Today's episode contains spoilers for episode four and five of Arcane season one. Watch those before you listen today, or don't. I don't know. Hey everyone, I'm.
A Boo and I'm Aaron and.
Welcome to x ray Vision Extras, an X ray Vision series where we dive deep into even more of your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. Every superhero team needs sade quests, and our rotating panel of producers and guest hosts will be suiting up to help Jason and Rosie cover all of the amazing nerd content out there.
Speaking of guest hosts, we have a guest with us today. It's not just you and I today, aboo, that's right, We have the wonderful Joel here to join us.
Hey.
Cool, Okay, so you're seeing her too, not just in my imagination.
Yeah, this is not a JINX haunting happening for you. Don't worry.
Oh my god. Yeah.
You said you were talking about Arcane and I missed out and I was upset about it, and I was like, I have to make time in space for round two.
So I'm excited to be here.
We're excited to have you here.
Well, makes sense that you would be joining us after the time jump, so you're joining us in our more adult forms. And we're back now with episodes four and five, continuing our rewatch of Arcane season one in the lead up to season two coming out on November ninth.
That's right, And Aaron, I think folks know the drill by now, so maybe today we just got right into it.
Let's spend maybe twenty five minutes just belaboring the point.
Yeah, I agree. How was your weekend? All right? All right?
Arcane one oh four, Episode one oh four, Happy Progress Day. What a difference an episode makes, or in this case a Netflix credit skip intro because we're skipping the intro obviously.
We are back in pilt Over the day before Progress Day, which is a very important holiday here, and Jason Victor's work with hex Tech has completely revolutionized Piltover and has established the city as an economic powerhouse, specifically thanks to the Heck Gates, which are teleportation easy transport transit between major cities. And Heimer Dinger comes in talking to Jase and he asks him to be the keynote speaker at
Progress Day this year. And this is a shock because, as we learn, Heimer Dinger has been the speakrit Progress Day for I forget how long, but an incredibly long amount of time.
Yeah, he's old enough that I think he has also forgotten how long?
Yes, I think when Heimerdinger started doing I also have such a hard time saying his name. When heimer Dinger started speeches at Progress Day, we were in like, I don't know, early Britney Spears catalog. Yeah, and we have now reached like Sabrina Carpenter.
Right, Hammerdinger remembers when Toxic dropped.
Wow, that's not even early Britney Spears. A boom. We gotta go over this later. Toxic is not early Brittany.
All right, I'm watching Joelle just collapse to her chair on the screen.
There you call me.
So. At the Progress Day fair slash Ces, the people of Piltover are enjoying demonstrations of all this new gadgetry that the great inventors of this city have to show off. Meanwhile, missus Kerman is boasting about Jase. She is, of course, his patron has helped him get to this spot. Presumably she is boasting about Jase to this gathered crowd. It's very clear to us by this point that Jace is the golden boy of this city. His face is plastered
all over everything. Jace excuses himself from the crowd and goes over to bug Kate, who we learn is now an enforcer against the best wishes of her parents, which you love to see.
And I think we didn't really get enough Kate in the first couple episodes. I'm excited to see a lot more of her in this episode, and obviously her role grows in next episode even more. But it's good to start getting more of her here, agree, And she's not just like sitting at the edge of the gate reading
waiting for Jace to come talk to her kind of thing. Meanwhile, Soko's crew is attempting to smuggle more Shimmer through the port and this very strange The shipping guard or whatever is trying to find the shipping manifest and he can't find it. Oh wait, there it is. That's a strangely shaped manifest that looks like a heavy bag of coins. That makes sense.
How do you show that on your taxes?
I wonder, Yeah, I think you don't. I think that's the best part of it. Yeah, you can't file that on ajan R block.
Ohways, smuggling one on one. You don't do your taxes, Yeah, you don't do your taxes.
However, the shipment is attacked by rival gang, the Firelights. They come in, they have the upper hand and they try going below deck to get the goods. And who should we find but Powder, who is clearly no longer the innocent child, like not even damsel in distress, like the little kid in distress, because now she has an
enormous gatling gun. The fight ensues. She blows up a bunch of stuff and she unmasks one of the firelights, who is a girl with pink hair, and she immediately loses it, thinking it's VI it's not, but she just completely is thrown off by this, unloads the gun everywhere. It's just shooting everything up. Some of the Firelights escape and the ship is basically destroyed in the process.
