Only a few more days till the release of Arcane: League of Legends Season 2 this week! If you haven’t watched season 1 yet, now’s your chance before season 2 drops. For those of you who watched the first season but forgot some details, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a quick recap of everything you missed in the first season of Arcane: League of Legends. It goes without saying but, spoilers ahead! If you wanna join the hype for Arcane season 2, I highly recommend watching the show. If you don’t have time to do so, enjoy this recap.

Arcane: League of Legends Act 1

The first season of Arcane is divided into two main acts. Act 1 focuses on setting the theme for the rest of the show and giving us some backstory regarding the main characters. The show starts off with a riot (not Riot Games) between the citizens of Undercity and the Enforcers of Piltover.

Undercity is the slum area beneath Piltover, the high-class city of progress. Our focus is then brought to a pair standing amidst the smoke. These two, as we learn later, are Violet and Powder, our main protagonists. It’s heavily implied that their parents were killed during this event as the older sister, Violet, breaks down. The two are taken in by their parents’ friend, Vander, and the three of them leave for Undercity

Fast forward years later and Violet and Powder have aged up quite a bit. They sneak into Piltover from Undercity alongside their two friends, Milo and Claggor. After a bit of rooftop-running and parkour, the group finds ttheir way to an apartment filled with all kinds of gadgets and gizmos. They break in and start looting for anything valuable to sell. As is typical with these kinds of situations, something goes wrong and a large explosion occurs.

Before enforcers can arrive on the scene, the four of them escape and hightail it back to Undercity. The incident draws the attention of the Enforcers and they go down to question citizens of Undercity. The captain, Grayson, is an old friend of Vander and tries her best to steer the investigation away from the kids but tells Vander she has to bring someone in.

On the topside, we find out that the apartment belongs to a young inventor named Jayce. He was experimenting with something called Hextech Crystals. These unknown objects house massive potential magic energy but are incredibly unstable. Jace is told off by his mentor, a yordle by the name of Heimerdinger, and is warned to not mess with magic. Another inventor by the name of Viktor believes in Jayce’s vision for the crystals and secretly works with him. 

Back in the Undercity, tension runs high, and eventually, Vander decides to keep the peace and turns himself in. He does this to protect Vi and Powder but they’re ambushed on their way out. Grayson is killed and Vander is captured. This turns out to be the work of Silco, a crime boss who once worked with Vander. He shared Vander’s dream of an independent Undercity but had extremely brutal methods which led to Vander turning his back on Silco. 

Silco still holds this dream of creating an independent city known as Zaun. In order to achieve this, he created a drug known as Shimmer. This drug gives the user enhanced strength and physical abilities but due to its unstable nature, the user temporarily loses their cognition. Vi and her friends go off to rescue Vander and are almost successful but then an explosion happens, killing off Milo and Claggor. 

It turns out, Powder wanted to help so she set off a bomb using the Hextech crystals she stole from the lab in the previous heist. In the aftermath, Vander uses Shimmer to gain enough strength to save Vi from the burning building but loses his life. Vi finds out Powder set off the bomb, calls her a jinx (Subtle foreshadowing), and runs off. Before Vi can run back to Powder, she is captured by an Enforcer, and Act 1 ends.

Arcane Act 2: Welcome to Zaun and Piltover

Remember that inventor in Act 1 of Arcane? While all that was happening in Silco’s hideout, Jayce and Victor managed to find a way to stabilize the Hextech crystal and develop it into the Hextech Core. With this invention, Piltover’s innovations and technology shoot ahead faster than any other place. Piltover is now bustling with technological advancements and Hextech gates that allow instantaneous travel. Jayce and Viktor are celebrated as the fathers of Piltover’s technology (more Jayce).

The Undercity has also advanced, but not in a good way. Firmly under the thumb of Silco, Undercity has become a crimepunk hell. The city is run by the Chembarons with Silco at the head and they all use Shimmer to control the population. 

Act 2 of Arcane opens up with a large airship flying over Piltover. It turns out, that this ship is carrying a large shipment of Shimmer and is smuggling it through the city. The ship is attacked by a gang on hoverboards known as the Firelights and almost all the crew are taken out. Everyone except for Silco’s new guard dog: Jinx.

Who is Jinx you ask? Why it’s Powder, of course! After the events of Act 1, Silco took in Powder and raised her as his daughter but losing Vi and Vander left her traumatized and broken. She uses a minigun to deter and chase away the Firelights but ends up hitting both friend and foe. Silco forgives her for this though; he’s always had a soft spot for his adoptive daughter.

That night, while Jayce is attending a party for Piltover, Jinx launches another attack and breaks into Jayce’s lab once more. She steals a refined Hextech Crystal and is intent on using it to make a Super Mega Death Rocket (League players get this). The Enforcers launch an investigation and on the case is none other than Caitlyn.

We saw a bit of Caitlyn in Act 1 and she was the childhood friend of Jayce. She became an Enforcer and wants to go down to Undercity to catch Jinx. She needs someone to guide her and finds out someone in prison may be able to help her. We find out that it’s Vi and she’s been there the whole time after the events of Act 1. Vi agrees to help Caitlyn in exchange for her freedom and the two venture into Undercity. 

