The trailer for the final act of Arcane season 2 released last night, and there's a two-second clip that has me totally convinced that one character in particular is bringing their signature abilities to bear.
At the 30-second mark in the latest trailer (which appeared via Netflix earlier this week but was only officially revealed last night), something explodes through a sheet of glass. For a moment, Jinx can be seen reflected in two of those shards, but then the scene reverses, and the entire explosion shrinks back toward its starting point. It's a relatively small moment in an action-packed trailer, but I think it links to a fan theory I'm already pretty compelled by.
This article contains spoilers for Arcane season 2.
- Arcane Season 2 gets one last dance as the League of Legends spin-off animators return to bring Jinx and Ekko back to the series' most iconic song
- "If we spoiled Arcane, it would have been heartbreaking": League of Legends spin-off Teamfight Tactics had scripts 2 years ago, and went to extreme lengths to keep them secret
At the end of Arcane season 2's second act, eagle-eyed fans noticed a few things: the shot of the gear rolling across Viktor's floor repeated several times; Jayce mentions not 'failing' in the mission that shocked fans at the end of episode 6; and in the final shot, the very last frame of the episode appears to freeze in place.
All of that has had fans pointing to Ekko. While he's been MIA throughout the second act, the fan theory around his location is so good that some people think it's basically already a spoiler for Act 3. That's all because while Ekko is a fearsome resistance leader, he's also pretty much the only League of Legends character not working with his signature gear so far in the show. Vi has her gauntlets, Jinx has her guns, Caitlyn has the hextech rifle, Jayce has his hammer, and we've seen Viktor with his claw. Even Heimerdinger has crafted one of his iconic turrets. But Ekko is missing the thing at the core of his character - his Z-Drive.
In League of Legends lore, Ekko is known as 'The Boy who Shattered Time'. An inventor on par with, if not surpassing, Jayce and Heimerdinger, he develops tech that allows him to rewind time briefly. That's alluded to during his fight with Jinx in season one - Ekko pulls out a pocketwatch, swinging it back and forth while plotting out a course of action. When he realizes it won't work, he starts over and manages to incapacitate Jinx.
Now, having been lost in the anomaly for months - an experience that clearly altered Jayce significantly - it would come as little surprise if Ekko finally emerged with that timey-wimey tech in his hands. It's a tool that some fans are wary of - time-travel is a tricky narrative device to get right - but Ekko can only move the clock back a small amount, and even then, only when he can actually get to the device to activate it manually. It's not the kind of thing that threatens to rewrite Arcane in its entirety, but it's one of the last elements of the game that's most clearly missing. With that rewind moment in the trailer coupling with that already compelling theory, I'll be shocked if we don't see a do-over or two during Act 3.
For more, check out the Arcane season 2 release schedule and our picks for the best shows on Netflix.
