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The Dirt Under Your Nails is the ninth and final episode of Season 2 of Arcane, and the 18th and final overall.
Synopsis[]
Magic. Science. Power. Revenge. Destines clash in an epic final chapter, igniting an all-out war.
Plot[]
Following her escape from the bunker and abandonment of Vi, Jinx burns down The Last Drop before returning to her hideout, whereupon she commits suicide by detonating a Hexgem-powered grenade while holding it. Ekko however arrives in the hideout and uses the Z-Drive to undo her suicide, before attempting to talk her down. At first he is unsuccessful, forcing him to repeatedly undo Jinx's suicide, but he eventually gets through to her by citing Heimerdinger's advice that it is never too late to build something new.
In a meeting room, Jayce holds a meeting between Caitlyn, Mel, and Vi about the upcoming invasion. Jayce plots to shut down the hexgates with the Enforcers' assistance. Caitlyn mentions that Viktor is at the center of all of this and then consoles the unnerved Vi.
Eventually, Vi rushes through a bridge dressed in heavy armor while dodging bullets as the war between Noxus and Piltover escalates. Inside the home base, Vi watches as Zaunite Gert, who volunteered to become an Enforcer, dies after succumbing to her injuries.
After Caitlyn snipes at Ambessa from the tower, Ambessa compliments her former student and signals to have a Shimmering soldier pull out Viktor's orb. Simultaneously, Jayce works tirelessly to turn off the hexgate piece by piece.
The Noxian soldiers manage to invade the Piltover tower, forcing the Enforcers to fight back, and Vi faces off against a Shimmering Noxian. Elsewhere, Caitlyn and her group make progress on their side as she spots, Steb and his group close by. They soon toss a gas canister out, use the fuming gas to ambush the Noxian soldiers, and Steb places a bomb on Viktor's orb, only to learn it's been sabotaged.
After the gas finally clears, Maddie is revealed to be a spy, and Ambessa confronts them. She takes Caitlyn's weapon from her, and Ambessa hugs Caitlyn while giving her one piece of advice. Ambessa then stabs Caitlyn in the side and leaves her to be killed by Maddie, who aimed and fired her gun at Caitlyn, but a barrier ricochets the bullet back at Maddie, killing her. A set of doors opens nearby, and Mel appears behind them and pleads with her mother to surrender, but Ambessa refuses.
At that moment, Jinx arrives on a hovercraft with reinforcements comprised of Zaunites led by Sevika and Firelights led by Ekko. Amid the battle, a single soldier manages to fire a large crate at Viktor's orb, but it was empty. Mel chastises her mother for what she's done to accomplish her goals, but Ambessa scoffs at it while rebuking her daughter's remarks. Caitlyn punches and then challenges her to a duel. As the duel between Caitlyn, Mel, and Ambessa progressed, Jinx and Ekko tried to protect Vi from Warwick.
Meanwhile, Jayce and Viktor debate their philosophical beliefs as Jayce continues trying to deactivate the gate, only for Viktor to reactivate it proximally.
The duel between Caitlyn and Ambessa continues as Ambessa seemingly has the upper hand against Caitlyn, who slashes off the magical ward off her right arm. This allows Mel to reveal the necklace given to her by the Illusionary Sorceress, who appears and entraps Ambessa in her magical thorns in her magical realm. However, Mel appears and betrays the Illusionary Sorceress by freeing her mother and listening to her final word before she dies in her arms.
Rushing toward Jinx after they crash into the clock tower, Vi pulls some rubble off of Jinx, and the two share a bonding moment together as Warwick confronts and fights the two. Over on Jayce's side, Viktor takes the Hexcore and levitates them to the rooftop. There, Viktor connects everyone in the area to the Astral plane.
There, Jayce and Viktor talk until Ekko uses his chrono hex crystal on Viktor's body. This causes a rift in his power, and Jayce states that he only wants his partner back. Viktor asks why Jayce would go so far for him after all he has done, to which Jayce replies that he made a promise to him, before gripping Viktor.
The scene changes to Jayce's previous meeting with the Mysterious Mage. After Jayce asks why the mage gave him the runestone after saving him and his mother from the blizzard, the mage reveals himself to be an older version of Viktor who had succeeded in bringing about his Glorious Evolution. The older Viktor explains that he had wanted to end suffering, but came to regret the Glorious Evolution after seeing how those "evolved" were left without dreams and ambitions. He claims that perfection brings only an end to pursuit, and that Jayce is the only one who could have convinced him of this, as multiple flashbacks of him giving Jayce the runestone play out in succession - each with a different rune carved into the stone - suggesting he has done so in multiple timelines and realities.
