Arcane Act 3 has a heavy load to lift. As the final installment of the Arcane: League of Legends series, the expectations are high for it to bring all the major players back to conclude the Piltover-Zaun saga satisfactorily. Moreover, the need to provide sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell) with reconciliation and closure is paramount, considering the heart of the series has been their relationship.
Before Arcane Season 2 Episode 7, “Pretend Like It’s the First Time,” even begins, there’s something new to notice. When the Riot Games jukebox animation plays, instead of Jinx and Vi facing each other on the disc art, it’s Ekko (Reed Shannon) and a very different-looking Jinx.
Arcane, “Pretend Like It’s the First Time”
In a candlelit workspace, a neatly dressed Ekko examines books and makes notes. Sudden flashes of the Arcane anomaly and Firelight Ekko falling through a white space disrupt his calm. Firelight Ekko regains consciousness in this Ekko’s body, inspecting his hands and trying to orient himself. He looks in a reflective glass and sees how well he’s dressed.
Jinx addresses him, telling him he’s beyond help as he’s looking at himself. He jumps back from her, startling her. She doesn’t look like herself either. No braided pigtails and her eyes aren’t Shimmer-pink. She is Powder. As she tells him about a new idea, he throws a canister at her head and grabs a tool to fend her off.
RELATED: TV Review: Arcane Season 2 Act 2
The door behind him opens, and Benzo (Fred Tatasciore) enters. Ekko stares, stunned at seeing his long-dead mentor alive. As Benzo and Powder talk, Ekko embraces Benzo wordlessly.
Genius and Madness
Benzo and Powder escort Ekko to The Last Drop, where Vander (JB Blanc) is very alive and human, tending the bar. Powder leads him to a table while Benzo and Vander chat at the counter. In a sketchbook, Ekko compulsively sketches the anomaly while glancing around, unable to accept what he’s seeing. Powder tries to talk to him about the upcoming competition, but he jumps again when she touches him.
Next, Mylo (Yuri Lowenthal) and Claggor (Roger Craig Smith) enter, making Ekko stare again. Claggor begins talking specs on the hybrid plants they’re using to purify the fissure gasses. Mylo’s distracted by the server, Gert (Ashley Holliday Tavares), and goes to chat her up. Claggor sends Powder after Mylo and asks Ekko where he’d be without her.
RELATED: TV Review: Arcane Season 2 Act 1
Powder covers for Mylo’s awkward approach. Back at the table, Ekko’s suffering another anomaly attack. At the bar, Vander chats with Powder and advises her to seek her own joy while she’s helping everyone else.
Heimerdinger
At the table, Ekko’s struggling to keep it together when he hears Claggor greet a professor. Glancing over, he sees Heimerdinger (Mick Wingert). Jumping up again at the sight of him, he staggers away. Heimerdinger sees the sketch of the anomaly in his book, which has fallen to the floor. He follows Ekko to the alley where the boy vomits. Heimerdinger returns his book and stylus and notes that the anomaly seems to have scattered them across time. He’s been in this reality for 1,128 days.
Ekko asks if he’s figured out a way to get back to their reality. Heimerdinger explains HexTech was never invented,d so there’s no anomaly to send them back. He suggests Ekko let himself settle in here. Ekko refuses to give up on the people depending on him back home. He insists he’ll find a way back, with or without Heimerdinger’s help. Powder interrupts their discussion and tells Ekko she’s going to see Vi. She invites him to come along.
Jayce
In a foggy, nightmarish terrain, Jayce (Kevin Alejandro) wakes up to rain and immediately vomits. When he tries to pick up his hammer, the HexTech malfunctions. He drops it to the ground and goes to explore. A hooded figure approaches with a clanking gait. Jayce tries to question them, but they turn and leave. Jayce chases them through the fog but finds the burned-out shell of a running human figure instead. Beyond the figure, he sees the ruins of Piltover and falls to his knees in despair.
Partners
In her workshop, Powder fills Ekko in on the project they’ve been working on for months. It’s a zero-loss chemical energy cell. He dreamed it up, and she’s been making it a reality. Looking at the prototype, he pockets it and asks her if she has some nefarious plans for it.
