Ambessa does think quick on her feet tho, first she quickly targeted the weakest council member to get what she wanted, but that failed after Mel's strong stance on not using hextech weapons, she then deployed the attack to give them a reason to having to use them. Before Caitlyn coming ouy strong and cold, she didn't pay much attention to her, but seeing her quick turn to brutality, she immediately abandoned the plan to use the council man as puppet but to use Caitlyn instead.
Agreed. You can see the moment that Ambessa makes the switch, realizing that Caitlyn's rage will give her an easier way to ensure her soldiers end up with Hextech. Poor Cait is so lost that she's an easy target, much easier than dealing with the Council.
9:47 the black rose stuff happened LONG before she arrived in Piltover. She specifically went to Piltover to guide them towards making Hex Tech weaponry so that she could fight off the Black Rose faction. That they caught up to her in this season is just showing how desperate she’s becoming, but it’s always been her guiding motivation.
8:16 I think what makes her character so terrifying is that she is both. In the same portion that it revealed she orchestrated the attack it is also shown how she took advantage of killing amara to frame it as an assassination attempt. She can be both a planner and an improviser, which makes her dangerous. Makes her feel like she is playing chess while everybody is playing checkers, which is what you are suppose to take away since she is from a nation that is not alien to war and political scheming in order to gain the upper hand, unlike piltover.
Arcane is so amazing at visual language. Violets being the only color in Cait’s world. Viktor being a scabbed-over wound while Jayce is bleeding on the floor. Vi wiping off her facial tattoo to show her losing her identity in real time. Fantastic stuff.
Smeech, the gang leader you mentioned, had my animator brain buzzing. The way they made him twitchy but had that resemble a broken down animatronic was just *genius*. The black rose stuff is established after the attack but its revealed they caused her son's death which is her motivation for what she's doing so the black rose are pushing her we just found out about them after. I loved the fight with Jinx and Silco's old enforcer. The way the two exchange looks like two people who hate each other but are trying to get along during it with every new thing in the arm is charming as hell.
I don't think they hate each other, not anymore anyways. They find common ground in carrying on Silco's legacy. Zevika refuses to offer her up to topside, Jinx literally fixes her arm without Zevika asking for it, Zevika protects her without Jinx asking for it. I think they bonded over their shared loss, and further than that, while I can definitely see them disliking each other, there's a great deal of respect between the two. Feels like Zevika has adapted to Jinx' crazy and Jinx in turn has come to respect some of Zevika's qualities (loyalty and resilience). Curious where they'll go with this pairing.
I'd argue that Ambessa's plot was largely opportunistic in nature. Sure she manipulated that one Chem baron into the attack, but the conditions that made the powder keg in the first place- the relationship between the cities, the death of the Chem Baron's son, Jinx's attack on the Council- were things Ambessa had no hand in. She just took the ingredients that were there to nudge things into an out-and-out war, with herself in a place of power.
I'm actually really excited for hex tech to play more of a roll, not from a lore perspective but from a character perspective. These are the consequences Hiemmerdinger warned about, the result of seeking to do great and failing to do good. If lore works in that's a bonus.
The black rose threat to Ambessa was mentioned / etablished in season one, when Ambessa mentioned that someone murked Mels brother. While opportunistic characters can be fun, I do like to have one that actually plans (successfully). And it isn't like in the Boys where a rather unlikely scenario was supposed to be planned by the way of superpowers. Tho my friend and I called the person behind it the moment the spears flew ^^
Caitlin rejecting Vi by knocking her down at the end of episode 3 was such a PERFECT parallel to Vi rejecting Powder by punching her in the face at the end of episode 3 in series 1, and I cannot wait to see Vi spiral over the next few episodes.
I think that if they’d structured the show for three seasons (which I presumed before this year), they’d have let this season start less frantically… But it’s clearly intended to be the second half of the story; while Season 1 had its own three-act structure internally, it seems like in the grander scheme of it all that… Can we say that that season’s first arc was a Prologue, the second and third were the first Act, and now Season 2 will be the Second Act (probably for around the first two thirds) and then the Third Act for the final act. You know, even if a lot of the fallout of the cliffhanger was predictable in many ways - we all knew Cait’s mother would be dead even if we had no leaks, we knew that Jayce and Viktor would make it (at least the former, even if we didn’t know them both as Champions in LoL), we knew most of the Council was cooked. But even as we were shown that Ambessa would push for war, the trailers were super careful to not spoil ANY of the survivors. So how it played out wasn’t entirely predictable… the one councilman who lived, the fact both Mel and Jayce were unscathed but Viktor was mortally wounded thus setting up his transformation by the Hextech Core, the works. That’s probably the part I’m finding most interesting to see how it plays out. And the big shot of Vi and Jinx clashing being just in this arc? Genius… No idea how this will wrap up, but I’m super invested to see how it plays out. And how it will set up other stories in the Runeterra setting when this winds down…
I finally watched this show just recently and am caught up now. I put it off for a really long time despite hearing how good it was, because it's based on a video game I don't play. But I finally had enough people bugging me to watch it, and I'm blown away. It's so gorgeous and it's so devastating. My prediction, which will probably turn out to be wrong, is that Ambessa is going to be season 2's ultimate villain. I can't predict this show even a little bit, so I'm probably wrong. But that lady is so scary and compelling.
I heard that after this season and they wrap it up to move onto a different story, that it'll still be an all encompassing world. I'm hoping what they're doing with the hex is to set some world building foundations for the future.
I really loved the first three episodes! I agree the first season was better paced because of the slow build up, but I'm still enjoying what they're doing! The only thing that I thought was a little "silly" was a music video at the start of every episode. I loved the animation for it however, it was able to show the grief and shock Caitlyn was going through in the first episode. And I know that lore filled music videos are kind of a big deal in League of Legends, so it's not really a critique, more just that I wasn't a fan of all the song choices lol
I don't even understand how "lore" is seen as a negative here. Like what? It's literally a game adaptation. I guess because of how good season 1 is they forget it's actually "League of Legends" Arcane. 😂😂😂.