The reveal of Jinx is so delicious.
Yes, she's so fabulous, Like the long braids, the entire like character design, just using really all of her trauma as visible armor.
In like her.
Stance, like she stands like a kid like pigeon toad. You know, she keeps this hairstyle, she never changed.
She has almost no armor.
Yeah, That's what I'm.
Saying though, Like it's not a physical arm, she's not physically trying to protect herself, but as like her persona is armor, Like she wears entirely all of her damage as like an fie to everybody. She's like, then I'll just explode. If it's gonna be bad, it'll be the
fucking worst. I'll be the best at being the most awful and have that swing in a character that you initially have so much love for, to just drop back into her life in a point where you were like, oh, you're just a straight terrorist but also not mentally well at all, like you deeply need help, but also please don't kill people.
Like it's a whole like hot mess.
I just have so much respect for the artists and how they evolve the character into literally another person for us to sort of fall in love with all over again. To be honest, if you know where the series goes, not skipping ahead, but it's just it's just total like to love fest for Powder Slash Jinks.
I will say along the lines of keeping her a little off kilter, and she is this dangerous person now who's very exposed. She's wearing like no sleeves since she just has tattoos all over. Her pigtails are way too long, and I think that that adds to the sense as she's whirling around with this gatling gun, like her hair
is everywhere. It's like dashboard confessional, Like there's too much going on with her, and that I think adds to us being a little We're drawn into her, but we're also thrown off by her because she is she's off the hook. Yeah here, that's not the right phrase, but she's got me. I've lost my breath thinking about her shooting this gatling gun. Yeah, basically because she's aiming at fine.
Yeah. I wish I could remember my first reaction to seeing Jinx and my first reaction to the time skip. Obviously, on this rewatch, I knew what was coming, but I vaguely remember just being shocked that we had skipped forward in time and that everyone had gotten older, and that this is what had become of powder.
And the last time we see her, she's crying. She's like heartbroken, her sister has just left her. She's like huddled as the smallest possible thing you can imagine. And the next time we see her, she's maniacally laughing, and she's blowing up all these people and shooting them.
Also, speaking of character design, I also wanted to call out the firelights. How cool are the firelights?
So cool?
I mean, hoverr skateboard is like my childhood fascination. Even as an adult, I've always wanted an electric skateboard, but I haven't made the plunge. Hover skateboards are the next best thing. Yes, and I love that the firelights. This is maybe me reading too much into the character design, maybe not, but when they put their hoverboards on their back, they continue to glow because of the little hover of things, and so they look like fireflies. Yeah, with lights on their back.
Although the mask gives me Batman cord of the Owls five, it does.
And I'm okay with it. They look cool.
They said, you know what, that's a dope design and they're not doing enough at Court of the Owls and mainstream popular culture, so we'll just borrow it subtly. Well, it's fine, it's fine. Yeah, In the same way that they were like, we love Static Shock. Yeah, we're dropping them in this series. We love him, he can stay. We'll give him a new name, update his design. Just a little bit and he can still hang out and it's great. I love when fandom has crossovers like this is great for sure.
Okay, back to our recap. Back in Piltover, Chase and Victor show Heimerdinger their newest breakthrough. They have created hex Tech for the masses, a hex Tech gemstone that's safe to use. This very safe. We promise very safe, am I saying safe enough? This very safe technology is an easily accessible version of hex Tech and they show it off to Heimerdinger in the form of power gauntlets that would help for example.
Miners, Yeah, totally.
And also they show it off in the form of a doc oc esque laser arm thing that shoots lasers that would help who knows who, I don't.
Yeah, I think, he says, architects. I think he said, I forget exactly.
But it just shoots lasers.
Yeah, No, it shoots lasers. Yeah.
Now, Heimerdinger obviously very concerned about allowing this type of power out into the masses, to have everyone have access to what are effectively weapons. He has basically been shown these weapons and he wants them to be cautious about their approach. Obviously, Jason Victor are a little more hot headed, and we're hoping to get this out on Facebook marketplace.
