This article contains major character or plot details.
Champions of Runeterra near and far, listen up and grab your weapon of choice. Whether you’re repping Zaun, Piltover, or another faraway land, you need to get up to speed on all things ARCANE ahead of the Season Two premieres: Act I on Nov. 9, Act II on Nov. 16, and Act III on Nov. 23.
The show’s first season tells the origin stories of two beloved League of Legends fighters. Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell) are sisters on opposite sides of a war brewing between Piltover and Zaun. Once inseparable, they’re now on completely different life paths. The politicians governing Zaun aren’t concerned with the well-being of its people, and at the heart of this conflict is a powerful magical technology that threatens to change the trajectory of the entire world.
Here’s your full recap of ARCANE’s first season. Be careful — you won’t find any of Jinx’s grenades, but there are plenty of spoilers ahead.
Who are Vi and Powder?
When ARCANE begins, we’re introduced to Vi and Powder (Mia Sinclair Jenness), two sisters from Zaun whose city was destroyed. The young girls have lost both their parents, and a man named Vander (JB Blanc) takes them in to raise them as his own. Fast-forward a few years, the girls are a little bit older and now joined by friends, Mylo (Yuri Lowenthal) and Claggor (Roger Craig Smith). Together, this crew embarks on a heist in Piltover, thanks to a tip from someone they refer to as “Little Man.” Unbeknownst to them, the kids have stumbled into the home of an inventor. While there, Powder discovers a handful of magical blue crystals and accidentally causes an explosion, alerting the whole city to their presence. The kids narrowly escape, but Mylo tells Vi they shouldn’t have brought Powder on the mission because she “jinxes” everything. And, as it turns out, Silco (Jason Spisak) — a Zaunite drug lord who wants nothing more than to overthrow Piltover — had the kids followed, which is bad news for everyone.
Wait — back up. What are Piltover and Zaun?
Piltover and Zaun are twin cities that were once united. Now Piltover is known as the City of Progress, while Zaun exists in its shadow as an undercity district plagued with pollution, inequality, and deep corruption. ARCANE tells the story of the Zaunites who want a better life, the people’s struggle to get it, and whether Zaun and Piltover can unite once more against a common threat beyond their walls.
So what’s up with those crystals?
Ah yes, the crystals. As it turns out, the kids broke into the home of inventor Jayce Talis (Kevin Alejandro), who was illegally researching and experimenting with the crystals in his home. We learn from a flashback that Jayce acquired the magic crystals from a cloaked figure as a child. Jayce and his mother were traveling on foot through a snowstorm when she collapsed and Jayce cried out for help. The Rune Mage Ryze appeared with a magical blue Hextech crystal, which he used to transport Jayce and his mother to safety. When Jayce awoke, he saw that Ryze left him a blue crystal.
Wait — what’s Hextech?
According to League of Legends lore, Hextech is an arcane technology “that fuses elemental and spirit magic.” Jayce was using the crystals to create this magic, but his research was banned by the Piltover Academy, where he was studying at the time. So, when Powder set off the explosion, it alerted the academy and city council to Jayce’s work with the unstable and dangerous crystals. That’s when Jayce first meets Viktor (Harry Lloyd), an idealist and inventor from Zaun who is the assistant to the Dean of Piltover Academy. Viktor initially has Jayce arrested, but a member of the Council, Mel Medarda (Toks Olagundoye), finds his research compelling and believes it could revolutionize Piltover. Viktor also becomes intrigued by Jayce’s ideas and seeks him out to help complete the research.
What happens to Vander?
You remember the Zaunite drug lord Silco? Well, Silco and Vander used to be united by their shared desire for a free Zaun, but Vander ultimately decided that he didn’t want a war with Piltover, even if their cause was righteous. This disagreement left Silco feeling betrayed. Now fast-forward several years. Silco strikes a deal with a Piltover enforcer named Marcus (Remy Hii): in exchange for Vander, Silco will reveal the location of the children who set off the explosion in the city. But Vander hides the children, so Marcus is unable to arrest them, and surrenders himself to the enforcers instead. Silco intercepts the arrest, killing the enforcers, and takes Vander back to a warehouse. The children follow in the hopes of rescuing Vander, but soon realize they were set up. Still, with Vi’s fighting abilities, the kids might have a chance to release Vander and escape the warehouse. That is, until Powder causes an explosion with the crystals in the hopes of rescuing her friends. The result is far worse than she could have imagined because the explosion accidentally kills Mylo, Claggor, and Vander.
OK, so who is Jinx?
A grief-stricken and shocked Vi tells Powder, “You’re a jinx, do you hear me? Mylo was right,” before leaving her sister on her own, crying hysterically. That’s when Silco and his henchmen find Powder, who joins them and takes the name Jinx, believing that she’s nothing but bad luck to her former family.
Vi and Jinx are two beloved League of Legends champions. Do we get to meet any others?
We’ll meet plenty of LoL champions on this journey! There’s Caitlyn (Katie Leung), a dangerously intelligent Piltover enforcer whose loyalty to her city never falters, but whose mission becomes complicated by her budding relationship with Vi. Then there’s Ekko (Reed Shannon) — the aforementioned Little Man from Zaun — who’s an inventor in his own right and can manipulate time. Jayce is the inventor turned politician whose Hextech creations change the world. Speaking of inventors, there’s also the ultratalented Heimerdinger (Mick Wingert), the founder of Piltover who’s been around long enough to caution his pupils against creating arcane technology. Then there’s Viktor, another idealist and inventor from Zaun who plays an important role in developing Hextech with Jayce. When Viktor becomes very sick, he seeks help from the Zaunite chemist Singed (Brett Tucker), who is the creator of Shimmer, the enhancement drug that Silco distributes across Zaun. We later meet Ambessa Medarda (Ellen Thomas), Mel’s estranged mother, and a warlord from Noxus. Ambessa arrives later in the season, we learn, because she believes Hextech can be weaponized and she needs it.
