Wow. So, here we are at the end of it all. Can we take a moment and acknowledge the sheer magnitude of awesomeness Arcane: League of Legends has been? A nine-year labor of love to turn the canon of an online video game into an epic saga of love, loss, struggle and humanity.
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With the Arcane series finale, “The Dirt Under Your Nails,” the curtain falls on the conflicts between Piltover and Zaun, between Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell), and between Viktor (Harry Lloyd) and his own blinded vision of a utopian world. With every win, there is something lost. True to form, the finale leaves enough ambiguity lingering to seed hope for the return of certain characters while promising more Runeterra tales to come.
Arcane, “The Dirt Under Your Nails”
Jinx prepares to “end the cycle.” Set to Royal & the Serpent’s “Wasteland,” she douses Silco’s (Jason Spisak) chair and The Last Drop in gasoline. She triggers one of her Hex gem-powered monkey bombs and wears an expression of peace as the detonation begins. Suddenly, the bomb reconstitutes, and Ekko (Shannon Reed) shouts out, “Wait!”
Jinx tells him to get out of there and sets off the bomb again. Ekko uses his time loop device and reverses time again. He does this many times until he tells her that he learned from someone special that no matter what happened in the past, it’s never too late to build something new. Jinx notices the tiny monkeys inside his device.
The Sun Won’t Set
As day breaks, Ambessa (Ellen Thomas) readies her forces while Piltover’s defenses prepare. Down in the dungeon meeting room, Jayce (Kevin Alejandro) tells Caitlyn (Katie Leung), Vi, and Mel (Toks Olagundoye) that he needs time to shut down the Hexgates.
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During the battle, Vi runs through the battlements, carrying a masked Enforcer. She gets through a set of doors and tears the mask off, revealing Gert (Ashley Holliday Tavares). As the Noxians hit them with a battery of cannon fire, Gert dies.
On the field of combat, Ambessa steps forward, masked and wielding her twin drakehounds. Whipping them out, she ensnares the Enforcers on the front line and rips them from their position, opening a vulnerable point in the defense.
From a high tower, Caitlyn takes aim with a HexTech sniper rifle. The shot flies true, but Ambessa’s protective rune stones block the hit. A Noxian cannon turns and targets Caitlyn. Maddie (Katy Townsend) sees the shot coming through her binoculars.
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Glancing at the destroyed tower, Ambessa wipes blood from her face and raises an arm high. A container opens, and a huge troll-like creature emerges, dragging Viktor’s sphere with chains.
Racing Time
In the base of the Hexgates, Jayce begins dismantling the power cells. High above him, the Noxians break into the gunner’s turret. They shoot Loris (Earl Baylon) full of arrows before he can launch a crate weapon at the sphere. The weapon deactivates.
Caitlyn leads a group of Enforcers out of a secret exit onto street level. Maddie unpacks a canister bomb and hands it to one of the Enforcers. Steb leads a second group into position on the other side of the thoroughfare where the sphere is being dragged.
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The Enforcers throw smoke grenades to cover the bomb carrier’s approach. The carrier is knocked down and skewered. Steb picks up the canister and continues to run toward the sphere. He manages to attach the canister to the sphere. He activates it and runs for cover.
Betrayal
The bomb doesn’t detonate. A nail in the gears prevents the mechanism from striking. Caitlyn looks up, wondering what happened. Someone hits her from behind and knocks her out.
When she regains consciousness, she lies in the center of the city plaza. Ambessa approaches with her personal guard. Caitlyn’s captor is Maddie. When Ambessa reaches them, Maddie salutes.
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Caitlyn attempts to attack Ambessa, knocking Maddie back and taking her weapon. Ambessa stabs Caitlyn in the gut. Walking away, Ambessa gives Maddie the order to execute Caitlyn. A mage shield appears and deflects the bullet back, striking Maddie between the eyes and killing her.
Making an Entrance
The great doors to the tower open, and Mel steps out, eyes glowing with a solid light. She makes a final plea to Ambessa to end the bloodshed. Ambessa scoffs and orders her soldiers to prepare to attack.