Like today, He's like, I'm going live on Instagram. I gotta show this off man before I even do the speech today. I do think it's interesting from this, we basically get the idea that Victor and Jase are still the only game in town when it comes to Hextech. We don't see anyone else next, I mean, later on we see some other people working in the lab with them, but they are still the be all end all of
the sex Tech research. And I can't think of any time when in real history when a single person having all of the technology has ever been a bad thing. No, you know, a monopoly on advancement. Sure, I think that seems great for everyone involved.
They can help the whole world as soon as they get on their level, you know, right, exactly assimilarly, we're all gonna be good.
It's great.
Yeah, I am hex tech man.
Yeah.
No.
I like to think Jase went to the patent office like the day after they cracked the formula. Right, Like we talked in the last episode about good branding, Chase, my guy knows that branding is the key to success. I think he also knows you lock those patents down as soon as you get them.
Joelle, this is something we gotta prep you for. Aboo is thirsty for Jase in a way that makes it?
Oh?
Is it thirsty for Jase? Aaron?
Are you not on the Jase train in a way that makes up for me? I am not on the Jay's train?
Okay, wait, pause, explain to me how you are not.
I don't even like straight couples in the way Jase and his new love interest will discuss soon. I was like, oh, I am here for this couple. I love a power couple on a trip. Oh yeah, what are we not liking about jasonn.
Okay, I mean, let's talk about we're jumping ahead, but let's talk about Jace and his lady love and this power couple. I personally think there's nothing more romantic than getting intimate with someone overlaid, with visions of blood joining with technology from my partner who's coughing up the blood. Yeah, just a perfect way for me to envision sexy times.
You aren't just like a little bit turned on?
All right?
Whatever floats your boat, Aaron, got a weird that that didn't get you with it.
Listen, we are in a fantasy world and here morals don't have to impact actual lives, so we can be excited by Jase discovering his mental powers can have Actually, he's like, oh wow, I'm actively living my dream.
Surprised.
It's so much harder than I thought it would be to navigate secondary shock. This partner that I've always been cool keeping pace.
With right our visions are veered.
I'm romantically linked to a woman who has power ideas of her own, and I understand the barricades in front of our technology and how to remove them. But my partner's not focused on that and doesn't want to think about that. They're like, there are people who need help. Fuck the red tape, Like, I'll just take it to
the people. And I love that split for Jase because I think, to me, that's just very real and identifiable as somebody who's like, oh, I want to do the most good and then trying to figure out like how to work in bureaucracy.
Fascinating.
Plus he's hot, Aaron, I mean, just he's so sexy for a cartoon. He's like Aladdin levels of like Okay, what are we working with here?
Like he's really not. He's really not. He doesn't have the kind of chin I like I've shown.
I mean, describe in detail the kind of chin you like.
Describe in detail literally, Charles Melton. We know, we know the what I consider like grade A beauty, and it's Charles Melton. We've talked about this at length.
Okay, we're not here to argue about the Charles Milton's established hotness.
No, no, of course not no.
Let's not yuck each other's yum. But just know, Joelle, as we go throughout the recaps, anything that is very pro Jace A Boo wrote that part of the recap.
I'm understood a Boo, and I will stand on this platform and wave to you.
I can't get off the Jay's chain.
I really I think Jason's journey is fascinating and I really like watching it.
I think he's really cool character.
I understand why you would be like this fucking idiot, because he walks into every trap.
He's so beautiful and so dumb.
He's just straight into every possible missta He's right there, but he's cool.
I like the journey, all right.
Speaking of characters in this that maybe don't have the best visual appearance. We head to the docs. Caitlin, who I think is beautiful and it is an incredible character, is investigating the crime scene. And then who should appear but Marcus. Marcus who now is the sheriff of Piltover and who is also sporting an absolutely horrific mustache, so you know that he is now a horrible character and he's a bad guy. Through and through, Caitlyn gets in trouble.
She's prying where she shouldn't be. She's supposed to be back at her parents tent, keeping everyone safe quote unquote there, and it's very clear that like the other enforcers are not into Caitlin being an enforcer.
Yeah, they think she's cosplaying. Yeah, she's just a rich girl cosplaying.
Yeah.
Again, I think we said it earlier. Love Caitlin. I think Kaitlyn's an incredible character, and I can forgive the first twenty minutes of this episode where Kaitlin's goal is to be a cop.
