Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Episode 8 of season 2 of Arcane is an episode that is primarily focused on setting up the finale in
00:06episode 9. Even so, there are still a lot of things that you might have missed in this episode,
00:11easter eggs and hidden details. Here's 50 of them. As I've already discussed before on my channel,
00:16we know that this is LeBlanc. We know this because she's using an ability that she actually
00:20has in game called Edral Chains. Those touched by the Arcane, as the show puts it, or basically
00:26mages, seem to have glowing eyes as an indicator of them using their abilities or powers. Mal's
00:33outfit here is black and it's embroidered with this chain pattern if you look at the details.
00:37There also seems to be black rose stitching or a black rose thorn plate attached to the top.
00:43Due to her current outfit's symbolic ties to the black rose, we can assume that she was given it
00:49by them and it is somewhat foreshadowing the fact that she's going to help them in future.
00:53These totem-like poles are used to chain down Mal in the Oculorum and they look very similar to the
00:59old Kael sword from League of Legends. We can see in this shot that Mal's power this time actually
01:06cracked the floor. The last time she used it in the counselor's room, we can see that it protected
01:10the floor. This might be a characteristic of the test or the Oculorum that she was in
01:15itself or the reason for it might be that it's a completely different power she has
01:19opposed to her protection spell. An important detail about Mal's golden plates is that they
01:25no longer seem to be accessories. Now the series will have to explain this a bit further but it
01:30seems like all of those golden plates are a part of Mal's skin. It's explained by LeBlanc that Mal
01:36has a rare form of magic. Her magical powers are somewhat attuned to counter other mage's spells
01:42or mirror them. LeBlanc also points out that a simple blade will do nicely if she wanted Mal
01:48dead. This implies that Mal's power would do very badly against people who wield weapons,
01:53so she'd have a hard time going against assassins or fighter type characters. We can see that the
01:59pendant LeBlanc wears and the form she takes is the same girl who Embessa behaves in the first
02:04season. Embessa calls this girl a symbol of the old regime. Given the fact that we've now seen
02:10this necklace twice in the series and the fact that Kino was wearing a somewhat differently
02:15version of the same necklace and also considering that Mal is given this when she decides to help
02:21the Black Rose does mean that it has a greater significance to the story. This whole old regime
02:27narrative will need to be explained to us a bit further whenever they decide to continue the
02:31story. Another interesting thing you might remember about this necklace is that Mal has actually
02:35painted it before. LeBlanc has black nails which is something I hadn't noticed about her before
02:40they decided to blatantly show this part of her design to us. It's the one thing that stands out
02:46in this shot. This could be important again at some point, but not in the current season. It
02:52is also revealed to us by LeBlanc that she senses not only the arcane is waking up, but a calamity
02:58that can match the Rune Wars is coming. However, even though she sounds like she wants to stop all
03:04of this, she seems too busy to deal with it herself, so she sends Mal on a mission to deal
03:09with Victor. This begs the question, what is the greater threat that LeBlanc is dealing with,
03:14which would stop her from dealing with the problem in Piltover herself. Here again in this shot,
03:19we can see how mages are portrayed in this universe. However, this could just be Victor.
03:25We can't afford another failure. This is what you see in me? A silver bullet?
03:31In some folklore, silver bullets are items that are used to kill werewolves. Given that
03:35Mbessa embodies the wolf, this is a sick line. We get confirmation in this episode that the
03:48reason why LeBlanc refers to Mal as sister in episode 5 is because they are both basically
03:54mages, and she considers Mal to be her kin or family because of this. She even blatantly welcomes
04:00Mal to the family as she puts it. This crow that flies by Mal here implies that Swain is watching
04:07what is going on between her and LeBlanc. If you don't know who Swain is, he is the current
04:12Grand General of Noxus, basically the leader of that nation. If we pause the frame, we can even
04:17see that the crow even has a red eye, much like the ones that Swain has. Singed seems to be using
04:23a larger version of the machine that he used to transfuse his own blood with Warwick's earlier in
04:28the series. This time it's being used to revive and empower Viktor. Skye begins to fear Viktor or
04:35grow concerned with his actions, even though up until this point they've seemed like one entity
04:40reliant on each other. Loras takes care of Vi again, but we never actually get an explanation
04:46as to why he's so cool with her, especially because some of her behaviour is sketch right?
04:50All I know about Loras is that this is the type of friend you want in your life. He's a day one.
04:55The green pillows in this scene are the giveaway that we are currently in the Kierman
05:00mansion. Maddy feels dejected after the scene plays out. She even starts eavesdropping on
05:05their conversation. More on this when I do the video about episode 9.
05:09There are cells buried deep within this prison so devoid of light and fresh air and all basic
05:15human considerations that up till now I have forbidden their use. Given we've never seen the
05:20part of Stillwater prison that Jinx is currently in, Caitlyn probably put her in one of those cells
05:26she was threatening Singed with. The inside of it even matches the description of what she was
05:30talking about. As we can see Jinx isn't eating anything. This is when we find out that she's
05:35given up on living and since Jinx is over being alive right now she keeps daring and provoking
05:41Caitlyn to do something to her. Do what you came here to do. Again in this shot we can see the crow
05:47following Mal around Piltover. After fixing the counselor's room they've stitched together parts
05:52of the old table using gold. Here we can clearly see the radius that Mal was able to protect with
05:58her ability, hence the lack of damage to that part of the table. In this shot Jayce's hammer
06:03reacts to something and then Mal shows up so it reinforces his belief that Mal is a mage.
