Recent Viewing: Arcane Season 2
Nov. 25th, 2024 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rocky41_7Arcane season 1 was a breakout show. I didn't know anything about League of Legends when I started it, but I was blown away by the animation and drawn into the world and the complex character dynamics it established. It ended on a massive cliffhanger three years ago, and I've been waiting since to see how it would all resolve.
And y'all, it's a disappointment.
It seems Riot could not follow through on what they set up in S1. As I think is not uncommon in follow-up seasons, they added too many new plotlines to satisfactorily draw them all to a close, which meant we were left with glaring holes in the plot and character motivations that made little sense. They abandoned the heart of the show--Jinx and Vi's relationship--to focus on other things and set themselves up for a new spin-off show set in Noxus, Mel's homeland.
Some spoilers in the full review below.
Mel has always been my favorite Arcane character, and while she got some time to shine this season, she also was mostly a tool to lay the ground for the Noxus spin-off. A great bruhaha is made about Mel's parentage, and she's apparently being hunted by a dangerous group of mages known as the Black Rose, but none of this gets resolved within the show. We never find out who Mel's father is that makes her so interesting to the Black Rose, we never find out what Ambessa did to get the Black Rose on her back, we never really find out what happened to Mel's brother Kino except that it had something to do with the Black Rose (and Ambessa claims she was obligated to let Kino die to save Mel?), we never find out the identity of the mage contacting Mel or what they actually want from her. All of this, presumably, will be addressed in the Noxus spin-off show.
This is something I really hate. I'm here to watch Arcane, not get an advertisement for your studio's next show. I hate it when it feels like one media is already trying to sell you on another. I don't care about the Noxus spinoff (which I would have been excited for before they fumbled Arcane S2 so badly), I care about Arcane, which is what I'm watching.
Because so few questions about the Black Rose are answered, it makes Ambessa's motivations murky as well. She's set up as the big bad of S2, but without clarity of goals beyond "find a good weapon to fight the Black Rose." When Mel makes her argument that if Ambessa backs down, Mel will return to Noxus with her and they can fight the Black Rose together, it's difficult to understand why or believe that Ambessa refuses this offer in favor of continuing to wage war on Piltover. It's also very unclear what Ambessa's plan is. We're led to believe she's a cunning general, but then the show makes her thought process so hazy.
I would have also liked her to be a more three-dimensional villain. It's not a secret that I've loved Ambessa since she was introduced, and I was excited to hear she was playing a role in S2 even as an antagonist, but where in S1 the show put thought and nuance into her character--the moment where she cries out that she had to send Mel away because Mel "weakened" her is one that lives in my brain--this season she mostly just plays the warmonger.
She has virtually no reaction to Mel's kidnapping and disappearance, and barely a response to Mel's return. Mel, who has been so central to Ambessa's character and motivations up to this point! Ambessa who has already lost one beloved child! If her grief for Mel had driven her harshness with Piltover, that would have made sense! But it's not addressed; watching Ambessa, you'd never know anything had happened to Mel at all. The vulnerability she showed with Mel in S1 when Mel presses her is completely gone, for seemingly no reason.
And that's a theme throughout this season. The show is simply juggling so many things it doesn't have time to address consequences or outcomes. Jayce and Mel's relationship suffers similarly. Neither of them has any real reaction to what happens to the other, and their reunion is characterized by bizarre accusations by Jayce that Mel manipulated him in S1. He gives her a half-assed apology after this outburst and they never speak again.
But where they dropped the ball the most, in my view, was with Jinx (speaking of no consequences). So much of S1 was devoted to showing how unstable and unreliable and dangerous Jinx is, all of which is gone by S2; she has been completely defanged. The Jinx of S1 who laughed while she shot people and flew into a rage at the mere thought that Vi might have any other person in her life is replaced with a kind of mopey but harmlessly quirky Jinx whose tricks are more like pranks and whose anger is nonexistent.
