Speaker 1: Look Out for Yourself.
Speaker 2: Warning. Today's episode contained spoilers for the series for now,
Speaker 2: the final three episodes, the last chapter.
Speaker 3: The last time you will ever listen to Enemy by
Speaker 3: Imagine Dragons, it's gonna happen. Hold on this time. Maybe
Speaker 3: that's it for Arcane.
Speaker 2: So if you haven't watched that, then really listen to
Speaker 2: Dan Reynolds to Imagine Dragons look Out for Yourself, Go
Speaker 2: back watch.
Speaker 1: Those and come back here. Hello. My name is Jason Concepcion.
Speaker 2: And I'm Rosy Night, and welcome back to Revision of
Speaker 2: the podcast, where.
Speaker 1: We dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, colleagues, and
Speaker 1: pop culture.
Speaker 2: Coming from IRA podcast will bring you three episodes a week,
Speaker 2: every Tuesday, every Thursday, with an extra episode every single Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Whoa And In today's episode, we are looking at the
Speaker 3: Arcane season two finale, episode seven A and nine at three,
Speaker 3: But really we'll be talking about feelings of full seasons
Speaker 3: and of course we'll be tapping in the producer panel
Speaker 3: coming straight from Kilt Over or Zo one, depending on
Speaker 3: how they're feeling. Well, are you lighting now now United?
Speaker 3: Now spoilers, but yeah, first we're gonna do some speed
Speaker 3: recaps and then we're gonna be talking about our feelings
Speaker 3: about this absolutely wild show and.
Speaker 1: What we feel now.
Speaker 3: It's it's come to an end for now.
Speaker 2: Next up the recap Okay Arcane Season two, the final chapter,
Speaker 2: the last three episodes. Episode seven, Pretend like It's the
Speaker 2: first time. Episode eight, Killing is a cycle an Episode
Speaker 2: nine The Dirt under Your Nail.
Speaker 3: Starting with episode seven, Echo awakens in an alternate timeline
Speaker 3: where being the Gang's heights from episode one was successful
Speaker 3: and the Hex tech was never invented. But get ready
Speaker 3: to be sad, guys, Violet died on the job. Himerdinger
Speaker 3: has already been there for like a thousand plus days.
Speaker 1: So he's doing.
Speaker 3: He's like, He's like, don't worry, Echo, You'll love it here.
Speaker 3: And why will he love it here? Well, this is
Speaker 3: essentially a world where both Zorn and Powder are in
Speaker 3: a very good place. Band is still alive. There's all
Speaker 3: kinds of people here that Echo hasn't seen for a
Speaker 3: long time, and Echo and Powder share a connection here
Speaker 3: that we didn't necessarily get to see, which I was
Speaker 3: definitely discussing. But basically, Echo finds shards of hex crystals
Speaker 3: and gets Powder to help him and Heimdinger create a
Speaker 3: machine that allows him to go back in time four seconds,
Speaker 3: which is Echo's game power. So that was a big
Speaker 3: deal to have a z drive.
Speaker 2: I want to shed out a very funny moment in
Speaker 2: which Echo realizes the four seconds is the limit because
Speaker 2: Heimerdinger gets blown up every time they go past four seconds.
Speaker 2: And heimer Dinger and he's like, okay, so that's the limit.
Speaker 1: Ye Like, how did you know?
Speaker 3: And he's like, ah, and you We've just seen his
Speaker 3: face be like melted off in the most So Powder
Speaker 3: and Echo share a romantic night and they kiss, which
Speaker 3: in this world they are clearly already romantically entangled. But
Speaker 3: as the title of the episode is, Echo says to Powder,
Speaker 3: pretend it's the first time they go and have a party,
Speaker 3: which is kind of like a it's to celebrate innovators
Speaker 3: within Zorn. And while they do that, Himerdinger is on
Speaker 3: his usual wild shit like just upgrading the machine on
Speaker 3: his own, ends up sacrificing himself, not in the most
Speaker 3: terrific way possible. So this is the first of many
Speaker 3: people in this three recaps that I will ask are
Speaker 3: they dead or are they in the multiverse. I'm saying
Speaker 3: it may be multiverse because I love this little guy.
Speaker 2: He disappears. I think he's in the moment.
Speaker 3: He disappears, and he sends echo back to the right
Speaker 3: timeline after the Arcane anomaly. We then see that Jace
Speaker 3: has been in a different timeline where Hextech has destroyed
Speaker 3: all of Piltover and a hooded Mage leads him through
Speaker 3: this kind of crumbling as Aaron put in this little
Speaker 3: cheeky eldermring joke here Fara Mizzoula to a corpse and
Speaker 3: Jason's own warped tammer. So he is like, what is
Speaker 3: going on? And this is bad? And then he knows
Speaker 3: like I've got to stop my bff slash maybe boyfriend
Speaker 3: Victor at any cost. And we're on to episode eight.
Speaker 3: We see mel awakening. She's glowing gold. She's got this
Speaker 3: really cool kind of markings all over her. She meets
Speaker 3: the Sorcerer from the Black Rose, who says, well, guess
Speaker 3: what you are? Actually a mage? Very rare, we love,
Speaker 3: it's very rare. You're in the gym half made. You
Speaker 3: can basically reflect other people, you can see what they're thinking,
Speaker 3: you can use their powers. And your mom sucks in
Speaker 3: case you didn't realize your mum. And Bessa has actually
Speaker 3: been hiding and protecting you because she sees you as
Speaker 3: like the ultimate weapon, and she's like the arcane is
Speaker 3: waking up, people are messing with it, and you gotta
Speaker 3: go back and help save your city. Am Bessa and
Speaker 3: Victor joined forces because now uh hex Tech. Victor wants
Speaker 3: to get to the hextgates, get to the anomalies and
Speaker 3: for some mysterious reason, and am Bessa wants an army,
Speaker 3: and thankfully, Victor's actually turned his followers into like an
Speaker 3: I robot army.
Speaker 2: He's like Ultron exactly.
Speaker 3: He's using a hive mind to turn his followers into
Speaker 3: sexy like slick white and gold Hextech robots. Victor attacks
Speaker 3: Jason Mell in the chamber with one of his eye
Speaker 3: robots and like they can even though Jas is now
Speaker 3: sexy bearded, Jace with a big hammer and he's got
Speaker 3: a cool leg after he fought through his alternate timeline,
Speaker 3: which I have to say, going just skipping back quickly
Speaker 3: to episode one, Jace is in his own timeline and
Speaker 3: he is like being tormented in that time. I saw
Speaker 3: I saw this in a room with like two thousand
Speaker 3: people at least like probably sixty percent were women, and
Speaker 3: believe that every single one of them was like cheering
Speaker 3: on as this man got tort Absolutely, he was just
Speaker 3: absolutely struggling.
Speaker 2: You know, in the scene where he makes his pitch
Speaker 2: to the leaders have piltover and so on, there's a gasp.
Speaker 2: And the gasp I think is not because he's unveiled,
Speaker 2: you know, Victor's one of Victor's army soldiers, and what
Speaker 2: it looks like. I think it's because they're like, damn,
Speaker 2: he's looking good. He's looking hot.
Speaker 3: Landry, my friend who is the number one Jace hater,
Speaker 3: when he came out with that long hair and the beard,
Speaker 3: she was like, uh oh, he's kind of eating and
Speaker 3: I was like, no, I know it's true.
Speaker 1: He sucks.
Speaker 3: How can he do this to us? But Melon, Victor,
Speaker 3: I mean, Jason Mel they can barely combine, like their
Speaker 3: powers are not anything against I robot. So we're gonna
Speaker 3: see what happens next. Jinks turns out she's alive, Buye's
Speaker 3: very happy, goes to see Caitlyn. Why the fuck is
Speaker 3: Junior Officer Maddy Nolan? Then Or wants to see her.
