Netflix published a new Arcane Season 2 trailer for Geeked Week, and we’ve got a complete breakdown of all the details.
Arcane, the hit animated adaptation of the story of League of Legends, is returning to Netflix this November for a second season. In anticipation of this, Netflix released a new nearly three-minute-long trailer for Geeked Week. We’re here to break down every little easter egg and plot implication we can find in the new Arcane Season 2 Trailer.
Arcane Season 2 trailer highlights Vi’s fighting prowess and post-Silco Zaun
The trailer starts with a montage taking place in Zaun, covering Vi’s time in the underground fighting rings of Zaun. Thanks to a ton of contextual clues, fans can derive a lot about the upcoming season’s events in this two minute-long trailer.
The trailer begins with a familiar tattooed thug entering a fighting ring. Fans will recognize this thug as one of Silco’s goons from the first season, who Vi fought during the warehouse season that wraps up Act 1. This same goon is also the one that Vi hospitalized in Stillwater Hold, the Piltovan prison, leading to her and Caitlyn meeting. Fans also get a shot of an ostentatiously dressed Pug-like Yordle sitting ringside, likely the crime lord who runs the ring. The thug, now with a metallic jaw post-Vi’s attack, emerges and roars to the crowd. Moments later he’s knocked out, sans his new jaw, by a black-haired Vi.
Vi being a competitor in a Zaunite fighting ring will be a shocking reveal to Arcane fans, as its very far from where the first season left off. However, thanks to some posts on Arcane’s social media, we can figure out that this isn’t in the first three episodes of the season. Instead, this seems to be Act 2, after a significant time skip. The hunt for Jinx in the aftermath of her attack on Piltover is over, and as we’ll see shortly, it hasn’t ended happily for anybody. Vi wins the bout in a single blow, and we get a shot of a new unnamed character who seems to be Vi’s one and only friend during this period.
Jinx tailing Vi after Arcane Season 1 wraps
Vi wins the round and that cues a montage of money, partying, and the Zaunite high life. The montage shows Vi’s dominant streak in the fighting rings and the relatively luxurious life she lives for a Zaunite street urchin. Then we get a very quick, but very important shot, of the audience’s hands raises betting stubs into the air. The stub is red, and has Vi’s newfound logo, the two-headed hound, stamped on it. The stub has had ‘Violet’ written on it in pencil, and is behind held by a slender hand with pink nail polish. This is an exact match for Jinx’s hands – which means Jinx, likely assumed dead post-Act 1, will be checking in on her dear sister from the shadows.
More victorious rounds for the black-haired Violet, and more drinking and partying with her bearded friend in the audience. Times passes and night by night, Vi fights, wins, and drinks herself silly. She’s undefeated, beloved by the crowd, and has a steady supply of money and alcohol. However, after a montage of her victorious rounds against all sorts of opponents, human and Vastayan alike, we begin to see the toll of this lifestyle on Vi.
This is where things start go go south. Vi becomes visibly more exhausted and fatigued at the end of each of the montage’s fights. She stands, breath heaving, over her opponents, utterly hollowed out by the physical toll of the fights as well as what we’re beginning to assume is a traumatic end to Act 1.
Fortiche then shows a top-down view of Vi’s tiny apartment, filthy with bottles and discarded trash. We see her cycle from sleeping to practicing on her punching bag back and forth, until she again dons the black jacket and mascara for next fight. The meaning is pretty clear, Vi is in a downwards spiral and is likely very depressed. She’s living through the same day over and over, on a perpetual treadmill of physical violence, inebriation, and exhaustion.
Vi vomits into the sink, and the montage resumes, but with a shifted tone. She’s still winning, but now she’s passing out on the bar, swaying in her fights.
The scene cuts to Vi on the dance floor, dancing opposite what appears, momentarily, to be Caitlyn. As the strobe lights of the club flicker, Caitlyn appears in and out of the darkness before being replaced by a pointy-toothed Zaunite youth. Caitlyn isn’t actually there.
Vi on a downward spiral after Jinx nukes Piltover
The youth leans in towards Vi, who flashes back to her fights, and she responds by bloodying his lip and jaw with a right overhand punch. Her friend rushes to pull her away as Vi hurls abuse at both the Zaunite boy and her friend. The montage flashes, and Vi is alone at the bar, then outside her apartment, arguing with her friends before pushing him away and struggling, drunkenly, to navigate the stairs to her apartment. The trauma of whatever happened in Act 1 is slowly causing Vi to spiral out of control, alone and isolated without Caitlyn or Jinx.
