 was actually the odd one out and we just didn't realize it.
yeah...
):
Honestly I’m becoming more and more inclined to just consider season 1 to have been the canonical ending
Yeah, I agree
I honestly thought it was until I was told there would be a second season
It works because S1 has a fantastic ending. Sure it can feel like a cliffhanger but if it's seen as an ending it feels like the natural conclusion of the whole story.
Or you could embrace reality, accept that S2 exists and that it is crap.
@@TheMightyPikaYeah like Jinx actually becomes realized and she continues the cycle of violence.
I am not the typical audience for a show like Arcane, so when S1 first appeared, it flew right by me. But people kept saying, "That show is so much better than its source." So I said, "ok, I will give it the three-episode test. Damn, did they see me coming? What followed was a show that showed how to lead by character, the importance of stakes, story economy, and how to use specific techniques to get across a vast amount of information. I even raved about it to friends, something I don't usually do.
I didn't get to S2 immediately, but voices were saying, "Oh wow!" After watching, I just kept saying, "It will end up making sense; they are building to something."
I am glad you made this; I was beginning to feel like I was the only one.
Same story with me. Have no connection to LoL as a whole, but after watching a number of video essays on Arcane I decided to finally give it a try. And I was completely blown away by how good it is. I really really rarely watch anything mass media produced, but Arcane was an exception, like a reachable oasis in tge middle of a dense desert.
Had hopes for S2, even throughout arc 2, believed they'd explain everything and it all will make sense in the end. But...well, I have never felt as unamused and waiting for it all to end as I felt upon watching finale
Truly what could've been
I thought the whole story was written before the start of S1! But it feels like the writers got intimidated by the awesomeness of S1 and stepped into every writing trap for S2. They tried to make it look very artistic with all those music scenes, but forgot the basic principles of writing. A great scene like Viktor running along the port is completely unimaginable in S2.
Man....that Viktor scene gave me chills. Both because for him, it was something unimaginable, a fantasy that HE made reality.
But also because you could see it as the moment he fell into the very dangerous trap that Heimerdinger warned him of, to become absorbed in possibility, and no longer seeing the reality.
They wrote season 2 in 2020, during the pandemic, and most of the writers of season 1 did not return for season 2 because they couldn't have those writer's room, because apparently zoom calls are inconvenient for some reason. So season 2 was written by Christian Linke, the other guy, and Amanda Overton, with some input from other writers on per episode basis.
So basically season 2's plot was written by Linke. We know from the "Bridging the gap" documentary that in season 1 Riot felt Linke's writing was not good, so they forced him to hire the professional writers, hence the superb writing in season 1. So in season 2, with those writers gone, we see what Linke's writing can lead to. this is how season 1 would have looked like, if Riot wouldn't have intervened.
@@cristiancandru8610
from where do you have that info?
That a lot of the writers that worked on s1 didnt also work on s2
?
@sportenapfeltorten2095 you can see the 'story by' on IMDb season 1 compared to season 2, and also Amanda Overton told the story on a stream a month ago.
The thing that bothers me the most is that in between episode or sometimes scenes, we are never let to understand how much time has passed, like the scene of the gassing of Zaun i thought there might have been hours or a couple of days at most, the break between Cait and Vi and then Cait with Maddie were those weeks or months, Season 1 had one time jump and then the rest happened in 2 or three days at most from there to the end of season 2 might have been 3 month to 1 year or even more, which feels confusing like being trap in a washing machine of time.
Oh definitely it really seemed like a huge jump during Vi's depression fight sequence. Woulda been nice to actually witness that drawn out in detail. It's almost like nearly all critical information was reduced to music videos
Yep, felt it all the way
I suspect that, whenever one of the main characters altered their look, that was supposed to indicate a somewhat significant time jump. It didn't work at all and I was constantly confused as well.
This show DESPERATELY needed a third season.
The saddest thing about S2 is you can clearly see glimpses of the amazing stories they wanted to tell. Could've actually been one of " the greats" of TV
Agreed. Though I’m not certain about the notion that the writers of Season 2 were actually committed to telling a great story, which unfortunately was hampered by other obstacles in the production process. I honestly have a more cynical opinion on how Season 2 was written.
Not glimpses in my opinion. All the storylines were, conceptually, pretty much exactly the ones that needed to be for a memorable sequel. But it was so absurdly rushed it doesn't even feel that way in the end.
They could have cut the entire Black Rose story line, all but 2 minutes of episode 7, the entire "anomaly" subplot, 90% of the commune, and Jinx' little muppet. Then they could have used that time to focus on Caithlynn's rule of Piltover, Vi's descent into depression, and maybe the conquest of Zaun.
Oh, and maybe don't have a technologically advanced and organised Piltover be subjugated by sword wielding idiots with bows, only to have said idiots be beaten by the disorganised and badly armed Zaunites. Only to have that redone by the BS robots from Victor.
Seriously, 90% of that battle could have been prevented if Jayce spoke to Victor instead of shooting him in the chest. A converstaion future Victor would no doubt have preferred.
@@AndresMagnone I wouldn't have minded Act 2 being an entire Season on its own. The ending of Episode 6 would have worked pretty damn well as a Season cliffhanger.
@@HeckDescender2184 Agreed.
"It's like delivering a punchline without setting up the joke." This line perfectly describes season 2
And the Rabbi says "No. You have chicken mouth!"
Season 2 was terribly rushed. I feel like they just wanted to move on to other League of Legends characters as soon as possible, so they decided to squeeze all these massive character arcs into a few minutes worth of storytelling and abruptly end Arcane.
Awesome video as usual, your analyses always tell more than the original media you're analysing
So annoying how "Arcane had to end" so what they can just move on to new stuff? Like ummmm no thank you finish the Piltover/Zaun story properly please then maybe we can look at different stuff
@@HeckDescender2184 could be similar to what happened with D&D from game of thrones where the arcane staff got an offer from a big company or something and just decided to rush the last bit they have left so they could move on to the next project asap
@@HeckDescender2184 I really, really, really, need those mfers to return to Piltover and Zaun to finish that story off properly, because this ain't it
I hope they keep the same writers for S1. But I have a feeling the next project is gonna be like S2: Very pretentious.
@@orrissonpereira1070 I really, really, hope you're wrong. Unfortunately, we're struck with the very real possibility that the first season of Arcane might've been just lightning in a bottle, an isolated incident, and that possibility disappoints me immensely
I like the idea of calling it "roombuilding" now. That's what worldbuilding has been reduced to. Writers praised for building a single functional chair while the rest of the house is on fire. But oh how pretty the chair looks, right?
Whatever.
Why did people even buy into this overwrought melodrama in the first place?
@@thisismyname3928 Because everything else that was coming out was overly ironic, Arcane felt sincere and brutal which is why it caught on.
It's crazy how Piltovers top law enforcement became: Girl who's been doing the job a year, lesbian girlfriend ex-con, some drunk vet, a ginger recruit she wants to bang, silent fish.
What's that? setting up the 20 champions from Piltover? Glasc is a chembaron? Nah we killed all of those. Viktor creates Blitzcrank? Sorry he became time travelling Moses, also that wasn't Ryze :(
They originally intended to have 5 Seasons instead of 2, and it shows...
@@ellugerdelacruz2555 this feels like 5 seasons in 1
Remember how grounded Season 1 was? How it felt like an actual world where people lived their different lives? That it was fucking possible to understand everything that was happening without getting a stroke?
I though i was the only one being confused by all the magical bullshit when everyone else seemed to be praising the second season.