Speaker 3: Turns out more on her later. Jinks gave herself up
Speaker 3: to be arrested and is in a prison cell. And
Speaker 3: I have to say I did not appreciate how many
Speaker 3: weird shots they were of Jinkx's gross feet in this section,
Speaker 3: Like I will rewatched this so many times, and for
Speaker 3: some reason there's so many shots of her dirty feet.
Speaker 3: Ve goes to free Jinks and is like, Caitlyn, go away,
Speaker 3: I'm sick of you. Obviously, Jinks gets one up on
Speaker 3: her sister, beats her up leaves and she's like, I'm done.
Speaker 3: I'm walking out. I've been speaking to my dead silkoa
Speaker 3: dad in my head, and he basically said, sometimes you've
Speaker 3: got to walk away and stop fighting. Kate comes in
Speaker 3: and she's like, hey, I knew your sister was going
Speaker 3: to lock you in this prison, and you know what,
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you something. I've been kind of like
Speaker 3: sleeping and buyers like I don't fucking care, come over
Speaker 3: here and my muscly arms covered in tattoos, and then
Speaker 3: we get and quite extended and unexpected. We were wondering
Speaker 3: are they gonna kiss? Well? Guess what. More than that,
Speaker 3: it was great, and I would I was sweat I know,
Speaker 3: it's like they go for it. And I will tell
Speaker 3: you something, I've maybe never felt more powerful than being
Speaker 3: in that room that my friend correctly called the lesbian Convention.
Speaker 3: When they played this scene on the big screen, the
Speaker 3: screams were so powerful that I felt like I could
Speaker 3: have powered myself up for like twenty years.
Speaker 1: It was it was It was steamy, it was crazy.
Speaker 3: It was steamy, And I think they did a nice
Speaker 3: job of being steamy without being like explicit, because they
Speaker 3: still understand who the audience is for this show.
Speaker 1: Jase.
Speaker 3: Then we get him making his plea to the leaders
Speaker 3: have piled over and so on, and he's like, you
Speaker 3: gotta fight the fighters coming here, and we can't keep
Speaker 3: fighting each other. Even though I did think that was
Speaker 3: the point of the show. Just side note there. We'll
Speaker 3: talk about that more.
Speaker 1: Late to the point of the game game as well.
Speaker 3: No, now we gotta come together to fight cool Victor
Speaker 3: and his sw is like evil robots. Some people leave,
Speaker 3: some people don't. We then start the final episode with
Speaker 3: Jinx and she has got one of her iconic little
Speaker 3: grenades and she just keeps trying to blow herself up
Speaker 3: in the last drop, but echoes turns up and he's like, bro,
Speaker 3: don't do this, and we see him like rewind time
Speaker 3: a few times and he eventually is like.
Speaker 4: Let's talk.
Speaker 3: We then just go straight into the battle. They are like,
Speaker 3: we need some war we need some enemies, and it's happening.
Speaker 3: Caitlyn and her team attempt to ambush am Bessa and
Speaker 3: her kind of Noxy and warriors. They're captured because guess why.
Speaker 3: Turns out Junior Officer Maddy Nolan, who's been keeping Caitlin
Speaker 3: warm at night, has been working for AMBSSA all alone.
Speaker 3: Oh baby, Mel arrives, saves Caitlyn and in doing so
Speaker 3: kill like Maddy Nolan is gonna shoot Caitlyn in the
Speaker 3: head after saying I appreciated your and Mel puts up
Speaker 3: a shield and it ricochets and shoots Junior Officer Maddie
Speaker 3: Nolan in the head. And wow, the way people were
Speaker 3: cheering when this young woman died. You couldn't believe it. Ah.
Speaker 3: Caitlin and Mel have this great battle where they battle
Speaker 3: and Bessa. I love that Mel overcomes am Bessa and
Speaker 3: Bessa gets sent to the Black Rose dimension, where we're
Speaker 3: kind of seeing her chained up very hell raiser, very
Speaker 3: center bite style, but Mel actually manages to save her
Speaker 3: mother from that dimension she passes away, but finally she
Speaker 3: says to her, you are the wolf, like you are
Speaker 3: the next Noxie and leader. Then, just when things are
Speaker 3: looking really bad, we've already lost bearded best friend of VI,
Speaker 3: who we learned his name was Louris rip Lorris. We
Speaker 3: barely knew yee, we barely knew ye. We're seeing lots
Speaker 3: of deaths from Piltover, the brave people who came up
Speaker 3: from Zorn to fight alongside the people who've been oppressing them.
Speaker 3: They're dying. But guess what. Then we get huge moment
Speaker 3: where Jink shows up in her little air machine with
Speaker 3: echo in the firelights and they telling the tide of
Speaker 3: the battle. We at a lot of great echo moments.
Speaker 3: We get sadly, then we find Warwick, who has been
Speaker 3: victified and is like a giant hex tech werewolf now
Speaker 3: battles Jinks, and by then Victor arrives with his new redesign.
Speaker 3: It's really sick. It's reminiscent of the game, but in
Speaker 3: my opinion, I really love the choices they made with it.
Speaker 3: He's left his little galaxy space where he's been hanging
Speaker 3: out with Sky and talking about, you know, making everything perfect.
Speaker 3: Confronts Jason. He's like, bro, I gotta end all conflict
Speaker 3: and suffering. And even though you might no longer be
Speaker 3: part of this home erotic friendship, I am very glad
Speaker 3: to see you. I love you. Echo uses a zero
Speaker 3: drive to outmaneuver Victor in his army. He's going back
Speaker 3: in time, he's pulling things. Jason, Victor commune with not
Speaker 3: Arcane in this kind of galactic universal space, which I love.
Speaker 3: This is actually my favorite visuals of the season, or
Speaker 3: this part of the season, and it's revealed, of course,
Speaker 3: in case you didn't guess that the hooded Mage that
Speaker 3: saved Jase was actually an alternate timeline Victor and his
Speaker 3: pursuit of perfection just led to him being like endlessly lonely,
Speaker 3: and in all timelines, the only person he could trust
Speaker 3: to help convince him to stop was Jase because they're
Speaker 3: in love obviously. And then together they basically take the
Speaker 3: piece of hex tech that Jase and that Victored once
Speaker 3: given to Jace. They hold it together and Victor says,
Speaker 3: you gotta leave, and Jay says, no, we finish this together,
Speaker 3: and then they disappear into what seems into the gem.
Speaker 3: So again, are they dead? Is it multiversal? I'm saying
Speaker 3: it's multiversal. Also, guys, in case you haven't seen the
Speaker 3: Christopher Nolan Tenant movie, this is basically the Tenant I
Speaker 3: just want to say, it's just Tenant. Then Warick aka
Speaker 3: Vander aka Victified Vanda attacks me. They're in the kind
Speaker 3: of tunnel system of Piltover, and Jink saves her, but
Speaker 3: as Vi grabs her, Jinks takes the hex Tech out
Speaker 3: of her gauntlets, causing them to fall apart, and she
Speaker 3: falls down with Warwick into the kind of tunnels and says,
Speaker 3: you know, I will always be together in any world.
Speaker 3: Ye holds them and it doesn't It doesn't happen. And
Speaker 3: then this is the big question again, is Jink's really dead?
Speaker 3: Many people stopping this seeing her, seeing these kind of
Speaker 3: purple shooting out into the tunnels. We end with essentially
Speaker 3: like a prologue that lets us know mel is taking
Speaker 3: her mother's place. We see singed daughters still alive. Savika
Speaker 3: joins the council, and now I have to say, you
Speaker 3: don't know how much the lesbians loves Sevika bro Every
Speaker 3: time she's on screen, she never had one word, and
Speaker 3: every single cosplay girl in there is screaming. It was fantastic.