The younger Viktor is shown to have witnessed Jayce's meeting with his older counterpart. Realizing his folly, he attempts to undo the Glorious Evolution, a process that will destroy him; he urges Jayce to leave, but the other man decides to stay, and the two of them disappear into the arcane together. Within the real world, Viktor's mechanical soldiers collapse lifeless, while their captives are released from his control.
Within the Hexgate Tower, Vi finds herself stuck on an unstable walkway with an unconscious Warwick. Jinx urges her to jump to a nearby platform, claiming she cannot save their adoptive father, but Vi approaches Warwick's form and cries at having lost Vander once again. Warwick then wakes up and attacks Vi, but Jinx jumps and tackles him off the walkway before he can harm her. The action sends Jinx over the walkway's edge as well, but Vi manages to grab her sister's arm in one of her Hextech Gauntlets, while Warwick clings onto Jinx's body, his weight threatening to make the walkway collapse and send all three plummeting to their deaths. With Vi unable to pull her and Warwick up, and Warwick still murderous, Jinx chooses to sacrifice herself by snatching the gauntlet's Hexgem from it, preventing Vi from holding on to her and Warwick; as the two of them fall, Jinx embraces the beast that had once been her father before pulling out and detonating one of her grenades, seemingly killing them both.
Time passes by, and the lives of almost everyone after the war are shown. A joint memorial service for those killed is held by both Piltover and Zaun, taking place on the bridge separating the two cities. Ekko privately mourns away from the main ceremony, sitting in the same place he and the adult Powder kissed within the Alternate Universe. The Piltover Council is reformed with Sevika as one of its members, though two of the Piltover councillors are shown looking at her with disdain. Orianna, now inhabiting a mechanical body, observes a music box as Singed sits down next to her. A raven flies into the ruined Hexgate Tower and looks around, before revealing itself to have six eyes. Mel and Ambessa's forces leave Piltover for Noxus, Mel wearing Noxian attire and looking at the faceguard that once belonged to her deceased mother.
Within a parlor of the Kiramman Manor, Caitlyn - now wearing an eyepatch - studies the schematics for the Hexgate Tower while holding the remains of Jinx's grenade. Her expression becomes thoughtful when she notices a couple of air ducts within the tower - implying she suspects that Jinx may have survived the events there - before she smiles when she hears Vi humming a song from her childhood. Approaching Vi, who is sat on the edge of a coffee table near the room's fireplace, Caitlyn sits down next to her and teases the other woman about her uncharacteristic softness, with Vi claiming the song is one her mother used to hum. The Piltover woman then asks if Vi is still in "this fight", to which Vi declares that she is "the dirt under [Caitlyn's] fingernails", and that nothing will get rid of her.
Elsewhere, an airship is shown flying towards the horizon, before effects resembling those in Jinx's hallucinations flash across the screen, the words "The End" appearing for a brief moment.
Cast[]
- Ella Purnell as Jinx
- Hailee Steinfeld as Vi
- Kevin Alejandro as Jayce Talis
- Earl Baylon as Loris
- JB Blanc as Warwick
- Minnie Driver as Illusionary Sorceress
- Mara Junot as Shoola
- Katie Leung as Caitlyn Kiramman
- Harry Lloyd as Viktor
- Toks Olagundoye as Mel Medarda
- Reed Shannon as Ekko
- Ashley Holliday Tavares as Gert
- Ellen Thomas as Ambessa Medarda
- Katy Townsend as Maddie Nolen
- Amirah Vann as Sevika
Appearances[]
Appearances[]
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This article is a stub. You can help Arcane Wiki by expanding it. |
Locations[]
Events[]
- Final Battle
Items[]
????
Vehicles[]
????
Sentient Species[]
Creatures[]
- Warwick (Altered)
Organizations[]
- Ambessa's army
- Piltover's army
- Zaunites
Mentioned[]
????
Trivia[]
- At 50 minutes, this is the series' longest episode.
- Jinx may have survived her sacrificial fall, despite the explosion.
- During the explosion, a noticeable purple streak moves from the blast toward the upper right corner of the screen. This effect mirrors the visual trail created when Jinx uses Shimmer to accelerate. A frame-by-frame analysis shows this streak consistently moving across multiple frames, beginning on the right side of the explosion. Unlike other fleeting light effects with different colors and shorter durations, this purple streak appears to be a tangible object in motion rather than a mere flash of light.
- Near the end of the episode, Caitlyn is shown analyzing the Hexgate's blueprints while holding the head of Jinx's monkey grenade. As she examines the blueprints, she discovers the tower's air vents, suggesting that Jinx may have escaped through one of them.
- Another hint points to Jinx leaving Zaun altogether. The final scene features an airship identical to the one seen in Welcome to the Playground. This ties back to Powder's very first line in the series, where she expresses her dream of flying on such an airship, suggesting that her long-held aspiration may have finally been realized. Right before the credits, the phrase "The End" appears in Jinx's artistic style, which may imply that she is aboard the airship.