Arcane Ep 1 “Welcome to the Playground” Recap and Review

“Orphaned sisters Vi and Powder bring trouble to Zaun's underground streets in the wake of a high in posh Piltover.”

League of Legends is not a game series I'm familiar with off the top of my head. However, that won't stop me from being curious about a new show that pulls from gaming. These can be good like the Super Mario Brothers Super Show, okay like Double Dragon, or bad like Mortal Kombat: Conquest (yeah, they actually used a C instead of a K), or very questionable like Donkey Kong Country. But it won't be until I've seen the whole series that I'll be able to make that call. With this series having a 3 episode a week release schedule, I've got a late start and have catching up to do!

Opening with a smoke filled scene, with embers flying across the sky to a creepy song, you set-up a mood. Add in the screams of terror that are quietly in the background, and you're in the thick of it. When we do see a the first armored figure just blasting someone away on the ground with a gun, the aftermath of war is very apparently. Once the singing stops, its just violins to carry the weight of the unheard words of the tragedy that happened here. A man carries away 2 children he knows from the wreckage and smoke of the disaster.

Then we get to the title sequence. After that, we've got the kids from the opening, Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Powder (Mia Sinclair Jennes) with a few others on a raid “top side” to get supplies for themselves and Vander. They are aided by Mylo (Yuri Lowenthal) and Clagger (Roger Craig Smith). Their day-time heist goes well until the owner comes back right as Vi has found some strange gems seething with energy apparently. One gets away from her, sparking and slowly breaking before hitting a wall and exploding, destroying a portion of the building's interior with some doors and windows. Then its time for an escape from the Enforcers. They kids shows great free-running skill, weaving around the crowd and obstacles, avoiding the capture devices. They make a good escape and get back to a different section of town. The problem is Deckard (Josh Keaton) and his gang already got word and want the haul. It's obvious that Powder still has issues from what happened when she was younger when she's not in the fight and just against a wall holding the loot. While the rest fight, she runs away from the fighter with one of the gang members chasing she. She ultimately needs to throw the loot into the river. The scene jumps ahead to night-time. We then seen the group head into an abandoned house and take a hidden elevator down to the under city. A good montage later and we're in “The Last Drop,” where we see the name from the beginning, Vander (JB Blanc). We see him standing up for someone trying to get their deal but the others are refusing what was agreed upon. The kids walked in, but get noticed by Vander as he handled at least some of what's going on. Vander does confront Vi about what her responsibilities as a leader, but also it was a good thing none of the loot made it. That means something ties them to the job. The problem is Powder has 1 if the gem stones still. Vander takes some previous loot (?) over to the source the kids had, or at least source adjacent with Benzo, he employs Little Man. Representatives from the Enforcers make their way to Benzo's and we learn a bit about the standing deal keeping a tenuous peace between Grayson (The enforcer played by Shohreh Adhdashloo). She makes it clear that someone from below needs to be the example for the heist's explosion. Finally, we go back to Vi and Powder talking in their home about the day's events. Vi takes Powder to the roof and tells her stories of her bad days, but also of Mylo and Clagger. After this is when Powders shows Vi the 3 Power Gems that she had put in her pocket. Vi tells Powder that they're going to be their sector after Powder suggests showing them to Vander. Just before the episode ends we get back to Deckard who looks like he's getting worked over by a gang. A Sphnix cat winds its way around his leg after he's unceremoniously thrown into a chair. Deckard reveals what he knows about the kids and the robbery in the upper city. This mysterious man with the black-scarred face gives Deckard a reprieve before he's taken into some form of safety for this “organization.” We also get a demonstration of something experimental with a purple liquid involving a cat and a mouse. With strong implications that Deckard is going to be the next human test subject.

Being new to everything League of Legends, it is fun sitting down to watch a show about it. I doubt it'll convince me to play the game, but I do like hearing the stories. A lot of what I know about League does at least point to a decent story underlying it (or a passable one). This show did a good job of establishing just the hostility (and dystopian) nature of the world. It has something of a steam punk aesthetic overall, but a lot of the world is still a mystery. There's at least a bit of magic mixed in with technology. It's about the only way to explain the communication devices with everything else. Of course there is also good old fashioned fighting as well.

The fight scene between Vi and Deckard was a favorite from the first episode. It helped me see more about how the gang of kids works together. While we've only seen them on a heist and trying to escape, it does show the team at least trusts each other. How everyone handled the fight told me a bit about each as well. Vi, Clagger, and Mylo went straight into it while Powder stayed off to the side, holding the loot. She only got involved after one of the other gang members noticed her with the backpack. Even then, her response was to run, not fight. Seeing Clagger use his bulk and Mylo weave and wiggle tells you about how they operate. Vi's more direct assault on Deckard, the leader, gave me a good sense of the history between them. A lot of this wasn't the first time and she's probably given as good of a fight as she'd had to take many times before. Vi's trained up and has confidence in her abilities. We get the contrast of her and Powder very clearing during this time. It's easier to see the gap between the sisters.

We're learned a bit about Vi and Powder so far. They have very different looks and styles to approaching their problems. Powder does try to think her way out of scraps she winds up in. Vi is more direct and usually in command of what's happening. She'll make a plan and try to pull it off to the best of her ability. Usually with physical strength. Powder is still learning, but she also doesn't want to fight right now. She'd rather either escape or use her little devices to disable someone. What happened to the sisters when they were younger still deeply haunts Powder. She is also lacking confidence in her own abilities. I suspect she'll be learning more about this over time and just how to make use of whatever magic she's got. This does seem like something we'll see develop over the course of the show. Just the way it is talked about in the final part of the episode between Powder and Vi. Everyone has bad days, and bad luck, and it's what you do in those cases that helps you grow into someone better prepared. We will see Powder make more attempts with her metal dolls yet. It's going to be something of a plot for her to get better with them or figure out the trick for her to use them.

The stylization seems to fit with what I know for League of Legends. It has a good variant of cell-shading going for it. Every frame when you pause looks very much like a painting or a still from the art of League of Legends. Most of them have a grand look and it does tell a wonderful story, at least its beginning. I did appreciate just the look of the world and the characters every time I paused to really take notes or write down a bit of summary. I would usually take an extra minute or so just to appreciate the stylization of the show itself, looking at the screen. While literally the most superficial thing to enjoy, it is still what I am enjoying the most so far. We've gotten some reasons to care about everyone major introduced, but some parts are still missing which mean I don't have everything I want to know just yet. A good pace of the back story with the sisters will help. I know we'll learn more about the mysterious man with the experiment before too long. It was a decent cliffhanger to have left the first episode on.

While a lot of this points towards a hero's origin story, enough of it does hint toward something darker. Just how Vi and Powder have had to deal with their losses. But heroes and villains all start as children and grow into who they will become. Right now it's just guesses. Only time is really going to tell me more about Vander, Vi, and Powder right now. Vander has a hard choice to make and we'll be getting to see what it is sooner than later with the time he's allowed. Vi and Powder now have something to keep secret from Vander.

Next week, we'll see how it all goes...