Vi returns to the bar, drinking alone and toasting her now-absent friend, unaware he’s even gone. We get a back-and-forth set of shots of Vi, being observed from the dance floor of the club, and Jinx, standing alone in the dance floor, obscured by a cloak.
Is Jinx alive in Arcane Season 2 Act 2?
It may seem like this is another figment of Vi’s imagination like Caitlyn, but we think Jinx is actually there. The way the camera jumps back and forth, as if to represent Jinx’s point of view from the dance floor, and Jinx flickers in and out of sight, as though a deeply intoxicated Vi were glimpsing her before passing out. The camera is used to represent each of their view points for a brief moment, before we’re back to just Vi.
Vi, this time alone, staggers towards the steps to her apartment before glancing down an alleyway and being assaulted by flashbacks to Caitlyn screaming, obscured by Chembaron banners. Vi, screaming, dunks her head underneath the water of her sink, and the fight montage resumes.
However, with Vi now alone and without support, she starts to lose, and lose badly. As round by round of Vi losing, we get flashes of Jinx standing in the crowd, watching her sister’s rapid descent. This is likely another real encounter with Jinx, not one of Vi’s memories, since we’ve seen her hand holding the “Violet” betting slip earlier on in the trailer, it seems like Jinx is definitely keeping an eye on her sister.
It seems Vi thinks Jinx is dead, with the flashes of Jinx interpreted as traumatic flashbacks to the events of Act 1. She keeps losing round after round until eventually, one final punch sends Vi crashing into the ground, and it smash cuts to the bruised and bloodied Vi passed out in her bed. That’s the first complete segment of the trailer, but there are still several more shots worth addressing.
Everything else in the Arcane Season 2 Trailer
The next shot is Jinx, surrounded by Zaunite citizens walking by her on either side, their hands reached out to hold her shoulder, comfortingly. Then comes a shot of a hand, holding aloft a lit smoke grenade that billows blue smoke. We saw Jinx use one of these in season one to call Vi to her on the rooftops in Zaun, before they were ambushed by Ekko and the Firelights. The first shot seems to be citizens of Zaun rallying to Jinx’s cause, dying their hair blue so that Piltovan Enforcers can’t target Jinx by looking for her distinctive hair. The next shot doesn’t appear to be Jinx at all, missing the carefully cared-for nails we see in Vi’s fight sequence. Instead, this is likely one of many Zaunite citizens that will rally to Jinx’s cause.
Then we see a shot of Sevika, and hear her, from a different scene, say “What are you planning?” The shot then cuts to Jinx, sitting crouched in a green-tinged room, likely in Zaun. In response, Jinx says, “To watch it all burn.” It was shown in a previous Arcane trailer that Sevika, Silco’s ex-right-hand-woman, would be joining forces with Jinx.
Jinx attacks Piltover in Arcane Season 2 trailer
The trailer then cuts to two unnamed members of Caitlyn’s Act 1 Piltover Enforcer task force, likely assembled to hunting down Jinx. They’re standing about, casually, before a sudden blue explosion rips into the screen from behind them. The human man with the shield on his back grabs the Vastayan, trying to use himself to shield his ally.
Then we get a shot revealing what has exploded behind them. A large, Hextech sphere has been blown from its holding arms in a central square, dislodged by the same blue explosion, billowing up below it. At the same time, there is a bright pink trail of smoke in the center right. This appears to be before the fighting ring montage, and is likely during Act 1, when Jinx and Piltover begin to escalate the conflict in the wake of her attack on the council.
This is corroborated by the next shot we get, the city of Piltover, covered in colorful explosions of smoke that riddle the city. Hues of blue, pink, yellow, and green dor the sky. Given how similar these smoke trails look to the explosion that dislodges the Hextech sphere, we can assume these are taking place during the same event. It seems to be a series of coordinated attacks against Piltover, likely by Jinx and her Zaunite loyalists, given the connotation of coloured smoke to Jinx’s story and the symbol it seems to have become among her followers.
