When the first season of Arcane dropped on Netflix in November of 2021, it was an immediate hit. With the stunning visuals, the emotionally resonant voice acting performances, the fleshed out characters, and the immersive world building, it is a no-brainer that Arcane blew up as much as it did. For three years, people waited patiently for the story of Jinx and Vi and Zuan and Piltover to continue.
Even with all the hype around the first season of Arcane, I never quite managed to get around to watching it then. But when the second season came around, and I couldn’t go on Tiktok for even five minutes before seeing another video about Arcane, I finally succumbed and sat down to watch Arcane season 1 and the 6 episodes of season 2 that had come out at that time.
*Spoilers for Arcane Season 1 and 2 going forward.
Finishing the first season, my mind was completely blown away. In the span of the six hours it took to watch the season, I had fallen in love with the entirety of the show and I couldn’t wait to see where the story would finally go. I loved Vi and Jinx the most. They were both extremely flawed characters who both made frustrating decisions at times, but still, they managed to capture my heart. The story of Piltover and Zuan captivated me, and I was so excited to see how the tension between them would be solved, if at all.
Watching the second season, I immediately felt a difference between the first. It took a while for me to pin down exactly what that change was, but it was the very last episode of the second season that clarified it for me.
Let me preface this by saying that I love Arcane, and while I was disappointed by the second season, it is still one of the best TV shows I’ve ever watched. I am writing this article as a way to analyze and put down my thoughts about why I feel the way I do about the second season.
Strangely, watching the finale of the second season reminded me of watching the final fight scene in Avengers: Endgame when all the Avengers fought against Thanos, and each of the characters had their moment in the fight for a couple of seconds. Just like that scene, in Arcane, it felt chaotic with large plot threads being resolved rapidly and emotional moments that felt cheapened because of how little they lingered on. I understand this was meant to convey the chaos and tragedy of war, but it still doesn’t sit right with me.
Additionally, I noticed that Vi, a main character in the first season (and one of my favorites), with a huge role in the story, was all of a sudden relegated to the backburner. She made decisions that affected the story in a big way a few times, but it still felt like she barely had any character development and screen time, compared to the first season. This might just be a personal gripe though.
The main part of the second season that bothered me was that in season 2 Act 2 and Act 3 shifted the spotlight to Ambessa and Viktor, which while interesting, stole the focus of the show from Piltover and Zaun. This was the main focus in the first season, and with Jinx’s attack on the Council and her rise to a figurehead of the Piltover’s rebellion against Zaun in the beginning of season 2, it felt like season 2 was being set up for some sort of clash between the two. But after Jinx rescues the Zaunites from the prison in order to save Isha, this storyline was completely dropped. The main story then flips on its head and the Arcane and the Noxians are the enemies, and Piltover and Zaun unite to face them. Even this would’ve been understandable had Piltover and Zaun perhaps come to some sort of truce or understanding, but I feel that the oppression Zaun faced from Piltover was completely dropped to favor the other storyline.
In conclusion, I feel that the second season of Arcaneran out of time to fully develop everything that it had developed and put into place in the first season. I would’ve preferred the show to focus on the internal conflict of Piltover and Zaun which had been there from the start. I also would have preferred that the show focus on the characters more, like it had for so much of the first season. However, despite my nitpicking Arcane still remains one of the best shows I’ve watched, and I wish we could see more of all the characters in the future.