Full spoilers immediately follow for Arcane season 1.
Netflix has released a new official clip from Arcane season 2, and it teases a potentially fascinating alliance between Jinx and Sevika.
The latest teaser, which you can watch below, sees Jinx running running for her life as she seemingly attempts to evade capture from, well, everybody. Indeed, the clip shows her carrying a package of some sort, and my initial thought is that she’s trying to dispose of the rocket launcher she used to attack Piltover’s council chamber in the season 1 finale. That callous act means that not only Piltover’s law enforcers are after her, but Zaun’s bounty hunters are likely to be, too, as they try to earn a quick payday for bringing her in.
Anyway, she’s quickly set upon by the Scrap Hackers, a new Zaun-based criminal faction led by the Yordle known as Smeech who’ll make their debut in one of the best Netflix shows‘ second season. After a tense back-and-forth between Jinx and the body-augmented crime outfit, Jinx appears to be rescued by Sevika before the clip ends.
What makes Jinx and Sevika’s reunion such an interesting proposition is that the latter doesn’t know that Jinx killed Silco, aka the criminal kingpin they worked for. By the end of Arcane‘s first season, Sevika isn’t aware that Jinx took Silco’s life after he tried to murder her sister Vi. For now, then, Jinx and Sevika remain allies, but for how long remains to be seen.
As I alluded to earlier, this is only the latest season 2 clip that Netflix has released to whet our appetite for the animated League of Legends (LoL) show’s return. In late July, another clip showed Heimerdinger and Ekko infiltrating a Hexcore lab in Piltover, while an all-too-brief piece of footage in June teased new heroes, another possible time jump, and Vi’s new costume. Back in January, the first Arcane season 2 clip also suggested that we’ll see a fan-favorite LoL villain make their debut in Netflix’s TV adaptation of Riot Games’ beloved video game franchise.
An official distraction from the huge Netflix data breach?
Call me a cynic, but the timing of this latest clip’s release seems a bit too coincidental. How so? Because, if you weren’t aware, Netflix has, at the time of writing, spent the past five days battling a massive leak after one of its post-production partners suffered a major data breach. That’s led to full but unfinished episodes of Arcane season 2, Heartstopper season 3, and many other shows being posted online. Other projects, including numerous new Netflix movies that’ll arrive before 2024 ends, have also been impacted by the security hack.
Outside of telling the press that it’s “aggressively taking action” to pull the leaks from the internet, the PR team for one of the world’s best streaming services hasn’t commented further. A couple of movie and TV show creators have commented, however, including Arcane co-showrunner Christian Linke, who took to X/Twitter (see below) to post a gif summing up his reaction to the leak.
Considering that this new clip was released just 48 hours after the first reports emerged about Arcane season 2 episodes leaking online, I can’t help but feel that this is a ploy on Netflix’s part. Sure, I’d like to give it and Riot the benefit of the doubt, and believe that this clip was always set to be unveiled on Saturday (August 10). However, the timing is a bit too serendipitous for my liking. I’ll take an officially released clip over an unfinished episode leak every day of the week, but I can’t be the only one who’s viewing this as a mere distraction tactic from Netflix and company to try and prevent people from searching for said leaked episodes.