I do worry about Victor going the messiah route, but we aren't getting the disabled madman with trauma as justification, this character is subverting that trope. I love how both jinx and vi have grown and are exercising caution and restraint and it doesn't feel like some moral message, but the reality of their situations. Vi is not running off to do things on her own, the second she disagrees with someone, and jinx is showing that grief under all that rage, and starting to realize silco's influence on her. I'm curious what is going on with the enforcer that was drinking with Vi. Twice we have seen he is much more observant than he lets on. He pretends to be passed out drunk while Vi has her conversation with the newbie enforcer. And when Kait is chosen at the end of the last episode, he quietly slips out. I'm honestly far more interested in that than the mad scientist that Victor was a pupil of once. I'm pretty sure that's who it is, but the flashes have been brief.
I didn't understand the black rose stuff. I guess I missed it and I tried to find it. Can anyone please tell me what episode that's established in? Like is she gone gone what's going on. Anyway good way to end this segment of shows. I definitely can't wait for the next ones.
Other shows that appeal to lgbt based should take note and follow arcane lead nothing here is force, it’s natural and characters actually make mistakes and aren’t perfect
I agree with you 100%. I am very worried that the Hex is going to be the unifying factor to stop all conflicts between these factions. And if it does, it's a cheat. Because the conflicts will remain, no conflict ever has been resolved just because for a minute people needed to unite to extinguish a wild fire, we just won't see them end in a meaningful way. I also hate this Black Rose stuff. Not because it can't be interesting, but because we only have 6 episodes left, and I have zero investment in Noxus. I don't care that Mel's brother was killed - I never saw the guy. I don't care why these guys are after their mother - that conflict, whatever it was, has already happened, I will never see it unfold, so why is my time being wasted on that, when I am so invested in the conflicts developed in season 1? If we had 5 more seasons to go, sure! But 6 episodes? Either it will remain shallow, or it's just a setup for another series, which is even worse. And it seems like this Black Rose stuff is supposed to humanise Mel's mother, show how she is fighting to survive and how nuanced she is, when in reality she is an evil warmongering psycho, and nothing will change that. I did feel that the kid was very forced. Not to mention that logistically Vi absolutely could have pushed her away and let Cait kill Jinx. Last season Vi was so filled with hatred towards Silco that she told Jayce that one dead kid doesn't matter when thousands are dying. But now she is supposed to be hellbent on neutralising Jinx (to the point that she would put on the Enforcer uniform and literally gas the streets of her own city), and yet she wouldn't let Cait shoot because she's scared Cait might hit this kid? The only reason this whole thing plays out is to push Cait away from Vi and towards dictatorship, and there could have been very different ways of achieving that. Also, Cait gets onto this path oh soooooo quickly. Yes, her mum got killed - by a psycho. Yes, the memorial got attacked - because the psycho killed the only man who could control the thugs. Sure. But the whole point of her arc last season was for her to learn to see through these things and understand that the people across the river are suffering, angry, in pain, and that a lot of the blame for their condition lies with her half of town, with her class, with her own mother and the Council. Yet she is ready to turn because Vi didn't let her shoot Jinx? Well that was easy. I'm not a fan of Heimerdinger seeking out Jayce himself. I think it would be far more meaningful if Jayce understood how much he screwed up with the Hex and sought Heimerdinger out himself to get help now that Viktor is gone. Their conflict at the end of last season was both personal and ideological, and it was massive. Yet now it was resolved in one minute, and here they are, bonding, drinking tea, and being thrust into the danger zone with the Hex going nuts. That bothered me, there was potential. And another big thing for me was the reaction of the Council to the bomb attack by Jinx with Jayce being there and onboard. They know it was Jinx. They also know that Jayce had the deal with Silco - and that Jinx killed him. Wouldn't it make more sense to use all the power of propaganda in the undercity (they show leaflets with bounty on Jinx, so they have that power) to tell the people in the undercity, look, we had this deal with your leader and we will uphold our end if you give us the terrorist who killed your leader and some of ours, as well as the remaining crime bosses. Even promise them to deal with Shimmer, just like Silco agreed. And either watch the undercity eat itself, or achieve your objectives with as little bloodshed on your end as possible? The deal that Jayce and Silco had in the end was a culmination of a whole season of development. It was the life achievement of the best character in the show. It was the dream that he and Vander once shared - and which led to their subsequent conflict that caused so much pain and suffering. In other words, that deal was a big deal, pun intended, and seeing it go to waste immediately was painful. Especially when there were ways to still achieve it. (Yes, I remember that Silco himself dropped out because he could not sacrifice his daughter, it was the most beautiful and tragic thing in the story, but he is dead and no one needs to know about it. His final decision literally does not matter if everyone is going to go after Jinx anyway). I am concerned. It's not critical yet, there was a lot of good stuff in here. Jinx drowning Silco's corpse and having that whole conversation with him in her head was profound, even if it was a payoff of the last season. Viktor's journey is fascinating. Jinx herself is doing fine. Though one more thing - did I miss something, does Sevika know that Jinx killed Silco? I hope not, I hope she thinks the Enforcers did. Because if she knows the truth, then her bonding with Jinx makes no sense at all. But if she does not, then for now their relationship is very good, and will be very tragic once Sevika finds out. The visuals, the action are still amazing, stunning stuff. So I have high hopes for the last 6 episodes, they absolutely can bring everything together in a great way. But right now, I'm more worried than I hoped to be at this stage.