Back in Piltover, Jayce and Viktor show Heimerdinger the capabilities of the refined Hex Crystal. They are able to power advanced tech like power gauntlets and Viktor’s laser arm. Heimerdinger warns them that going too deep with magic is dangerous and that they should learn to stop. Unfortunately, Jayce doesn’t stop. A young counselor named Mel Medarda takes an interest in Jayce’s tech and wants to advance it even further for the sake of Piltover. She convinces Jayce to work alongside her and even has the council vote for Heimerdinger’s retirement, opening up a seat for Jayce as Head of Science.

Down in Undercity, Vi and Caitlyn manage to track down Jinx after she lights a signal flare her sister gave her in the past. She found out Vi was in prison the whole time and was back in Undercity and wanted to see her. The sisters reunite and are happy for a bit but then Jinx sees Caitlyn. She thinks Vi set her up and wants to arrest her so she loses it and a fight ensues. In the chaos, the Firelights appear once again and knock everyone unconscious except for Jinx and steal the crystal.

Vi and Caitlyn awaken at the Firelights base and it turns out that they’re the people from the old Undercity, a time before Silco reigned. They’re rebels who wish to take down Silco and are led by an old friend of Jinx and Vi: Ekko. We saw Ekko in Act 1 but he was just a small boy during then. Now, he’s all grown up and leading the Firelights against Silco. 

Ekko agrees to give back the crystal and helps them transport it topside. On the way back, however, they’re ambushed by dirty Enforcers who are working for Silco and a fight breaks out. In the midst of the fight, Jinx joins in once again and has a 1v1 with Ekko. Although Ekko is hesitant to kill his friend, Jinx doesn’t hesitate and detonates a bomb, blowing both of them up. Caitlyn and Vi escape with the crystal and make their way back to Piltover. 

In the aftermath, Jinx survives and Silco brings her to a scientist named Singed. Singed was actually the one who invented Shimmer and now uses it on Jinx to accelerate her healing. The process fractures her mind more unfortunately and causes her to go even more crazy. Ekko also survives and washes up on the shore of the river where he is helped by Heimerdinger. It turns out that Heimerdinger after being ousted, went to the Undercity to see how bad things are down there. He goes back with Ekko to the Firelights base.

Arcane Act 2: Get Jinxed!

Back up top, the council is deciding on what action to take in response to all the violence. Jayce wants to fight but Mel and Caitlyn say that peace should be the right course of action. Vi speaks up and says that they should fight and end Silco once and for all. The council is ultimately torn and the decision is postponed.

In the meantime, Vi teams up with Jayce and they raid one of Silco’s bases using a pair of Hextech gauntlets and a power Hammer (Their signature weapons in the game). Everything is going great until Jayce accidentally shoots a child. He returns back up to the surface and talks to Viktor if everything they did was worth it. 

Viktor, on the other hand, is busy with his own projects. See, Viktor is dying of a long-term illness and hopes that Hextech can cure him. He creates a Hextech Core but something is missing and it only heals biological lifeforms for a moment before failing. He visits his old mentor, who turns out to be Singed. Singed offers Viktor Shimmer and tells him to try incorporating it.

Viktor injects Shimmer into his leg and the core works. He moves on to the rest of his body when his assistant, a girl named Skye, walks in. She sees Viktor shouting in pain as he grips the core, not knowing what is going on. She rushes in before the procedure is finished and gets vaporized. Viktor, wrought with guilt, tries to dispose of the core but it appears to be bonded to him now. 

Jayce, coming to the conclusion that peace is the right choice, sets up a meeting with Silco. He tells Silco that they’ll give him what he wants: an independent city. In exchange, he has to turn in Jinx for all the damage she caused. He ruminates on this and is hesitant, even wondering out loud to himself what to do at the foot of Vander’s statue in Undercity. Jinx overhears this and loses it. She kidnaps Caitlyn and leads Vi to the Undercity where she too gets knocked out and kidnapped.

When Vi awakens, she’s strapped to a chair in their old hideout from when they were kids. In front of her are Silco and Caitlyn who are also tied to chairs in front of a dining table. Jinx shows up and tells Vi to kill Caitlyn to prove that Vi still loves her sister. She tries to reason with her sister and tries to convince Powder that this isn’t her.

She’s right, however, as Powder’s mind is too far gone and only Jinx remains. She opens fire on the three of them and when the smoke clears, it turns out that she only shot Silco. Silco, in his dying breath, says he wasn’t going to give up Jinx and that she’s perfect just the way she is.

Vi and Caitlyn escape and weakly limp back to Piltover. Back home, the Council is all voting for peace and just as the final vote is cast, Jinx loads up a Hextech crystal into her rocket and fires it at the council tower. We see the moment the rocket reaches the window and that’s the end of Arcane Season 1!

I know this was a long one this time around so if you stuck around till the end, good job! We hope you’re all as excited as we are for Arcane: League of Legends Season 2. Who knows? We might have an Arcane Season 2 review coming out in the near future!

That was a long one, we know. Check out these bite sized articles we made!

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