The One Problem With Arcane Season 2’s Ending
Arcane Season 2’s final three episodes are now available
Arcane Season 1 was something I never envisioned myself watching. I do not play League of Legends, and I never intend to. However, I saw images of Caitlyn and Vi on social media, and I thought the art looked nice. And now here I am, writing about Arcane Season 2.
Arcane Season 1 is a masterpiece, and everyone should watch it. I never wrote a review for it because my Dad passed away shortly after I finished the season, and I essentially abandoned this blog for two years. But it is one of the best seasons of any show I’ve ever seen. I could not have been more excited for this second (and final) season of Arcane.
I loved the first two acts of this season. At some point, I’d like to write a full season review of Arcane Season 2. For now, though, I want to focus on the ending. I have a lot of thoughts after seeing the final three episodes. More specifically, there is one issue I have with the ending I would like to talk about. Let’s go over what the ending entails before we delve into the problem at hand.
Spoiler warning: This article will contain major spoilers for Arcane Season 2. If you wish to avoid these endings, please click away now.
How Arcane Season 2 Ended
Arcane Season 2 ends with a big ole war. After Caitlyn turns on Ambessa, she and Singed team up with Viktor to form an army in a bid to gain the power of HexTech for themselves. The Noxian army fights against Piltover’s enforcers, and eventually, a militant force from Zaun led by Jinx and Ekko.
Toward the end of this war, Vi and Jinx have to fight a powered-up version of Warwick. Vi and Warwick end up on a ledge, with Jinx on a different ledge. Warwick wakes up from being knocked out and attacks Vi. Jinx comes in for the save and is left dangling over the ledge, being held up by Vi.
At this moment, Jinx makes a decision. She disables Vi’s gauntlet, causing her and Warwick to fall. As she falls, she pulls the pin on one of her grenades, and Vi cries out in despair. We get a funeral procession for the lives lost in the war, but no explicit confirmation of Jinx’s death.
Eventually, we see Caitlyn looking at the schematics of the HexTech gate where Jinx fell. Curiously, she zooms in on air ducts near where Jinx had fallen and lets the grenade go off. Caitlyn also had the top of the grenade in her possession. Caitlyn has a talk with Vi, it’s very romantic, all that. Finally, we see a ship flying away to some far-off location before we see a quick distortion displaying the words “The End.”
The Problem At Hand
My summary of the ending is, admittedly, very oversimplified. However, the main point I want you all to take away is this: Jinx is shown to have blown herself up in an attempt to save Vi, but there is no explicit confirmation that she is dead. In fact, it seems as if there’s an attempt to show that she very much is alive.
And this is where the problem lies for me. Overall, I think Arcane Season 2 is absolutely incredible. I’m not sure if it matches up with Arcane Season 1, but it’s not all that far off. However, the ending is a bit confusing to me. Not in that it’s hard to discern what happened. I’m moreso confused about why they chose this specific ending.
Arcane Season 2 is the final season of this series. Episode 9 of this season is meant to be the final episode of this story. As a result, major plotlines need to be wrapped up. In particular, the central plotline of the story needs a concrete ending. This story centers a lot around Vi, Jinx, and their relationship as sisters. This is the story thread that must be wrapped up neatly.
And yet, it feels as if the writers of Arcane did not want to commit to keeping her alive or killing her. As a result, they went for an ambiguous ending. Why they didn’t want to commit is anyone’s guess. Maybe they wanted to avoid an internet backlash. Maybe they didn’t know how to end it. Perhaps they simply wanted to explore her potential survival or death in a future spinoff.
The reason for the ambiguous ending makes some sense. However, that falls apart because the way this is all framed leads me to believe that Jinx is alive. Caitlyn looking at the schematics and air ducts from the HexTech gate felt kind of on the nose. But the truly interesting aspect is how Vi acted during her final scenes with Caitlyn.
Vi looks sad as she hums the tune her mother used to hum for her and Jinx. But overall, she doesn’t act how you’d expect her to if she knew that Jinx was dead. She doesn’t sound depressed, she isn’t angry, and she seems somewhat happy. Everyone deals with grief differently, so maybe she just worked through it all off-screen. In saying this, it feels a bit convenient that Vi isn't shown to be grieving immediately after the show goes to great lengths to show you a way Jinx could have survived what happened to her.
There is also the matter of the ship at the end. There is no for the story of Arcane to end on the shot of that ship if it doesn’t mean anything. We saw Noxus ships sailing away in the water earlier, so it's safe to say it isn’t them. It’s possible the flying ship refers to Jayce and Viktor, but I doubt that. Furthermore, Arcane Season 2’s “The End” card is stylized very similarly to how a lot of Jinx’s important character moments were depicted in Season 1.
All of this returns me back to the original question. Why not commit to Jinx being alive if that’s the direction you want to go? Why not commit to her being dead? There are interesting areas of exploration in the future no matter which ending you choose. And if this truly is the final season, if this is “The End” as the show says, what’s the point in not committing to a concrete ending?
Personally, I wanted Jinx to live. And I recognize that this could be a huge cope post at the end of the day. But I think this is a valid criticism of the ending. How they should have ended the story is not for me to say. I think they could have made it work either way. They just needed to actually give us a concrete ending for us to work with.