The first season felt believable and even the magic had its own rules to make it feel more like a science, but then the second season crammed in the Black Rose and Time Travel and all this other stuff way too early.
@@gimmeyourrights8292 Ah right the First season with teleportation and a serum with 20 different variants that you have to guess which one thier using depending on if they hulk out or not. also somehow the entirety of season 1 ep4-9 happened in a week if all of that is believable to you and season 2 somehow isn't... Maybe you got significantly stupider in the time of Season 2
@@nathanielchatley9061Thats a fantastic strategy that has always worked the one you have there. "The piece of shit that i like is equal to the good shit everyone likes". Because trying to drag down a piece of media to the low level that something else has reached is a fantastic way of organizing a defense for that something, and not at all a tacit recognition of how weak your position is.
Dude, make yourself a favour. If you are to insult someone, try to do it without proyecting. When you are insulting a proyection of yourself, you are not insulting who you think you are insulting. Its funny for the rest of us, yes, but also cringe. Ok? Ok.
@nathanielchatley9061 There was a way they made that grounded, Hextech was a science that had mathematic instructions in order to make it work, Shimmer was basically Magic steroids. The magic in the first season was a steampunk version of things that already exist, it was low fantasy levels of worldbuilding that easily guide people into the world. Stuff like time travel and multiverses are high concept elements of sci-fi and fantasy, that can lose a lot of people if they aren't executed well, there's a huge difference between steroids that turn you into the hulk and entire timelines where everything that happened in your life happened in reverse.
The funny thing is I rewatched season 1 like 7 times, but once I finished season 2 I never picked it back up again. Season 1 was considered great because of the writing, thats why Silco, a character with no ties to the game, was and is considered one of the shows best characters. The moment i watched the season 2 episode where jinx was talking to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, I knew shit hit the fan.
Did you notice she wasn't talking to the audience, but instead the now dead Silco, but the audience benefited from witnessing it as if she were actually breaking the fourth wall? I think people are being a bit reactive and not really paying attention enough to see this show isn't being lazy, even in season 2. A lot of the points being made in this video didn't completely land solid for me. Sometimes a second season, especially when 3 years after the first, isn't going to hit some people as well as the first, because it's going to be something different, because the story and characters have progressed, and they don't want to keep giving us more of something too much the same as we got before. I do think it could have benefited from another episode or 2, to more tidily tell the story, but what they did to compensate for this was still good enough. I didn't need to watch a whole episode of Vi pummeling opponents in a boxing ring and getting drunk out of her mind for weeks. I've been rewatching season 2 and enjoying it. It's true Jinx is guilty of terrible things and hasn't really fully redeemed herself. That said, by the end of season 2, she's on her way to becoming actually a good person. Too late? For some. Who decides who gets a second chance?
She didn't break the fourth wall. She was trying to talk to Silco. I have plenty of issues with this season, but thinking Jinx is talking to the audience is a comprehension problem
@@BattleAngelFan99 "Sometimes a second season, especially when 3 years after the first, isn't going to hit some people as well as the first, because it's going to be something different, because the story and characters have progressed, and they don't want to keep giving us more of something too much the same as we got before"
......None of this makes sense. It's been 3 years, so of course the story's not gonna hit hard? That's not how story's work. The story's gonna be different? Well.....sure. But it has to build on top of the character writing that came before it. This season didn't do that. It demolished a lot of the established character writing from the first season. The characters didn't progress, they were forced into certain plot points irrespective of whether it made sense for their characters or not.
"I didn't need to watch a whole episode of Vi pummeling opponents in a boxing ring and getting drunk out of her mind for weeks"
I needed to watch that. That's a significant shift in Vi's life. I've never seen that before. Even in prison, Vi had something to fight for. She lost all of that after the first act, I kinda needed to see what Vi's life looked like now. When we saw Jinx after the timeskip in the first season, the show dedicated almost half an episode showing us what Jinx's daily life looked like, her relationship with Silco and Sevika and her place in Silcos operation before progressing her arc forward. We got none of that with Vi. A small snippet of Vi at her lowest, then off to her buddy adventure with Jinx like none of it happened. That's not character progression. That's an exposition scene with the same narrative impact as reading it on Vi's wikipage.
@@chrishaven1489 Yeah i know she was talking to Silco at the beginning of ep2, but didnt that narration feel a bit like a wink-wink to the audience for you? Also when she grabs the camera in that beetle fight when she is talking to Isha didnt that also make you feel like she was kindof breaking the fourth wall?
@@chrishaven1489 Could be I've had enough time wasted on dark times forced on me in my life that I don't need to experience it in fiction to know and understand it. Just a perspective thing I guess. I thought they did a good job of summing up what had become of Vi without wasting time on something that basically was a waste of time for her character.
The vast majority of Season 2 felt more like a sequence of glorified League cinematics rather than a substantive continuation of Arcane’s story.
I remember being so surprised that the team that worked on this was responsible for making music videos, because in season 1 they were only dotted in here and there, but with season 2 it’s impossible not to know because they’re so much more pervasive
I remember in episode 3 when Vi sends the rest of the goon squad away, shield guy is limping. And I was like wait nothings even happened why is he hurt, nothing hit him. It wasn't till Efap I realized, oh, something did, in the fucking music video. Oh god, those were actually meant to convey story beats happening.
Even the intro cinemtaic isn't as "punchy" or full of expressive energy as the last one even though they still play "Enemy".
i thought i was the only one who felt like that about the new season. it is especially obvious in the finale, i was almost expecting a skin announcement at the end.
Same.
Arcane unexpectedly get the Star Wars spin offf show treatment.
I remember Schnee making a whole video on how Show Jinx was only superficially a manic pixie nightmare girl.... that really aged well.
Mel's S2 story was shockingly terrible. Mel was never a "badass MCU mage," she was a shrewd political operator who had a peaceful philosophy that contrasted with Ambessas ruthless, violent one. Mel was determiend to outmaneuver her thuggish mother **her own way.** Having her become a dumb "BADASS MAGE" is so jarring it's like they didnt even understand the (great) character they crafted in Season 1.
My initial disappointment with S2 was mainly with the antagonists, because they lacked a clear motivation and agency for me. (Especially when compared to Silco, easily one of the greatest antagonists in recent media history.) The more time passes the more I realize how instead every single character arc is flawed in major ways. The season is basically reduced to stunning visuals and a hand full of memorable scenes, which lack proper build up and in and of themselves do not make a great show in the slightest.
omg thank you. i rarely see people complain about mel’s treatment, like its not nearly enough. i’ve NEVER seen a character so thoroughly stripped down to bare bones nothing across seasons so badly. my god. i was really looking forward to her this season bc i feel like season one was mostly groundwork for her character that i was so sure would pay off later. especially since she’s the last person we see and focus on in season one (jinx’s 🦈 explosion). but nope. she is a mage. that’s the episode.
even in the political-y scenes with the council she just like stands there and looks terrified a lot. (which to be fair the intro foreshadowed/not being positive here) like when caitlyn comes in with the decorated officer stuff. like PLEASE say/do something i am begging for characterization scraps that aren’t just “⚜️😟⚜️ ➡️ 🧙♀️🪄”
@@jinorism 100% facts.
LoL Players: “Jinx is fun, but she does feel like a bit of a dull take on the insane, nuts, modern harley quinn archetype. I’m so glad Arcane created more of a character for such an icon of this game.”
Writers of season 2: “ye but, isn’t she so quirky… and kinda cool… and should have a kid. She’s not the bad guy right?”
