I. Some Preface
I start off this rabid rant review with the disclaimer that “Arcane” is a series that I’m not at all objective about. Season 1 was my absolute darling. As a person who “has no favorites” and thinks there’s “no such thing as a 10/10 piece of media,” “Arcane” season 1 comes really close to a 10 for me. Dare I say, it might even be my Favorite™ show. The way the internet (even League players!) united in common love around this show speaks for itself. Season 1 was the crystallization of six years of artistic labor. There is so, so much meticulous, nerdy love that went into its making and it absolutely shined through.
And so, going into “Arcane” season 2, I was determined to love it. The personal stakes were high, but the threshold was honestly low. Season 2 just needed to have any semblance of quality for me to be okay with it. (It turns out this was apparently still too high a bar — at least, until I finally got to episode seven.)
Anyway, this review touches on my initial reactions, then goes straight into what I thought was executed poorly, with some very expert media opinions here and there on what I think the writers could’ve done differently. I’m not particularly casual about any of it, so if people taking a piece of media too seriously makes you cringe (very fair), perhaps don’t tread any further.
Without further ado, let’s get into it. (Oh, and obviously, spoilers.)
[S2E8] You and me both, Jinx
II. Heavy Is the Crown (of being a finale)
Initial watching experience. I diligently avoided internet spoilers (mostly successful, the Viktor one slipped through), waited until break for all nine episodes to drop (successful), then planned to sit and watch it in its entirety.
That didn’t happen. I had such lukewarm feelings about the first three episodes that I had to stop for the night to process what the hell had happened in the writers’ room. “Arcane” season 1 isn’t a masterclass in dialogue or anything, but it was still good writing. So please, someone tell me which ring of hell this line from season 2 episode 1 crawled out of:
[Caitlyn to Jayce]: “Ever since it happened… three faces keep spinning through my mind. I see Mother. When they found her. And every fiber of me just sinks, like a stone swallowed in dark water. But then there’s Jinx. Laughing. I want to tear that laugh from her throat forever.”
This is some 13-year-old, Wattpad-level writing — not an insult to the young aspiring writers on Wattpad, but absolutely an insult to the writers of this scene. No one talks like this. Not even in the animated-action-show universe of “Arcane.” What is with the clunky figurative language? Why is Caitlyn talking like a grade-schooler whose English teacher just taught them show-don’t-tell? Are these even the same people who wrote season 1? (Somehow, yes.)
(Side Note: The third face is Vi, just for journalistic integrity. This piece of dialogue has a lot of sins, but internal consistency isn’t one of them.)
I conferred with a few friends who had already finished watching. They affirmed that I was not going insane but that I should persist. So persist I did, not that I actually needed convincing.
[S2E1] Caitlyn and Jayce in the garden.
(Side Note 2: At least the beauty of the show stays untouchable.)
III. What “Arcane” Season 2 Got Wrong
Like the title stated upfront, “Arcane” season 2 has scope and style but not substance. And most of the substance problem comes down to scope. Season 2 got very ambitious with its worldbuilding, rapidly introducing new characters, magical forces and backstories, with different plotlines branching out from each member of the main cast. But even though each thread of the plot was strung together in the finale (more or less), most of the character arcs felt unsatisfying. Emotional punches playing to the same themes as season 1 lacked the necessary groundwork to hit the same way. Not to mention the unfortunate choice to decenter Vi and Jinx’s sisterly relationship. I’m not sure if the writers recognized the extent to which their journey to get back to each other was the core pathos of the show; amid all the drama, war and intrigue, their relationship was the beating heart that grounded it all. Just an incomprehensible writing decision.
Anyway, more specific critiques:
Pointless characters eating up precious screen time
Getting straight into the breadth over depth problem, let’s talk Isha and Sky. What the hell were the writers trying to do here?
[S2E6] Death flags. Death flags everywhere.
Starting with Isha. If the dead wife montage were a character, by god, it would be this character. Isha’s clearly meant to be a callback to Powder. She’s clearly meant to be a device for Jinx’s character development, to let Jinx experience being an older sister and realize that she’s capable of nurturing, not just chaos and violence. She’s also clearly meant to die. But frankly, there wasn’t enough screen time or substance to make us care about Isha and her relationship with Jinx, to the point that her death in episode 6 — while still sad, because “Arcane” knows how to construct a sad scene — just felt god-awfully cliche. (Have you ever deadpanned at a scene, deeply unimpressed, while your eyes watered anyway? It was actually kind of funny. “Arcane” season 2 gets a special award from me for creating brand new emotions!)