Yeah that's fair.
She doesn't know, Okay, her hero was a cop, and so we can forgive her her the icon who was a woman who's like, yeah, I know I did on my own and I protected my city.
She's been brainwashed. Her eyes are soon revealed.
I love Caitlyn and her best friend is Jace, So I mean, really, if you love Caitlyn, don't you have to love jas.
The transitive Property. Next, we head back down to the under City, where Soko now runs the last drop. This is heartbreaking stuff. This is horrifying to see. Savika, who was on the ship earlier in the episode when the firelights attacked, warns Silko that Jinx is too chaotic, She's too much of a liability. I told you so, this is gonna bite us in the ass. But Silka doesn't want to hear any of it. He's going to stand
by Jinks. Savika leaves in a huff, and Jinks, who has been actually listening from the rafters this entire time, drops down and we see how their relationship has evolved in the time skip. We see that Silko is now clearly a father figure for Jinks, and she even administers this little drop of shimmer in his eye with a thing that looks really painful. I don't do eye stuff. It creeps me out, so I have to look away for this scene. But you can see the trust there
between them. He's a father figure for her, and then he trusts her enough to get that close to his eye weird eyeball thing.
Yeah, jinks, you know, a plus cat Burglar level of always being able to hear when someone else on the show is talking about her. Yeah, she's always there eavesdropping, doesn't matter who it is, Jinx, Is.
There such a good youngest sibling trait? Yes, the youngest sibling trait of like yeah, unseen and like listening.
That is youngest sibling energy.
Also, this show does relationships between men and women really well. I feel like so often, particularly weird in a sci fi or heavy action driven plots, men and women are always like sexual objects to one another.
Like how the two of you have talked about Jace kind of.
Listen, do we sexualize Jacey? Yes?
Yes, but he's a cartoon so I'm allowing it.
It's okay. He has no real feelings.
But I just think the relationship between Jason Caitlin, like it's one of my favorites, Like he so clearly has this little crush on her, and he's constantly like trying to protect her, but he like has genuine love for her, and she's like actually, nah, He's like cool, Please still be safe, and like, can I be in your life? No, you're on a whole different thing. I'm gonna go over here and do my job and.
Then here too.
I think the relationship between Powder and Soto, it's just it's like he's looking in a mirror and it's so heartbreaking. It's really heartbreaking because one, he's obviously not She's on her own, very chaotic journey. Nothing he's doing is helping her. But everything he did to get himself to where he is now, and he thinks it's helping, it's making so much worse. And the way they rely on keep each other in these really bad positions and sort of circulate
that negativity amongst just the two of them. It's heartbreaking and it's like the definition of a codependent relationship. And that's again always just really fascinating to see on screen. They understand relationship dynamics and how to really pull on the strings of those so that as an audience member, you're like compelled to lean in to these characters and these storylines.
They're so delicious, they're very good.
It's interesting to compare Vander and Violet's relationship in the first three episodes and Solko and Jinks especially here, you know, like Vander and Violet, they speak on the same wavelength, separate from everyone else. Vander is taking care of these four kids, but he has a special relationship with Violet. Silko has this entire group of thugs and criminals working for him, but he has a special relationship with Jinks.
And both of them are like these father figures who are here both hoping to keep the girl safe but also send them into dangerous jobs with real consequences, but they both trust them more than anyone else does.
Even Yeah, it's like Powder was looking to become her sister.
And yeah, and I think those parallels are obviously very intentional. Throughout the show, we see these father daughter and brother, sister and best friend, best friend. We see these repeated time and time again, with all the generations of characters
we see. We see it with Vander and his old friends from back in the day and Vander and Silko as brothers, and the betrayal there obviously last episode, Aaron, you and I talked about the betrayal parallels with Vi and Powder, and we continue to just see that from generation to generation. The repetition of these relationship cycles.
Yeah, and it's at the end of the day. We still have the Piltover under city back and forth relationship of these as well. Yeah, we cut to Jinks in her home, her lair, her hangout, her t age bedroom. I don't know what we want to call it. It's basically like this giant propeller or a fan or something suspended over a bottomless pit, and she is. We see her haunted by the ghosts of Milo and Clagger. She's got like dolls of them, basically crafted, and she has
them speaking in her ear, like flashing on screen. But Jinx's she's sitting here. She's upset, and she vows to prove to Silko that she's not weak and she's going to go do something big on her own.