😐
what i'm saying lol, i love both versions of jinx, league's is just a fun rambunctious girl letting the canon loose everywhere she goes, she's suppose to be fun so i don't mind the similarities between her and harley quinn. arcane's jinx is suppose to be a deeper exploration of that kind of psyche, one that came from actual circumstances / choices jinx herself and others around her made. sure she still has her fun quirks but using that entirely to cover up her grey morality and it's unfolding is such an assassination to her character.
clearly the writers were trying to have the best of both worlds but their execution just does a disservice to both and what makes them individually unique
Nah she is still a character in season 2 actually
She was isolated by a terrible man for years, enjoyed killing people and said she had no problem orphaning kids right before she adopts one? Her being a “good” big sister figure made no sense.
Oh no you’re an annoying Vivziepop stan and arcane season 2 defender? The horror
@@Birdyboys I'm really not annoying and yeah I have good taste meanwhile you even hate SU....the horror.
"You can't replace a steak with garlic powder."
YES. FUCKING. THANK. YOU. I HATED all the annoying ass music video scenes. I deadass got so fed up with them I just started skipping whenever music w lyrics came on. And it sucks because I did end up liking a few of the songs from this season, but the sheer over saturation of MV scenes made it unbearable to watch after a while. Like, oh boy the fifth music video in the last fifteen minutes? You shouldn't have! The first season had annoying music and MV scenes too, but they used them much more sparingly and knew when to turn it off. In this season , it's like a child got a hold of the aux cord and started blasting randomly at the most inappropriate moments.
Looks like Disney is dead now, so EVERYONE has to make musicals to fill the void.
I think someone in EFAP brought this up: the MVs in the first season are mostly during the climaxes of the story, so it's not replacing storytelling, it enhances.
Funny thing is, the music videos aren't the problem. They were the bandaid solution to patch up the show's rushing storytelling. Which sucks. The music and the writing in the first season were symbiotic, they enhanced each other. But in this season, the music had to do most of the heavy lifting because the writing didn't have the time to build up those emotionally impactful moments as much as they should have. So the creators had to cheat and use music and stylized animation to do it. The show really, really, needed more room for the writing to breathe. It really needed to be a three season story, not two
Like, remeber when not ever episode needed to have a music video? Remember when said music videos where mean to _highlight_ the story and not serve as a shortcut for it??
I miss that...
Season 1 writers wanted to build a world and have each of these characters affect it and each other so that everything kept building to a head. Season 2 writers wanted to smash action figures together.
It's a very bad sign that, even during the hype of first watch and optimism, you detect things are off. "Oh that seemed weird well it's okay lets keep going". I tried to barrel on but once it got to Act 3 I just...didn't care. I couldn't tell what the fuck any of the character motivations were or why they're doing what they're doing, let alone what the fuck was up with Viktor and suddenly being the final boss. God, I had to grieve this season.
You should be paying more attention then because the show, having so little time to tell the story only gave you the important information. You didn't pick it up and you are now complaining. Too bad.
@@Itisoverthere-rw No, no, no, no. We picked up on the information. The information's not the problem. The problem is how that information was delivered. If the story details and the information were all that mattered, then if the creators gave you nothing but music montages for the whole season, you'd be fine with it because all the "important information" would still be there.
@chrishaven1489 I wasn't even talking about the montages but since you mentioned them, sorry but they are part of the story. If you needed an entire arc of Vi and the squad beating the chem barons to accept the event that happened so you don't miss it that's your issue. A show isn't bad because you failed to see the information it gave you and because you don't like the means of delivery.
@@Itisoverthere-rw But I didn't miss it. I got it. I understood the events. I told you, it's not about the information, it's about the way it's delivered. If that's enough for you, then you'd be perfectly fine if the creators gave you a string of music videos to explain the story and nothing else. And you'd still call it good.
Would you have a problem with that? Or are you gonna die on that hill and tell me that you would absolutely love to watch Arcane in the form of a music video marathon?
@@Itisoverthere-rwYou are a pretty angry guy it seems. Pathetic all your attempts at simping for the awful season. No arguments or attemp of arguments.
It seems almost impossible that someone saw s1, that had proper storytelling, and is so blinded that is unable to see the difference, trying to accuse anyone with brain cells of being dumb because the storytelling this season was more of a dump of info instead of a story proper. At this point you have to ask if they saw s1 to be this obtuse with the main complain with s2.
This analysis was funnier and better than the entirety of season 2, you got a new sub congrats
The Vi part healed me. Season 1 Vi I miss you
honestly 😭
i think this horrific season being fresh in everyone’s memory has made people say that Vi is terrible and not a well written character actually. and never has been. she is the jinx indeed.
i’ve been fighting for my life in my group chats for this fictional character 😔
get behind me, Violet as of season one of riot/fortiche/netflix arcane: league of legends
I never knew how toxic a fan base could be until after s2, there's probably gonna be some people thinking you're a terrible person for not liking people getting gassed with rock music blasting over it. Stay strong!
I was tricked just like how I was tricked into thinking star wars the force awakens was good. This season needed 3 seasons to flush this out and it's obvious that they.
Needed more time
@@wolfbane7497 upvoted for "to flush this out"
They did not need more time.
They needed the original writers.
@@bass-dc9175 What they needed was to cram so many outside players in just one season, the Black Rose or any of the Mel being a mage stuff had no place being in the show.
Yeah, I felt like I was going insane when I saw all the great feedback for s2. I guess that maybe most tv shows are generally bad nowadays, and that if people see any symbolism or philosophical messages, they automatically think it's deep, brilliant writing? S2 does have those things, but the delivery is still sloppy. It feels like every writer had their own ideas, and they tried to make everyone happy by including bits of all of them instead of really committing to one. @@wolfbane7497
Arcane accomplished Game of Thrones going from the first 4 seasons straight to season 8. It's a nose dive in quality I have never seen before, and Arcane will probably always be remembered for it!
This is much needed therapy for an entire fanbase, thank you :D
Damn, even MauLer is here
Hey long Man how's it going?
Hello Moolie
💕
You know you done good when Mauler himself comments on your video telling you thanks:)
Arcane season one just had so many quotes that unintentionally apply to season 2.
"In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good."
"What could have been"
"Oh the misery"
"When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish"
"Betrayal, that pain that feels like it’ll eat you from the inside out, can either break you or forge you into something greater.”
“I recognize that any worthwhile venture involves risk.”
"Sometimes death is a mercy."
Season 2 is a writers wet dream ... But only his. It is a selfish butchering of a risky show, muted and simplified, a betrayal of the original, only to try and prove that your work is greater than the old. Being canceled would have been a mercy. At least then we would ask "what can arcane become" instead of what could have been.
Oh god. 😅
I understand he was most of the problem, but what about the other one? The girl? (I can’t remember her name 😭) She was the one who ran CaitVi into the ground! I mean, she admitted that the only reason she liked Vi’s hate for enforcers because it made for a good setup for an enemies to lovers story, which makes so much sense when you watch season two!
@@twistedwonderland1043 In and of itself there's absolutely no issue with the CaitVi romance and "enemies to lovers" trope. It adds complexity and conflict. They just jinxed it (pun intended) by not making Vi the centerpoint, as she is the actual culmination point of the conflict.
I did not expect Season 2 to be as bad as it was, as anyone was, but here we are. We truly do live in the worst timeline (as friggin milked as that saying is at this point). What could've been indeed.