A chaotic humming can be heard, distracting Mel and Ambessa. A graffitied airship arrives, piloted by Jinx. With a twist of the controls, powder explosions detonate all over the city.
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Ekko and his Firelight fighters launch from the airship on their hoverboards. As Ambessa’s soldiers fire into the air, Sevika (Amirah Vann) leads Zaunites out of the powder smoke cover to attack. Steb takes the opportunity to order the captured Enforcers to escape and regroup.
Jinx’s airship rises to the gunner’s turret, where Vi is surrounded. Jinx opens fire. Ekko flies in through a different opening to help. Loris’s partner pulls Loris’s body off the gunner seat and figures out how to activate the weapon.
The new gunner takes aim at the sphere and launches the crate. It shatters the sphere, revealing that it was a decoy and is completely empty. Ambessa smirks. Mel asks, “Where is Viktor?”
More Than I Ever Was
A laser burns through the vault door to the Hexgates base chamber. The door falls open and Viktor enters in his new form.
He greets Jayce. Jayce pleads with Viktor, begging for some remnant of his friend to remain. Viktor insists he’s better now than what he was.
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Outside, Steb and the Enforcers catch their breath only to realize they aren’t alone. A horde of simulacrums are crowded behind Warwick. The simulacrums move blindingly fast and grab Steb, the Enforcers, Sevika — everyone. Instead of dying, the captives begin to evolve. Banners rise around Mel.
Mel confronts her mother over the cost of her ambition. Caitlyn moves in between the two of them and challenges Ambessa to a fight. Mel drops her hood and prepares to lend her support.
As they battle, the Arcane simulacrums swarm the tower accompanied by Warwick. They reach the gunner’s turret. Vi finds herself face-to-face with Warwick. Jinx opens fire from her airship, calling Vi’s name. Warwick shifts his attention to Jinx and leaps onto the airship.
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Ekko flies by, assessing the situation. Vi leaps away from the pursuing simulacrums and lands on Ekko’s hoverboard. Vi jumps from the hoverboard to punch the airship off-course. Ekko grabs the ship’s wheel and spins it.
On the ground, Caitlyn and Mel continue to battle Ambessa. High above, Warwick has Vi around the throat, and she’s beginning to evolve. Ekko steers the airship into the Hexgate tower, crashing through.
The Glorious Evolution
In the Hexgates chamber, Jayce continues to deactivate power cells while Viktor extolls the virtues of his vision. With a flick of his fingers, all the cells Jayce has pulled out reinsert and the entire chamber activates again.
Ambessa has a blade to Caitlyn’s eye. Mel throws up a shield to slow her attack. Caitlyn sees the rune stones Ambessa wears around her gauntlet, drawing the power away from the shield. Quickly, she shifts her balance, grabbing Ambessa’s sheathed dagger. Blood drips from Caitlyn’s eye. She is silent, looking at the stolen dagger and the band of Rune Stones on the ground. She shouts, “Now!” to Mel who rises to her feet, the Black Rose’s collar necklace suddenly visible.
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Looking directly at her mother, Mel states, “A wolf has no mercy,” and grasps the pendant on the necklace. Black and red thorns emerge, and Ambessa is captured in the Black Rose dimension, facing the sorceress.
As the sorceress begins to harvest Ambessa’s life force, a golden light appears and Mel steps through. The sorceress tries to stop Mel with the black thorny chains but Mel grabs ahold of them and infuses them with her golden light. She tells the sorceress, “I see your face, deceiver,” and blows the thorny chains to bits.
When the light recedes, Mel is back in Piltover. Ambessa falls into her arms. “You are the wolf,” she whispers to Mel and dies.
I’m Always With You
Inside the Hexgate tower, Vi pulls Jinx to her feet. Jinx reminds Vi that she’s always there even when they’re worlds apart.
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Down below, Jayce tells Viktor to stop the insanity. Viktor promises it’ll stop soon. “Your eyes won’t lie,” he tells Jayce, “When your mind is open.”
Viktor shrinks the anomaly down and places it in his staff. He and Jayce begin to rise up towards the Hexgates.
