#anyways if every ep was plotted and paced like 7 was we'd have a longer and more consistent show

[monabee-draws]

There are too many things to say about Act 3 but one truth is that Episode 7 is the best episode in the season. And I mean in terms of a complete, narrative arc in one episode. There are plenty of absolutely perfect scenes and moments in other episodes (Isha's scene in ep 6, Jayce and Viktor's final reconcilliation) but wow was 7 the best written episode overall.

The Ekko/Heimer plot:

- Explores the beauty of a world entirely uncorrupted by the Hextech dream because this Powder chose to close the power away in a drawer.

- We watch Heimerdinger see the fruit of what his work might have done if he didn't dig his head in the sand for decades. It is blissful inaction and lack of compassion that kills. It is the maintenance of the status quo by those who benefit from it that kills. It is the entire false dream of Piltover that kills. And it can be changed, but only if those in power recognise their own hubris.

- Heimerdinger's death foreshadow's Jayce and Viktor's as well. He chooses to 'evaporate' into the Arcane so that the younger generation can try again, and make up for his mistakes. His brand of scientific omniscia did not work, and neither will jayvik's.

- The sister's tragedy persists in every universe. Vi and Jinx never get to be together no matter how perfect things could have gone. Vander warns our Vi that the kids will always follow her lead, and its on her head if things go wrong. Their Vi paid that price for them. She saved Mylo, Claggor, Vander and Powder. But there will always be a loss somewhere. There is no perfect world.

- Powder/Jinx was never going to be happy staying in Zaun and always needed to be free beyond other people's wants for her/their protectiveness/the cycle of violence. This foreshadows her imagined conversation with Silco and her flight at the end of episode 9 (she's alive I'm sorry.)

- Ekko learns to reconcile his vision of freedom with the imperfect nature of his own world (a very necessary lesson for a time traveler), a realisation that also foreshadow's future Viktor's realisation that perfection isn't good actually.

-> overall, this half teaches us Jayce's lesson about the importance and beauty of imperfection, of freedom of will, and going beyond the will of others. It's a perfect microcosm of the story as a whole, and expertly sets up every other character's choices in the end. Not to mention the literal time travel device ends up saving the world. That small imperfection - "That device cannot be" - is what sets everyone free.

For Jayce's story:

- Se see that Viktor's beautiful commune was always a lie, and all of the people he 'healed' were already dead at his hands. Hextech was never going to save anybody. The dream was tainted from the beginning.

- Jayce's resillience and agency grow and recover beyond what we see of him in season 1. He takes real accountability for his actions for the first time. The sheer spread of the consequences contradicts Jayce's insistence that they thought of every countermeasure. This entire sequence destabilises his (and Viktor's) images as gifted scientists whose intellect is equivalent to omniscience. They too are blinded by the same folly of Piltover's elite - their superiority is finally and thoroughly challenged in an indisputable way.

- His injury and leg brace level him with Viktor in a way that is crucial visual language for their later reconcilliation and Jayce's speech about accepting flaws in the finale. The fact that it is his Hextech hammer that breaks his leg is even more important - more evidence of the corruption of their dream, and of violence not being the correct solution.

- The scope of the dead world needed to be explored for us to understand how bad of an apocalypse we risk facing such that Zaun and Piltover cooperating could even be conceivable despite Caitlyn and Ambessa's fascist campaigns tearing the cities apart. The audience needs to have that disbelief suspended, and those scenes achieve that. In-story the cooperation between cities is still unbelievable, but this episode succeeds at making it understandable from a meta-perspective. We know what lies beneath the mask.

-> Overall, this half reinforces the themes of glorious imperfection, but also helps better set the stage for the audience to suspend their disbelief later on. And, it very importantly reminds us that no one character in Arcane has ever or will ever be 'correct' about the best path to move forward. It must always be a collaborative effort, and when we forget that, we forget ourselves, and we doom the world to a twisted vision.