Arcane

• Title: Arcane: League of Legends – Killing Is a Cycle / The Dirt Under Your Nails
• IMDb: link | link

After peaking with “The Message Hidden Within the Pattern,” the Second Season of limps to the finish line with a what if multiverse style story followed by two episodes more concerned with the Noxian army’s collaboration with Viktor (Harry Lloyd), while never truly exploring the moral ramifications of what he has accomplished or Jayce‘s (Kevin Alejandro) obsession which cause the conflict, and their attack on Piltover rather than the characters who have made up the emotional core of the series. The result is an underwhelming finale with some individual moments that ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

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• Title: Arcane: League of Legends – Blisters and Bedrock
• wiki: link

“Blisters and Bedrock” underlines a truth about Arcane I’ve noticed more and more across its two seasons. When the focus remains largely on Jinx (Ella Purnell) and Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) I’m completely on-board. However, the further the series deviates from these two characters the less interested I’ve become. Thankfully, “Blisters and Bedrock” gives us the sisters reunited in search of their dead father who isn’t actually dead and is now an unstoppable werewolf. Don’t you hate it when that happens? The storyline is the focus of much of the episode, finishing in a proper (if bizarre) family reunion, leaving the less interesting plots and characters to fill in gaps here and there.

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• Title: Arcane: League of Legends – Finally Got the Name Right
• IMDb: link

Despite promising Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) that the quest to take down Jinx (Ella Purnell) wouldn’t change her, events in the undercity lead Caitlyn (Katie Leung) to putting the life of a child at risk to get her revenge. Unwilling to let her go that far, Jinx escapes, the bombs she placed around the city go off leading the to the toxic gas Piltover has been pumping underground for years to reach the surface, and playing right into the hands of the now quite desperate Ambessa (Ellen Thomas) as the episode teases more of the Black Rose and suggests that Ambessa is after something in the undercity that might offer her a chance to fight back.

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