Complicated family ties, intertwining loyalties and enough drama to keep anyone on the edge of their seat, the hit Netflix series Arcane returns with its second and last season. Taking place in the universe of fighting game “League of Legends,” the season follows the origins of the game’s different “legends” and improves upon the games previously established lore. Unlike some video game adaptations, Arcane greatly appealed to audiences whether or not they were familiar with the source material.
The first season did an excellent job of establishing the chaos of this world and showing how the complicated motivations and conflicting goals of the characters interact in the landscape of the overall story. However, it ended on a massive cliffhanger that left everything season one built up to hanging in the balance.
Season two picks up right where we left off, and there is no recovery time. The potential peace has been destroyed, and an already unstable world is thrown into even more chaos. A theme that echoes through this season is grief. There are several great parallels with characters as they deal with their personal loss, how they cope, and how it conflicts with their own personal values and their relationships with other characters.
This season also doesn’t make anything less complicated. New discoveries, complete transformations and more keep the series as high energy as the first season. Despite this chaos, the series does a great job keeping everything linear. The story may be jam-packed, but there is a clear effort to place the action and downtime into blocks that keep the episodes from becoming too chaotic.
Speaking of story, one of the primary draws of Arcane was the animation, and this season lived up to the standard. One of my personal favorite aspects is how they incorporate an almost comic book style into fluid animation. There are some sequences that are just pictures that transition from one to another with additional effects, or sequences where one characters is fluid animation but everything else is solid. The animation team uses these unique sequences to add even more color to this already vibrant series, and the directors use them to isolate or highlight a character’s story.
Arcane Season two does an excellent job bringing the iconic aesthetic and story of the first season, while making itself recognizable as its own season. With little Easter eggs for long time fans of the universe and adding intrigue for new fans, season two fully dunks this into the fantastically fun and deadly world of Legend of Leagues.