Yeah, she's real broken.
She's really the only friend she's ever had. We're also bullies, all except her sister, who's not there at the table.
I don't think her sister is not there. I don't think so.
Yeah, so it's just she just recreated her bullies to be like these really cruel, mean voices in her head that she's constantly fighting again to like physically manifest them. And then I think It's interesting that she sets up like a family dinner table sort of situation in her lab, like really trying to bring this essence of homeliness into this creative space that she has. This is really her
only outlet. She clearly has no friends, her mentors, trying to mold her in something she just can't ever really be. I'm really curious to see how this leads into some of the larger art if we're talking about sort of the divide of people either trying to preserve, advance or destroy. She's so clearly leading the destroy pack, and honestly, no one seems prepared for what she's capable of.
Yeah, yeah, no one is prepared for what she's capable, even Silco, especially Silco. Yeah. You know, in a perfect world, we would have the last drop sponsoring these episodes, but unfortunately Silko never got back to us. So instead, here's a word from our other sponsors.
All right, folks, welcome back. Let's continue with our recap of episode four. In the lead up to his Progress Day speech, Jace is encouraged to share the news of his new discoveries by Mel. She clearly has a vested interest here, and by that I mean money, actual money, cha ching she can make some money off of this hex Tech and she really wants to partner with Jace in order to do so, and so she encourages him to announce the new iPhone sixteen by Jace invites Victor backstage.
Jace is talking to Victor and he invites him to come on stage. Hey man, we're partners. Let's go up there. This is our day. Let's announce this new thing together. But Victor's hesitant. He's obviously sickly, as we learn in these episodes. And Jace is the one that goes out and gives the speech. He's the golden boy, he's the charming, charismatic one anyway, so he's the one that crowd is
waiting for. But when he gets out there, he begins his speech, He's got a clipboard in front of him, presumably the big announcement is right there written in front of him, and at the last minute he gets cold feet. He decides not to reveal the new hex Tech technology.
But he does share we have many exciting things planned, you know. He does the equivalent of the LinkedIn like, got some big news I'm excited to share. Will reveal more later he does the like brag twice for one thing. But hey, the crowd loves it, Like you said, he is their golden boy. Yeah, and he gets away with it.
Yeah, I'm curious to hear from both of you. Why do you think he got cold feet last minute? Like this did Heimerdinger break through to him?
He knows Heimer Dinger is Is it.
Some other form of hesitation? Why change his mind? Because he was dead set on revealing this.
Heimerdinger is like not just his mentor, he's also like a secondary father figure maybe grandfatherly figure. Like it's a really deep connection they have. And he's wise and super old and still within his like right mind, and this is his very first big thing. Like he's literally on the center stage. He's filling in for his footsteps. It just seems like such a to me, is like one of the only logical steps he makes as far as being like like listening to those around him, he is.
We can see Jace has hero worship bad He like his father hero. He put hammers in the hands of the people, like his mentor Heimer Dinger. He was like, he's just like the greatest and to be fair, harmony is pretty great. Later we'll see as he's falling in love, He's like, now she's got all she knows what she's doing.
I'm gonna follow that.
Like he loves a person with a plan, and he's got the face and the product know how to Abou's point to really sell that shit. So I think it makes sense that he was like, you know, this guy's been around, I'm gonna follow through. And I do think he's sort of getting to this point in his life where he's like, as much as I love my best he we're like, maybe not on the same wavelength anymore, and I'm gonna start making decisions.
Yeah, you know Laterally, I think Jace easily succumbs to peer pressure, as we will see throughout, but he is. It's kind of just like, who's the last person that talked to him? Although I guess I guess Mel talked to him more recently than Himerdinger, But he's easily swayed.
I think, Wow, I love the separate but equal interpretations here. Yeah, on this choice, I love it.