The screen time spent forcing us to watch Isha be Quirky Child Sidekick™ could’ve gone to exploring the tentative new alliance between Jinx and Sevika instead — characters who hated each other in the past, now united in their common memory and respect for Silco. Sevika was already a fairly compelling and well-fleshed character from season 1; even if people didn’t like her, there was something to appreciate about her strong, personal moral compass and her parallels with Vi. And if Isha was supposed to demonstrate Jinx’s capacity for goodness and selflessness, the plot point where Jinx fixes and upgrades Sevika’s mechanical arm of her own volition was a natural place to jump from.
As for Sky. I actually felt pretty bad for her character in season 1; she basically had no lines and existed for the sole purpose of dying. Unlike Isha, though, her death at least served a purpose, in that she was the innocent, first casualty of the Hex Core, brutally waking Viktor to the dangers of their reckless experimentation. (This is another persistent problem in season 2: Whereas every detail and scene in season 1 meant something to either the plot or thematic arcs, season 2 tries to replicate those kinds of scenes without the actual thought behind it.)
Anyways, Sky’s screen time in season 2 is spent lingering over Viktor’s shoulder and saying things he could’ve easily monologued. It’s as if the writers didn’t plan to have her at all, but decided to add her in at the last minute and just split Viktor’s original dialogue with her. If the point of her character in season 2 was to represent Viktor’s conscience and give him someone to share his musings with, that screen time could’ve just gone to Viktor mulling about the philosophical differences between him and Jayce. Throw in some nostalgic and/or dramatic lab partner conversation flashbacks, and you have yourself some substantive character building without even needing the characters to directly interact. This would’ve built off the small tensions we saw in season 1 and naturally culminated into their pivotal, final confrontation.
2. Caitlyn, Vi…Caitlyn and Vi
[S2E9] Yeah, solemn is how I feel about you guys too.
Sigh. At least the girlfriends were made canon in the very first act? (Insert joke here about the pacing of WLW relationships and how they got together and broke up in the same episode.)
I have few other positive comments. Caitlyn remains an underwritten character despite being a very main character this season. Her archetype in season 1 was the straight-laced purveyor of justice, so naturally her arc in season 2 was to see how much of that rigid morality she could bend in the name of justice. Perfectly logical writing choice, but it’s a shame the writers still didn’t bother to give her more depth.
Then there’s the “Caitlyn x Vi” problem of this season — which is that despite there being, shall we say, physical progress to their relationship, the writers did little work to establish emotional progress. In season 1, they had the oil-and-water problem: Caitlyn and Vi came from two very different backgrounds, and there were a lot of differences in values and allegiances that needed to be resolved. Yet throughout the entirety of season 2, there wasn’t a single conversation about what it entails for them to learn how to be together. Season 2 episode 1 features a brief argument where Vi angrily rejects Caitlyn’s invitation to join the Enforcers (the same police force that killed Vi’s parents). This is another critical moment of their worlds clashing, where Vi accepting would be the ultimate symbol of forsaking her old life to accept Caitlyn’s. But then the conflict gets dropped in the very next episode: Vi just joins. We don’t see more of her inner turmoil, what it took for her to make that choice, even though this identity crisis absolutely should have been the primary driver of her character arc in season 2. Oh, and to make it clear, Vi basically has no arc this season. She never even gets a real conflict resolution with Jinx. God, I miss season 1.
3. Oh, Mel </3
Half of the season 1 main cast got tossed into a subatomic dimension and were only retrieved in the last third of the show, when the writers finally smelled the damn oven burning. What a waste of a fantastic character. Mel was one of my favorites, but season 2’s Mel didn’t feel like Mel anymore. She barely felt like a character at all.
Fair, her season 1 character was written for a political intrigue setting. When Ambessa dissolved the Council early into season 2, that removed Mel’s previous arena. But I guess the writers ran out of ideas for what to do with her after that? Her plotline with the ancient Black Rose cabal was critically underdeveloped. Mel went into Super Saiyan Mode three times too many (someone’s definitely made memes already) and yet I still had zero idea what was going on with the Roses by the ending. It gave the impression that the writers’ room simply threw their hands up and said “Fuck it, just give her some magic powers too,” completely discarding how it was previously her cunning that put her on an even playing field with the rest of the characters. I’d rather her character have gone down the espionage route, which we were already seeing the beginnings of when the Council fell apart. That sort of arc — traveling beyond the elite circles of Piltover, possibly dipping into the Undercity and encountering characters she can’t manipulate with her traditional tactics — would’ve remained consistent with her previous characterization while still offering interesting growth.
[S2E3] Lest, a new co-conspirator and informant of Mel’s that I wish we actually got to see more of.
4. Heimerdinger’s Ending
If the writers wanted an emotional parting scene between Ekko and Heimerdinger, they really didn’t need to kill him. (Not even going to get into how random and unexplained his “sacrifice” was; everyone else I’ve asked was equally confused as to what the point of it was.)