Speaker 3: Kaitlin and Bay are together. Caitlin is now got a
Speaker 3: cool eyepatch by is humming the song we first heard
Speaker 3: Powder singing in episode one, and it looks to me
Speaker 3: like Caitlyn is essentially looking at the plans of the
Speaker 3: Piltover tunnel system the Piltover.
Speaker 2: And they're going to do some sort of reforms to
Speaker 2: the structure.
Speaker 3: And I also wonder if she is looking for Jinks. Right,
Speaker 3: Jinks knows those tunnels as that was where Jinks fell,
Speaker 3: and maybe Kate is trying to find her. And then
Speaker 3: we get at the end, Kate asked Via, you're still
Speaker 3: in this battle. You're still in this fight, and then
Speaker 3: we see a kind of airship fly off, letting us
Speaker 3: know that there are like more tales to be told
Speaker 3: in this world. So they did not bury their gaze.
Speaker 3: Good for them, and we if you're worried about that,
Speaker 3: you know some of our discord word they did not.
Speaker 3: You do get a gay happy ending here, and yeah,
Speaker 3: that is the end of our recaps, and I have
Speaker 3: to say, obviously I got to watch this in the cinema.
Speaker 3: It was a amazing I will say I do think
Speaker 3: Netflix should have done like a Disney style Star Wars
Speaker 3: cinematic release for these I think they would have made
Speaker 3: a lot of money. I think people would have really
Speaker 3: gotten to enjoy some of the more epic moments. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it was great. And I guess we're going to toss
Speaker 3: to a message from our sponsors before we call in
Speaker 3: the newly united Piltover and so On producers Panel to
Speaker 3: talk about our feelings about the finale of.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, and we're back.
Speaker 3: We're back, baby.
Speaker 2: Please welcome to the chamber the producer panel, abou Jowel
Speaker 2: and Aaron to discuss the series finale question.
Speaker 3: Mark of our finale, I believe of our but I
Speaker 3: think we know that there is going to be more
Speaker 3: stories in this kind of room, Terror, wild and clearly
Speaker 3: you know, a league of legends.
Speaker 2: Once they figure out their line producer issues and how
Speaker 2: to budget the show responsibly, I think they will create
Speaker 2: more shows. It only makes sense that they will do.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about our favorite Let's talk about.
Speaker 1: Like the what what worked?
Speaker 2: I think the pacing obviously is going to be a
Speaker 2: big point of conversation, but I think.
Speaker 3: For me it has been with the audience.
Speaker 2: Has been with the audience. I think the a common
Speaker 2: thread in a lot of the comments about the end
Speaker 2: of season two the end of the series has been God,
Speaker 2: it felt really rush, and it did feel rushed. I
Speaker 2: will say that what worked for me, though, was that
Speaker 2: they concentrated on emotional climaxes and emotional beats. It's very
Speaker 2: interesting to me that like the plot beats and the
Speaker 2: emotional beats kind of never intersect, but the fact that
Speaker 2: they gave the emotional stuff such a balanced airing in
Speaker 2: the finale made it feel ultimately satisfying and overcome the
Speaker 2: pacing issues. And I also think that thematically the show
Speaker 2: really hangs together around a common idea which seems to
Speaker 2: me to be not quite forgiveness, but like letting go.
Speaker 2: You know, Yea, there's clearly a difference between forgiveness and
Speaker 2: letting go, but it's more about, Hey, bad stuff happened,
Speaker 2: we did bad stuff. I'm just gonna move past it now.
Speaker 2: There's certain things and maybe I can't forgive people before, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I'm but whatever that looks like to me, I'm
Speaker 2: going to move past that and move on. So I
Speaker 2: think that was what really carried it for me, and
Speaker 2: I was ultimately quite satisfied, even though I mean it's
Speaker 2: I feel like, if you like the show, it's impossible
Speaker 2: to come out of episode nine and not be like,
Speaker 2: we need more.
Speaker 1: Where's the rest of it?
Speaker 2: But ultimately I'm quite satisfied. Your favorite elements for you, Rosie.
Speaker 3: I would definitely say, just like, the emotional beats did
Speaker 3: really hit for me, and even some of the stuff
Speaker 3: that I know we will talk about, like that first episode.
Speaker 3: In this episode seven, I was definitely a little bit confused,
Speaker 3: and at first I thought it was a lack of
Speaker 3: understanding of the law, but actually I think everyone was
Speaker 3: a little bit confused with that kind of alternate universe episode.
Speaker 3: But for me, I think that is the episode I
Speaker 3: will go back and revisit the most, and I think
Speaker 3: it hammered home some emotional beats that would then come
Speaker 3: to the four later on.
Speaker 2: I inverted happy ending. They gave you the happy ending
Speaker 2: in the beginning.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and I was happy where Kate and Bayer's story ended.
Speaker 3: As somebody who was not particularly invested in Jake, I
Speaker 3: actually found the Jake and Victor stuff to be pretty
Speaker 3: profound by the end, and also like I am a Tenant.
Speaker 3: I'm a Tenant apologist because that movie is gay as
Speaker 3: hell and there's about two men who love each other
Speaker 3: and go through time to just be together, and this
Speaker 3: is the same thing. So that was good for me.
Speaker 3: I love Echo. I thought that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, criminally, criminally low amounts of eggs exactly. I needed
Speaker 2: so much more Echo in this series.
Speaker 3: I do feel like by the end, I was like,
Speaker 3: I feel like if you're if, the show is a
Speaker 3: journey of them kind of learning what works and what
Speaker 3: doesn't work or what they want to see. I do
Speaker 3: think that by the end, having Echo getting to be
Speaker 3: that big hero that really worked for me. I love drinks,
Speaker 3: so I'm definitely of the mind of like there's fun
Speaker 3: to be had looking at whether or not she died
Speaker 3: while still getting that emotional beat. So for me, it
Speaker 3: was the emotional beats. And I really want to ask
Speaker 3: a Boot because we didn't have you on the last
Speaker 3: part and you're desperately missed by our discord users, how
Speaker 3: do you feel about the final three episodes?
Speaker 5: I loved it so so, so so much, like I'm
Speaker 5: working away with it, just still processing my feelings. Like
Speaker 5: I tweeted yesterday, I was like, I'm going to need
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks and a couple of rewatches to
Speaker 5: figure out how I actually feel about the show, because
Speaker 5: I'm left just astounded. I think the visual storytelling is
Speaker 5: top notch stuff, some of the best I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: I think the emotional gut punches rushed, sure, effective, very
Speaker 5: very I've walked away just feeling quite blown away, you know,
Speaker 5: by the show. You know, the more I think about it,
Speaker 5: the more knits I can pick. But the feelings I
Speaker 5: walked away with after watching these last three episodes were
Speaker 5: unlike any other animated show I can think of in
Speaker 5: recent memory. So I don't know. I'm a total stand
Speaker 5: for this show despite its faults, and I loved nearly
Speaker 5: every aspect of at top to bottom.
Speaker 3: I do have to say I did come at the end.
Speaker 3: I did like look at my friend and be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I do think it's a really interesting situation because I
Speaker 3: do feel like by the end of the episode, I
Speaker 3: was like, you can go back to calling Arcane the
Speaker 3: show a masterpiece, just because of the they managed to
Speaker 3: get emotional beats to hit. But it's interesting because it
Speaker 3: is also not a perfect show. So I think there's
Speaker 3: an interesting conversation to be had around it can both
Speaker 3: be a masterpiece that really works and just absolutely hits,
Speaker 3: but it can also be something where you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: what would it have been like to do this? But
Speaker 3: I think part of that is actually why this show
Speaker 3: is so unique because there's never been a show like this.
