This post contains spoilers for both seasons of Arcane.
Leah:
This post contains spoilers for both seasons of Arcane.
It's not really a secret that I love Arcane, but during my most recent re-watch, what caught my eye was the continued use of time as both a narrative device, and in the imagery around Ekko.
Time as a narrative device
The two seasons of Arcane span many years of in-universe time, especially with the time jump between S1E3 and E4, and the fallout of Silco's death in S2E2. Especially in season 2, the series then starts to follow a less-linear timeline. In S2E2, we see Caitlyn's strike team attempt to capture Jinx, but it is not until episode 3 where we see that the team are also the ones at the Shimmer factory, and have been using the Grey as part of their tactics.
Later in the episode, during the fight between Cait, Sevika, Vi and Jinx, Jayce Ekko and Heimerdinger discover the anomaly under the Hex Gates, and are transported to the two alternate universes. We see the results of Jayce's time several episodes before we discover what he experienced, when he returns from the AU at the end of episode 5 and speaks to Salo/Viktor, before killing Salo with his transformed hammer. Jayce continues to be portrayed as having been driven mad by his encounter with the Arcane, including through his hallucinations as he sneaks into Viktor's commune, and then when he eventually kills Viktor, putting an end to the entire commune built around his healing ability.
Once Jayce's story is told in episode 7, and his motivations to protect the city from what Viktor will become are revealed, Jayce has cleaned himself up from the unkempt, dishevelled appearance he has after returning. Until Ambessa discovers Warwik and Viktor, and Singed allows Viktor to realise his Glorious Evolution, Jayce's motivations are concealed, presenting him as an antagonist against Viktor's mission of helping people.
Season two also makes use of unsettling condensed sequences, showing large amounts of time passing, most notably during Jayce's time in the AU. We see a rapidly more and more feverous set of scenes, including re-setting his broken leg, dragging himself along the floor to sip water from a pool, and his repeated attempts to climb up the wall of the chasm, before he builds a leg brace from the remains of his hammer. While it's not stated how long he spends here, it's almost certainly days, or even weeks, based on how long passes in the regular universe between him investigating under the hex gates, and his return when Salo is there.
Ekko
While Jayce has the most non-linear timeline in the series, Ekko as a character is repeatedly associated with time, and counting. In season 1, he uses a stopwatch several times, including when intercepting a Shimmer smuggling operation with the Firelights, and later on when fighting Jinx on the bridge, where memories of the younger them play fighting in what appears to be a time-based shooting game, again with the same stopwatch. In season 2, Ekko's part of the opening credits includes a shadow that ticks like the second hand of a clock, foreshadowing the eventual creation of the Z-Drive in episode 7, and his ability to use it to do-over the previous few seconds. In the final episode Ekko talks Jinx out of committing suicide, after repeatedly using the do-over. This, and the fact he built the Firelights and their community, show that not only is he capable of repeating time, he is also able to give people a chance to try again.
Closing
This was a bit of a different thing to write, and I hope it was vaguely interesting, and not just a messy collection of thoughts. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts about this series, and hopefully this has done it :)
