Arcane’ Season 2 Episode 3 Review

In the third episode of ‘Arcane’ season two, Caitlyn leads a team of enforcers down into the Undercity to find Jinx, and execute her to prevent more attacks happening, while some dark secrets are revealed about Ambessa Medarda.

After a couple of less exceptional episodes, we get back to what ‘Arcane’ is really good at: character development, especially for Caitlyn, who’s a big focus this episode. As an enforcer, she should be working for the good of the city and its people, but she has a conflict of interest. She feels responsible for her mother’s death, as she didn’t kill Jinx when she had a chance, allowing her to launch the attack on the Council.

There’s some good moments for Vi too, not just in seeing their relationship develop, but in how she’s taken on the role of an enforcer too, something that wouldn’t have seemed very likely last season. After so long trying to get her sister back, she’s come to the realization that Jinx isn’t Powder anymore, and she needs to be stopped.

Another interesting development is Ambessa Medarda, who gets more of her backstory teased. What exactly is her history with those witches? Whatever it is, it looks like that’s why she came to Piltover, possibly looking to take it over for its technological and military advantages. She’s already infiltrated the Council, with Salo under her control, and is moving towards martial law, appointing Caitlyn as general of her army, and she set up the attack on the memorial service. Her power play is definitely working.

There have been a couple of rougher spots in these first episodes, as they’ve struggled to match the powerful opening of the first season, but things really take some large strides forward this episode. The action scenes are bigger than ever, and look great, using all the stylistic freedom this kind of animation provides, but more importantly, the characters involved in these fights are getting more development.

These three episodes have set up the story and left it hanging as we move into the second arc. The show’s used time jumps before so could do this again to move things forward by a few weeks, or even years. Whatever they do, things should be getting interesting. The stakes have never been higher and are only going to climb, and considering how ruthless this show can be, nothing, and no one, is safe.