Review: Arcane “Act Two”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Years have passed since the night Vander was killed by Silco and his minions. Since then, the Undercity has fallen under the kingpin’s control almost entirely, in part thanks to his right hand lady Jinx. She steals a potentially deadly weapon from Jayce during an assault on the surface, and takes a few too many enforcers down during the job. Jayce appeals to the council about safety precautions that need to be taken, and winds up a member.

While Jayce navigates the newfound pitfalls that come with leadership, Caitlyn is on a mission to track down the one responsible for the chaos. Her search eventually leads her to Vi, who she frees from prison under the promise of an escort into the Undercity to uncover more clues. There, the two of them learn just how far the city has fallen and who is responsible.

After being wounded, Caitlyn and Vi hole up in the forgotten underbelly of the city where addicts come to wilt away. Silco comes to pay them a visit, but Caitlyn’s quick thinking helps them escape just in time to see Jinx let loose the sister-summoning signal. Vi and Powder reunite, but their reunion is short-lived as they’re attacked by a gang of mask-wearing thugs—and when the smoke clears, Vi is missing.

Our Take:

The first act of Arcane started the show out strong last week. Now three new episodes comprising Act 2 are out on Netflix. But just because it’s the same season of the same show doesn’t mean things are all the same. Silco may still be the big bad, but now there’s been a multiple year spanning time jump—and Powder has grown up into someone who she would’ve been scared of as a kid.

The time jump may have been necessary from a timeline perspective, but it really feels like a big part of the problem here. The first three episodes introduced a group of rebels with a fun dynamic, on the hunt for more out of life. After killing almost all of them off in the previous episode, Act 2 gets off to a much slower start. That fast-paced, action-packed dynamic is gone, replaced by long scenes of Jayce talking about Hextech security and trade embargoes.

And when things do happen, they happen too easily and too fast. Like how Caitlyn, who gets much more screen time after last week’s deaths, meets Vi for the first time and then decides to break her out of prison to use as an escort to Zaun within like five minutes. I was expecting Vi, normally such an agitator, to lose her within seconds of getting back to her hometown. But for a reason that feels suspiciously like the show forcing them together, they stick together. I’m not saying they don’t have chemistry, but that whole storyline felt way too fast.

Speaking of moving way too fast, I just am not here for how the show is treating Powder/Jinx. One minute she’s a hurting little kid and the next she’s suddenly the most evil man in town’s accomplice. I realize that a multiple-year-long timeskip will change things, but her character went from feeling like a real person to a discount Harley Quinn. Why did Vi just assume her little sister was dead?

One of the things I hated most about last week’s ending is a problem again this week. So many of the conflicts in Arcane feel like the product of miscommunication rather than actual disagreements. That’s a really frustrating feeling, especially when just having a five minute conversation would solve so many problems. Whether it’s Vi and Jinx, Jayce and Viktor, or Jayce and Caitlyn, it makes the tension feel just surface level when it could be much deeper. I’m glad we got to see Vi and Powder start to work through their issues at the end, but it barely happens before one of them is in trouble yet again and I’m having serious doubts that both of them are going to make it out of this unscathed.

Vi and Powder’s reunion at the end is definitely one of the best scenes so far, bringing back not only that sisterly bond but also plenty of that frenetic action as well. It’s an exciting end cap to what was a fairly monotonous three episode stretch. It’s not unusual for shows to lag a little in the middle, as things calm down after the initial instigating act and gear up for the finale. But because Arcane is being released in three-episode acts, it makes this middle child’s shortcomings a little more noticeable.