Netflix’s Arcane returns this week bigger, bolder, and more ambitious than before. The first three episodes of Arcane season 2 are streaming now.
Arcane may not have come out of nowhere when it premiered in November 2021, but it did defy everyone’s expectations for it. No one, at least, went into the Netflix show based on and set in the League of Legends universe expecting it to be one of the best animated TV shows of not only that year but of the modern streaming era. That’s exactly what Arcane turned out to be, though. Across its first nine episodes, the animated series proved itself capable of shocking viewers, breaking their hearts, and making them want to stand up and cheer. It’s a series that, despite its many connections to League of Legends, ultimately feels more indebted to Prestige TV shows like Game of Thrones than any video game.
Expectations were, therefore, always going to be much higher heading into Arcane‘s long-awaited second season than they were for its first. The fact that viewers have had to wait three years for new Arcane episodes and been told that its forthcoming nine installments will also be its last have, however, only raised their hopes even more for what might lie in store for the show’s characters. To its credit, Arcane season 2 doesn’t make fans wait any longer for the answers they’ve been wanting. It begins immediately in the fire and brimstone promised by its season 1 finale, and where it goes from there proves to be far more striking, messy, and subversive than anyone could have expected.
Arcane‘s season 2 premiere spends much of its runtime sifting through the mournful fallout of Jinx’s (Fallout star Ella Purnell) explosive attack on the Piltover Council at the end of the show’s season 1 finale. As returning characters like Caitlyn (Katie Leung), Violet (Hailee Steinfeld), Jayce (Kevin Alejandro), and Mel (Toks Olagundoye) all try to determine the next best step to take, the long-brewing conflict between Piltover and its neglected undercity, Zaun, is quickly escalated by a series of events that send Arcane‘s overarching plot lurching forward again. These early season twists — and one set piece in particular — effectively reestablish the show’s unrivaled ability to rip you out of your passive viewing mode and force you to sit forward in sudden anxiety within the span of just a few seconds.
The season’s narrative turns are best left as unspoiled as possible, and there are many of them.