Ehhh I see in this comment a mistake I often see in media criticism, which is critiquing the product not by what it is but by what you wish it was. Like Jayce going to Heimerdinger for help realizing his mistake. The thing is he realized his mistake, it is explicitly told. Ekko facing Jayce hipocrisy denotes good writing, that critic seems like fan fiction on how you wish it went (how would he know where heimerdinger is? Even if he knew, why would he risk going to or sending a message to him to the undercity when a war is brewing?) . Vi not wanting to hurt a kid makes sense, it is part of mirrored character evolution that arcane has been doing. In the first season, vi was full of rage and feelings of vengeance in the name of his dad and was willing to put kids in danger if that means she could stop silco, which in her head would stop evey problem in the under city, it was a really naive view of the world. Now she is seeing that all that caused just more problems, like Vander told her in the first season, silco's death solved nothing. Now Cait is the one full of rage and desire for revenge that is willing to put kids in danger to avenge her mother (see the similarities?). Black rose, very important to understand ambessa and her character, you don't care about her son and you don't have to, the son is a Macguffin to give her character context and understanding motivation. You know her purpose and why she is doing what she is doing, you know she would do anything to protect her family, she is dangerous and desperate and escalates the conflict quicker than normal, it is the agent that makes everything worse for her own interests. And since she is so dangerous you wonder, what kind of power would be able to scare such a woman?, enter the black rose. Again one thing is you don't care, another is that things don't hold a certain purpose. About the hextech we will see, I doubt the narrative will quiet the conflict by uniting both fronts against something else, if anything everytime something new is introduced is to make things worse, more destructive and increase the escalation. I will agree that there is a lot to cover in only six episodes and that these first three felt like they left no time to breathe. Maybe another season would have sufficed. But I am willing to see how the next six go, maybe the next act is going to push on the breaks a little bit and slow down, let everything breathe. I also don't think setting up noxus and the black rose for future projects is bad, because at least so far they have done a good job making them relevant to the stpry going on here, as I have explained. There are other things, like using the power of propaganda makes no sense imo. Why would the undercity believe the deal was ever a thing? They have no reason to believe something like that, even suggesting using propaganda to manipulate a population marginalized and with every reason to hate you for the treatment you have given them sounds absurd, even if you promise them they'll get independence if they give up jinx why would they believe you? As far as they know piltover would never never give up control of zaun. And I could go on, but yeah the comment seems more about what you wish the story was instead of what it is.
@oscarchavezavellan2738 what you say about Vi would make sense. Unfortunately, it's been a few days since that kid was killed by Jayce. Since then she was kidnapped by Jinx, saw her sister being completely gone, saw her sister kill Silco and half the Council, and then in her desire to stop Jinx she went so far as to gas her own city. Reluctantly, yes, but willingly. So she very much didn't change her ways, she still believes violence is the solution, only targeted and controlled violence. Now, I don't even think the kid was why she stopped Cait - she clearly still didn't have it in her to hurt her sister. And, as I said, that whole scene was there just to push Cait away from her. Remember how long development took in season one? Now we are rushing. Same thing for Cait - I do NOT disagree with where she's going. But again, it's too quick, too rushed. Losing her mum is not enough to suddenly agree to become a war general and invade thousands of innocent people - not enough, because in the first season her arc the other direction took 9 episodes. Heimerdinger is a small issue, there just was such a wonderful opportunity for Jayce's character growth if he actually had to work on fixing the relationship with him. Instead a guy he sees for the first time in his life gives him a quick chastising and we are done. I understand why we get these details about Mel's mum. But none of these details change anything about her character. For example, last season when we first met Silco he seemed irredeemably evil. But then we found about his motivations, his story, his other side when he was with Jinx, and by the end we had a man who did absolutely evil shit, but there was so much more to him. It took time. Mel's mum comes in to warmonger and get weapons. We were shown that she warmongered her whole life. Well, now we know that her warmongering cost her son his life (this is the way of life of such families), and now she is warmongering even more because she wants to survive.... there is no grander purpose, no bigger motivation. Which is totally fine. Only I already understood that in season 1 from her first scene. She would be doing the same even if her son was not dead - just to invade neighbours. So why are they wasting my time? They don't have time to make something really interesting out of Noxus' storyline in this show, so why bother? Make a new show all about Noxus (which they very likely will). Again, as I said, it is very much possible that all of this will come together beautifully, that's why I have high hopes. They could even pull off Hex as a unifying factor in some magnificent way which will make me very happy. I'm just voicing my concerns. And I will be the first to celebrate if I'm wrong. I want this season to be a masterpiece.
@@nelguinevere4036 You are lacking nuance, it is not a complete 180 from Vi, it doesn't have to be, she didn't become a pacifist because of this, she still uses violence. However, she went before with the stance of doing whatever means necessary to stop silco and look at how that ended up. That's why she agreed to go with cait in a small force group, instead of a full on war as she was advocating in front of the council last season, to stop jinx and avoid a bigger conflict (or at least that's what she thinks). Still uses violence and that's good, would be really forced if her character became a complete pacifist, she is just now less blinded by rage as she now sees silco's death did nothing to improve the situation. Cait, makes sense, her shift didn't happen because of her mother's dead, it was a little more gradual, during the three episodes she becomes angrier and angrier, the attack at the memorial lit that fire though, as it often happens, when someone is taken from you by another more often than not you choose the anger to hide the pain. Makes special sense for her character since she never had to endure real hardship, now eveything is falling around her and she makes jinx the culprit of everything. I have seen this happen in real life a lot by both individuals and groups, when you have someone to blame, it is easy to do so, vi did it, now caitlyn is doing it. Ambessa, her war mongering didn't cost her son's life, according to her it was her son who crossed the wrong person and it is said her son was peaceful man, now, you can theorize wether thats true or not, but my point is you really don't have enough information to decide, so it is weird that you deem it a waste of time when her character has a lot of relevance in the conflcit. She was introduced a little late in the first season, so we have to see how she develops to actually judge, and by what we have been shown she is well constructed. If you don't care that's another thing, in a multi pov show with various subplots it is almost certain you will care for some more than others. But having a nation feeding an inside war because of its own interests of power has a lot of thematic relevance and realism, and Ambessa is well written enough to carry that theme (if you are from the US the thematic relevance should sound familiar, so no I think this adds complexity and shows a better understanding of social conflicts, there are outside forces playing this game for their own personal and political interests, this civil war is not isolated as if these two cities were the only civilizations in the world). About jayce and heimerdinger, they don't confront each other because they have been both humbled, jayce is now seeing how his inventions are causing a war and heimerdinger was kicked out because of his negligence in handeling the situation at zaun, he had 200 years to do something and preferred to look the other way, neither of them can really blame the other for what's going on, because both added fuel to the fire. Would be really weird if heimerdinger confronted jayce when he just saw how his incompetence allowed misery for two centuries, it would even be inmature for an inmortal being imo. As I said, they are going really fast and I hope they slow down, but how things have developed denotes good writing and keeps a fundamental understanding of things