All I'm saying is Harambe really was important, everything went wrong after him :(
It was so easy to see how so many of those 'yeah, it's not borderline perfect as S1, but it's still pretty great' opinions would turn into 'it was a disappointment' after a few months. The die hard fanboys with blinds on would heap praise on anything, but this was a dud.
I was like 'this is a 6.5 at best' once I initially finished it, now I'd rate it a 5.
Some still hold on to that "it's rushed but it's still perfect" cope.
Nah many would still call it great really. This wasn't a dud.
I admit I thought in similar ways. Not going as far as calling it "great", but maybe "still pretty good, but no match for S1".
But I have an excuse! As an artist I was constantly mesmerized by the visuals. That probably made me enjoy the episodes way more than the story actually merited.
@@lonestarr1490 Glitter on s.hit as the saying goes.
I’ve never been as hopeful or excited for any season of any show before release as I was for season 2 of Arcane. I thought since the same people were making it as the first season that there was no way they could screw it up. I won’t be making that mistake again.
It is horrifically ironic that S1 ends with the line from that song, "What could have been".
For what I know all the writers from season one didn’t work on season two except for two writers
Yeah I spent 3 years checking for updates, reading fanfiction and even regretfully watched the leaks, I was really expecting to see all of that pay off.
So, never watch anything ever again because it will never reach your standards.
@@Itisoverthere-rw no, I just won’t get that optimistic about a season of a show until it’s all out.
Can't believe we got Rick-Rolled not once but TWICE in this video
“Why do you want to adopt a child?”
Jinx: (Don’t say revenge don’t say revenge) Revenge
Disappointments like S2 Arcane make me appreciate Vince Gilligan even more, who managed to keep Breaking Bad and Better call Saul coherent over several seasons.
It's worth noting Gilligan had more seasons to work with. Imagine telling Walter White's story in two-three seasons. Or Saul's story in the same timeframe. That's kinda what happened to these characters in Arcane. Seaons worth of character development shoved into one and you get the mess that was this season
@@chrishaven1489 Wich is, from what I know, the creators own fault. Instead of sticking with the, let me call it "piltover saga", they wanted to tell "new stories" and wrap it up.
The equivalent of that would be Gilligan getting bored with Breaking Bad after one season in order to start working on Better call Saul.
@@chrishaven1489Pretty sure they had a choice, didn't they? Seems like they really wanted to move on to other stories and expand the universe. They set up a whole civil war but chose to introduce new elements and spread out the whole focus instead of actually giving the established stories a good ending.
Vince gilligan didn't contribute nearly as much for better call saul, which was run mostly by peter gould
@@mkm1349 Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing.
It's shocking to see a season of television so intensely disinterested in telling their story. The most important or interesting events play off screen. "A punchline without a setup" is the perfect description.
I used to think that season 2 just needed more episodes or time to explore its themes. But since I learned that the writers room only retained two of the season 1 writers, I no longer believe that.
Season 2 has been written with a complete lack of understanding of why the characters and themes were written the way they were in season 1, which has led to a huge disconnect in season 2. Once you get to act 2, so much of the build up of season 1 is discarded that you could watch it without any prior knowledge and fill in the blanks yourself. (Which is honestly what the writers expect you to do for a lot of the set up in season 2 as well.)
Season 1 told a beautiful, intimate story about family, relationships and the effects of class struggle. Season 2 told a story which included time travel and alternate dimensions that ended with everyone ignoring their differences to fight Ultron ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
With the way people praise season 2, I honestly wonder if they even watched S1 at all.
@@mitzee8621 it’s just difficult to accept that we have been so close to perfection, and then failed. It’s not even that bad, it’s just mediocre.
I heard people say that that's not true. S2 had the same writers as S1, but I cant confirm nor deny.
@@NicheXCC Briefly looking at the writing credits, it seems that there are a few writers that don't either don't return for S2 or are credited in fewer episodes. Ash Branon & Conor Sheehy are credited as writers for all episodes in S1 but none in S2. Amanda Overton is credited for all episodes in S1 but only 3 in S2, those being Ep01, Ep07, Ep08.
Edit: I should mention that S2 (from what I can tell) doesn't have "new" writers. So it is technically correct to say that S2 has the same writers as S1, it just doesn't have all of them.
Edit 2: If Interstellar is correct then what I said in the first Edit isn't.
@NicheXCC Below is a list of the writers for both seasons, excluding showrunners Christian Linke and Alex Yee from Riot.
Season 1: Ash Brannon, Conor Sheehy, David Dunne, Ben St.John, Mollie St.John, Amanda Overton, Nicholas Luddington
Season 2: Amanda Overton, Nicholas Luddington, Giovanna Sarquis, Graham McNeill, Henry Jones, Kristina Felske
Source: IMDB Arcane Series Writing Credits
These names appear in the shows opening title under Written By and Story By in season 1, and Written By in season 2.
The best parts of the season were in music video montages, Caitlyn attending her mother's funeral, the Zaunite gang war, Caitlyn slipping into police brutality, and Vi's descent would've been amazing if they were properly explored instead of cramming all of these factions where there was no room for them.
The main reason in the downgrade in quality imo is the villain, Silco was a cool well written character and in a sea of "relatable villains" he was a breath of fresh air, we can actually sympathise with his cause, the woman king on the other hand wants...power? Ugh
No, I'd say the downgrade had more to do with shoving two seaons worth of story into a single season, and rushing a lot of character arcs because of it. Fixing Ambessa's motivations wouldn't have fixed the other issues plaguing this season
Not really viktor is the real let down ambessa doesn't just want power she wants to protect her family that was set up in season 1 also on macro level she believes magic is cowardly and that real warriors like her should rule so she sees hextech as a way make magic a weapon for everyone and strip mages of their advantage. When she was the villain it was good when the plot became about viktors cringe ultron mcu shit i checked out
@@moe5020 ....Eeeeeh. Personally, I thought Ambessa was super-interesting when she was a background threat, trying to push Piltover into making more hextech weapons. And I thought her desire to protect her family also made her interesting. But then they turned her into another power-hungry mcu villain that turns out she's actually willing to sacrifice her son to achieve her goals. That was such a downgrade from her nuanced motivations.
I actually don't have a massive problem with Viktor being a robot overlord, largely because that's kinda the way he's supposed to end up, BUT, it needed more time for him to naturally progress into his "final form". That transformation was rushed af. AND Viktor should've also been a background threat as well. World ending threats don't always have to be forefront threats.
If the big, bad villain of the first season was a Zaunite, it would've made all the sense in the world if the big, bad guy of the following season(s) was a Piltovan. The Piltovan equivalent of Silco, someone who hated Zaun just as much as Silco hated Piltover. But instead, a lot of Piltover's crappy actions were relegated to the Noxians doing most of the bad stuff. That was such a stupid departure of this show's themes and conflicts. The creators really wanted to expand this world at the cost of neglecting the current part of the world the story is supposed to be focusing on. Idiots.
@@chrishaven1489 100% was missing some of the piltover v zaun struggle, which was one of the biggest setups in season 2. Caitlyn becoming a brutal leader would've been perfect for this and could've put Vi back to defending Zaun because this is what she feared, but instead joins the police?? Then the whole takeover was glossed over and now Zaun just joined piltover against Viktor in the end without any meaningful connection between the two.
