I, like thousands of others out there, am absolutely enraptured by Arcane Season 2. As a fan of the first season, I was eager to sit down and watch the first act for an update on the misadventures of Jinx, Vi, and co. I expected the show to sink its hooks into me, but what I didn’t expect was the majority of my anticipation to stem not from the core plot, but by the little stingers the writers placed at the end of each episode.
(This article contains spoilers for Arcane season 2 Act 1)
Cliffhangers are hard to do, that’s no secret. The art of laying breadcrumbs for fans to speculate and excite themselves over is difficult, a treacherous balancing act between leaving things too vague and giving the game away. That said, I firmly believe the showrunner and rest of the narrative team on the show has managed to trapeze their way across this tightrope excellently. For that, they deserve their roses.
It says a lot that in spite of the engaging primary story arc present in Act 1, my mind was left affixed to these little moments. Forget Jinx, what on earth is Singed up to? Off on some wacky adventure to the snowy wilderness, throwing gas grenades at murk wolves then setting up a blood transfusion on himself, apparently. It’s about as far separated from the core plot as you can get, a bizzare escapade off screen while Caitlyn and Vi get all romantic and her gaggle black ops strike team are gassing up the place, but it hints towards unseen dangers.
It’s important that it doesn’t distract from the main plot, and it doesn’t. You could build walls around the first act and it would still be compelling as a sole story. A story of how loss leads people to do bad things, a tale as old as time. One could argue that setting up problems beyond this arc distracts from the overall arc narrative – I couldn’t disagree more. If Act 2 were to start and Singed just showed up for the first time, it would seem rushed. Not to mention it would raise questions about what the lad was doing throughout the entirety of Act 1, and leave Singed lovers in shambles. This way, Act 2 can start running. The set-up is done. All that’s left now is payoff, as this established and awfully tantalizing subplot crashes into the main narrative.
It’s just good planning, and good story structure. We League fans already know what Singed is cooking up, but for those unaware of the background context it makes for a big mystery in a season that seems delighted in its ability to float them in front of us viewers. It’s just enough of a tease to lurk around the pending confrontation the Act ends on. We know trouble is coming, and we know who the big players are, but where Singed stands in all this remains unclear. A wildcard story point, one that throws a stone at what many expect will happen next Act.
All in all, I’m sat here counting down the days to Act 2. Yes, I’m keen to see what happens with the major protagonists, the political pushes and pulls, and how relationships will form and break between the cast. But I’m also left with an intense feeling on anticipation around what new mysteries will being introduced to us. Arcane Season 2 has established that there’s still many layers to Piltover and Zaun we don’t know about, and seeing the showrunners slowly peel back these layers ultimately adds to a deeper, richer world to explore. I’m locked in.
Season 2 of Arcane is set to release on Netflix on November 16 on Netflix, and Act 3 will follow it on November 23. Check it out if you haven’t already! It’s proven to be a very expensive show, so here’s hoping it makes up the cost! Maybe the blue-ray will help.