@oscarchavezavellan2738 it's not lacking nuance on my part, it's the writing lacking nuance. By the end of season 1 Vi's objective was to kill Silco, and for that she was ready to sacrifice innocents. Now her objective is not to just stop Jinx - it is to literally save all of the people in the undercity, because if she fails to stop Jinx, Topside will invade, destroy, kill everywhere. This is so important to her that she gases her own people - I can't stress enough how screwed up that is, we've been shown what the Grey does to people. And no, she wasn't just gasing Silco's agents, the gas would have harmed a lot of innocents. And she agrees to this because of how important it is to stop Jinx, she believes this is how she saves the whole of undercity. And then she suddenly wouldn't risk one kid? There is no development in between, here she is gasing people, here she is trying to kill Jinx, here she is pleading with Cait to not endanger this one kid - when a) Cait absolutely would not have missed, and b) she could have pushed the kid away herself, even if at risk for herself. This is jarring, and many have noted that. It is not bad. We could have absolutely gotten here. But it should have been an arc, not a statement. The same for Cait. I don't disagree, as I said, with where the character is going. But where she is in the final shot of episode 3 would have been the end of the season, if they dedicated as much time and care to character development as they did last season. It's not the direction that worries me. This show was brilliant not because the characters were doing things which made sense. But because every development took time. That's what made the show stand out when it comes to character development. And yes, Cait did face hardships. A couple of weeks ago she gave away her gun to save Vi and hugged a crazy shimmer looking guy, and now she is hitler. Amara told Ambessa "the thing you've stolen from us...", and then Ambessa says "my son is dead, isn't it enough ", and Amara later says "you should have stopped the fued". So clearly Ambessa's son didn't die of something he did, he died because of whatever Ambessa was doing - and she lied to Mel about it. I just rewatched the episodes yesterday to confirm that. And as for Jayce - how is he humbled? When? When Viktor wakes up, Jayce tells him "can't you see, Heimerdinger was wrong, this thing is not that bad!". Yes, Viktor disagrees and leaves - but Jayce is angry at him for that, not remorseful ("you will leave your friend when he's bleeding", or something like that). He only gets humbled when he says "what have we done" after seeing the Hex go crazy. Or rather, this is the moment where maybe his character will begin getting humbled. And all I was saying is that it would have been great if he went through this alone and then sought out help, having to actually humble himself. And I'm sure it could have been done great, but we don't have time for that, we need to rush with the Hex, we need to rush with Vi, with Cait, with Noxus, because we only have 4 hours of story-telling left. But we sure have time for a lot of action scenes in slow motion (visually stunning, but eating up time we clearly don't have). Season 1 had loads of action, but it had so much time to develop characters, relationships, concepts and ideas. Now every second counts.
@@nelguinevere4036 It is lacking nuance on your part. Vi last season was advocating for A WAR if that meant silco could pay. She sees how that ended up, now she is less blinded by anger and doesn't want that anymore, she asks cait to convince the council to drop plans for an invasion, it is spelled out in the first episode. She still uses violence because that's the only way she's ever known to solve her problems (again, explicitly spelled out), but her approach has shifted. It's not a 180, it does not have to be, no longer wanting to sacrifice children tracks with her new approach, justifying violence in order to avoid bigger violence tracks with her perspective shift and her personality, it is nuanced, contradictions that can exist at the same time. And I am sorry but defending the shot because Cait would not have missed is just ridiculous, yes we know she is a fictional character who's whole deal is that she never misses, but no person in their right mind would risk the possibilty of harming a child, and this is supposed to be humanizing the characters. Ambessa, we don't have enough information still as I said, so blaming her war mongering with such an ambigous line of dialogue is rushed (And yet, let's not forget I also answered how her character holds thematic relevance to the story that makes her not a waste of time, as you have tried to position her), but you are right that it is probably not because of her son, I never said it was though, I suggested that was probably a lie, but that there isn't enough information yet. Jayce, an interesting character because he never seems to pick a stance, one moment he wants to stop using hextech the other he deems hextech necessary. I will say though, he has been humbled, the council was attacked by an invention of his, so he lingers to viktor as a demmonstration that his creations can do good, but his whole view is shattered when he is told that it killed sky, just to be abbandoned by his friend inmediately after. Now he holds nothing, hextech is inevitably been used as weapons and what he thought was a source of healing killed a person. The what have we done line is just the realization that was already brewing, he has been humbled, no political participation, no scientific participation because every action he has taken on both fronts has blown up on his face LITERALLY. As I said, I agree that the first three episode feel like a marathon, however I consider that you are giving the writing less credit than it deserves, because it is still really good. It isn't perfect, like for example Viktor's complete 180 that felt like they needed him to be in a certain postion for the story. But I keep my stance that the writing is still nuanced and complex, there is a lot of social and political commentary that is delicious to analyze and the characters are still going strong in its majority, it is not just good imo, but I do want some breathing time because I do agree that the first three have a pacing issue.
Ambessa does think quick on her feet tho, first she quickly targeted the weakest council member to get what she wanted, but that failed after Mel's strong stance on not using hextech weapons, she then deployed the attack to give them a reason to having to use them. Before Caitlyn coming ouy strong and cold, she didn't pay much attention to her, but seeing her quick turn to brutality, she immediately abandoned the plan to use the council man as puppet but to use Caitlyn instead.
Agreed. You can see the moment that Ambessa makes the switch, realizing that Caitlyn's rage will give her an easier way to ensure her soldiers end up with Hextech. Poor Cait is so lost that she's an easy target, much easier than dealing with the Council.