This is the best critical breakdown of Vi's treatment in season 2 I've seen yet. She really was reduced to a subservient puppet in her own show
I saw someone earlier comment that they missed Season 1 Vi and I really agree! What a waste.
vi-brator is the most accurate description of her character in this season i’ve ever seen, thank you nutsa
I could not support Jinx’s redemption arc. It felt like the writers were gonna stick to the source material of Jinx being sympathetic but unapologetically evil as she is in the game, but then the random plot device of Isha randomly came in to “fix” her and they tried to shed her in a good light when she didn’t do much to deserve it. She feels like a different character in S1 and not in a development kind of way, even though that was their intention. The trailers made it seem like she was going to carry the responsibility of being a symbol of Zaun and she did for like 4 seconds and then it was sidelined and rushed to her being a “hero”
finally someone who sees jinx as what she truly is, I wish more people could see that she is not supposed to be liked
it feels like the writters turned jinx into the version some of fanbase saw her as after season 1 came out
No, no, no, no, no. Giving Jinx a redemption arc wasn't the problem. That's actually interesting. The problem was how fast they did it. It needed more time to cook properly. Time is the key problem with this season, there wasn't enough of it, and a result everyone's character arcs were rushed af
I think she was supposed to be liked, but she was not supposed to be seen as a good person or a hero. I wish they had left her as the morally gray (at best) she was in season 1, or made her a full on villain. Hero was not the route to go…
@@waverlyaltis7171 Jinx being a hero isn't the problem. The problem was the journey towards that "heroism". The show needed three seasons to fully explore what a heroic Jinx would look like.
The second season should've focused on Caitlyn and Vi hunting Jinx down, with Vi having conflicted loyalties between Caitlyn and jinx. And the longer Jinx evades the enforcers, the more notorious she becomes, and the more she inadvertently inspires the people of Zaun to fight back against the enforcers. And the Jinx vs Vi fight would happen at the end of the season.
Then the third season should've focused on Vi and Jinx being forced to work together to find and cure Vander, while Caitlyn's running through her dictator arc and trying to hunt them down. And the plot of trying to cure Vander would run in tandem with Jinx's redmeption arc. Jinx and Vander are both monsters with broken minds in need of healing.
She’s not supposed to be idolized is the correct word.
Vi's downward spiral made me just roll my eyes. They really went with the cliched "getting punched just to feel anything" bs.
And Caitlyn's suicide skwad to capture Jinx was hilarious. Who the heck were most of those people?
Some furry, a child soldier, a hobo that Vi went on a bender once? Did she pick the first people she saw?
And that kid that cured Jinx's shizofrenia by landing on her head? Already forgot her name, cause she wasn't even a character, more a plot device. Could've been a puppy.
fun fact, no one actually ever says that character's name in the show. It's in the subtitles during a scene where the dialogue is muted because (you guessed it) non-diegetic music is playing, and in the credits for the episodes she's in. That's it.
@@chrisadams1438 Are you talking about Isha? If so you are just deaf.
@Krakowitchu yawn
@@chrisadams1438 thats the case in act 1. But in act 2, Jinx says her name a bunch. Like when Isha was caught in prison or when she kills herself.
The hobo Vi went on a bender with once was very confusing to me. He had to potential to be an exploration into the underbelly of Piltover itself. Season 1 showed Piltover as a glittering city on a hill with no imperfections except it oppression of Zaun, but the hobo shows up another side of Piltover itself. What does Piltover think of its own lower class? How do enforcers treat hobo drunks who sleep off hangovers on public property? But instead we got a rando with no motivation and no character who doesn't interact with anyone else beyond his first scene and doesn't even rise to the level of a plot device.
Season 1 made Vi my favorite character. So season 2's betrayel was beyond words for me
Unfortunately they won't learn their lesson from it, the large majority of the audience loved and praised it, so they're going to keep on cutting corners and writing poorly from now on. I was always convinced that Arcane season 1 was only good because of how long it was in production, they had so much time to improve it and tighten it up, whereas season 2 was rushed out absurdly fast in comparison - so of course it suffered from that. The general audience however only listen to their emotions, and will judge it based on how they felt while watching it, and don't want to listen to any factual issues with it.
It took that long to animate it - it shouldn't take 4-5 years to write a good story for 8-9 episodes. It was rushed and poorly written, but lack of time was not the problem - they chose to rush to the finish and tell a slapdashed story, nobody forced them.
@@Nast33 Lack of time is always the problem.
@@Hirome_Satou But there was no extrinsic lack of time, was it? They _chose_ to do it that way.
@@Nast33 That's part of the issue I'd say: you don't write the story for 8-9 episodes in order to cramp out a season. The entire story should have been written before the first frame is rendered - at least in form of an overarching storyboard. You must know where your story is headed at any point in order for it to appear as a coherent whole. But that doesn't seem to be the way things are done these days.
@@lonestarr1490 Did I say anything contrary to that? I literally said they cut corners and wrote poorly, they didn't spend the time on it like they did with the first season.
I was so disappointed. Arcane as a whole would have been better without season 2. Just end on a tragedy instead of this garbage
S1 spent so much time building up the horror that a war between Pilltover and Zaun would be, and then on the cusp of peace, Jinx blows up the council. How did we not get to see a war between Zaun and Pilltover? I don't understand what they were thinking.
@@mitzee8621 When I point that out people will just tell me the show was never about the conflict between Piltover or Zaun it was about the Arcane or they say there were many plotlines and that conflict was just one of them; like it wasn't something major or that neither of the plot lines affect each other. Just because somethings in the title doesn't mean its the only thing you have to focus on or disregard everything else.
@@gristlyknave831 Anyone who is trying to claim the conflict between Pilltover and Zaun was just one of many plotlines is insane. Literally, every single plotline in S1 revolved around it. It was the central thread that brought all the other stories together.
@@mitzee8621Yeah the show literally started and ended with that conflict. The very first scene is Jinx and Vi discovering their parents had been killed by enforcers during an uprising against Piltover, then getting adopted by the man who led it. The end is Jinx launching a missile at the government of Piltover. Idk how you could possibly make it more obvious what the central conflict is when it's literally at the centre of everything.
they wanted the evangelion payoff without having a 90 seconds elevator scene
Evangelion doesn't have a payoff.
@@Itisoverthere-rw well I meant it from the writers' perspective; you get a climax that has been set up and coming from the very beginning and well established characters have to deal with it. + you could say seele got exactly what they wanted so there u go
@CollectorVX We didn't even know what the Impacts were.
@@Itisoverthere-rw evangelion has always been about the characters and their psyche rather than the world they're in
@michemicalromance It's been about the mental collapse of the characters because its creator was always making it for himself. The remake confirmed it as the clown out his wife in it. Evangelion was always a scam. All the religious symbolism and the world building in the background were empty and there just to trick the audience. It's disappointing that it worked.
"Season 2 is like a cat so into chasing its own tail it forgets to feed itself and dies!" 😂😂 thats actually a really good and hilarious analogy!
You either die a villain or live long enough to see yourself yaassified into a manic-pixie girlboss anti-hero.
One of the worst sins of this season is the lack of accountability. Jinx is a terrorist; Caitlyn becomes a war criminal. And both of them got to go free with... what do you call it? A slap on the wrist!
I'm noticing this a lot in modern media. First time was with the infamous final season of Game of Thrones. It seems like how the characters view one another isn't really taken into consideration anymore. Now it's all about how the audience is supposed to view them and all the characters are forced to play into it. It's like a decline of empathy on the writers side, which makes the strings they pull visible (which is never a good thing).
people always complaing about something is not realistic , especially when its some dreamlikefantasy -fiction, then it cant be realistic enough for some reason... and now thats the most realistic thing ever and you have nothing better to do than complain... where is accountability in real life child?
jinx is a mentally ill teenager and a member of the oppressed lower class blowing up cops and council members, she gets to either die or fake her death
caitlyn is a privileged grown woman in a position of power gassing people and trying to shoot children and she gets everything she wants
let's not pretend like these are comparable
@@AutomanicJack Its not about not being realistic, is about consistency. If you have shown to me in the first season that in this world acts have consequences, and you totally throw that of the window in the second, yea things wont sit right with me, child.