Speaker 3: So there is gonna be those growing pains, and there's
Speaker 3: gonna be things that are like, the highs are so
Speaker 3: high and then you're like, wait a minute, but a
Speaker 3: normal show would do this. But you're like, but also
Speaker 3: if this show had been made normally, it would have
Speaker 3: never been the show that we got. So it's like
Speaker 3: this really complex space, Aaron, how about you?
Speaker 6: So one of the reasons I think a Boo your
Speaker 6: your comments spot on with the emotional storytelling really hit
Speaker 6: even despite the pacing, is because this show did an
Speaker 6: incredible job of building character and focusing on characters and
Speaker 6: making you care about damaged, imperfect characters. Jinx someone who
Speaker 6: you know. Throughout the recaps of season one and the
Speaker 6: first two acts of season two, we talk about her
Speaker 6: committing mass murder and we still care about her as
Speaker 6: a person.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Really, and then you introduce you introduced Issha and some
Speaker 6: backstory and episode seven with with the alternate timeline is
Speaker 6: beautiful and we fall in love with her again. And
Speaker 6: they did such a good job I think of focusing
Speaker 6: on characters and that, like that storytelling really really worked
Speaker 6: for me throughout all two seasons despite the pacing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Joel, how about you? What wa wah whah.
Speaker 7: Man the beautiful Okay, wait, we're focusing what we're costumes
Speaker 7: stunning lesbians? Yeah, I loved them. Characters really fun to follow.
Speaker 3: I'm out, did anyone follow Did anything jump out to
Speaker 3: you in the finale three episodes Joe out that you
Speaker 3: were like surprised by as someone who comes into this
Speaker 3: with a little bit more critique, Was there anything where
Speaker 3: you were like, Okay, actually that was kind of a banger,
Speaker 3: or this is a character I wish I'd seen that.
Speaker 7: I think the Ambssa and her daughter storyline was shockingly good, Like,
Speaker 7: I think that came together in such a fantastic way,
Speaker 7: especially because I found myself all episodes of I'm like,
Speaker 7: I need to know what happened to her? Is she Okay,
Speaker 7: she lost forever, like where did she go for her back?
Speaker 7: For her to come back in such a strong way,
Speaker 7: I think she probably has the strongest character arc of everybody,
Speaker 7: just from where she started to how she changed to
Speaker 7: where she evolved to at the end. So yeah, I
Speaker 7: thought that was done really well, and it's sort of exciting,
Speaker 7: I think for video game players, knowing that that world's
Speaker 7: gonna be fleshed out later, to have a space where
Speaker 7: I jump off into.
Speaker 1: Also, am Bessa is the one character from the show,
Speaker 1: so I was.
Speaker 3: Going to say the game because everyone else is getting.
Speaker 3: My understanding is they've already started adding skins for everyone else,
Speaker 3: but am best is actually a fully blown.
Speaker 1: Character introduced like last month or something.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, that's an interesting choice. I'm very intrigued.
Speaker 3: And then I saw Ambssa in the finale battle with
Speaker 3: those like crazy like cars on chains, and I was like, oh, okay, no,
Speaker 3: I get it, Like this is like who wouldn't want
Speaker 3: to play as that character? Okay, Jason and Joel, I
Speaker 3: know you two both have like heavy critiques on pacing,
Speaker 3: so let's talk about that, like you two go go
Speaker 3: deep into it.
Speaker 2: Listen when the producers tell you, as they have in
Speaker 2: numerous interviews since the kind of bombshell Hollywood Reporter story
Speaker 2: came out, it was a variety, sorry forget, I.
Speaker 3: Think it was. I think it was THHL. But anyway,
Speaker 3: that was a trade expose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct saying that, No, it was always going to
Speaker 2: be two seasons. That's come on, there's no. I don't
Speaker 2: believe it. I don't believe that to be the case.
Speaker 2: I think they were clearly thinking there was going to
Speaker 2: be more, and I think it tells in the storytelling.
Speaker 2: I think that they saved it with incredible emotional home runs,
Speaker 2: like it's interesting that to me, the stuff that was
Speaker 2: surprising was more the misses, like the diversions, the time jumps, yeah,
Speaker 2: the alternate universes, and the stuff that was not surprising
Speaker 2: was also kind of like the most for me, the
Speaker 2: most resonant and emotionally satisfying, because it just tells you
Speaker 2: they're like they recognized, Okay, we have to land the
Speaker 2: Ambassa plane. Okay, we have to land the Kate and
Speaker 2: V plane. Okay, we have to land the JINX and
Speaker 2: V plane, and just understanding, like we have to give
Speaker 2: people resolutions to these stories. Victor and Jason and they
Speaker 2: did it, and to me, that was that managed to
Speaker 2: overcome any issues that they had with the pac which
Speaker 2: is really if you want to talk about like kind
Speaker 2: of a master it's like accomplishing time is accomplishing that
Speaker 2: because it really was, like you do, the more you
Speaker 2: think about it, you really do feel how rushed it was,
Speaker 2: but it was. It's the hard stuff, it's the gut
Speaker 2: punch stuff. It's the emotional stuff that really carries. And
Speaker 2: I keep thinking about for me, the theme that forgiveness
Speaker 2: were moving on. Theme I think is why it's so
Speaker 2: resonant to me is I've been watching a lot of
Speaker 2: couple's therapy on Showtime on the Bleared Showtime Network, and
Speaker 2: Orna the Therapist at one point there's she has a
Speaker 2: line that I can't stop thinking about in the in
Speaker 2: the current season where there's like a polyque triplet and
Speaker 2: they come in and uh and the main the anchor
Speaker 2: guy of that trio is like airing all these grievances.
Speaker 2: You know, she did this to me first, and then
Speaker 2: I did this, and then of course Ben and she
Speaker 2: stops him and she's like, it doesn't matter who did
Speaker 2: what first, and he's like, but I think it does,
Speaker 2: and he's and she's like, no, it you know, in
Speaker 2: a court of law it matters, But in a relationship,
Speaker 2: trying to unwind who did what to who first is
Speaker 2: actually tremendously toxic, and you can't ever escape what's happening.
Speaker 3: Because then you're basically always trying to get the uppa hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that message in this show to
Speaker 2: me just you know, in a show about two like
Speaker 2: warring societies who can't get it out of each other's
Speaker 2: way and can't stop thinking, well, they're doing this to us,
Speaker 2: so we have to do this and they and then
Speaker 2: the other society is like, well, they attacked us, so
Speaker 2: clearly we must respond. And the only way out of
Speaker 2: that is to just go you know, I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not saying what happened was okay, and I'm never going
Speaker 2: to get over it, but I'm also not going to
Speaker 2: be bound by the rules of like responding to that.
Speaker 2: And that worked on a societal level and the show
Speaker 2: and it worked on an interpersonal level. And I thought
Speaker 2: that was just a tremendously trenchant and resonant emotional beat
Speaker 2: that they just nailed and managed to overcome the piecing
Speaker 2: issues for me.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna set up I just want people to understand.
Speaker 3: You know Joel from the New Girl podcast, You know
Speaker 3: Joel from Fake Doctor's Real Friends, But do you know
Speaker 3: that Joel is also like a storied entertainment critic who
Speaker 3: has been watching TV for a very long time, who
Speaker 3: is on MPR talking about movies. So believe when she
Speaker 3: comes into this and tells you the show has pacing issues,
Speaker 3: She's got the chops, She's done the work, and she
Speaker 3: does have the juice. So Joel, tell us what did
Speaker 3: it work? From a television critic level?
Speaker 4: First Wow, introduction?
Speaker 3: Thank you?
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 7: So I will say I agree with everybody that it's
Speaker 7: sort of a miracle that what they pulled off managed
Speaker 7: to be as entertaining as it did. Right, Like, I'm
Speaker 7: giving you impossible too, Like I'd get back in the
Speaker 7: boat with these characters even though this was a train wreck.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely the same. It's fun.
Speaker 4: You're like, oh, these characters are so exciting.