9:47 the black rose stuff happened LONG before she arrived in Piltover. She specifically went to Piltover to guide them towards making Hex Tech weaponry so that she could fight off the Black Rose faction. That they caught up to her in this season is just showing how desperate she’s becoming, but it’s always been her guiding motivation.
8:16 I think what makes her character so terrifying is that she is both. In the same portion that it revealed she orchestrated the attack it is also shown how she took advantage of killing amara to frame it as an assassination attempt. She can be both a planner and an improviser, which makes her dangerous. Makes her feel like she is playing chess while everybody is playing checkers, which is what you are suppose to take away since she is from a nation that is not alien to war and political scheming in order to gain the upper hand, unlike piltover.
not only is the nation shes from not alien to such things, its like literally their nations motto lol
She is both a fox and a wolf
noooo i wanted to say that 😢😂@@crimsoneclipse0618
Arcane is so amazing at visual language. Violets being the only color in Cait’s world. Viktor being a scabbed-over wound while Jayce is bleeding on the floor. Vi wiping off her facial tattoo to show her losing her identity in real time. Fantastic stuff.
Smeech, the gang leader you mentioned, had my animator brain buzzing. The way they made him twitchy but had that resemble a broken down animatronic was just *genius*.
The black rose stuff is established after the attack but its revealed they caused her son's death which is her motivation for what she's doing so the black rose are pushing her we just found out about them after.
I loved the fight with Jinx and Silco's old enforcer. The way the two exchange looks like two people who hate each other but are trying to get along during it with every new thing in the arm is charming as hell.
I don't think they hate each other, not anymore anyways. They find common ground in carrying on Silco's legacy. Zevika refuses to offer her up to topside, Jinx literally fixes her arm without Zevika asking for it, Zevika protects her without Jinx asking for it.
I think they bonded over their shared loss, and further than that, while I can definitely see them disliking each other, there's a great deal of respect between the two. Feels like Zevika has adapted to Jinx' crazy and Jinx in turn has come to respect some of Zevika's qualities (loyalty and resilience). Curious where they'll go with this pairing.
I'd argue that Ambessa's plot was largely opportunistic in nature. Sure she manipulated that one Chem baron into the attack, but the conditions that made the powder keg in the first place- the relationship between the cities, the death of the Chem Baron's son, Jinx's attack on the Council- were things Ambessa had no hand in. She just took the ingredients that were there to nudge things into an out-and-out war, with herself in a place of power.
Truly Pultivor is a house of cards Ambessa just yoinked,
I'm actually really excited for hex tech to play more of a roll, not from a lore perspective but from a character perspective. These are the consequences Hiemmerdinger warned about, the result of seeking to do great and failing to do good. If lore works in that's a bonus.
The black rose threat to Ambessa was mentioned / etablished in season one, when Ambessa mentioned that someone murked Mels brother.
While opportunistic characters can be fun, I do like to have one that actually plans (successfully). And it isn't like in the Boys where a rather unlikely scenario was supposed to be planned by the way of superpowers. Tho my friend and I called the person behind it the moment the spears flew ^^
Caitlin rejecting Vi by knocking her down at the end of episode 3 was such a PERFECT parallel to Vi rejecting Powder by punching her in the face at the end of episode 3 in series 1, and I cannot wait to see Vi spiral over the next few episodes.
It's like...I hate to see my babygirl suffer like that, but damn, does she ever look cool while she does... 😅
she hit vi in the exact spot sevika stabbed her too 🥺
I think that if they’d structured the show for three seasons (which I presumed before this year), they’d have let this season start less frantically… But it’s clearly intended to be the second half of the story; while Season 1 had its own three-act structure internally, it seems like in the grander scheme of it all that… Can we say that that season’s first arc was a Prologue, the second and third were the first Act, and now Season 2 will be the Second Act (probably for around the first two thirds) and then the Third Act for the final act.
You know, even if a lot of the fallout of the cliffhanger was predictable in many ways - we all knew Cait’s mother would be dead even if we had no leaks, we knew that Jayce and Viktor would make it (at least the former, even if we didn’t know them both as Champions in LoL), we knew most of the Council was cooked. But even as we were shown that Ambessa would push for war, the trailers were super careful to not spoil ANY of the survivors. So how it played out wasn’t entirely predictable… the one councilman who lived, the fact both Mel and Jayce were unscathed but Viktor was mortally wounded thus setting up his transformation by the Hextech Core, the works. That’s probably the part I’m finding most interesting to see how it plays out. And the big shot of Vi and Jinx clashing being just in this arc? Genius…
No idea how this will wrap up, but I’m super invested to see how it plays out. And how it will set up other stories in the Runeterra setting when this winds down…
I will wait to see your reviews until I have seen the series But here's a comment to help you anyway
I’m here after the show is completely released and holy shit you guessed it
I finally watched this show just recently and am caught up now. I put it off for a really long time despite hearing how good it was, because it's based on a video game I don't play. But I finally had enough people bugging me to watch it, and I'm blown away. It's so gorgeous and it's so devastating.
My prediction, which will probably turn out to be wrong, is that Ambessa is going to be season 2's ultimate villain. I can't predict this show even a little bit, so I'm probably wrong. But that lady is so scary and compelling.
I heard that after this season and they wrap it up to move onto a different story, that it'll still be an all encompassing world. I'm hoping what they're doing with the hex is to set some world building foundations for the future.
I really loved the first three episodes! I agree the first season was better paced because of the slow build up, but I'm still enjoying what they're doing! The only thing that I thought was a little "silly" was a music video at the start of every episode. I loved the animation for it however, it was able to show the grief and shock Caitlyn was going through in the first episode. And I know that lore filled music videos are kind of a big deal in League of Legends, so it's not really a critique, more just that I wasn't a fan of all the song choices lol
Its not a surprise the hex is going on front now as its supposed to.. because the title is literally about it..The Arcane..