RELATED: Exciting Arcane Season 2 Soundtrack Details Revealed
She points out he’s the one with the ideas, then starts addressing her comments to a shrine to Vi. She fills her in on her day. Ekko is shocked that Vi is dead and asks how it happened. Powder is hurt by the question, calling it cruel. He asks if she killed Vi. Powder retorts that he was the one who gave them the tip on the job that killed Vi. Ekko realizes that if burgling Jayce’s flat all those years ago had failed, that explains why HexTech was never invented in this world.
Powder tells him to leave before she does something she’ll regret. He grabs a satchel on his way out, knocking one of her sketchbooks to the ground. Examining the energy storage device, he wanders through the market that bustles with life and energy. He reaches the boundary of the Piltover Bridge, realizing it’s the same spot in his home reality where he fought Jinx when he led the Firelights, where bodies were strewn. Here and now, children run and play with no regard for the boundary. He takes a moment to take in how incredibly different it all is.
Hell and Heaven
In the apocalyptic landscape, Jayce has gone back for his hammer and drags it towards the ruins of Piltover through the drained harbor and between the husks of damaged ships. In the idyllic Piltover, Ekko finds Jayce’s old suite boarded up. There are signs of a huge explosion a long time ago.
Jayce makes it to Piltover, but all the buildings are corrupted and warped by the Arcane energy. In the old flat, Ekko searches the crevices in the walls for Hex gems fragments left by the explosion. We see in a flashback Powder as a child (Mia Sinclair Jenness) holding Vi’s body in her arms and crying. In her hand is a fistful of Hex gems. Ekko extracts many shards of Hex gems and stores them in a container for transport.
RELATED: Arcane: Co-Creator Christian Linke Shares How Finding the Middle Made Arcane Real
Jayce stops in an alley and notices the corpses of people caught in whatever Hex blast ended the world. Ekko works on an idea in his sketchbook in the shade of the Firelight tree. Jayce follows the blast effect to the center of the explosion. Ekko steps back and looks at the cistern the tree grows on top of.
Forming a Plan
Out in front of The Last Drop, Heimerdinger serenades an appreciative crowd with a banjo tune. Ekko applauds with the audience. Jayce makes it to the base of the Piltover funicular. The figures around him begin to move and pursue him. He runs from them, through the crowd of decaying figures, and trips, falling into a deep chasm. In The Last Drop, Ekko shows Heimerdinger the fragments and suggests he can recreate the anomaly. Heimerdinger cautions him against tampering with the Arcane. Ekko protests that he needs a partner to work with, not a risk-averse scold. Heimerdinger recalls what happened when he didn’t help guide Jayce in his exploration of the Arcane and agrees to help Ekko.
Jayce awakens in the caverns under the city, his leg broken. He lights a fire, sets his leg, and crawls to a pool of water. The hooded figure appears briefly. Jayce’s leg shows Arcane corruption in the wound. His hammer begins to warp. Over time, he goes mad, reliving the major turning points and decisions in his life. He scrapes a rendering of the anomaly into the wall of the chamber. When he comes to his senses, he has scavenged his hammer for parts to support his leg. Now, he can climb the wall out of the cavern in stages. He finally reaches the street level, disheveled and bearded.
Making Peace
Ekko brings Powder to the Firelight tree with her eyes covered and shows her a mural he painted for Vi, as he knew her in the other reality. He tells Powder he dreamed that Vi grew to be the toughest person in all of Zaun, not afraid of anything. Powder corrects him. She says that Vi was strong because she was afraid. Ekko tells Powder she was in the dream and different as well. Powder asks if he wants her to change to suit his dream. He denies this but tells her that her ideas could change the world if she’d just work on them.
RELATED: Geek Girl Authority Crush of the Week: Arcane’s Vi
Powder tells him that she likes her life. Things are good. She doesn’t want to lose that for some wild dream. Ekko tells her that leaping forward means leaving some things behind. She looks at him skeptically and asks what he needs her to do. As Jayce makes his way through Piltover, the figures continue to reanimate and follow him.
