Arcane is a steampunk, action-adventure, Netflix-exclusive show that was released on November 6, 2021, and it is based on a video game called, “League of Legends”, a game developed by Riot Games. Riot Games is also known for their popular eSports games such as Valorant and League of Legends.
In episode one, “Welcome to the Playground,” it reveals a lot of the characters that are in the show such as Vi, Powder, Vander, Mylo, and Claggor. The episode begins on a burning bridge with an enforcer appearing out from the smoke. To me, that was terrifying but it was also cool, and I had no idea what was going to happen next. There are a few people who have died on the burning bridge. The cause of the deaths could be from the enforcers. However, there are two sisters named Vi and Powder. Luckily, Vi and Powder met Vander, a bartender for The Last Drop, and they were brought to safety by him. After Vander had rescued Vi and Powder, the sisters met Mylo and Claggor somewhere in The Last Drop. Later on, Vi, Powder, Mylo, and Claggor went on a heist to steal an orb and shards that possessed unknown magic. During the heist, Powder accidentally broke a shard that caused an explosion in the building that they were in. The explosion then caught the attention of the enforcers which led to a search of the building. After the heist, Mylo called Powder a “jinx”. On the other hand, a villain named Silco, was testing out a chemical that would heavily mutate a living organism. Overall, episode one was good and terrifying. Something that I didn’t know is that Vi and Powder’s parents had died on the bridge that the episode starts on. Silco seemed cool but also scary, because of the chemical he used on a rat.
In episode two, “Some Mysterious Are Better Left Alone,” the episode is somewhat focused on the crystal. In the beginning of the episode, a child named Jayce Talis was saved by magic when he was young. After the flashback, Jayce is a student at Piltover’s academy, and the crystals belonged to Jayce. Jayce would do experiments and research on the crystal to see how much power it has, and to see how the crystal’s power can be an evolution to Piltover. However, the academy of Piltover expelled Jayce when he admitted to what happened during the experiments, and as a result, the academy ordered him to destroy the research. Jayce tried to convince the academy that the magic in the crystals could be an evolution to the city, but, the academy repeatedly denied it. Overall, the episode was alright because it was a bit mysterious and there was some arguing. The crystals made the episode mysterious because it has immense power and the crystals have an interesting story behind them.
In episode three, “The Base Violence Necessary for Change,” everything went downhill in terms of mood. Vi was looking out a window and saw that Vander was being captured by Silco and his bribed enforcer. Vi had also seen one of Vander’s friends, Benzo, get killed whilst looking out the window. The group of kids, Vi, Powder, Mylo, and Claggor went to Silco’s base to rescue Vander. Before the fight, Deckard was a bully in his teens. Later on, Silco brought Deckard to his base and gave him a vial of Shimmer to drink, causing Deckard to become powerful. Vi was fighting Deckard by herself. However, Powder wanted to assist Vi by using a clockwork monkey toy that had a crystal attached to it. Little did Powder know, the crystal was too powerful. The crystal exploded, leading to Mylo and Claggor getting crushed by debris and Vander was nearly killed. Vander drank a vial that would heavily mutate him to fight off Deckard. Vander killed Deckard and saved Vi before he died. Vi was extremely upset with Powder and called her a “jinx.” Sadly, Vi left Powder behind because of this incident, causing trouble in all of their missions. Once Vi left, Silco found Powder and recruited her. Overall, the episode seemed upsetting because of what happened to Mylo, Claggor, and Vander. I honestly thought that Silco was going to kill Powder when he found her all by herself, but, he recruited her. On the other hand, the episode was also really good just like the other episodes because of the action it had provided.