@@horniman1054 if you compare the seasons you also will acknowledge that in the first season at the begnning there was some order and from episode to episode the order got overthrown more and more until we end in war where we all know that morale says goodbye and crimes get punished with crimes. so thats consistent imo.. you cant compare the seasons and act like the world in the seasons did not change, child.
I love the editing in this video. Def one of my favorite review analysis.
EDIT: And the thing is, S1 had a music video section with "Dynasties and Dystopia" and it was arguably the best fight scene in the show. Why? Because it was used to add tension and weight to the soured relationship between Ekko and Jinx for a SPECIFIC scene, and the scene doesn't end with the music video. The scene continues after the music video finishes, and it continues with its grimness and ugliness. The music video gives weight to one specific moment in an interesting way, as well as making the next bit where Ekko and Jinx actually fight a much darker contrast to the childish game, instead of acting as a summary of a whole bunch of events. It was ugly. And that was important.
ORIGINAL COMMENT:
I like to say that "Arcane S2 was too pretty for its own good." The music videos, the way every frame could be a PC background, all detract from the ugliness of the themes S1 deeply explored. I rewatched S1, and it has some UGLY shots. Viktor's declining health in his face, Silco's scar, the corpses and blown off arms and spitting teeth on the floor, certain fight scenes like Sevika vs Vi, the shimmer monsters, are all UGLY. And it adds to the weight of those scenes and characters because it gives them the grimness and weight that they need.
There is no reason for the surface-level prettiness of S2. An example of a medium that uses beautiful imagery is the psychological-horror video game OMORI, where the dream world is beautiful and colourful and fantastical and dreamy. And it's deliberately like that in order to make an unsettled feeling that there is something much more sinister below the surface to all of this. S2 is pretty not for any thematic reason, but just because it wants to be, and because there is no reason for it to be pretty, it heavily dilutes all of the scenes that should have weight.
Think of when Jinx is on that sacrificial altar, and Vi is standing over her with the glove, ready to kill her. You don't feel the weight of that scene. It's simply not ugly enough. The shots are too beautiful to feel the weight that VI is about to kill HER SISTER. It also warps relationships between certain characters- S1 Jayce and Viktor were very much so like brothers. But because this show is so dreamy and fantastical now, there's a blur in the line between Jayce and Viktor. Their scenes together are so intimate and whimsical due to the art, that I totally understand those that see Jayce and Viktor as being gay despite them being very clearly platonic. The show toes that boundary too much, and I'm amused the writers were surprised that a significant portion of the fandom thinks the pair were gay. You did that.
I've noticed that too lately. While we all agree the animation is the only thing that should be praised in S2, it's dreamy, colourful, sometimes Ghibli style is another reason why S2 is so detached from S1
Oh my Lord the editing, so glad this came out
Breaking Bad and Better call Saul are famous for essentially not having a soundtrack (exceptions are there but the point stands) scenes are given emotional weight because of the writing, the performances and everything in between.
Arcane S2 is the opposite... it believes it can create the same weight by simply slapping a song over a first draft of a scene and call it a day... doesn't work apparently
Those shows don’t have the typical “soundtrack”. But they’re filled to the brim with compilation. But they work because Vince clearly shows how much time passes and how the characters experience them. They also capture more mondain things like a days meth cooking or Saul tidying up his new lawyer firm. They never rush over insane plot lines like Walter and Jesse expending their territory, working for Gus or going into hiding with a 2 minute long music video.
Perception of art. This isn't art, this is a product. :)
Not liking it doesn't make it not art. If thats true then the only things that qualify as "real art" are those hidious modern art tampon paintings
We won't stop judging it as art and if found lacking, calling it a bad product. Everything else would just accelerate the decadence.
I couldn't have half the enjoyment most people I saw online had. I just felt progressively more disappointed throughout the show.
i'm so glad you brought jinx's mental ilness up, so far i haven't seen anyone mention it. to me it really felt like they got her mental state backwards in season 2. by the end of s1 she was already clinically insane and couldn't even make out what was real and what wasn't and she embraced her identity as jinx only to somehow become sane and reject that very same identity between the first 3-4 episodes of s2? literally her whole theme was the spiral of madness that she was falling into, becoming more and more unstable and insane and having that insanity boosted by singed infusing her body with shimmer. in s2 they bring up her shimmer infusion by showing she has insane speed, but they forget that part of the point of that was that it chemically altered her brain beyond insanity?
Arcane should have been atleast 5 seasons, the stories in season 2 while good needed more time
Act 2 alone could have been a season long arc. They've admitted now that they want to explore different locations in a new series so why the rush to end (and in the process ruin) Arcane?!?!
You have spent zero time thinking about this buddy. The story would be fine if they made longer episodes to add the necessary connecting scenes, dialogue and the little additions needed to make it all flow organically. They weren't going to give them that extra time and they had to finish it in one season. That's the result. An extended edition would fix all the issues if they decided to do it but I don't think Riot amd Netflix care about that. This should be a lesson about studio interference and limitations, not the attack on the creatives it has become.
@@HeckDescender2184Being rushed doesn't mean it was ruined buddy. Return of the Jedi is a rushed mess but I don't see people crying that it ruined the trilogy.
No, no, no, no. 5 seasons is too much. It only needed 3.
@@Itisoverthere-rw How was return of the jedi rushed?
finally someone talks about the horrible music videos, the music choices are horrible it makes it really hard to rewatch if I have to get through those horrible music videos again
I was watching The Game Awards as it aired and they had a whole Arcane music performance I was like "Nooooo not more music videos!!" Ahah
when the only story you have to tell is told in season 1, this is what happens to season 2
I actually thought they should never have done a season two. Season one is a beautiful tragedy between the sisters. It’s accomplished by making jinx unredeemable. So a season 2 continuation, especially one like this, could never work
I wouldn't say unredeemability forbids continuation. It's just that your writers shouldn't forget about it and redeem her anyway.
Worse things are hiw unbelievable some storylines are
Vi going to gas her people? Jinx suddenly bonding with a random kid? Sweet guy Viktor tries to kill everyone? Jinx becoming an icon? Zhaun and Piltover becoming friends?
Ehhh....
You gotta have em well placed to say this... Bravo. I once dared point out the flaws in the season myself, and I barely survived to tell the tale. There's a bunch of toxic fanatics of this show, as is the case for most (deservedly) glorified shows.
me when I said I didn't care for Isha
Holy Nutsa, i though i was pissed at season 2 :D. Wonderful Video
Pause this season on any random frame and you've got a beautiful poster to put on your wall. Play them in sequence with audio and you've got an absolute travesty that will drain your world of color, darkness will slowly fade in from the edges until you feel hopeless and alone, curled up in the middle of an expansive nothingness, your oraffices will begin to bleed a black oil, all heat will leave the universe, and you'll remain conscious of everything that is happening in and around yourself but die inside.
I hate to be that guy, but you should probably eat a snickers.
As much as I enjoyed your elaborate prose, but it's not a good idea to throw all relations out of the window. Yes, Arcane season 2 is bad. But it's not Star Wars sequels level of bad. Nor is it Rings of Power or GoT season 8 level of bad.