Teamwork
Ekko shows Powder the Hex gem fragments he’s retrieved. Heimerdinger sits with them, and they collaborate. With the shards placed in the energy storage device, they’re able to activate some Arcane effects.
When they succeed in forming a tiny anomaly, Ekko realizes they’ve created a tiny time loop that can reverse time for seconds at a time. Through experimenting, Ekko discovers the limit is four seconds, as anything more kills the people around him. Powder asks him to go get cleaned up for the party. Heimerdinger plans to keep working on the device to upgrade it. Jayce climbs to the top of the Piltover Tower.
RELATED: Afterglow — Arcane‘s Official After Show Debuts
At the party, while Ekko waits for Powder, he tells Benzo how much he means to him. Vander comes by, telling Ekko he sees leadership in his future. Silco (Jason Spisak) pops in and adds his two cents. Ekko’s surprised to see Silco and asks Vander how he and Silco can be friends after Silco tried to kill him. Both men flinch at the reminder. Silco points out that forgiveness is the greatest thing a person can do.
The First Time
Jinx enters to her own pyrotechnics and music. She and Ekko dance, a beautiful bookended callback to Ekko and Jinx’s bridge battle in Arcane Season 1. Afterward, they sit together, looking out over the city. He thanks her for giving him back his hope for the undercity. She cuddles into his arms, and he asks if she’s ever wanted to stay in a moment. She reminds him of what he said about leaping forward.
They lean in for a kiss, and he balks. Asking if they can pretend like it’s the first time, he lets her take the lead, and they kiss, visions of them dancing playing in a loop.
Turning Points
Jayce reaches the dome above the Hex storms of the planet’s surface. In the sunlit space, he finds a decaying figure holding a Hex-warped hammer.
RELATED: Read our Arcane Season 1 reviews
By herself, Powder finds a packet in her pocket and opens it. Inside is a twirling pendant with a multipetaled flower, accented with blue. As she spins it, she senses a Hex glitch. Ekko finds Heimerdinger hooking up the final power supply on a large transport platform he’s constructed.
Jayce kneels, facing the figure with the hammer, and asks why he was given the runestone bracelet. The hooded figure stands on the other side of the hammer figure. They turn and move towards Jayce.
In Powder’s space, Ekko and Heimerdinger stand on the platform and activate their anomaly. Jayce looks at the hooded figure and demands to be sent back. The hammer tilts towards him. He grips the handle, and the kneeling figure releases it.
Truly Living
The control panel cover flies off with the force of activating the anomaly in Jinx’s workshop. Heimerdinger comments to Ekko that since meeting him, he’s truly lived. Ekko doesn’t like the sound of that but is too late as Heimerdinger leaps off the platform. He sees a disconnected power cable and reaches for it. Jayce declares, “I won’t fail.” The hooded figure opens their hand and releases an anomaly that fuses Jayce’s runestone to his wrist. “I swear it,” says Jayce.
RELATED: Check out our Arcane Season 2 recaps
Heimerdinger reattaches the cable and glitches out of existence. Jayce is absorbed into the hooded figure’s anomaly. Powder arrives and sees the cable drop to the ground. She runs to Ekko’s body lying on the ground in front of the platform. Looking up, she sees Firelight Ekko in the anomaly holding the time loop device. The anomaly expands and then disappears, taking Firelight Ekko with it. The Ekko in her arms whispers her name as he wakes up.
Stinger Scene, Sort Of
In Powder’s shrine to Vi, she winds the Vi doll to play its music and sets it back in place. Powder opens a drawer in the shrine, revealing a pouch with the Hex Gems from the heist that killed her sister. In the drawer, she places the twirling pendent.
Arcane: League of Legends is currently streaming on Netflix.
- JENTRY CHAU VS. THE UNDERWORLD Recap: (S01E08) Fifteen Finger Discount - December 9, 2024
- JENTRY CHAU VS. THE UNDERWORLD Recap: (S01E07) Into the Zhong - December 9, 2024
- JENTRY CHAU VS. THE UNDERWORLD Recap: (S01E06) All’s Fair in Love and War - December 8, 2024
