"Everybody Wants to Be My Enemy" is the fifth episode of the first season and fifth episode overall of Arcane.
Synopsis[]
Rogue enforcer Caitlyn tours the undercity to track down Silco. Jayce puts a target on his back trying to root out Piltover Corruption.
Plot[]
We flashback to a scene from Caitlyn's childhood. She charges through a forest with a rifle, quickly but carefully shooting small wooden targets as metal arms thrust them into view, racing against Grayson to see who can be faster. Finally, she shoots the last target, but sees Grayson taking aim and holding her shot against the same one.
Later, a party celebrates Caitlyn's victory, but she leaves her trophy on a set of stairs and confronts Grayson outside, asking if her parents paid Grayson to let her win. Grayson is coy at first, but admits that while she wasn't paid, she did let Caitlyn win, simply because she thought the child deserved it. She explains that, as an enforcer, learning to shoot allows her to protect people, which is reward enough, and asks Caitlyn what she's shooting for.
In the present day, Caitlyn interrogates Vi, but Vi answers all of her questions sarcastically, giving her nothing. Frustrated, Caitlyn leaves, with Vi telling her to "give Silco a kiss." Caitlyn returns, asking about Silco, but Vi remains obstinate. Hesitantly, Caitlyn steps over a red line on the ground, getting close enough that Vi can reach her through the metal bars. She shows Vi a picture of Jinx's monkey drawings from the crime scenes. Suddenly interested, Vi eagerly asks where Caitlyn got this. Caitlyn asked if inmate 2135 worked for Silco. Vi is incredulous that she didn't already know this, saying "they all do." Caitlyn asks for proof, and Vi says she can get it, but not from within a jail cell. Caitlyn is reluctant to trust Vi and goes to leave. Later, she returns with orders from Jayce for Vi's release.
Marcus delivers a somber speech at the funeral of the six enforcers killed by Jinx. He and his daughter, Ren, also visit Grayson's grave.
Later, in Silco's office, Marcus furiously argues with Silco over the deaths of his enforcers. He wants to arrest Jinx, arguing that Silco can't control her. Silco instead suggests that he pins these crimes on the Firelights. Marcus is reluctant to play along, but begrudgingly accepts.
Jayce goes through the hexgate logs and finds far more discrepancies than he anticipated. Viktor is wholly uninterested in Jayce's politics and wants him to refocus on science, reminding him that the people who need their help can't wait. Marcus arrives, and Jayce is aggressive in his push for Marcus to take this corruption seriously, providing him with a list of suspicious transactions. Marcus tells him that the Firelights are their chief suspect. Viktor loses focus, coughing up blood as his vision becomes hazy. Jayce asks if he's all right, but Viktor brushes him off and returns to the lab.
Jinx prepares a hextech device based on Jayce and Viktor's notes, but as she activates it, it emits a powerful pulse of light and energy, somewhat resembling the explosion that killed her family. Unable to bear the painful reminder, she flees the device in tears, saying that “It was a mistake.”
Caitlyn brings Vi to a train leading down into Zaun, but Vi says the train would be "too risky." She begins leaping across rooftops, deftly freerunning into the city below. Reluctantly, Caitlyn follows her, but isn't nearly as light on her feet, navigating the climb slowly and clumsily. On the ground, a pair of street thugs confront Vi, but she dispatches them before Caitlyn finally catches up with her. Vi dons one of the thugs' jackets and tosses the other's clothing to Caitlyn so that she can change out of her enforcer uniform.
Back in the lab, Viktor theorizes that hextech can be made to learn and adapt rather than be bound to a single function. He tinkers with a levitating device covered in interchangeable runes, later referred to as the " hex core." Jayce asks if he's sure this is safe, to which Viktor responds, "Of course not."
Vi takes Caitlyn to a food stall run by a man named Jericho and voraciously wolfs down a bowl of cooked fish covered in sauce. She asks Vi what information Jericho can offer, but Vi reveals she was hungry. However, Jericho slides Vi a napkin on which he's drawn a sigil. Vi takes the napkin, and the pair depart.
Jayce and Mel attend a theatre performance, sitting in a mezzanine box while a musician plays a unique-looking hybrid instrument. Mel warns Jayce that by tightening security, he's made himself an enemy of various merchants, including the other councilors, who had previously been able to use their wealth and influence to break certain trade laws with impunity.
Jinx revisits the abandoned arcade from her childhood, which appears to have remained untouched in the years since her last visit. She restores a punching machine whose scoreboard is covered in Vi's name. Memories of her sister bubble to the surface once again as she furiously takes out her frustration on the machine. At last, her name appears second on the scoreboard, just short of Vi's high score.
Vi sees that Silco has taken over The Last Drop and is moved to anger. Caitlyn remarks on how shady the place looks, but Vi rebuts her, saying, "You don't know anything."