Jinx ended S1 by shooting her father figure during a paranoid break and launching a missile at the center of Piltover's government because she was upset that Vi had a life outside of her. These events play no impact on her character in S2. Sure she seems a little lost starting S2, but the king of unhinged grief I would have expected to see from her after she killed Silco is nowhere to be seen. Her team-up with Sevika is also poorly-explained, given how much they hated each other in S1 and that Jinx (who Sevika consistently called out as dangerous and unreliable in S1) is responsible for the death of Sevika's boss, a man she believed in (right or wrong).
Much of her character development is sped along and outsourced to a plot device called Isha, a child dumped in her lap who the show is obviously so desperate for us to find cute and loveable that I was just irritated whenever she was onscreen. Isha is implied to be mute, and while normally I would applaud the inclusion of more disabled characters, the way this plays out ensures we learn nothing about Isha as a person--not about her backstory, or her personality (besides "cute"), or her opinions, because none of that matters. She exists to engender sympathy in the viewers towards Jinx.
Comparatively, almost no time is spend on Jinx's relationship with Vi, a relationship still billed as the core of the show. They have one good fight scene, and zero real reconciliation. They're forced to team up and this just washes away the bad blood; they never discuss what happened last season--where Jinx kidnapped Vi and Caitlyn, and believably threatened to kill them both, and killed a good half the council in a fit. Just like that, the central conflict of the story is hand-waved, and never really addressed again.
Similarly, the conflict between Zaun and Piltover takes a backseat to teaming up against Ambessa and her Noxian army. The end of the show implies Zaun has a seat on the council--which also implies they have not gotten their independence, something the council was ready to approve at the end of S1.
The final arc of the show focuses so heavily on Viktor and Jayce's relationship you'd be forgiven for thinking the show was about them. Little to say about this except that I found it uninteresting.
The denouement is almost nonexistent due to the rush and clutter of the rest of the show. We never find out exactly where Piltover and Zaun settle. We have no idea what Ekko is doing. No explanation about Mel apparently leaving the council and the city she helped build. A quick CaitVi scene which is not really rife with affection (and of course, Caitlyn's role in the events of the season is barely addressed at all by Vi). It was an incredibly unsatisfying final sequence the served mainly to drive home that our focus should now be on the Noxus spinoff.
On the whole, I'm incredibly disappointed. Maybe time will change this view, but I had high hopes for this show after the first season and this one feels like such a letdown. I will not be watching the Noxus spinoff now; it doesn't feel like it will be worth my time.
And y'all, it's a disappointment.
It seems Riot could not follow through on what they set up in S1. As I think is not uncommon in follow-up seasons, they added too many new plotlines to satisfactorily draw them all to a close, which meant we were left with glaring holes in the plot and character motivations that made little sense. They abandoned the heart of the show--Jinx and Vi's relationship--to focus on other things and set themselves up for a new spin-off show set in Noxus, Mel's homeland.
Some spoilers in the full review below.
Mel has always been my favorite Arcane character, and while she got some time to shine this season, she also was mostly a tool to lay the ground for the Noxus spin-off. A great bruhaha is made about Mel's parentage, and she's apparently being hunted by a dangerous group of mages known as the Black Rose, but none of this gets resolved within the show. We never find out who Mel's father is that makes her so interesting to the Black Rose, we never find out what Ambessa did to get the Black Rose on her back, we never really find out what happened to Mel's brother Kino except that it had something to do with the Black Rose (and Ambessa claims she was obligated to let Kino die to save Mel?), we never find out the identity of the mage contacting Mel or what they actually want from her. All of this, presumably, will be addressed in the Noxus spin-off show.
This is something I really hate. I'm here to watch Arcane, not get an advertisement for your studio's next show. I hate it when it feels like one media is already trying to sell you on another. I don't care about the Noxus spinoff (which I would have been excited for before they fumbled Arcane S2 so badly), I care about Arcane, which is what I'm watching.
Because so few questions about the Black Rose are answered, it makes Ambessa's motivations murky as well. She's set up as the big bad of S2, but without clarity of goals beyond "find a good weapon to fight the Black Rose." When Mel makes her argument that if Ambessa backs down, Mel will return to Noxus with her and they can fight the Black Rose together, it's difficult to understand why or believe that Ambessa refuses this offer in favor of continuing to wage war on Piltover. It's also very unclear what Ambessa's plan is. We're led to believe she's a cunning general, but then the show makes her thought process so hazy.