Speaker 7: Even if the film structurally doesn't quite work, I'm still
Speaker 7: invested in this world and in these characters, and that's great.
Speaker 7: I think if I take a step back as like
Speaker 7: a person who loves video games haven't played this video game,
Speaker 7: but I do love video game then for a long time, especially,
Speaker 7: I think mid As kids were like, Hey, wouldn't it
Speaker 7: be great if all these cut scenes were actually a movie.
Speaker 7: That would be really exciting cut scenes look so cool?
Speaker 7: Star Wars the Old Republic Knights of the Eternal Throne
Speaker 7: did it and it was amazing. But they did it
Speaker 7: really well because you didn't get a lot of vocal acting.
Speaker 7: What it was was like, here are these really cool
Speaker 7: characters you like in a very dope setting, giving you
Speaker 7: emotional beat after emotional beat that you can understand that's
Speaker 7: really intrinsic to the lore of Star Wars, and it
Speaker 7: was fabulous.
Speaker 4: I frequently rewatched this movie. It's so good.
Speaker 7: I think our kne sort of struggled with bringing a
Speaker 7: story to the forefront. Like they have the dope scenery,
Speaker 7: they have amazing characters who you love, who are vibrant
Speaker 7: and fun, but then when you put them on a story,
Speaker 7: it's really difficult to you know, you gotta articulately, you
Speaker 7: gotta be saying one thing. It's it's a lot of
Speaker 7: effort and work, and I think they developed a really
Speaker 7: good job with a lot of this, but like, my god,
Speaker 7: you can't and I'm sorry, you can't put a music
Speaker 7: video in every episode. It just completely derails the pacing time.
Speaker 7: If they had just removed those, I have four extra
Speaker 7: minutes in every single episode to tell story as opposed
Speaker 7: to a montage of images. It's such a freaking train
Speaker 7: wrecktor show. And the songs were not good enough to
Speaker 7: support stopping the show to be like, oh, sometimes I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: There's like two or three good songs arose. Yeah, but.
Speaker 7: Missus iffy for me, and I think my biggest takeaway
Speaker 7: if I were, you know, to come in and give
Speaker 7: critique before finalization, I would say, you don't need every
Speaker 7: sci fi trope in your final act.
Speaker 4: We got robots, time travel, well.
Speaker 7: Were some of the other Oh, we got multiverses, Like
Speaker 7: it was just so much to shoehorn in four episodes,
Speaker 7: and also you're introducing new characters across the final act
Speaker 7: of see this the second season of the show, it
Speaker 7: felt it was too much to juggle successfully. We could
Speaker 7: never throw all of those elements in and have a
Speaker 7: storyline that makes sense. I mean, and because it's so
Speaker 7: close to everything we've already compared it to Marvel and Ultron,
Speaker 7: but you could also do a Spider Man, especially because
Speaker 7: Echo looks a lot like malth Rollison character designed like
Speaker 7: every time something new came up, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 7: it feels like you're just sort of tipping into this.
Speaker 7: It felt like you were feeling a Netflix algorithm, which
Speaker 7: I don't know if that's the case or not, but
Speaker 7: that was really an issue for me. I'll say, like I,
Speaker 7: this level of lesbians is what I demand from all
Speaker 7: of my TV so Aces you really nailed it, but
Speaker 7: I do think it suffered for that. But surprisingly I
Speaker 7: could see myself rewatching this.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I definitely think that. I also speaking for
Speaker 3: sure speaking of tropes, I want to bring in Arrow
Speaker 3: and Aaron give us your theory on how like how
Speaker 3: we have Star Wars being done in our arcane.
Speaker 6: Season two is basically the original trilogy of Star Wars.
Speaker 6: Act one is episode four, Act two is episode five,
Speaker 6: Act three is episode six, and I think everyone almost
Speaker 6: entirely agrees that the strongest of the OG trilogy is Empire.
Speaker 6: I think Act two was all of our favorite. We
Speaker 6: had a lot of critiques at the end of Act
Speaker 6: one and then Act two came in and we were like,
Speaker 6: everything that we were worried about has been fixed. We
Speaker 6: loved it the end with Warwick and the family coming together.
Speaker 6: And then I think Act three had a lot of
Speaker 6: resumes every empire. Yeah, and Act three had all this
Speaker 6: resolution that was very nice and maybe not necessary. Also
Speaker 6: we have like, you know, the bad guy saves like
Speaker 6: turns around and saves the good guys.
Speaker 1: Very Darth Empire.
Speaker 6: But like there was a lot that just felt like
Speaker 6: it resolved for the sake of resolving. And also Heimer
Speaker 6: Dinger gets fridged in the beginning of Act three al
Speaker 6: a Yoda, but you know, there's a lot there.
Speaker 1: To die rather than just like can I just put
Speaker 1: himself in the fridge?
Speaker 4: All men who are like, I'm done, It's fine.
Speaker 1: Oh that is true.
Speaker 2: I'm also what about the reveal that we're listening to
Speaker 2: a Heimer Dinger. Yeah, okay, wait a second, this is hydrogen.
Speaker 1: The guitar that.
Speaker 3: Is like, if you guys have not seen the James
Speaker 3: Wand classic Aquaman, there is a similar visual musical gag
Speaker 3: in that that literally just killed me and the and
Speaker 3: in the movie when it in the movie that when
Speaker 3: we realized that Heimerdinger was playing that guitar, I absolutely
Speaker 3: lost my ship, Like that is one of the best
Speaker 3: for me, okay a boo. I just want to know,
Speaker 3: like what you are the one who like understands this
Speaker 3: world the most, I think, and like, what are the
Speaker 3: stories you want to see coming out of this? Now
Speaker 3: we're here, now we're at the end, and we know
Speaker 3: there's going to be more shows. What do you think
Speaker 3: are the most likely things we're going to see coming
Speaker 3: out of this and what do you personally want to see?
Speaker 5: Well, I think Jason, you put it perfectly. As someone
Speaker 5: who loved both seasons of Arcane, I am still walking
Speaker 5: away from episode nine going ugh, I wanted more, Where's
Speaker 5: the rest of it? And I think that some of
Speaker 5: that is very intentional. Naxis, for example, is almost guaranteed
Speaker 5: going to be a part of this universe we're going
Speaker 5: to explore further. In fact, I think Mel's storyline was
Speaker 5: one that I was wanting left wanting with this that
Speaker 5: was kind of the point next season because it felt.
Speaker 3: That feels like an obvious spill.
Speaker 6: It feels like mostly storyline was put in here to
Speaker 6: introduce us the.
Speaker 5: Next show, to set up Axis.
Speaker 3: Naxis show the showrunner, who's also one of the co
Speaker 3: creators a Christian link from Riot Games. He did say
Speaker 3: that in upcoming shows it will be nooxus Ionia and
Speaker 3: Dematia are the places they want to explore. And I
Speaker 3: think obviously a mal show, Naxia show, a Naxist show
Speaker 3: that that seems like the obvious first stop for what
Speaker 3: they would do next.
Speaker 5: I think so too. There's also a couple of other
Speaker 5: easter eggs that I was finding. Again I have to
Speaker 5: credit mostly Twitter and Reddit for this. I have not
Speaker 5: played League of Legends in like over a decade, so
Speaker 5: my knowledge is very out of date. But at the
Speaker 5: end we see like the three eyed Raven not brand
Speaker 5: that's actually hints towards another character, another hint toward a potential,
Speaker 5: huge popular League of Legends character that.
Speaker 3: Might show up in the future.
Speaker 5: So I think a lot of this season airing to
Speaker 5: your point, especially with mel was seating like a League
Speaker 5: of Legends cinematic universe, television universe of sorts.
Speaker 6: Helped by the fact that they don't show Jinx's body,
Speaker 6: they don't show Jason Victor's body, Heimerdinger's body, like they're
Speaker 6: all out there, right, they can come back.
