Arcane’s season two review: a revolutionary powderkeg

The first season of Netflix and Riot’s Arcane animated series fashioned disparate pieces of League of Legends lore into a beautiful, devastating tale about a society on the brink of collapse. The show infused each of its characters with a depth and complexity that felt unlike anything Riot had done elsewhere in the longrunning franchise. And its commitment to telling its own story made it remarkably easy for new fans to dive in.

There’s a density to Arcane’s second season that feels reflective of the show’s creative team working to bring this juggernaut of a story to a satisfying end in just nine short episodes. Especially since it has been three years since season 1, you might need a refresher on how things became so dire for the citizens of Piltover and Zaun. But while the new season drops you right back into the chaos in a somewhat disorienting way, it does an excellent job of weaving together the many different threads of Arcane’s powerful legend.

Arcane’s first season ended with a literal bang — an explosive attack from Jinx (Ella Purnell) on the elite council members of Piltover just as they were about to sign a peace treaty that would have brought an end to their war on the impoverished people of Zaun. Though Jinx’s attack was rooted in years of personal psychological torment and her growing up as part of Zaun’s abused, disenfranchised underclass, it was a moment that made her sister Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) see truly her as a terroristic monster. It wasn’t clear who might emerge from the smoking rubble in the end, but there was no question about how much harder Piltover would retaliate with its dangerous Hextech weapons.

Arcane’s second season picks up in the immediate aftermath of the attack to emphasize the sheer amount of destruction Jinx caused in her crusade to make Piltover pay for its history of injustices. With so many of Piltover’s political leaders dead, the city’s priorities and its balance of power have to shift in ways that feel necessary to Vi and other survivors like enforcer Caitlyn Kiramman (Katie Leung). But while the new season takes some time to make you appreciate the magnitude of Piltover’s loss, it pushes this act of Arcane’s story into motion by exploring how oppressive societies create the monsters they ultimately come to hate and fear.

Everyone suffers as Arcane moves its characters into a new phase of conflict, but the show uses Vi and Jinx in particular to highlight how profoundly war can unmoor people from their senses of self. It’s easier for the sisters to let one another go than it is for either of them to see themselves in the other’s face. And when presented with chances to channel their feelings into action, it seldom occurs to them how fighting just to hurt the other side is guaranteed to cause self-inflicted wounds.

Arcane repeatedly echoes that idea as it briskly shifts focus to the rest of its cast and brings the devastating danger of Hextech into sharp focus. Inventor Jayce Talis (Kevin Alejandro) and politician Mel Medarda (Toks Olagundoye) can understand the gravity of the escalation her warhawk mother Ambessa (Ellen Thomas) is hungry for. But that foresight can only do so much to keep the calls for a full-on invasion of Zaun at bay.

Arcane’s second season uses the rising tension and Jayce’s fears about what he has helped create to delve deeper into the magical mysteries of Hextech with a subplot that zooms far out into new realms of the League of Legends universe. It’s another way the show reinforces its ideas about actions coming with consequences that aren’t immediately obvious up close. And in some of Arcane’s characters, it crystalizes how heavy a price the planet can pay as humanity wages war.

Hextech also features largely in most of this season’s more visually stunning set pieces, which are once again truly the show’s greatest strength. Though the show as a whole is still utterly gorgeous, the action feels even more brutal this time around. On occasion, the “cool” needle drops feel a bit tone deaf because of how frank Arcane is trying to be in its depiction of a society tearing itself apart. But that has always kinda been Arcane’s vibe, and the season really leaning into it will likely appeal to hardcore fans.

Because the stakes are even higher and all of Arcane’s players are now fully locked into the war, this season’s first three episodes often feel more narratively dense and like they’re moving at a much faster pace. That might be more exhausting if the season was dropping all at once, but Netflix has smartly chosen to split it up into three separate acts set to debut through the end of the month. We won’t know until the end of November just how Arcane’s creators intend to bring this story to a close and whether it might set the stage for whatever’s coming next for the franchise. But this first act is a strong opener for Arcane’s final chapter.