Anyway, instead of killing him, the scene could’ve gone differently: Heimerdinger declares that he’s choosing to stay in this universe, we get his sweet parting words to Ekko from the original scene and then he hops out of the machine with Ekko having no time to stop him. Functionally the same scene, the writers wouldn’t even have to redraw most frames. It also, arguably, would have aligned better with the emotional themes of the episode. Episode 7 was tragic because it showed us the world that could have been, where things hadn’t gone so irrevocably wrong all those years ago. We see throughout that Heimerdinger is clearly quite attached to it, and is already well-integrated within the community. While a parting scene of him choosing to stay isn’t totally perfect, it would emphasize the difficulty and selflessness behind Ekko’s resolve to return to his own dimension, despite all his wishes being fulfilled in this one.
5. That stupid “I have a daughter :(” cliche
In season 1, the themes of family, sacrifice and parenthood actually meant something. It was strategically reserved for crucial, revelatory scenes that provided nuance to the internal conflicts of characters like Vander, Silco and Ambessa.
But my god. When that insufferably predictable reveal came with Doctor Reveck in season 2 episode 5, I wanted to crack my head open on the wall. “Arcane” season 1 was good at humanizing many of its morally gray characters through exposition like this, but season 2 fails to replicate it successfully. It just feels like low-hanging, emotion-bait fruit. Is the viewer supposed to care at all about Reveck’s comatose daughter? Does it make any meaningful difference in how we perceive his character, whether he Has a Daughter™ or is simply a forsaken alchemist who thought morality came second to the purity of scientific truth? No, not really. Did the ending montage that featured him and his resuscitated daughter mean jack to me? No, not really.
V. Things that WERE Amazing! + Concluding Thoughts
It’d be unfair if I didn’t make a quick honorable mention of the things I appreciated about season 2, since I did claim to like it. For starters, the art, animation and cinematography remain incredible. Not much advocating needed there. I don’t think the visual artistry of “Arcane” has ever received anything but universal acclaim and I’m glad they didn’t compromise on the quality of that.
(Is that a Terraria reference I see?)
And obviously, I can’t not mention episode 7. My heart still hurts every time I think about it. Ekko, I think, is a sadly underutilized character, but I’m glad he got the best episode of the season. This was the one that carried on the magic of season 1. A cursory skim over a few season 2 episode rankings on the internet tells me I’m not the only one who felt this way. Did this episode play to all the tropes I personally hold close to my heart? Sure. But is it objectively an excellent one regardless of what tropes you like? Absolutely.
[S2E7] Your honor, they deserve everything soft and kind and good in the world.
This season also played around with some creative design choices to pair with the “This Isn’t About AI, But Also, This Is Totally About AI” commentary, and I thought it was beautifully done. The Hex Core was always a fairly overt allegory for AI (the way it sinisterly feeds, learns and “evolves”), and the writing decision to fully lean into that for the finale was likewise something I appreciated. But back to the visual aspect — just look at all the MidJourney-esque details in Jayce’s bad-ending alternate universe:
[S2E7] Specifically something about the strange shapes and blurs and psychedelic colors…
And of course, it isn’t an AI commentary without an introspection on what it means to be human. Viktor and Jayce’s final confrontation and reconciliation delivered a simple but effective message: the flaws and imperfections that constitute us are what make us irrevocably human. The push-and-pull of their final conversation concludes one of the major themes of the season:
[S2E9] This was also very much a “It’s you; it’s always only ever been you” scene; not to wade into any of the ongoing ship wars, but that’s pretty platonic/intellectual soulmates of them.
Anyways. I’m aware this article was mostly criticism. I nonetheless maintain my original verdict that I liked the season. Season 2 was perfectly fine as far as the average Netflix show goes; the problem is that season 1 was simply leagues (haha, see what I did there) above just fine. I heard from a few other watchers that this season suffered from last-minute content cuts due to issues with Netflix, and if that’s the case, I think it’s a poor decision on Netflix’s part to not approve the season for an additional three episodes. It certainly seems like the writers had expanded the plot with the impression that they’d have the room to properly explore it.
This rant/review is already atrociously long, so I’ll wrap it up with the important questions:
Am I capable of accepting this as the official series finale? With some heaviness in my heart, but yes.
Do I think Jinx is still alive? With greater heaviness in my heart, but no. I love Jinx to pieces, but I think her death was meaningful. (It’s also unfathomable to me she’d fake her death when she already redeemed herself and had Vi and Ekko waiting for her.)
Do I hate the Hex Core for giving Viktor a balayage and turning him straight? Not really, but my younger sister sure had strong feelings.
Would I recommend “Arcane” season 2 to other people? Yes, because “Arcane” remains a great piece of media holistically and everyone deserves to experience the beauty that is season 1.
[S2E8] Indeed, I could never.
That’s all I had left to say. Peace xx