@@lonestarr1490 I suppose that's up to the individual in how much it affects them. While I was being purposely dramatic, I was much more emotionally involved in the characters than I was for GoT. I'm not going to do a step-by-step comparison to see which is worse, but I feel like those two are on a similar level of objectively bad. But I merely enjoyed GoT, I wasn't all that moved by it, and it had been on a downward trend for a couple seasons prior to its cliff jump. With GoT, I was annoyed, but it really didn't affect me or surprise me as much.
Now, with Star Wars, I wasn't so much "dark void" feeling as I was "blazing inferno" feeling. It was less "Why did this happen?" and more "How dare you?!?" This season was really bad, but you're probably right that the SW sequels were worse. They couldn't even figure out the general navigational direction of up, let alone everything else.
RoP, I didn't bother past the first episode. It's just non-canon fanfic on a massive budget. It's just not taken at all seriously by me. I don't even know many people trying to excuse it, the way I do with the others. It's a billion dollar joke show.
I didn't throw _everything_ out. I said it looks nice. And there's some decent isolated scenes. But I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
Getting lost and completely disconnected with the amazing characters was one of my biggest beefs. I just didn't care by the end.
If a show/movie doesn't care about their characters then why should we?
More true words couldn't be spoken, during the Season finale I found myself occasionally having «Next slide please» occuring in my mind upon gazing at the battle 💀💀
this video is so cathartic to watch
This video has made me start to think a lot about Arcane S2. I still love this show and how it has ended but DAMN how many things I either dismissed or just ignored about it without giving too much thought. I think most of the problematic narrative decisions come from the fact that Riot Games have decided to make Arcane an official canon of Lol universe (even though it's been perfectly existing as a complete separate version of it). That's why characters doesn't feel like themselves anymore since Rioters want them to be recognisable and closer to the source material "just-like-in-that-video-game".
Nutsa was in the EFAPs that reviewed season 2. I have been a watcher of the podcast since 2018 and this is their worst review to date. Don't take what she says at face value. She is in a confirmation bias spiral just like the rest of the EFAP crew. You can tell if you watch any of the highlights from the reviews and listen to the bullshit they complain about. The season has quite the writing issues. It tries to cover too much ground in too little time and they skip scenes, reduce dialogue, lamp shade events etc. However, EFAP will reach the conclusion that it was shit. Their perspective is fucked. As for Riot, making the show canon etc. That's Riot's problem. It has nothing to do with Arcane. If they are retards and they have to shove the popular show in their setting because they don't care about their own canon that's an issue the LoL players have to deal with.
Mostly agree. However I don't think the flaws stem from Riot wanting to make it the "new canon" so to speak, I believe that it has to do more with the runtime and episode count limitations they had, and how they had to cram it all in such a short span of episodes, and how short they were made it all worse...
They literally changed the lore of the game because of the season so i dont think that was the problem, and the lore of the game was quite decent so dont taint it like that xD.
@@horniman1054 Go after Riot. Arcane wasn't meant to be canon to the game in the first place. Riot is clearly run by opportunistic cretins.
personally i believe that pacing issues were just not the sole evil for how s2 came out to be but fundamentally due to the writer's decision on how to progress their characters arc. what they seem to prioritize and think what's best to execute doesn't feel like they truly understood what made these characters, this setting, this plot and its themes a masterpiece in s1. or maybe we could link this all back to riot's corporate greed to maximize character marketability instead of challenging them to be unappealing but truly loyal to their arc set-ups from s1... idk tho...
Turns out the writing team was cut down massively from season 1, people think Linke was the master mind but no, seeing him take on everything in s2 shows he didn't have the same chops
Somehow the War Room of Dr Strangelove operates more efficiently than the Council of Season 2.
Season 1 felt like it was written by Sophocles
Season 2 felt like it was written by the people who watched season 1 through tiktok edits.
Characters are stripped off of most of their motives and values. They're dolls and the plot sucks
To me, the characters in S2 are quintessential examples of hollow 2-dimensional characters, but reading reviews and comments made me think I had watched a completely different show. I liked some of the moments in isolation, but I wasn't a fan of Arcane because I like watching tangentially related ~5-minute clips.
I genuinely don’t know what viktors goal and motivation was he went through so much change so fast I honestly don’t care anymore
Sophocles. Good one. I always sold the show to my friends telling them it was a greek tragedy.
S2 was written by three dudes really high brainstorming ideas without caring if it makes sense. A lot of them are cool, but there isn't a system, structures and a lot of time doesn't make sense.
I'm still processing Season 2, need to watch it again. When I finished it, I think I felt disappointed, but in a way that made me unable admit that I was disappointed.
I think that this how a lot of people who are unrepentantly defending the season as "AMAZING" are feeling, but are unable to admit. Appreciate you voicing your thoughts! It honestly sucks so much how downhill Season 2 went.
>Isha and Warwick are not characters, they are plot devices
>it's stupid how they blame "the circle of violence" on Jinx rather than the system, she should've stayed alive and build something new like Ekko said they would
>Zaun teaming up with Piltover is stupid, them joining the Noxus side would've made a lot more sense
Season 1 didn't feel like a game adaptation, it felt like a rich story about human relationships, politics, corruption and trauma. Season 2 feels like a glorified game adaptation who drowns in its love for itself and completely loses sight of what it was supposed to tell.
I thought i was insane because I felt unsatisfied by this season and everyone kept saying it was a masterpiece and so good and bla bla bla. Like girl?? Hello did we watch the same thing?
We definitely didn't cause it is a flawed masterpiece 🗿
I swear if it was live action it would not be praised as much. I hope the animators were paid fairly and were not overworked or anything cus damn did they do a lot of the heavy lifting.
@@fringeddragon S1 wouldn't be praised as much if it was live action. That's a moot point.
@@Totemparadox I'm done with disturbed characters. Get your effing shit together or GTFO of the beach.
Kitty Jong Un, KluKluxKiramann, Caitler... SOMEONE STOP THIS
Chairman Cupcake, Julius Caitlyn...
That's an amazing clip to start this video.
Love the editing in this!
JUSTICE FOR GOATMAN! He only wanted to science! But I know he's in a better place with Rictus and his boi Smeech.
Also RIP to Shield-Man: The Hobo Enforcer, AKA Fake Vander, AKAAKA Vander's Piltover cousin. Out of all of the "Scooby Squad" you were the coolest.
Fr
Shield-Man was the epitome of character underdevelopment. He could have been a closet on wheels instead and all the scenes would have played out exactly the same way.
@@lonestarr1490 So I saw some comments on here yesterday of someone mentioning a "Loris". I thought: "who the hell is that?" Looked it up and turns out that is Shield-Man's name! HAHAHAH I swear it is never said in the show! It really says something when you find out a character's name from a YT comment.
YAY !!! You have uploaded !!! Hope you have had a Merry Christmas and are doing well. I really video essays as you make them with many interesting points that explain in a crisp.
For me, I feel like Arcane 2 had the "sauce" to be great, however, it should have just cut down the unnecessary set-up of other storylines that shift focus away from the main plot about the conflicts between Piltover and Zaun. In fact, this lesson should be told to pretty much all the writers in general as they are more focused on making something that can profit later for them in the future than making something good at the present. It is always the post-credits, set-up and next times that annoy me so much !!! What happened to good stories with a main plot that begins and ends in that same story ?!?!?! Even "small" shows are guilty of this like Hazbin Hotel; and services like Netflix (ironically) thrive from this dumb process.
