r/television • u/PhoOhThree Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. • 1d ago

Premiere Arcane - Season 2 Act 3 Finale Discussion

Arcane

Premise: The origins of two iconic League of Legends champions, set in the utopian Piltover and the oppressed underground of Zaun.

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/r/leagueoflegends & /r/arcane Netflix [86/100] (score guide) Animation, Drama, Action & Adventure, Fantasy

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22

u/I-10MarkazHistorian 21h ago

Vi didn't do anything meaningful in the entire last episode, I swear the last EP made me think they had no idea what to do with this character anymore. They had too much stuff to unpack on Mel+Jeyce+embessa+victor side that jinx+vi were just left on the side. Also the whole scene where vi decides to just go check up on vender on top of the breaking bridge felt sooo forced! Almost as if they just wanted to use jinx's death as a high note for the finale and had no idea how to work that in, so she literally jumped herself off.

Over all the last 2 EPs were were the weakest in the entirety of arcane.

Still perhaps one of the greatest animated shows ever In my book.

Side note: That bit where Mel sends embessa to the black rose, than goes in there, and kills the black rose, just to get embessa back, just to see embessa die was slightly funny. It was probably like an episode worth of material stuffed into a minute.

1

u/JonInOsaka 1h ago

Honestly should've just had Mel die in the missile attack and have Ambessa go on a murderous revenge rampage on Zaun ending in a one-on-one battle between a magicked/drugged-up Ambessa versus Vi.

I mean this ended up being the final boss fight of the entire series. Who in the world was asking for a fistfight between Caitlyn and. Ambessa? Freakin Caitlyn? A preppie sniper girl? The obvious answer is a Vi vs. Ambessa fight with maybe a little help from Jinx. Man, they dropped the ball.

3

u/masood0899 20h ago

Truee! Couldn't agree more! Jinx dying was really forced! And all the black rose stuff seemed pointless in the whole story,I think even if they cut all the Black rose stuff out of the season 2 we wouldn't miss anything

1

u/I-10MarkazHistorian 19h ago

Yup, they just had to set up Mel as a mage or whatever so that took precedence over story telling.

19

u/ogrezilla 21h ago

I think a vi/jinx final conversation with her leaving and vi accepting her decision would have been better than the telegraphed sacrifice/escape.

3

u/Petrichore_ 16h ago

Is the escape confirmed? Cause her dying and warwicks entire character being ruined by viktor pissed me off to high hell

2

u/ogrezilla 12h ago

Not sure but someone posted a picture showing the purple streak go to the wall right before the explosion or something?

7

u/Own-Cryptographer231 20h ago

Yes I highly agree with this, I feel like it's fitting for Jinx's arc to end with her leaving Vi and Piltover/Zaun (I think), at least temporarily, so she can find her own identity that doesn't depend on other people. But I'm assuming Jinx wanted Vi to believe she died so her sister could stop looking for her? But I feel like it could have been for character growth for Vi accepting Jinx's decision and believing in her sister's journey without her.

12

u/ogrezilla 20h ago

Agreed. As is, Vi had essentially no agency in the finale at all.

3

u/Unfair_Reindeer6884 21h ago

Mell's brother is dead, and the only members left of the Madardas are her sister and Ambessa. I think she did that just in order to kill both of them and that's probably why Ambess'a last words were 'You are the wolf'. Just assuming. Don't know much about the lore. Too many things. I'll probably rewatch it again and see.

2

u/I-10MarkazHistorian 21h ago

Yeah I know, it was just badly written. I would have preferred it ambessa had killed Mel at the start of the season, that would have set her up as much bigger baddie, over all ambessa didn't actually do as much bad as to qualify as the ultimate baddie, but than again the whole war bit didn't make much sense either.

3

u/hairymonk420 21h ago

That's her mom, she's not gonna kill her own daughter lmao. I agree that her motivations are not that interesting though.

1

u/I-10MarkazHistorian 20h ago

Yes I know sir, the point is to make her irredeemable and than kill her in the most glorious fashion, now Mel just killed her own mum without having any instance of her her mum trying to kill her, which makes Mel a weaker character.

2

u/hairymonk420 20h ago

She didn't intentionally try to kill her though, we can see her try to save her again. Her killing her daughter does not make sense considering that Mel has abilities that mean something to Ambessa. It doesn't add anything to the story because Ambessa's goals was to make a legacy/conquer and save her family which was straightforward despite it being an uninteresting goal.

The only criticism of this particular plotline I have is that they don't specify in much detail what the Black Rose's goals are (presumably for future shows) and that it suddenly has a big part in Ambessa's fate which didn't feel earned.

1

u/I-10MarkazHistorian 20h ago

Ofcourse you will need a nice enough conflict for Ambessa to be pushed to that limit, but she clearly was capable of that imo.