At the top, Vi and Jinx spot Warwick. They still hope he is Vander. He attacks Vi. Jinx fires her weapon at him until he turns. As he reaches for her, the effect of Viktor activating the Hexgates hits them, and they float up.
The Sublime Intersection
Viktor and Jayce shoot through the space and straight out the top of the dome. Viktor projects the miniaturized anomaly into the sky. It expands and attaches tendrils to all those yet-unevolved and gathers their minds together into a collective.
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The anomaly’s tendrils reach down into the tower and find Vi and Jinx, both in Warwick’s grip. Ekko floats free, unnoticed by the anomaly. He wakes up.
Jayce reaches for his hammer. Viktor appears behind him and stretches out a hand. At his touch, Jayce awakens in the Arcane dimension. He sees all the consciousnesses as dormant figures around him. He asks Viktor if this is his vision. Viktor tells him he knows their minds and wants to solve the emotion versus reason conflict.
Jayce argues that there is beauty in imperfections. He tells Viktor that his bad leg and his disease weren’t flaws. They made him who he was.
Boy Savior
Ekko races past the hordes of simulacrums on his hoverboard, and whenever one gets in his way, he activates the time loop device and corrects his course. But he gets knocked off and grabbed. They hold him so long that he can’t activate the time loop within the four seconds it takes to escape. Desperate, he turns the dial past the four seconds.
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This activation of the time loop releases Jayce from Viktor’s grip and gets Ekko past all of Viktor’s defenses. He activates the time loop again and throws the device at Viktor who looks at it getting closer and deems it impossible.
The collision of the two anomalies knocks Viktor’s old consciousness out of the new and frees Jayce’s to speak frankly. He tells Viktor that once, he dreamed of giving magic to the world, but now he just wants his partner back. Viktor asks why he persists after everything that’s happened. Jayce replies, “Because I promised you,” and embraces Viktor. As they make contact, everything Jayce saw in the future transfers to Viktor’s mind’s eye.
Flashback
Jayce kneels before the hooded figure and asks why he gave Jayce the rune stone when he was a child. The figure reveals their face, and it is an aged Viktor. He tells Jayce his endgame just ends. So he gave Jayce the rune stone as a child because he is the only person in all the timelines who can show Viktor the error of his vision.
The truth shocks Viktor, and he tries to send Jayce away. Jayce removes his rune stone from his wrist, hands it to Viktor, and says they’ll finish it together. The Arcane’s energy is drawn back up and all those being evolved disconnect.
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Warwick releases Jinx and Vi. They all fall. Jinx manages to climb onto a culvert pipe. Vi and Warwick land on a lower platform, and rivets start to give way. Jinx pleads with her to get to the other ledge, but Vi looks at the unconscious Warwick and can’t move.
Warwick revives and attacks. Jinx launches herself at him to knock him off the platform. Vi catches her hand with her gauntleted hand but Warwick’s holding onto Jinx’s legs. Knowing the platform’s about to fall, Jinx reminds Vi she’s always with her and deactivates the gauntlets. Jinx and Warwick fall down the shaft as Vi screams. “Wasteland” reprises as Jinx pulls out one last monkey bomb. An explosion fills the shaft.
Mourning
The city’s citizens return to mourn their dead. In the Council Chamber, Sevika takes a seat at the table.
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At a vanity table, a girl with empty eyes watches a ballerina dance in a jewelry box. Singed sits down next to her. Her hair is distinctly red from behind, and her skin is marked with Arcane designs.
Mel sits, holding Ambessa’s war mask. The Noxian fleet has a single raven flying with it.
Our Story Isn’t Over
Caitlyn, wearing an eye patch and holding a piece of Jinx’s monkey bomb, examines the schematics of the Hexgate towers, noting the various ventilation shafts that run out of it. Vi’s sitting nearby, humming. Caitlyn asks her about it. Vi says it’s a tune her mother used to hum. Leaning her head on her shoulder, Caitlyn asks if she’s still in this fight. Vi reassures her that she is the dirt under her nails. “Nothing’s gonna clean me out.”
An airship flies out over the ocean. A Jinx glitch flashes and ends the scene.
Arcane: League of Legends is currently streaming on Netflix.
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