In episode four, “Happy Progress Day,” Powder now works for Silco, Jayce wants to reveal the power of the gems at the ceremony, and Vi turned herself in and was imprisoned. Powder is now known as Jinx since she would accidentally sabotage her friends, causing them to get killed or seriously injured. Since Jinx was allied with Silco, she would become very sneaky whilst smuggling materials. Jinx would steal one of Jayce’s gemstones and set off an explosion that would kill six enforcers. Later in the episode, an enforcer named Caitlyn, is a childhood friend of Jayce, and she is trying to investigate what caused an explosion. Caitlyn decided to meet with Vi in prison to receive some support and information. Overall, the episode was shocking because of what happened to Vi and Powder.
In episode five, “Everybody Wants To Be My Enemy,” Caitlyn meets Vi in prison because Vi has knowledge of the undercity and she wants help from Vi to find Silco. Vi would find one of Silco’s allies, Sevika. After finding Sevika, Vi would kick her in the face because Sevika was a traitor to Vander, Vi, and Powder. Sevika reveals that Powder is now allied with Silco, and Vi expressed her shock. Meanwhile, one of Silco’s allies, Marcus, was promoted to Sheriff with the help of Silco. Since Marcus is now a Sheriff, he would allow Shimmer to be smuggled. Shimmer is a resource that allows Silco to make more mutators. On the other hand, Jinx is now refusing to use or work on the gemstones because of the trauma she had received when she was a child. Back in Piltover, councilor Medarda would start a romantic relationship with Jayce, and also help him to navigate a complex political sphere. The episode overall was alright. The beginning of the episode was my favorite because there was a fight between Vi and Sevika. Later on, the episode just had drama and romance.
In episode six, “When These Walls Come Tumbling Down,” Jayce’s partner, Viktor, collapses from his illness that causes him to be in a wheelchair and die slowly. Viktor is trying to find a cure for his illness via Hextech technology. Hextech technology allows Jayce and Viktor to invent new magical machines with its magic. Jayce and Viktor both began to research a new Hextech machine called the “Hexcore”. They believe that the machine could cure Viktor’s illness. However, the head of Council, Heimerdinger, wants the machine to be destroyed because he believes it is dangerous. Later on, Silco is now aware of Vi’s release from jail, giving trouble to Vi and Caitlyn before they can make it to the surface of Piltover. Jinx gives Sevika some questions, and learns that Vi was released from jail. Luckily, Vi and Caitlyn found a safehouse to recover from their fight with Sevika. However, Silco managed to locate them by bribing local addicts with Shimmer. Unfortunately for Silco, Vi and Caitlyn escaped, noticing a blue smoke from a flare that Vi gave Jinx before their mission to rescue Vander. Later on, the sisters reunite. Due to Caitlyn’s presence, Vi lost immense amounts of trust for her sister. The episode ends with Vi and Caitlyn getting kidnapped by a group of people called the Firelights. The episode overall was really good. It started off slow because it was about inventions, and progressed to have more action and drama.
In episode seven, “The Boy Saviour,” after the kidnap, the leader of the Firelights turned out to be Vi and Powder’s childhood friend Ekko. Ekko would explain that Silco had taken over the undercity after Vander’s death, and made hundreds of people in the undercity dependent on Shimmer. The Firelights are a resistance group, and have been trying to prevent Silco from giving more people Shimmer and help people that have been addicted to the substance. Vi decided to part ways with Ekko and Caitlyn, so she can find her sister. Later on, Caitlyn and Ekko were prevented from going through the blockade by Marcus. Luckily, Vi heard and saw gunshots on the bridge and came to rescue both Ekko and Caitlyn. Meanwhile, Jinx was trying to spy on the enforcers, Vi, Caitlyn, and Ekko. Jinx then activated a swarm of robotic insects that would explode after a short period of time. The explosion caused Marcus and the enforcers to get killed. After the explosion, Ekko and Caitlyn were injured and Jinx came face-to-face with Ekko. Caitlyn was being saved by Vi while Ekko was fighting off Jinx. Jinx had a gun while Ekko had a weapon that looked like a bat. Somehow, Ekko was able to beat her but hesitated to deliver the final blow, allowing Jinx to detonate a grenade. Overall, the episode was great. The scene where Jinx was walking menacingly towards Ekko was cool, and I also liked the pocket watch swinging on Ekko’s hand.