What happens on Progress Day?
In Piltover, Progress Day is a celebration of the city’s founding, as well as its technological and scientific advancements. In this era, Hextech is all the rage. Jayce and Viktor hope to give a speech about the next chapter of Hextech: they’ve created gemstones that can power portable devices and want to bring the technology to the ordinary person. But Heimerdinger tells them it’s far too dangerous to put Hextech into everyone’s hands.
Meanwhile, a shipment of Shimmer from the undercity arrives in Piltover, but the Firelights — a masked Zaunite vigilante group led by Ekko, whose mission is to take down Silco — intercept the shipment. After subduing Silco’s henchmen, the Firelights are ambushed by a teenage Jinx who’s hiding with the cargo. As the Firelights continue their mission to destroy the Shimmer, Jinx punches one of them in the face and knocks off their mask, coming face-to-face with her sister for the first time since they were separated as children. In the midst of Jinx’s shock, the Firelights are able to set fire to all the Shimmer.
Silco tells Jinx the mishap has set them back weeks, and she takes matters into her own hands, hoping to make things right. Jinx sets off an explosion in the Piltover council building that kills six enforcers and then enters the building herself to steal Jayce and Viktor’s Hextech gemstone, as well as some of their research. After the attack, Jayce becomes a councillor, and he begins to piece together that someone in Piltover must be working with Silco. (You might recall that earlier deal between Silco and Marcus, who has now become the Sheriff.)
Where’s Viktor in all this?
Viktor is still hard at work on the next chapter of Hextech and invents a Hexcore, which is a sort of artificial intelligence that Victor creates by placing a Hextech crystal in the center of a rune matrix. While working with the technology, Viktor coughs up blood and the Hexcore picks up his droplets and becomes connected to him. You’ll recall he is very sick, and he starts to obsess over the possibility that Hextech may be able to cure him somehow. As time goes on, his invention becomes more powerful than he ever imagined. Ever the skeptic, Heimerdinger notices the changes in Viktor and worries about the scientist’s endeavors.
After what happened on Progress Day, are we going to war?
The possibility of a war between Zaun and Piltover is a theme that comes up repeatedly throughout ARCANE’s first season. Most people want to avoid it because, as Vander points out early on, “Nobody wins in war.” As tensions continue to build between the two cities after the Progress Day attack, so, too, does the growing likelihood of a war, and with a Hextech gemstone in Silco’s hands, Councillor Mel Medarda encourages Viktor and Jayce to build Hextech-powered weapons to protect Piltover. Viktor wants no part in this because, as he says, “We’re scientists, not soldiers.” Despite wanting to build Hextech weapons, Mel still believes that war is a last resort. But with encouragement from Vi, Jayce is coming around to the idea of taking the fight straight to Zaun to at least shut down Silco’s Shimmer manufacturing supply.
Do Jayce and Vi use Hextech in battle?
Remember the Progress Day update? After Vi makes a plea to the Piltover Council to fight Silco, which is ultimately disregarded, she turns to Jayce for help. She finds him building Atlas Gauntlets — a pair of gloves originally made for everyday people mining the fissures — that can be powered by Hextech gemstones. Together, Vi and Jayce head into Zaun with the Atlas Gauntlets, a Hextech hammer, and a plan to shut down Silco’s Shimmer supply. During the fight to shut Silco down, a young boy working in one of the factories is killed, and Jayce sees the brutal reality of war for the first time. As a result, he parleys with Silco to work out a deal for Zaun’s independence: Zaun will be free in exchange for the end of Shimmer production, the return of the stolen gemstone, and when Jinx is relinquished to the Council.
OK, so do Jinx and Vi ever reunite?
The sisters reunite after a gruesome — but epic — battle between Vi and Silco’s loyal henchman Sevika (Amirah Vann). Vi arrives wearing her Atlas Gauntlets, and Sevika has an upgrade of her own: a prosthetic arm that she can enhance with Shimmer injections. Once Vi knocks Sevika out, she’s ready to find Silco next, but she doesn’t get the chance because Jinx attacks her from behind. When Vi awakens, she’s tied up along with Silco at a dinner table. Jinx also brings a tied up Caitlyn — the Piltover enforcer that Vi has been working with — to join the party and issues an ultimatum to her sister: she can be Jinx, or she can be Powder, but Vi has to choose between her and Caitlyn.
Wow. So how does Season One end?
Jinx is torn between two worlds — does she go back to her sister, or has she changed too much? Silco makes a plea to Jinx to stick by his side, telling her she’s like a daughter. But then Caitlyn breaks out of her ties and a gunfight ensues, which ends with Jinx accidentally killing Silco. As Vi tries to comfort her sister, who has now lost another father figure, Jinx loads the stolen Hextech gemstone into her Fishbone rocket and launches it at the Piltover Council as they are voting to support a peace deal with Zaun. Elsewhere in Zaun, Heimerdinger and Ekko discuss the young man’s experiments with time manipulation, and Singed is working on his latest mutation.
Luckily, you won’t have to wait much longer to find out how everything plays out, because Act I of ARCANE Season Two premieres on Nov. 9, followed by the second and third acts on Nov. 16 and Nov. 23, respectively.