06:08However it's later revealed that it was probably reacting to one of Viktor's dolls that was there
06:14in the room with them. This particular doll is Huck. We can tell because of the pendant he was
06:19wearing before being transformed. It's now fused with the design of his doll and we can also tell
06:24because of the shoulder guard he was wearing which is another giveaway. As mentioned earlier Mal's
06:30arcane talent can bend other mages magic or mirror it. That's why Viktor's shocked here. He sees what
06:35would be a counter spell to his exact brand of magic. When Jayce uses Hextech we can see some
06:41sort of corruption on his arm close to the gem that Viktor gave him. Viktor is growing weaker
06:46and that doll's death costs him a lot of energy. He tells Singed to begin the process which is a
06:52process to transfuse him with Warwick, taking Warwick's blood which is essentially Apex Shimmer
06:58and transforming Viktor into a new greater being. This is explained in episode 6. Jing still has the
07:05Hextech gemstone and she starts talking to it as if it were Soko. We can tell this because Soko's
07:11eye glows blue just like the gemstone would. The blue is a great touch since the last time we saw
07:16Jing and Soko together was this scene. When Vi says maybe we can rewrite your story it becomes
07:33very clear and apparent that Soko was actually right. You see Soko once told Jing that Vi would
07:40and change her and mold her into something else. After the council gets destroyed Vi sides with
07:45Caitlyn and leaves Jing behind. Now Soko was a terrible person but his genuine concern as a
07:51father of Jing's humanized him. Jing saying that there's no good version of her adds to my previous
07:59point. What she's saying here is that there's no version of her she feels Vi will accept. Now this
08:03is a whole video on its own but Jing seems to be only driven by the characters around her,
08:08i.e. Soko, Vi and Isha. As she loses them in her life she slowly loses her will to live.
08:15Jace has a new coat and based on the framing of this shot we can now assume that he is the leader
08:21of the council. This would probably be because Mbessa goes rogue which has killed Caitlyn's
08:26legitimacy as Grand Commander. This guy playing the piano will be important in episode 9 but it
08:33seems like they are trying to mold him or shape him to be an important character in future.
08:38He gets about as much time as Savika so there's definitely something going on there.
08:42The Kiriman Mudada emblem has been removed from Piltover and they are now back to using their
08:48old emblem. This scene with the rail car is a match of the scene that Jace was walking through
08:53in episode 7, the one with mass panic. The more I see this emblem the more convinced I am that I
08:59was actually right that this is the emblem for Piltover's academy. And like I said in my previous
09:04video it looks a lot like the unsealed spellbook rune from League of Legends. Also notice that we
09:11can see the pianist here again too. Here's one that keeps grabbing my attention but I haven't
09:16felt the need to mention until now. The noble families of Piltover have designs that are way
09:21too specific and well thought out for them to just be side characters. Their design but lack
09:27of involvement in arcane does indicate that we'll probably be seeing these characters again. The
09:32next sequence of shots actually show us exactly where the battle will take place in Piltover
09:37in the next episode. There are also tons of airships fleeing Piltover right now. Instead of
09:43running away, Gurt sees this old lady and she decides that she'd rather protect her home. So
09:48her and a bunch of other so her and a bunch of other people from the undercity join the enforcers
09:54including this guy with tattoos who allowed his child and his wife to leave. Notice that
09:59Ambessa's forces are still wearing the old Kierman emblem when Maul comes through to try and
10:04broker peace. Again the Canic Rukin is put in a bunch of hot coals by Ambessa. This seems to be a
10:10ritual you have to perform to get it to work. We know this because Riktus does the exact same thing
10:16earlier on. In the background of this shot we can see all of the Noxians buried after they fight
10:20with Warwick. This shot also shows us Maul's boots that have that black rose thorn pattern on them
10:27showing that she is still considering working with them. They end up showing us the graves again
10:32and this one specifically belongs to Riktus. In this moment we can see that Maul realizes that
10:38as well when she sees his spear. Now this scene was super important because it tells us that
10:44one Ambessa deeply cares about her kids even though it may not always seem that way and two
10:49that she was forced to choose between saving Kino or Maul's life knowing that the rose would target
10:56Maul if they knew she had the gift. And because Maul had this arcane talent Ambessa was forced to
11:02choose her over Kino due to the Medardas legacy which Ambessa values deeply. She basically decides
11:09that Maul would have a better chance of leading the family's future than Kino would. This does
11:14seem to go over Maul's head but Ambessa is doing all of this for her. I mean don't get me wrong it's
11:20still messed up that she's doing it but she has her reasons. It seems Skye won't be able to exist
11:26around Viktor anymore as he takes up his new form and in typical arcane fashion they draw a parallel
11:32between her disappearing in this scene and her disappearing in this other scene with the Hexcore.
11:38This scene represents Vander losing his old self and all of his old memories. He's basically just
11:43a beast now. Powder's pen in Vander's flashback has a skull on it. Given that Vander's score for
11:50darts in the previous episode also had a skull on it we can now tell what the arcane writers were
11:56doing here. These are death flags. The episode ends with Viktor completing his transformation
12:02which is fitting because the episode began with Maul completing hers. These are our two
12:08mages in the series and they both sit on opposite sides of Jace, funny enough. The gold glow around
12:14him is to show that his true capabilities have been awakened. And finally in the spicy scene
12:20with Caitlyn, Vi's fist is all torn up and we know it's torn up because she punched the prison wall
12:27after Jinx left her there. So this is really great narrative consistency by the writers
12:34and you really have to pay attention if you're writing to remember small details like that.
12:39So props to the arcane team. And that is 50 hidden details and easter eggs that you
12:44might have missed. Don't forget to subscribe if you enjoyed the video. This is Lois signing off.