Back at the theatre, Jayce is reluctant to compromise the safety of the hexgates for what he views as the other councilors' corruption. Still, Mel assures him that he'd simply be doing "favors amongst friends", and as a symbol of the future, he has the potential to shape his own destiny. Amara, one of the merchants he inadvertently crossed, arrives at Mel and Jayce's box, bemoaning how enforcers confronted her that morning. Mel assures her that Jayce is willing to reinstate former trade privileges to those who "share his vision." Finally, Jayce plays along, striking a deal with Amara. Jayce agrees to restore her trade privileges as Mel suggested and further entices Amara with exclusive perks from his Hextech enterprise as a partner in exchange for her financial and political support. One by one, he visits the other councilors (except Heimerdinger) in their boxes, making similar arrangements with each one, much to Mel's pleasure.
Vi and Caitlyn visit a brothel whose door is marked with the sigil given to them by Jericho. Caitlyn, clearly out of her element, asks Vi what her plan is. Vi suggests Caitlyn pretend to be a prostitute, but Caitlyn scoffs at the idea. Vi advises her that the way to make people talk to her is to act like you have what they want. Caitlyn asks what she has, to which Vi responds, "You're hot, cupcake." She grabs a patron by the arm, who introduces himself as Pim, and leaves him to mingle with Caitlyn. She enters the office of the brothel's madam, Babette, who is shocked to see her.
Marcus visits Silco's office, warning him that Jayce is now a counselor and is on the path to discovering Marcus and Silco's relationship. Silco offers him one of Jinx's grenades, suggesting he pass it off as proof of the Firelights' guilt. Marcus laments that "this has gone too far" and imagines himself pulling the grenade's pin, killing himself and Silco. Silco dares him to do it, but in the end, he walks away. Silco tells Jinx, who is once again listening from the rafters, that she needs to weaponize hextech soon. Jinx asserts that she is unable to due to her trauma association with the hex crystal, but Silco is insistent.
Babette tells Vi that no one has been able to stop Silco since Vander's death. Vi asks about Powder, but Babette knows nothing. However, she reveals that Sevika is a regular at the brothel and offers to have one of her staff, Miguel, tell Vi where to find her. As Vi leaves the brothel, she sees Caitlyn chatting with another patron, looking far more comfortable and relaxed than when she arrived.
Mel commends Jayce for his work at the theatre, and they fondly discuss the future of hextech. Suddenly, Mel kisses him. Meanwhile, Viktor continues experimenting with the hex-core, but cannot figure out why it isn't working. His assistant, Sky, offers to walk him home, but he rejects her, saying he will sleep in the lab tonight. He resumes his work, eventually getting frustrated and throwing his notes in the air. At that moment, his vision becomes hazy once again, and he coughs blood onto the table. Mel and Jayce go to bed together. Viktor collapses, unconscious, as his blood reacts to the hex core. It begins pooling towards the core until a single drop levitates off the table and begins weaving itself into the fabric of the device. All the while, Mel and Jayce have sex.
Silco takes Jinx to the waters, where Vander had tried to drown him. He explains that he let a weak man die on that day, and a new one was reborn. If Jinx wishes to overcome her pain, he says, she needs to let Powder die. He tells her to be strong, saying, "Jinx is perfect." Finally, he submerges her in the river as if baptizing her.
Vi finds Sevika gambling over a game of cards. Marcus ponders the grenade given to him by Silco, alongside a framed drawing by his daughter. Enraged, he shatters his drink. Mel wakes up alone, realizing that Jayce is gone. Jayce sits next to a hospital bed, where Viktor lies unconscious. As Viktor wakes up, Jayce struggles to explain what the doctors told him. Viktor fills in the gaps, asking how much time he has left.
Vi interrupts Sevika's card game with a knee to the face. Sevika's opponents grab a handful of coins and run. Sevika removes her cloak, revealing a mechanical prosthetic arm, able to her inject her with shimmer on command. They fight relentlessly, and Vi eventually pins Sevika to the ground. She asks where her sister is, and Sevika says that Jinx works for Silco now. This shocks Vi enough for her to let her guard down momentarily, and Sevika stabs her in the gut with knife-like mechanical fingers. She's about to kill Vi but takes a shot to the shoulder from Caitlyn's rifle and flees. Caitlyn helps Vi to her feet, and the two hobble away.
Jinx finally solves hextech, creating a machine similar to the one Jayce built when he first unlocked its potential.
A wounded Sevika shuffles back to Silco's office, leaking shimmer on the floor. She tells Silco that Vi is back. Silco is dumbfounded, having believed the girl was dead.
Cast[]
- Shohreh Aghdashloo as Grayson
- Kevin Alejandro as Jayce Talis
- Kimberly Brooks as Sky Young
- Mira Furlan as Babette
- Molly Harris as Young Caitlyn Kiramman
- Remy Hii as Marcus/Tobias Kiramman
- Sophia Jeffords as Ren
- Katie Leung as Caitlyn Kiramman
- Erica Lindbeck as Elora
- Harry Lloyd as Viktor
- Toks Olagundoye as Mel Medarda
- Ella Purnell as Jinx
- Salli Saffioti as Amara
- Roger Craig Smith as Claggor
- Jason Spisak as Silco/Pim
- Hailee Steinfeld as Vi
- Amirah Vann as Sevika
Appearances[]
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