Speaker 2: For and again once they figured out how to budget
Speaker 2: a show responsibly.
Speaker 3: That was certainly I'm gonna look, I'm gonna say one thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: then this is They've said this a lot. They said
Speaker 3: it at the premiere. I was actually very impressed by
Speaker 3: how they came on stage of the premier and they
Speaker 3: were like, yeah that article where they said we didn't
Speaker 3: know what we were doing, we didn't And I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: I think I love you guys. And then today I
Speaker 3: was actually speaking to Christian Link for an IgM feature
Speaker 3: that I'm doing, and he was saying, you know, honestly,
Speaker 3: like the money all went to the animators, and they
Speaker 3: want to keep making shows where the money goes to
Speaker 3: the art. And I'm like, you know what, I want
Speaker 3: you to have a better budget, but I also want
Speaker 3: that mentality to be an animation and I want it.
Speaker 3: I want people to keep getting paid. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: can we do both?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I listen. I love that sentiment. I also feel
Speaker 2: like in Hollywood and entertainment and tech whatever, or when
Speaker 2: people say, oh, the money's going to the workers, I
Speaker 2: want the receipts. So while I I tip my hat
Speaker 2: to that, the significance of that. I also want to
Speaker 2: know if that's true, because I kind of don't believe
Speaker 2: it one hundred percent. And this is also a world
Speaker 2: in which Blue Eye Samurai exists and is similarly as
Speaker 2: excellent visually and didn't cost a quarter of a fucking
Speaker 2: billion dollars.
Speaker 3: Very true. I will also say I do wonder if
Speaker 3: part of the reason the money went to the animation
Speaker 3: team and the people who created the visual language. It's
Speaker 3: a French company, and I feel like the protections there,
Speaker 3: like for Fortish and for those French workers, is probably
Speaker 3: much higher, and as is probably the quality of life
Speaker 3: from what we've heard of some of the FOURTIESH team.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean I want them to learn how
Speaker 3: to budget because I want to see loads more shows
Speaker 3: in this universe. I also want to see, like I
Speaker 3: always do, I want to know, like what does the
Speaker 3: show look like when it has a budget closer to
Speaker 3: Blue Eyed Samurai. What is it look like when you
Speaker 3: let somebody who loves two D animation take it over?
Speaker 1: What does it look like?
Speaker 3: This has been a space for experimental animation, and I
Speaker 3: would actually love to see each show have as much
Speaker 3: of a unique visual language as Archett.
Speaker 6: That's something I really agree with Rosie, Like they proved
Speaker 6: so many times that they could do alternate animation styles
Speaker 6: throughout this season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, take that and run with it.
Speaker 6: Don't feel every single show you put in this universe
Speaker 6: has to have the exact same look as this, especially
Speaker 6: if it's gonna cost a billion dollars.
Speaker 3: Imagine if him Dinger is in like a two D
Speaker 3: one of Us, because he looks like a two D
Speaker 3: Disney creature, Like, I want to see that. And also
Speaker 3: I would add, honestly, just take Ja like a maybe
Speaker 3: a movie or like a mini series with like a
Speaker 3: couple of episodes like in and intermedia episodes that we
Speaker 3: got a lot during COVID where it's kind of not
Speaker 3: a full season of just like Jason Victor in that
Speaker 3: kind of galactic arcade space. Okay. Also, big question I
Speaker 3: had after coming out of this. Now, I've done my
Speaker 3: research and I understand more what arcane as like magic
Speaker 3: means in this world. But did you feel like you
Speaker 3: guys understood what the arcane was by the end.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I think it's some sort of like a nexus or
Speaker 2: a portal thing, but I don't really know.
Speaker 3: They believe in like an arcane magic in this world
Speaker 3: and arcane is about that kind of ancient magic with
Speaker 3: a with a less modern understanding. But I did think
Speaker 3: it was really funny. I was actually by the end,
Speaker 3: I was like, this is such a great like fuck
Speaker 3: you to everything you learn about storytelling in TV, because like,
Speaker 3: nobody knows what that means, even if you're the biggest
Speaker 3: deepest arcane kind of lover or League of Legends. Aboo,
Speaker 3: what do you think about the arcane? Like do you
Speaker 3: feel like that's like a mystery to be solved? Do
Speaker 3: you feel like they want you to look into what
Speaker 3: that term means within the games? Like how do you
Speaker 3: feel about that part of it?
Speaker 5: No, I don't think it's a mystery to be solved
Speaker 5: at all, And I think expecting at all to ever
Speaker 5: get answers about what the hurricane is is going to
Speaker 5: leave you disappointed.
Speaker 3: I love that we need more mysteries like that in
Speaker 3: fiction and in life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I in fact, I don't I quite
Speaker 5: I don't mind it. You know, I don't want like
Speaker 5: a midi chlorine explanation of what the arcane is. I'm
Speaker 5: fine with it being this wild, unreliable, magical catch all
Speaker 5: that lets them do whatever the first.
Speaker 4: They want they want, you know, it keeps you with
Speaker 4: the character.
Speaker 5: I'm fine with the arcane being elusive.
Speaker 4: They don't know what it is.
Speaker 7: You don't know what it is, but it's impacting their world. Bam,
Speaker 7: great mcguffin set.
Speaker 4: Let's go.
Speaker 6: Yes, speaking of characters, Jason, I think you need to
Speaker 6: talk about Echo.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, let's let's talk about Echo.
Speaker 3: What do you feel like?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: Easily one of my favorite characters coming out of this
Speaker 3: final seasons, but I felt like I'd missed like three
Speaker 3: episodes or something like I didn't. I had to come
Speaker 3: into the group chat and be like, so am I
Speaker 3: like not up to there? Like one another.
Speaker 5: Character who I think is getting his own show and
Speaker 5: is intentionally why he got hero moments and.
Speaker 2: Absolutely should because it just felt like so rich and
Speaker 2: resonant when we when it really got moving in episode
Speaker 2: eight with Echo's plot, I will say, you know, I
Speaker 2: was like severely thrown when I put on episode seven
Speaker 2: and I was like, yes, did I miss an episode?
Speaker 2: Like what the fuck is happening? And it's not just
Speaker 2: like the alternate universe stuff, It's that it seemed like
Speaker 2: Echo and Powder Slash Jinks had a relationship that seemed
Speaker 2: to me to like be based on stuff that I
Speaker 2: had not seen and that I felt like I had missed.
Speaker 2: And I mean, this is one of the examples of
Speaker 2: the things that ultimately the show overcomes that, but that
Speaker 2: that was specifically a moment that left me feeling like
Speaker 2: and especially as Jinks as excuse me as echoes, you know,
Speaker 2: skills and actions become crucial to turning the tide of
Speaker 2: the conflict. It it it just felt like specifically that
Speaker 2: I wanted I wanted more of it, Like where was
Speaker 2: the rest of it? Where was that backstory? Like does
Speaker 2: that exist anywhere? I want to know the basis of
Speaker 2: those feelings between uh Echo and Powder. It's like that
Speaker 2: is it? You know, there's certain like emotional motivational things
Speaker 2: that I don't like Jace. What does Jace care about?
Speaker 2: I don't actually know, and I don't give a shitt
Speaker 2: that's it he cares about to the extent that it's like,
Speaker 2: we need to stop Hexsteck, bro Hextech. The fucking barn
Speaker 2: doors are open and Hexteck is running across the fields,
Speaker 2: Like why are you still caring about stopping Hexteck?
Speaker 3: Now you.
Speaker 2: Fucking way past time that you stop caring about stopping
Speaker 2: hexs deck just over.
Speaker 3: Feel accountable to yourself. You were the way you started this, bro.