In episode eight, “Oil and Water,” after the fight on the bridge with Ekko and Jinx, Silco arrives and finds Jinx seriously injured and takes her to Singed, someone that could heal her wounds. However, Jinx starts hallucinating and sees that Vi and Caitlyn are making her suffer. While hallucinating, Singed injected Jinx with Shimmer, causing her eyes to turn violet. After a while, Heimerdinger finds Ekko, who was injured from Jinx’s grenade. Meanwhile, Viktor was able to cure his illness with Hexcore, and he was able to run for the first time. However, his childhood friend and assistant, Sky, was killed during the process of the experiment. Later on, Vi and Caitlyn would try to convince the council to intervene against Silco. However, the council refused to intervene against Silco. This resulted in Vi parting ways with Caitlyn and partnering up with Jayce to take down Silco’s Shimmer factories. Luckily, Jayce and Vi were able to take down his factories with ease since they were armed with Hextech weaponry. After the raid on the factories, Caitlyn was kidnapped by Jinx, which resulted in Vi rescuing Caitlyn. The episode was frightening, but also good. It seemed that Sky wanted to have a relationship with Viktor, but sadly, she died to the magic of Hexcore whilst trying to save Viktor from the mysterious magic. The raid on the factories was cool, because Vi and Jayce would use Hextech weaponry, they both had to fight off soldiers, the animators added a lot of visual effects to make the raid look more stunning, and visually appealing. However, during the raid, Jayce found out that he had killed a child that was working in one of the factories. On the other hand, Caitlyn was kidnapped by Jinx which was terrifying because she wasn’t visible.
In the final episode, “The Monster You Created,” after Sky’s death, Viktor makes Jayce promise to destroy the Hexcore. Meanwhile, Jayce and Silco had met up to talk about an offer. Jayce wants Silco to stop the production of Shimmer and hand over Jinx to him, and Jayce will give Silco and the underground city independence. Later on, Jinx decided to kidnap Caitlyn, Vi, and Silco. Jinx gave Vi a pistol, giving her a decision to shoot either Caitlyn or Jinx. Luckily, Vi refuses to shoot anyone. However, Jinx takes control of the gun, nearly shoots Caitlyn, but Vi tells Jinx to stop. Meanwhile, Caitlyn was trying to break free to save Vi and herself. After she broke out, she picked up one of Jinx’s weapons and gave Jinx orders to put the gun down. Once Jinx put her gun down, she ran towards Caitlyn and knocked her out. Vi would prevent Jinx from shooting Caitlyn and tell her some childhood memories, leading Jinx to having a traumatic attack. However, Silco figured out that Vi was trying to bring Jinx back to normal, broke free, and shoots at Vi but misses, making Jinx shoot at Silco. Before Silco died, he wanted to state his paternal love for Jinx. Once Silco had died, Jinx was distraught and she had finally accepted her new identity and found out that she and Vi had diverged. After a bit of talk, Jinx grabs the gemstone and inserts it into a rocket launcher, firing a rocket at the council of Piltover and flees from the scene. The final episode was extremely awesome and terrifying. Jinx was insane, and there were some unexpected turns to the episode. Some examples would be Jinx accepting her new identity, killing Silco by accident, and firing a rocket at the council. Adding a song to the scene where Jinx was preparing her rocket launcher changed the mood, and it felt like there was some emotion to it. The visual effects on the episode were also phenomenal, especially when Jinx was charging up her rocket launcher.
Ultimately, the show was awesome and I’m glad that Riot Games is working on a second season of Arcane. I’m hoping that the second season would have the same aesthetic as the first season, but I also hope that the second season isn’t rushed. The visual effects really made the show look more vibrant, and it would make up for the dark colors in the undercity. I am thinking about rewatching Arcane season one once the second season comes out just so I can get a refresher of what happened. I would definitely recommend this show to anyone that has time since each episode is at least forty minutes long.
