When Arcane season 2 picks up, mere moments after Jinx’s bomb has decimated the Piltover council meeting, tragedy has already struck. There’s wreckage all around, bodies appearing among the rubble as the dust begins to clear. Even for a series as somber as Arcane, it’s desolation; as one character puts it, another cruelty or so later, it’s the sort of thing that lets you “understand how easy it is to hate” those that did this to you.
That is an extremely complex emotion to unpack in any show, not least of which one released in the same week as a dour U.S. election. But in its first three episodes of season 2, Arcane proves itself up to the challenge, constantly wrestling with not just the hardships of life in Piltover and Zaun, but the scary ease with which resentful rage — and violence — comes closer and closer. Such leisurely destruction leaves the world at once messy and full of focus: whether it’s Vi left to figure out if there’s any of her sister left in Jinx, or Cait roiling, grappling to figure out how much of her instincts are gut and how much are grief.
That Arcane gets to illustrate so much of their struggle with its artful animation would feel like a cheat if the show wasn’t so damn good with it. Everything from the memorial battle to Jinx’s alleyway brawl looks impeccable, displaying a real ease at pulling in animation styles to naturally suit the mood, person, or situation. When we see Cait diving into the science behind “the gray” noxious gas, it’s set against a comic book style — yet again illustrating how easy it is for her team to see everything they do as “right.”
All the more fun that a montage like that can feel equally at home with Sevika’s skirmish using her new, unpredictable Jinx arm. At times Arcane feels like it’s emulating sumptuous anime, classical art, or dexterous music videos; often, as when the second episode sets up Zaun’s power struggle, it feels like all those things at once. Thanks to the work of animation studio Fortiche, the visual language of Arcane can be anything, and go anywhere.
And so the show dives in. The shock of last season’s cliffhanger hangs over everything that happens, and the threat — that such calamity could be around any corner — plumes through the narrative. There’s a real sense of scramble and melancholy throughout everyone’s storylines (who can’t relate?). Although Jayce’s and Viktor’s evolving experiences with hextech might be more singularly focused than Mel’s attempts to hold Piltover together, they share the desperate want to fix everything and the gnawing fear that maybe it’s already too far gone (who can’t relate). Even Jinx, always ready to play the villain to avoid facing her wounds, is more ready than ever for some release.
In a lesser premiere, these struggles might feel distant, overshadowed by the tiny eternity we spent waiting for season 2. Instead, Arcane keeps it moving, artfully weaving in just enough context to pack a punch, letting the remarkable visuals speak for themselves.
There’s an adage that has been cropping up around TV shows lately: It’s a miracle if we get a season every year. It’s a little anachronistic; never mind that there are some heavy-hitting examples working against this, either by running like clockwork a season or so ahead (Slow Horses) or just being network television functioning the way it always has (Abbott Elementary, 9-1-1, the list goes on). People are fed up at having to bide their time between seasons, with no set regularity or schedule. The wait, particularly with a streaming show, can feel interminable. But then a show like Arcane comes along, deliberately and methodically taking its time. And it finds itself released in a bit of serendipity, when it might provide some mirror to our own experiences.
Media can’t ever be purely an outlet; it interprets and spits out too much of what we feed into it. And even in times like these, when many are scared, stressed, and struggling, it doesn’t serve us to simply turn away and blanket ourselves. Arcane, with its long-planned release, feels like a reminder of this in its first three episodes, thoughtful and nuanced as it traces a bunch of people endeavoring to improve their condition. There’s no way its long gestational period could’ve predicted this exact moment, but it feels like one of many answers to it, another encouragement to channel pain into something considerate. A reminder that big ideas don’t have to go down hard.
In the final moments of episode 3 we see that Arcane is playing at something bigger — this isn’t a simple revenge story, nor is it a bleak world that’s headed toward disaster. This may be a tragedy, but every single second of it will be a choice. Exactly where this lands, we’ll just have to wait and see.
It might not be easy, but if these first three episodes tell us anything, it’s that we should be wary of what is. Sometimes, things are worth the wait.
The first three episodes of Arcane season 2 are now streaming on Netflix. The next act will drop on Nov. 16.