Speaker 2: But with you know, when episode seven got underway and
Speaker 2: then Echo and then it became clear what Echo's plan was,
Speaker 2: I was just like, man, where has Echo been this
Speaker 2: whole time? I feel like that's to me, the one
Speaker 2: character where I'm just like criminally criminally low levels.
Speaker 3: I went back to season one because I was like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, did I miss this being seeded? Then
Speaker 3: I will say I did ask about this. It's in
Speaker 3: the ign thing. But like that specific thing, that was
Speaker 3: something that Christian told me, and I think this is
Speaker 3: something that makes Arcane unusual for better for worse. Whatever
Speaker 3: he did tell me, he was like, that was just
Speaker 3: a storyline they wanted to see. So they just wanted
Speaker 3: to see what happened with these characters in that world.
Speaker 3: And I think in a way that is what made
Speaker 3: the show so widely accessible because it does tap into
Speaker 3: this notion of like, well, what if we just did this,
Speaker 3: Like the show.
Speaker 2: Doesn't, Here's here's what really works about. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of things that really work, But to me, character wise,
Speaker 2: what really works about this show is it's operatically a
Speaker 2: soap like. It's so high opera like and it totally
Speaker 2: commits to shit, like, hey, what if these two actually
Speaker 2: you're deeply in love in this like altered universe and
Speaker 2: we've we're just gonna throw that out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, Like, well if you it's very soap opera
Speaker 3: because it does feel like one of those episodes of
Speaker 3: like Days of Our Lives where something completely crazy would
Speaker 3: happen and then at the end they'd be like it
Speaker 3: was all a dream and you're just like, well, I
Speaker 3: love getting this like fan pic episode where you kind
Speaker 3: of get to explore this nice version of this fucked
Speaker 3: up well.
Speaker 2: And I love that about it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: It does leave me wanting a lot more, particularly from Echo,
Speaker 2: but there are little moments like that all throughout this,
Speaker 2: like when Kate is talking about Junior Officer Maddy Nolan
Speaker 2: and is like, yeah, that was fun dub like she
Speaker 2: was I was just you know, I was just with
Speaker 2: her and believing every fucking terrible fascistic thing that she
Speaker 2: that she was espousing, and honestly I was doing it
Speaker 2: for the sex, you know, Like yeah, I was like
Speaker 2: it's those kind of moments that are great, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like Echo more and more, Echo, Please.
Speaker 6: When we did the rewatch of season one on extras,
Speaker 6: A Boo and I and I think this was the
Speaker 6: episode you were on, Rosie, we talked about the bridge
Speaker 6: fight with Echo and Jinx and how it was this
Speaker 6: beautiful recreation of them having a fight, like playing as kids.
Speaker 6: But I was like, we didn't get that when they
Speaker 6: were actually kids. And I wonder now if we had
Speaker 6: replaced Milo and Clagger as much as I love them
Speaker 6: with Echo early on and we got all that time
Speaker 6: with Echo. I mean, Echo's the one who found the job.
Speaker 6: We know that Echo could have gone on the job
Speaker 6: with them and we could have gotten all this time.
Speaker 6: I just wanted Echo and Powder like running around in
Speaker 6: the background building stuff together.
Speaker 1: Give me something like that exactly.
Speaker 3: I did go back and was like, this was not seated.
Speaker 3: I didn't miss it.
Speaker 1: But I have to.
Speaker 3: Say again, and I don't think I'm alone. I think
Speaker 3: we're talking about this before we started recording. Episode seven
Speaker 3: is probably gonna be the episode I rewatched the most
Speaker 3: because it's just so beautiful to be in that Zorn
Speaker 3: space and in this different vision of it and to
Speaker 3: get to see Powder and to kind of get to
Speaker 3: see what that world might have looked like. And I
Speaker 3: think a lot of fans felt that way, So that
Speaker 3: in itself, I guess, is a hint of like maybe
Speaker 3: there is a world where we could have had a
Speaker 3: whole season of that if this show had had five seasons.
Speaker 3: You know, a boo, what do you think?
Speaker 5: I also wanted to shout out the visual storytelling in
Speaker 5: episode seven in particular, because I think there's a lot
Speaker 5: of perhaps I texted to you this to you guys earlier,
Speaker 5: perhaps too much showing and not enough telling, But like
Speaker 5: there's a lot of really excellent, subtle visual storytelling. There's
Speaker 5: some obvious ones. For example, Powder has a streak of
Speaker 5: pink and her hair yes bye bye. Vander has a
Speaker 5: Vye tattoo on his wrist. If you like pause at
Speaker 5: a certain moment, you can see it. There's all these
Speaker 5: really excellent I mean, she's wearing the jacket. Powder is
Speaker 5: also wearing, like the necklace thing and the jacket that
Speaker 5: like Young Vie we saw all the way back in
Speaker 5: like season one, episode one was wearing. And I think
Speaker 5: one of my favorite details, like I loved the dance
Speaker 5: I got like really emotional during the slow mo dance,
Speaker 5: and of course Twitter, the Twitter salutes out there realized
Speaker 5: that the dance is shot at four frames per second,
Speaker 5: which we know four seconds is the limit to echoes
Speaker 5: time travel.
Speaker 3: Also, as I would say, this show is definitely made.
Speaker 3: This is like if you are the kind of person
Speaker 3: who when the MCU films come out and you have
Speaker 3: to go through and pause and be finding all the
Speaker 3: different dates and like Stanley's birthday is like on a
Speaker 3: screen during this. This is a show for that in
Speaker 3: a way that I think is even more pleasant and
Speaker 3: pleasurable because it looks so good.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back up for quick brick and we're back.
Speaker 3: Okay, guys, Aaron put a great question in the notes.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you this because I think there's
Speaker 3: a lot of fun to be had here. If you
Speaker 3: are playing League of Legends now and you're playing solely
Speaker 3: from characters who are in the show, who is your
Speaker 3: main gonna be as we go off into this. Mine
Speaker 3: is going to be hymendinga.
Speaker 1: Playing guitar.
Speaker 2: Baby, I'm playing a little guyers off the board go
Speaker 2: from there?
Speaker 1: Oh no, we can't, guys, I don't have to get
Speaker 1: my little guy. I can't pick.
Speaker 3: Okay, Aaron, who's yours?
Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna go with you. You all know how
Speaker 1: much I love Jace.
Speaker 6: Just kidding, Hey, Jase, I'm gonna go the Violet, you know, like,
Speaker 6: I think there's something beautiful about how her character. My
Speaker 6: favorite parts of the show were the street level, the
Speaker 6: ground elements. This is like Violet is kind of the
Speaker 6: Daredevil with like this is a street brawler the entire time,
Speaker 6: and my favorite actual scene in the whole thing was
Speaker 6: a zero gravity fight where Jinx is propelling herself using
Speaker 6: the minigun and Violet's propelling herself using the gauntlets, so
Speaker 6: you got a little mobility and a little bit of
Speaker 6: damage dealing. I'm gonna go with Violet.
Speaker 1: Jason, I will pick.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be cheeky and say Laura's the shield
Speaker 2: guy because.
Speaker 3: He's like the sickest Bram you could ever imagine, because
Speaker 3: Vi says his name in this chapter, which I was delighted.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna pick because we actually have.
Speaker 2: No idea if he's any good, you know, from anything
Speaker 2: we've seen. I would pick am Bessa because because I
Speaker 2: like her, he seems so overpowered and I don't. I've
Speaker 2: never played League. I played a little Storecraft, which I
Speaker 2: think is semi similar in terms of genre. So I'm
Speaker 2: just guessing that am Bessa would be super super OK.
Speaker 4: What I'm calling Jason mom, because I'm going with Mel.
Speaker 7: I love a witch, I love a spellcaster, I love goods,
Speaker 7: and she's got sixteen different great outfits throughout this show.