I don't even understand how "lore" is seen as a negative here. Like what? It's literally a game adaptation. I guess because of how good season 1 is they forget it's actually "League of Legends" Arcane. 😂😂😂.
@Vizible21 yehh .. the first one so good and focused a lot in characters they forgot that other elements that affects everyone exist ...
I do worry about Victor going the messiah route, but we aren't getting the disabled madman with trauma as justification, this character is subverting that trope. I love how both jinx and vi have grown and are exercising caution and restraint and it doesn't feel like some moral message, but the reality of their situations. Vi is not running off to do things on her own, the second she disagrees with someone, and jinx is showing that grief under all that rage, and starting to realize silco's influence on her. I'm curious what is going on with the enforcer that was drinking with Vi. Twice we have seen he is much more observant than he lets on. He pretends to be passed out drunk while Vi has her conversation with the newbie enforcer. And when Kait is chosen at the end of the last episode, he quietly slips out. I'm honestly far more interested in that than the mad scientist that Victor was a pupil of once. I'm pretty sure that's who it is, but the flashes have been brief.
I didn't understand the black rose stuff. I guess I missed it and I tried to find it. Can anyone please tell me what episode that's established in? Like is she gone gone what's going on.
Anyway good way to end this segment of shows. I definitely can't wait for the next ones.
12:58 two words....... Religious Zealot. Mark my words, that is where he'll end up.
Arcane season 1 is build up, and season 2 is pay off
Engagement for the engagement god!
Other shows that appeal to lgbt based should take note and follow arcane lead nothing here is force, it’s natural and characters actually make mistakes and aren’t perfect
I'm genuinely curious: can you name me a show or movie where LGBTQIA+ characters are perfect and make no mistakes?
I agree with you 100%. I am very worried that the Hex is going to be the unifying factor to stop all conflicts between these factions. And if it does, it's a cheat. Because the conflicts will remain, no conflict ever has been resolved just because for a minute people needed to unite to extinguish a wild fire, we just won't see them end in a meaningful way.
I also hate this Black Rose stuff. Not because it can't be interesting, but because we only have 6 episodes left, and I have zero investment in Noxus. I don't care that Mel's brother was killed - I never saw the guy. I don't care why these guys are after their mother - that conflict, whatever it was, has already happened, I will never see it unfold, so why is my time being wasted on that, when I am so invested in the conflicts developed in season 1? If we had 5 more seasons to go, sure! But 6 episodes? Either it will remain shallow, or it's just a setup for another series, which is even worse. And it seems like this Black Rose stuff is supposed to humanise Mel's mother, show how she is fighting to survive and how nuanced she is, when in reality she is an evil warmongering psycho, and nothing will change that.
I did feel that the kid was very forced. Not to mention that logistically Vi absolutely could have pushed her away and let Cait kill Jinx. Last season Vi was so filled with hatred towards Silco that she told Jayce that one dead kid doesn't matter when thousands are dying. But now she is supposed to be hellbent on neutralising Jinx (to the point that she would put on the Enforcer uniform and literally gas the streets of her own city), and yet she wouldn't let Cait shoot because she's scared Cait might hit this kid? The only reason this whole thing plays out is to push Cait away from Vi and towards dictatorship, and there could have been very different ways of achieving that. Also, Cait gets onto this path oh soooooo quickly. Yes, her mum got killed - by a psycho. Yes, the memorial got attacked - because the psycho killed the only man who could control the thugs. Sure. But the whole point of her arc last season was for her to learn to see through these things and understand that the people across the river are suffering, angry, in pain, and that a lot of the blame for their condition lies with her half of town, with her class, with her own mother and the Council. Yet she is ready to turn because Vi didn't let her shoot Jinx? Well that was easy.
I'm not a fan of Heimerdinger seeking out Jayce himself. I think it would be far more meaningful if Jayce understood how much he screwed up with the Hex and sought Heimerdinger out himself to get help now that Viktor is gone. Their conflict at the end of last season was both personal and ideological, and it was massive. Yet now it was resolved in one minute, and here they are, bonding, drinking tea, and being thrust into the danger zone with the Hex going nuts. That bothered me, there was potential.
And another big thing for me was the reaction of the Council to the bomb attack by Jinx with Jayce being there and onboard. They know it was Jinx. They also know that Jayce had the deal with Silco - and that Jinx killed him. Wouldn't it make more sense to use all the power of propaganda in the undercity (they show leaflets with bounty on Jinx, so they have that power) to tell the people in the undercity, look, we had this deal with your leader and we will uphold our end if you give us the terrorist who killed your leader and some of ours, as well as the remaining crime bosses. Even promise them to deal with Shimmer, just like Silco agreed. And either watch the undercity eat itself, or achieve your objectives with as little bloodshed on your end as possible? The deal that Jayce and Silco had in the end was a culmination of a whole season of development. It was the life achievement of the best character in the show. It was the dream that he and Vander once shared - and which led to their subsequent conflict that caused so much pain and suffering. In other words, that deal was a big deal, pun intended, and seeing it go to waste immediately was painful. Especially when there were ways to still achieve it. (Yes, I remember that Silco himself dropped out because he could not sacrifice his daughter, it was the most beautiful and tragic thing in the story, but he is dead and no one needs to know about it. His final decision literally does not matter if everyone is going to go after Jinx anyway).
I am concerned. It's not critical yet, there was a lot of good stuff in here. Jinx drowning Silco's corpse and having that whole conversation with him in her head was profound, even if it was a payoff of the last season. Viktor's journey is fascinating. Jinx herself is doing fine. Though one more thing - did I miss something, does Sevika know that Jinx killed Silco? I hope not, I hope she thinks the Enforcers did. Because if she knows the truth, then her bonding with Jinx makes no sense at all. But if she does not, then for now their relationship is very good, and will be very tragic once Sevika finds out. The visuals, the action are still amazing, stunning stuff. So I have high hopes for the last 6 episodes, they absolutely can bring everything together in a great way. But right now, I'm more worried than I hoped to be at this stage.