That is why episode 7 of Arcane 2 is universally considered the best as it is character-focused on two different perspectives of similar characters (Ekko of Zaun and Jayce of Piltover) looking at their own actions in vastly different results (Ekko in his dream life and Jayce's undesirable consequences) and is directly related to the Piltover-Zaun conflict.
Has to be your best vid so far
Slow clap... This critique is genius and it taught me I'm stupid for liking season 2. Season 1 perfection must have been accidental. This content creator needs more recognition, subscribed.
Hurray Nutsa is back!!! I hope you've been well! 🙏
I haven’t seen any other video sum up my feelings for this season in such a well made, witty, and succinct way as this.
Jinx being a hero to zaunites does make sense cause shes fight the oppressors from piltover, most people dont know her personally and how psycho she necessarily is, but given the fight against piltover I dont think they would care even if they knew. But I do agree that they changed her character from season 1 to 2 a lot. Like at the end of season 1 she settles on being jinx and powder is dead, but then in season 2 we get more powder than jinx for a lot of the show. Like all of her character development in season 1 was just thrown in the trash.
Caitlyn going full dictatorship does make sense, she been hunting jinx for a while and then jinx blows up the council killing her mom(leaving the family inheritance and position of power in her arms), the chem baron attack the funeral. That would fill most people with a reasonable amount of rage and want for revenge and between the power she inherited and the semi power vacuum from after the attack and ambessa pushing her to violence. It all makes sense. But the issue is we then get one music video of her gassing zaun and a failed attack on jinx and then shortly after shes suddenly "tired of fighting"???. Not enough time and events have gone by for her character to develop into that tired of fighting mind set and it also happens very abruptly after finding Vi again who low key betrayed her.
I dont see and issue with the lesbian relationship but the kissing and sex scene where so poorly placed. Everything else you talked about I think you nailed pretty well.
It makes sense in theory, but those changes take time and all of this was skipped over in the show. People thought of Caitlyn as a spoiled brat who wants to play cop in S1, now they suddenly trust her to be their leader?
also Caitlyn just instantly switch sides the moment she sees Vi again and betrays Ambessa. There is a "logical" explanation for this, being that previously Singed told her "why does one commit unspeakable acts? for love" but it just feels so off and not satisfying as a tie up for their breakup at all. Caitlyn never apologizes for hitting Vi in the stomach either, and Vi's trauma is just brushed off the whole season. uuughh
@eltongoaustriaco8268 yes and no, the council was a peace time council that knew nothing of war and was still in shock from two back to back massive terrorist attacks, conditions like that will cause leaders to think irrationally. And you have to remember Caitlyn was also being backed by Ambessa who came from a nation of war. There's even more to it with Ambessa staging the second attack to make everyone more fearful and angry for revenge and fast tracking the war. So with all that happening it's not really development and change that needs time to set up. Without Ambessas manipulation Caitlyn would never have become the leader.
i really despise negative feedback when it isn’t warranted. i’m afraid this negative feedback is warranted. i’m not going to say season 2 was a dumpster fire yet because i need to rewatch it incase im missing something, but i can say i was left feeling very confused and unsatisfied. i think your feedback is pretty accurate in explaining why myself and many others felt this way…
I forgot I subbed to you so I clicked on this video and then I saw your avatar and I got overjoyed. You make entertaining reviews. I like your animations and editing style. Its a fun and cynical sense of humor
You’re editing is amazing 😂😂
Someone else finally mentioned how ekko loving jinx makes no sense😭 feels like they were trying so hard to make popular fan ships happen even though it didnt make sense to the story
They had zero chemistry and Ekko seemingly forgot Jinx killed many of his friends.
@@blacktigerpaw1 In her defense, they attacked her. She never went out of the way to hunt and kill them. Ekko's buddies were trying to blow up Silko's business, and kill her. I get why people think she is a terrorist, because she does go out of the way to kill Enforcers and try to kill government officers, but hey, they killed her parents, and they are definitely evil oppressors in the eyes of the undercity people. So for them, yeah, she is a hero.
@@gonzalomartinez2449 Maybe, but she also nuked the chances of an independent Zaun, and some Zaunites may blame her for introducing martial law. We never got to see such conflicting narratives.
@@gonzalomartinez2449 Eh the firelights only tried to actively kill her after she killed their friends in front of them(and i think its only one of them, because the person jinx killed was very precious to him). They actually use non-lethal methods as its shown in the first season. And i think killing someone that didnt actually tried to kill you while they are running away defenceless can be called hunting down.
Excellent critique, articulate, witty and succinct. Hitting all your targets right in the eye.
Looking forward to more in the new year.
They redeemed Jinx way too fast in this one.
Redeemed? She needed redeeming?
I really appreciated your review of jynx!! I really thought they missed so many oppertunities to explore a really fascinating character. And I really disliked Isha's inclusion as an extension of that missed oppertunity. She really did nothing for me personally and I was really hoping the writers wouldn't go the obvious part of killing her off
If you wanna hear more of Nutsa talking about Jinx, there is an earlier video of hers talking about Kylo Ren and Jinx and comparing how one is a poorly written broken character but the other isn't. You should check it out!
@HeckDescender2184 Thank you!! I'll definitely check it out
Also while I have issues with Vi this season and you have a valid point about her not havign any real sense of agency. I would argue that what pushed her off the edge wasn't Caitlyn breaking up with her. Rather that its how that now the Caitlyn's gone she has nothing to live for, her sister is gone, her family is gone, her lover is gone. As you said about "Vi connections to family and love ones" all of those people are now no longer in her life and so she has nothing now. Hence why she is at rock bottom.
You nailed so many things on the head here as to why I just felt confused and wondering “why” throughout most of the show, especially the second half.
also the title for this is amazing I clicked just for that
Good video! Btw Victor has Czech accent. Support from Ukraine, Georgiabro!
18:10 i nearly tiered up at this scene, they really killed his girl.
It was the very first thing I considered when finishing S1. "This is surprisingly good. I hope the success of season 1 doesn't cause Riot to lose sight of what is was trying to achieve (deeper exploration of leagues lore) in favor of what it usually does (milk every penny out of anything people gravitate towards)."
I guess the writing was on the wall since the beginning. As someone who up to recently played a lot of league, its was quite evident that season one was just lightning in a bottle. It caught even riot by surprise. Season 1 had some in-game stuff post-launch, while season 2 was being hyped months in advance. With events and flashy skin lines. The fact that they even started re-writing the lore of champions in league to fit more in line with arcane (the opposite of what arcane was supposed to do) were already the first warning signs that this show would soon morph from labor of love to - to nobodies surprise - a product.
I felt so fantastically devastated after the end of season 1
Season 2 I felt so empty
For the amount of work put in the S2 visuals, I also thinks it´s shows so little
I felt exactly the same after the first high of the premiere and start thinking about what could have been if the show wasn't bottomlined into 2 seasons.
Season 1: This show is incredible and so much better than a League of Legends show deserves to be.
Season 2: This is League of Legends, though.
Please please please do more videos like this. With all the wit and seeing things through from interesting angles.
Amazing video!!!! It's great to see someone make a short analysis of a show with such precision. This show is a wreck and it's a great video to show someone in order to point out the biggest flaws because for some reason 30 hours of EFAP is "too much".
Jinx has never taken accountability for anything, and it makes her a spoiled brat to me in this series. She's a perpetual victim, and I just don't care how quirky that makes her lol.