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Overview

"Pretend Like It's the First Time" is the seventh episode of the second season of Arcane, and the 16th overall.

Synopsis[]

A moment of darkness, a moment of light - and a vision of What Could Have been.

Plot[]

This episode occurs entirely in 2 separate alternate timelines:

Ekko and Hiemerdinger possess their versions in a timeline where the heist on Jayce's lab went very differently, resulting in Vi being killed and the rest being captured by wardens. This leads to Hextech never being invented, Powder never becoming Jinx, Vander and Silco reconciling and co-running the bar, and Mylo and Claggor being alive. In this timeline, Piltover and Zaun (which is now a vibrant arcology instead of a slum) are at peace, with free movement and commerce between them, and Ekko and Powder are academy students and dating. Hiemerdinger and Ekko, with Powder's help (although without letting her know about the temporal displacement), utilize a fragment of the hex crystal taken from the ruins of Jayce's lab to create a time-reversal device. They eventually find a way to separate Ekko from his alternate self and send him back. This effort appears to vaporize Heimerdinger, but it is unclear if this kills him as he is a Yordle. Powder sees the restored alternate Ekko vanish while cradling the Ekko from this timeline, who is unconscious on the ground from the separation.

Jayce is sent into a ruined possible future, where he wanders alone for an indeterminate amount of time, chasing signs of the cloaked figure from his childhood. This future is the result of Victor succeeding in carrying out his Glorious Evolution, with all life converted to perfect mechanical dolls, which do not need to do anything and stand immobile among the ruins of the world. Jayce breaks his leg, rigs up a mechanical brace for it, and eventually tracks the cloaked figure to the top of the central clock tower. We do not hear what passes between them at this time. Still, Jayce promises to fix things by going back in time to stop Victor and takes a mutated hammer from what is presumed to be his converted body before being sent back to his encounter with Salo in the Hexvault.

Cast[]

Appearances[]

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Trivia[]

  • The timeline's divergence point seems to be the Heist on Jayce's lab. In this version of events, Vi is killed when the hex crystal explosion happens, and the rest are arrested by sympathetic Wardens, who arrive on the scene to find Powder cradling her sister's body among the wreckage. In the resulting confusion, Powder retains the only stash of Hex Crystals, which she hides rather than experiments on. Hextech is never invented.
  • In the main timeline, Powder grabs six Hex Cystal's and drops one, resulting in an explosion that injures Jayce, who is standing on the other side of the lab door, but which her crew can escape from. Powder is only shown holding three crystals when cradling Vi's body in the alternate timeline. This implies she dropped the other three crystals, resulting in a much bigger explosion, which killed Vi and may have also killed or seriously injured Jayce and Caitlyn. It is also possible that, if he survived, Jayce was more heavily sanctioned by the council due his unauthorized experiments leading to one or more deaths instead of only minor injuries and property damage, and/or that Viktor did not interrupt his suicide attempt. This may be why Hextech was never created in this timeline.
  • It is unknown what occurred between Vander and Silco, but they are seen running the bar together, and Silco's eye, while still clearly injured in the past, does not have the black and glowing appearance it had in the main timeline.
  • Ekko paints a mural of adult Vi at the base of what would have been the Firelight Tree using his memories from the main timeline, which he passes off to Powder as how he imagines Vi would have grown up.
  • Caitlyn, Mel, Ambessa, Jayce, Victor, Isha, and Singed are never seen or mentioned, so what happens to them in this version of events is unknown. However, if the Hex Crystal explosion in the lab was more violent in this timeline, it may have killed or seriously injured Jayce and Caitlyn, who were just outside the lab when it happened.

References[]

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