Ehhh I see in this comment a mistake I often see in media criticism, which is critiquing the product not by what it is but by what you wish it was. Like Jayce going to Heimerdinger for help realizing his mistake. The thing is he realized his mistake, it is explicitly told. Ekko facing Jayce hipocrisy denotes good writing, that critic seems like fan fiction on how you wish it went (how would he know where heimerdinger is? Even if he knew, why would he risk going to or sending a message to him to the undercity when a war is brewing?) . Vi not wanting to hurt a kid makes sense, it is part of mirrored character evolution that arcane has been doing. In the first season, vi was full of rage and feelings of vengeance in the name of his dad and was willing to put kids in danger if that means she could stop silco, which in her head would stop evey problem in the under city, it was a really naive view of the world. Now she is seeing that all that caused just more problems, like Vander told her in the first season, silco's death solved nothing. Now Cait is the one full of rage and desire for revenge that is willing to put kids in danger to avenge her mother (see the similarities?). Black rose, very important to understand ambessa and her character, you don't care about her son and you don't have to, the son is a Macguffin to give her character context and understanding motivation. You know her purpose and why she is doing what she is doing, you know she would do anything to protect her family, she is dangerous and desperate and escalates the conflict quicker than normal, it is the agent that makes everything worse for her own interests. And since she is so dangerous you wonder, what kind of power would be able to scare such a woman?, enter the black rose. Again one thing is you don't care, another is that things don't hold a certain purpose. About the hextech we will see, I doubt the narrative will quiet the conflict by uniting both fronts against something else, if anything everytime something new is introduced is to make things worse, more destructive and increase the escalation. I will agree that there is a lot to cover in only six episodes and that these first three felt like they left no time to breathe. Maybe another season would have sufficed. But I am willing to see how the next six go, maybe the next act is going to push on the breaks a little bit and slow down, let everything breathe. I also don't think setting up noxus and the black rose for future projects is bad, because at least so far they have done a good job making them relevant to the stpry going on here, as I have explained. There are other things, like using the power of propaganda makes no sense imo. Why would the undercity believe the deal was ever a thing? They have no reason to believe something like that, even suggesting using propaganda to manipulate a population marginalized and with every reason to hate you for the treatment you have given them sounds absurd, even if you promise them they'll get independence if they give up jinx why would they believe you? As far as they know piltover would never never give up control of zaun. And I could go on, but yeah the comment seems more about what you wish the story was instead of what it is.
@oscarchavezavellan2738 what you say about Vi would make sense. Unfortunately, it's been a few days since that kid was killed by Jayce. Since then she was kidnapped by Jinx, saw her sister being completely gone, saw her sister kill Silco and half the Council, and then in her desire to stop Jinx she went so far as to gas her own city. Reluctantly, yes, but willingly. So she very much didn't change her ways, she still believes violence is the solution, only targeted and controlled violence. Now, I don't even think the kid was why she stopped Cait - she clearly still didn't have it in her to hurt her sister. And, as I said, that whole scene was there just to push Cait away from her. Remember how long development took in season one? Now we are rushing. Same thing for Cait - I do NOT disagree with where she's going. But again, it's too quick, too rushed. Losing her mum is not enough to suddenly agree to become a war general and invade thousands of innocent people - not enough, because in the first season her arc the other direction took 9 episodes.
Heimerdinger is a small issue, there just was such a wonderful opportunity for Jayce's character growth if he actually had to work on fixing the relationship with him. Instead a guy he sees for the first time in his life gives him a quick chastising and we are done.
I understand why we get these details about Mel's mum. But none of these details change anything about her character. For example, last season when we first met Silco he seemed irredeemably evil. But then we found about his motivations, his story, his other side when he was with Jinx, and by the end we had a man who did absolutely evil shit, but there was so much more to him. It took time. Mel's mum comes in to warmonger and get weapons. We were shown that she warmongered her whole life. Well, now we know that her warmongering cost her son his life (this is the way of life of such families), and now she is warmongering even more because she wants to survive.... there is no grander purpose, no bigger motivation. Which is totally fine. Only I already understood that in season 1 from her first scene. She would be doing the same even if her son was not dead - just to invade neighbours. So why are they wasting my time? They don't have time to make something really interesting out of Noxus' storyline in this show, so why bother? Make a new show all about Noxus (which they very likely will).
Again, as I said, it is very much possible that all of this will come together beautifully, that's why I have high hopes. They could even pull off Hex as a unifying factor in some magnificent way which will make me very happy. I'm just voicing my concerns. And I will be the first to celebrate if I'm wrong. I want this season to be a masterpiece.