Speaker 3: Hair, every time you do, like supero, whatever, she's gonna
Speaker 3: have a fantastic I would like.
Speaker 7: Her sailor moon transformation animation when I level up or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm definitely playing a smell.
Speaker 6: I have to admit I wanted to pick Mel Joel,
Speaker 6: but I knew that if I did.
Speaker 1: I would be in trouble.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true, that's true friendship in the poll, boo,
Speaker 3: how about you?
Speaker 5: Not only did did Jason take my Laura's ship, but
Speaker 5: he also took my ASTO pick. So I'm gonna pivot
Speaker 5: last minute to.
Speaker 1: Echo, oh nice.
Speaker 5: I mean the skateboard, the cover skateboard, the sword, the
Speaker 5: time travel power, everything about him is like the kind
Speaker 5: of cool I wished I could be as a kid.
Speaker 6: And Carmen just typed into the chat. Carmen said she
Speaker 6: would take Junior officer Maddy Nolan.
Speaker 3: Carmen said, Hey, cab Carmen said, do not put me
Speaker 3: down like that. Dude. Aaron is shading everyone today because
Speaker 3: Aaron also wrote that a Boo was going to pick
Speaker 3: Jase before I.
Speaker 7: Do.
Speaker 3: I will. I do want to say, though, and I
Speaker 3: hope that that I feel like our audience will appreciate this.
Speaker 3: As someone who did not know a lot about the
Speaker 3: law of arcane. My friend did make a point when
Speaker 3: we were on the way home, My incredible friend Annie
Speaker 3: Off just like showing me the original character designs of
Speaker 3: a lot of these women in the game. And I
Speaker 3: just want to thank for t and the animators because
Speaker 3: they took a game that was definitely that more traditional
Speaker 3: male gaze designs.
Speaker 2: You can you and by the way, you can extend
Speaker 2: that to all video games.
Speaker 1: Don't don't don't.
Speaker 2: Don't don't point the vigger specifically at League, because it's
Speaker 2: really a problem across the space. Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: And I I love like a street fighter, right, so
Speaker 2: like Chunley is my main Like I've seen a sexualized
Speaker 2: woman in every game, and I but because my first
Speaker 2: entry points to League was okay, and when you compare
Speaker 2: the characters. I just think that something we need to
Speaker 2: give Fotish and Ryat and whoever else made this show
Speaker 2: credit for is like they created something that ended up
Speaker 2: reimagining these characters in a way that not only gave
Speaker 2: so many different kinds of people a fandom for them,
Speaker 2: but also like inspired like a ton of women to
Speaker 2: want to like play these characters.
Speaker 3: The amount of unreal cosplay I've seen.
Speaker 2: All this costplay is going to golah, It's.
Speaker 3: Unreal, no, no, no, believe, like seeing there was so
Speaker 3: many Vie and k And also can I just say
Speaker 3: the way that anime hair pieces have expanded since the
Speaker 3: more rat days of London to now like twenty years
Speaker 3: later or whatever, unbelievable. Every piece is perfect, every hair
Speaker 3: is incredible. But like I just love even things like
Speaker 3: Jinx riding the gun that is one of her game moves.
Speaker 3: And in the game it's definitely a lot more like
Speaker 3: obviously like phallic and kind of like out there, but
Speaker 3: in this it became this like incredibly cool character moment,
Speaker 3: and I just think that that is something to be celebrated.
Speaker 3: Because both visions still exist. You can still play the
Speaker 3: game and have the super sexy like boob version of
Speaker 3: these characters. But then there are moments in this show
Speaker 3: that are so brilliantly for the female gaze or for
Speaker 3: a different kind of gaze, the queer gaze. I think
Speaker 3: a lot about the seat VI's back and her arms
Speaker 3: are so muscily, and her tattoos look so incredible, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, maybe I'm gonna get a back time,
Speaker 3: like I was just but I just think, I just
Speaker 3: think that that's another thing about this show. The show
Speaker 3: has so much to celebrate. But I was kind of
Speaker 3: blown away by how, in my opinion, how like different
Speaker 3: that is to a lot of adaptations that we've seen before.
Speaker 3: So I just wanted to shout them out and say
Speaker 3: thank you for the for the less.
Speaker 2: Just one more thing on that. I want to also
Speaker 2: shout out to the love scene between Cat and Vibe,
Speaker 2: because I think it I mean, you put your finger
Speaker 2: on it. It was like it was the perfectly beat.
Speaker 2: It was like super hot and not over the top, like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the implications of that if you understanding.
Speaker 7: About the characters and not about your visually watching the characters,
Speaker 7: which I think often with lesbian seccines.
Speaker 2: This was about like when she's like when when Via
Speaker 2: is like I don't care. I mean that was like whoa,
Speaker 2: Like I started sweating, and.
Speaker 3: And also like it's like, well, that's also like that
Speaker 3: wish fulfilment element of like, oh, I've made a mistake,
Speaker 3: but my partner just wants me so bad and wants
Speaker 3: this thing that they're gonna overlook that.
Speaker 2: And speaking of that desire to end the visual storytelling
Speaker 2: that scene. Why it worked so well was because it
Speaker 2: was all about that like consensual desire, about being desired,
Speaker 2: Like it was all the other partner undressing the other person. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the two buttons being yeah, like that from the show,
Speaker 2: not explicit, but really is really.
Speaker 3: Just yunning yes, so yearning and the fulfillment.
Speaker 1: So yeah.
Speaker 5: I also wanted to call out there's a lot of
Speaker 5: people mad about that sex scene actually, because right before
Speaker 5: that is when Jinks tells her sister like I'm gonna
Speaker 5: go presumably like do something rash and die by suicide,
Speaker 5: and people are mad like, what is the whiplash I'm
Speaker 5: getting here? Why would I hear that from her sister
Speaker 5: and then immediately go have sex with Kate. I think
Speaker 5: people are missing that. That is not what I thinks
Speaker 5: Jinks is going to go do of course it's not.
Speaker 3: Also, I just want to say, like, have you I'm
Speaker 3: sorry to people on the internet, I I love this
Speaker 3: view if this is the case, But have you never
Speaker 3: been emotionally unstable? Have you never?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 3: I love that you happy, but you have you never
Speaker 3: gone bad news? And then tried to seek o dokamine.
Speaker 5: Like yeah, yeah, but to be clear, there was no
Speaker 5: indication that VI knew that.
Speaker 3: And she said like, you've got to walk away, and
Speaker 3: then literally walked away after locking her in a prison cell.
Speaker 3: I think I think that that is there, and also like, yeah,
Speaker 3: get to being in your mid thirties and you maybe
Speaker 3: will relate to that scene more.
Speaker 6: Also, King Princess just started playing, and there was like
Speaker 6: what else are we gonna do?
Speaker 1: We have to yeah, us here together? Yeah, come on.
Speaker 2: I mean we can get We can talk about Dune
Speaker 2: Prophecy episode two for sec thing that goes on too long,
Speaker 2: carry character story beats at all, But that's not other episode.
Speaker 2: Speaking of other episodes, Tomorrow we have a boot leading
Speaker 2: us through Dune Prophecy episode.
Speaker 1: One two, and on Thursday, we.
Speaker 2: Celebrate Thanksgiving with our favorite Thanksgiving movies. And next week
Speaker 2: we begin Robert egger Is retrospective with the weekly special
Speaker 2: extra episode as we prepare for Nosferatu and begin our
Speaker 2: year end roundups.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, Thanks for joining us, producer, thanks for
Speaker 2: joining us.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 5: Bye, We enjoyed your one.
Speaker 4: Oh God No.
Speaker 2: X Ray Vision is hosted by Jason Consupson and Rosie
Speaker 2: Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive
Speaker 2: producers are Joel Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer
Speaker 2: is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and
Speaker 2: Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Laude, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 3: and Heidi our discord moderator.