Followers of all kinds, more conflict
The next shot we get is the Hexgate at the center of Piltover, inactive, with dark clouds forming an eye in the storm above it. This rapidly transitions to four unknown people, with glowing golden symbols and eyes, gazing upwards. This scene also appears in another recent Arcane trailer, and the coloring of the light seems to match several other scenes that take place around a strange eye-shaped structure deep within Zaun.
Fans have theorized that this sequence is member of Viktor’s Glorious Revolution undergoing a transformation involved with this strange structure. The structure resembles the Hexcore, the device implied to have Void-linked powers in Season 1. The strongest running theory is that this is what these followers of the Hexcore would experience while being harnessed by the Void. But with so little context, it’s impossible to know.
Hexcore Error 404
The next shot is of an unknown Piltovan inside a huge domed room, with a Hexcore-like device on the center table. The guard covers his face as the core destabilizes, spitting blue lightning and magical runes into the air around it. Without context, the best guess for this device’s function is that it’s one of the Hextech devices kept in the University of Piltover, given the Piltovan design of the walls.
Then, an even larger and more complex version of the device seems to appear. The device seems to stutter and blur, projected mirrored versions of itself on each side. This device is a huge hextech housing, surrounded by a huge dome with diamond power matrices glowing on the wall.
Then we get a shot of Heimerdinger, backlit by an enormous explosion, possibly from this huge Hextech device. This large device may be the engine that powers the Hexgate, given the apparently huge size of the room, it would take a huge tower to fit. Where the light passes over Heimerdinger, we get glimpses of his skeleton, including his face, mimicking an X-ray scan. Seems like there will be plenty of magical mishaps, would would fit with the them of “the Arcane waking up” from earlier trailers.
Does Noxus invade Piltover in Arcane Season 2?
The next shots we get appear to be from even later in the series, possibly all the way from Act 3. We get a shot of Ambessa Medarda, resplendent in her full wargear, wielding two axe blades on the end of chains attached to mighty gauntlets. At Ambessa’s back is a huge Noxian warship and an enormous host of Noxian warriors. The people Ambessa is fighting are dressed as Piltovan enforcers, bringing an interesting question – why is Ambessa fighting Piltover? Ambessa arrived to visit her daughter Mel, but has long been guessed to have an alterior motive.
It seems likely that as the season goes on, Ambessa and Noxus will become more covetous of the powerful magical technology in the city, and will inevitably come to blows. Noxus is relentlessly expansionist, and even her daughter’s favorite city is not safe from the prying eyes of Noxus. This is also likely the version of Ambessa that will be playable in League of Legends.
Then fans get a brief shot of Jinx, at the helm of an airship, with bodies hanging from the roof behind her. This is likely a hijacked vessel from the Hexgate between Piltover and Noxus. Then the trailer cuts to what can only be act 3, with the most mature version of Vi and Ekko we’ve seen tearing through the Sky. Ekko speeds into frame, carrying Vi on his hoverboard. Ekko inverts his board, facing downwards to allow Vi to leap towards something out of frame.
In this clip, Vi sports a completely new black and gold outfit, as well as her signature hairstyle that League of Legends fans know from her current-day lore look.
Janna appears in final frames of Arcane Season 2 trailer
The next shot confirms the existence of a champion fans haven’t yet seen in Arcane, but is connected to the series. In a shot of Vi, deep underground in some kind of ruined hall, littered with Jinx’s graffiti, something explodes above her head. As it does, the explosion alights a stone carving in the wall ahead of Vi, depicting a woman with long hair and flowing robes wielding a unique staff.
This carved figure is a perfect match for one of LoL’s champion, Janna. Janna is an incredibly powerful wind spirit who has long been a patron spirit to the Zaunit people, her winds protecting them from the fumes Zaun, and granting prayers for clean air. We’ve seen no reference to Janna before now, but we may get to see her in this second season.
Given the ancient destroyed pillar next to Vi, this seems to be an ancient temple beneath the city. Janna’s worship extends as far back as the twin cities themselves, so it seems likely that Vi has pursued Jinx deep into the caverns of Zaun, and Jinx is waiting her arrival in a ruined temple to Janna that she has turned into a base or safehouse or some kind. The explosion whites out the camera, the trailer ends, and it cuts to Netflix’s reminders of each of the three release days.
That’s every detail we could find packed into this trailer. Hopefully you’re as excited for the full context around these clips as we are.
Arcane Season 2 will premiere in November in three phases. Act 1 will launch on November 9, Act 2 on November 16, and Act 3 on November 23.