@@nelguinevere4036 You are lacking nuance, it is not a complete 180 from Vi, it doesn't have to be, she didn't become a pacifist because of this, she still uses violence. However, she went before with the stance of doing whatever means necessary to stop silco and look at how that ended up. That's why she agreed to go with cait in a small force group, instead of a full on war as she was advocating in front of the council last season, to stop jinx and avoid a bigger conflict (or at least that's what she thinks). Still uses violence and that's good, would be really forced if her character became a complete pacifist, she is just now less blinded by rage as she now sees silco's death did nothing to improve the situation. Cait, makes sense, her shift didn't happen because of her mother's dead, it was a little more gradual, during the three episodes she becomes angrier and angrier, the attack at the memorial lit that fire though, as it often happens, when someone is taken from you by another more often than not you choose the anger to hide the pain. Makes special sense for her character since she never had to endure real hardship, now eveything is falling around her and she makes jinx the culprit of everything. I have seen this happen in real life a lot by both individuals and groups, when you have someone to blame, it is easy to do so, vi did it, now caitlyn is doing it. Ambessa, her war mongering didn't cost her son's life, according to her it was her son who crossed the wrong person and it is said her son was peaceful man, now, you can theorize wether thats true or not, but my point is you really don't have enough information to decide, so it is weird that you deem it a waste of time when her character has a lot of relevance in the conflcit. She was introduced a little late in the first season, so we have to see how she develops to actually judge, and by what we have been shown she is well constructed. If you don't care that's another thing, in a multi pov show with various subplots it is almost certain you will care for some more than others. But having a nation feeding an inside war because of its own interests of power has a lot of thematic relevance and realism, and Ambessa is well written enough to carry that theme (if you are from the US the thematic relevance should sound familiar, so no I think this adds complexity and shows a better understanding of social conflicts, there are outside forces playing this game for their own personal and political interests, this civil war is not isolated as if these two cities were the only civilizations in the world). About jayce and heimerdinger, they don't confront each other because they have been both humbled, jayce is now seeing how his inventions are causing a war and heimerdinger was kicked out because of his negligence in handeling the situation at zaun, he had 200 years to do something and preferred to look the other way, neither of them can really blame the other for what's going on, because both added fuel to the fire. Would be really weird if heimerdinger confronted jayce when he just saw how his incompetence allowed misery for two centuries, it would even be inmature for an inmortal being imo. As I said, they are going really fast and I hope they slow down, but how things have developed denotes good writing and keeps a fundamental understanding of things
@oscarchavezavellan2738 it's not lacking nuance on my part, it's the writing lacking nuance. By the end of season 1 Vi's objective was to kill Silco, and for that she was ready to sacrifice innocents. Now her objective is not to just stop Jinx - it is to literally save all of the people in the undercity, because if she fails to stop Jinx, Topside will invade, destroy, kill everywhere. This is so important to her that she gases her own people - I can't stress enough how screwed up that is, we've been shown what the Grey does to people. And no, she wasn't just gasing Silco's agents, the gas would have harmed a lot of innocents. And she agrees to this because of how important it is to stop Jinx, she believes this is how she saves the whole of undercity. And then she suddenly wouldn't risk one kid? There is no development in between, here she is gasing people, here she is trying to kill Jinx, here she is pleading with Cait to not endanger this one kid - when a) Cait absolutely would not have missed, and b) she could have pushed the kid away herself, even if at risk for herself. This is jarring, and many have noted that. It is not bad. We could have absolutely gotten here. But it should have been an arc, not a statement.
The same for Cait. I don't disagree, as I said, with where the character is going. But where she is in the final shot of episode 3 would have been the end of the season, if they dedicated as much time and care to character development as they did last season. It's not the direction that worries me. This show was brilliant not because the characters were doing things which made sense. But because every development took time. That's what made the show stand out when it comes to character development. And yes, Cait did face hardships. A couple of weeks ago she gave away her gun to save Vi and hugged a crazy shimmer looking guy, and now she is hitler.
Amara told Ambessa "the thing you've stolen from us...", and then Ambessa says "my son is dead, isn't it enough ", and Amara later says "you should have stopped the fued". So clearly Ambessa's son didn't die of something he did, he died because of whatever Ambessa was doing - and she lied to Mel about it. I just rewatched the episodes yesterday to confirm that.
And as for Jayce - how is he humbled? When? When Viktor wakes up, Jayce tells him "can't you see, Heimerdinger was wrong, this thing is not that bad!". Yes, Viktor disagrees and leaves - but Jayce is angry at him for that, not remorseful ("you will leave your friend when he's bleeding", or something like that). He only gets humbled when he says "what have we done" after seeing the Hex go crazy. Or rather, this is the moment where maybe his character will begin getting humbled. And all I was saying is that it would have been great if he went through this alone and then sought out help, having to actually humble himself. And I'm sure it could have been done great, but we don't have time for that, we need to rush with the Hex, we need to rush with Vi, with Cait, with Noxus, because we only have 4 hours of story-telling left. But we sure have time for a lot of action scenes in slow motion (visually stunning, but eating up time we clearly don't have). Season 1 had loads of action, but it had so much time to develop characters, relationships, concepts and ideas. Now every second counts.
@@nelguinevere4036 It is lacking nuance on your part. Vi last season was advocating for A WAR if that meant silco could pay. She sees how that ended up, now she is less blinded by anger and doesn't want that anymore, she asks cait to convince the council to drop plans for an invasion, it is spelled out in the first episode. She still uses violence because that's the only way she's ever known to solve her problems (again, explicitly spelled out), but her approach has shifted. It's not a 180, it does not have to be, no longer wanting to sacrifice children tracks with her new approach, justifying violence in order to avoid bigger violence tracks with her perspective shift and her personality, it is nuanced, contradictions that can exist at the same time. And I am sorry but defending the shot because Cait would not have missed is just ridiculous, yes we know she is a fictional character who's whole deal is that she never misses, but no person in their right mind would risk the possibilty of harming a child, and this is supposed to be humanizing the characters. Ambessa, we don't have enough information still as I said, so blaming her war mongering with such an ambigous line of dialogue is rushed (And yet, let's not forget I also answered how her character holds thematic relevance to the story that makes her not a waste of time, as you have tried to position her), but you are right that it is probably not because of her son, I never said it was though, I suggested that was probably a lie, but that there isn't enough information yet. Jayce, an interesting character because he never seems to pick a stance, one moment he wants to stop using hextech the other he deems hextech necessary. I will say though, he has been humbled, the council was attacked by an invention of his, so he lingers to viktor as a demmonstration that his creations can do good, but his whole view is shattered when he is told that it killed sky, just to be abbandoned by his friend inmediately after. Now he holds nothing, hextech is inevitably been used as weapons and what he thought was a source of healing killed a person. The what have we done line is just the realization that was already brewing, he has been humbled, no political participation, no scientific participation because every action he has taken on both fronts has blown up on his face LITERALLY. As I said, I agree that the first three episode feel like a marathon, however I consider that you are giving the writing less credit than it deserves, because it is still really good. It isn't perfect, like for example Viktor's complete 180 that felt like they needed him to be in a certain postion for the story. But I keep my stance that the writing is still nuanced and complex, there is a lot of social and political commentary that is delicious to analyze and the characters are still going strong in its majority, it is not just good imo, but I do want some breathing time because I do agree that the first three have a pacing issue.