I would have also liked her to be a more three-dimensional villain. It's not a secret that I've loved Ambessa since she was introduced, and I was excited to hear she was playing a role in S2 even as an antagonist, but where in S1 the show put thought and nuance into her character--the moment where she cries out that she had to send Mel away because Mel "weakened" her is one that lives in my brain--this season she mostly just plays the warmonger.
She has virtually no reaction to Mel's kidnapping and disappearance, and barely a response to Mel's return. Mel, who has been so central to Ambessa's character and motivations up to this point! Ambessa who has already lost one beloved child! If her grief for Mel had driven her harshness with Piltover, that would have made sense! But it's not addressed; watching Ambessa, you'd never know anything had happened to Mel at all. The vulnerability she showed with Mel in S1 when Mel presses her is completely gone, for seemingly no reason.
And that's a theme throughout this season. The show is simply juggling so many things it doesn't have time to address consequences or outcomes. Jayce and Mel's relationship suffers similarly. Neither of them has any real reaction to what happens to the other, and their reunion is characterized by bizarre accusations by Jayce that Mel manipulated him in S1. He gives her a half-assed apology after this outburst and they never speak again.
But where they dropped the ball the most, in my view, was with Jinx (speaking of no consequences). So much of S1 was devoted to showing how unstable and unreliable and dangerous Jinx is, all of which is gone by S2; she has been completely defanged. The Jinx of S1 who laughed while she shot people and flew into a rage at the mere thought that Vi might have any other person in her life is replaced with a kind of mopey but harmlessly quirky Jinx whose tricks are more like pranks and whose anger is nonexistent.
Jinx ended S1 by shooting her father figure during a paranoid break and launching a missile at the center of Piltover's government because she was upset that Vi had a life outside of her. These events play no impact on her character in S2. Sure she seems a little lost starting S2, but the king of unhinged grief I would have expected to see from her after she killed Silco is nowhere to be seen. Her team-up with Sevika is also poorly-explained, given how much they hated each other in S1 and that Jinx (who Sevika consistently called out as dangerous and unreliable in S1) is responsible for the death of Sevika's boss, a man she believed in (right or wrong).
Much of her character development is sped along and outsourced to a plot device called Isha, a child dumped in her lap who the show is obviously so desperate for us to find cute and loveable that I was just irritated whenever she was onscreen. Isha is implied to be mute, and while normally I would applaud the inclusion of more disabled characters, the way this plays out ensures we learn nothing about Isha as a person--not about her backstory, or her personality (besides "cute"), or her opinions, because none of that matters. She exists to engender sympathy in the viewers towards Jinx.
Comparatively, almost no time is spend on Jinx's relationship with Vi, a relationship still billed as the core of the show. They have one good fight scene, and zero real reconciliation. They're forced to team up and this just washes away the bad blood; they never discuss what happened last season--where Jinx kidnapped Vi and Caitlyn, and believably threatened to kill them both, and killed a good half the council in a fit. Just like that, the central conflict of the story is hand-waved, and never really addressed again.
Similarly, the conflict between Zaun and Piltover takes a backseat to teaming up against Ambessa and her Noxian army. The end of the show implies Zaun has a seat on the council--which also implies they have not gotten their independence, something the council was ready to approve at the end of S1.
The final arc of the show focuses so heavily on Viktor and Jayce's relationship you'd be forgiven for thinking the show was about them. Little to say about this except that I found it uninteresting.
The denouement is almost nonexistent due to the rush and clutter of the rest of the show. We never find out exactly where Piltover and Zaun settle. We have no idea what Ekko is doing. No explanation about Mel apparently leaving the council and the city she helped build. A quick CaitVi scene which is not really rife with affection (and of course, Caitlyn's role in the events of the season is barely addressed at all by Vi). It was an incredibly unsatisfying final sequence the served mainly to drive home that our focus should now be on the Noxus spinoff.
On the whole, I'm incredibly disappointed. Maybe time will change this view, but I had high hopes for this show after the first season and this one feels like such a letdown. I will not be watching the Noxus spinoff now; it doesn't feel like it will be worth my time.