It's almost like we have pre existing thoughts and biases towards him as we read all of his actions. Meanwhile, Jinks sets fire to a building to distract a group of enforcers, which includes Caitlin. They're all lounging around on their break, just hanging out. They're all making fun of Kaitlin, and then this fire breaks out. They go running into this building to check it out and hear this little
girl's voice. She's locked, she's scared, she needs help. And turns out it's just a recording of Jinks and they're all these bombs and they set off an explosion.
Oh so creepy, so good.
Back in Jinks's Propeller Fan hide out, Soko comes in. He's furious and he is like, you just endangered all these plans? What are you doing? And she's like, chill out, look what I stole and she shows him Jace's new hex Tech prototypes.
Yeah, this is a tough look for Soco. Your wild card daughter is acting wild? What my guy rain her in like?
He's he's not good at sutting boundaries with his kid. He's not a disciplinarian. He's pretty avoidant when it comes to like disappointing her or letting her down. He just he really can't stomach it, which is kind of sweet.
Yeah, weird.
Silcle's a little squishy on the inside. But also the problem is there really isn't a solution for like a like if you try to think about like all of the step Cilcle could take, Like the most logical one is like get her in mental health institute, which maybe he could do. He has some finances, but in their neighborhood, Like how good are the options?
Is gonna cross over into town?
Yeah, I was gonna say what is available in the under city?
Right, And so you can't abandon Harry, that would be awful. She's not going to listen to you.
At best.
You could do the one thing we're going to talk about at the end of this episode, but that's gonna put you in a lot of hot water, and you'd have to be in a position of wanting to take responsibility for your actions, and that's not who Silco is. Yeah, he's kind of screwed when it comes to reining her in.
Yeah, he's really just trying to like point her in a direction that's useful and hope the gun goes off with the rights. You know, he's like taking her energies and being like, Okay, I need to protect you, and I clearly feel sympathetic towards you in some way, but you could be useful to me. I just gotta like make sure your chaos goes in this direction. Play in the right space, Play in the right space. Right, Okay, back to uh oh Man, I love a council meeting.
We're with the Piltover Council and they are obviously worried about the theft of this hex tech. Some of them want to just go hard on the under city, right, punish the under City. They've taken our technology. They've been a thorn in our side for so long. It's time to take bold action. Jas on the other hand, suggests just shutting down all the hex tech. Shut down the gates, turn off all the technology until we know every thing is safe, until we get things back under control. I
take full responsibility. You know, he's really trying to be golden boy here and live up to that reputation and do the right thing as he sees it. But Mel, who's got dollar signs in her eyes, quickly interjects and suggests an alternate solution. She nominates Jason for a seat on this council, which breaks traditions. There's never been another seat on this Council and she's out here saying, hey, we love our golden boy. Look how much money his
hex tech has made us. Let's get him on this council and give him the authority to just manage this hex tyche problem on his own.
We need another Supreme Court judge. Okay, happening, let's go, time for court expansion. This is a power couple move, and it's technically like, man again. I love watching these two work and for her to be like, Okay, bet, he's pretty cool.
We vibe. That's another feather in my cap.
Like you could see her calculating very far out, and I really appreciate that, as if the women in this show, especially like the run of women we're about to be introduced to, are so cool and I just really value that. We sort of start with this woman on at the start of her rise, like she's just now all finding her stride in how to like navigate this particular pool of people, and it's so fun to watch her do it.
Yeah, that's a cool upgrade for Jace. Like wow.
Meanwhile, Jace's suggestion of shutting down all hex tech, I don't understand it. That's like saying, hey, someone stole a nuclear bomb. We should turn off all the nuclear reactors. Why, they already got what they need. If you shut down the ones that are running, that doesn't prevent them from researching what they already stole, Jace, not a great suggestion. I'm glad someone else had a different idea, because I don't think his idea would have done anything.
That's a really good point, Hearin. I think this is Jase a little bit panicking. Yeah, He's like, I have a reputation to uphold. I'm the golden boy. I made this technology. Now we're all in danger because of it.
I can appreciate that part, and I think that this.
Is truly like a panic move on his end to just be like, uh, turn it off. I think, like, undo, Undock, It's you're absolutely correct. He's really not thinking the logistics of this through. He just wants to say face.
Jason, the aftermath of his newly elected position, goes to see Caitlin to a make sure that she's okay after this explosion that she was in, but then be also asked her to join his cabinet as his head of security. She's put off. She's like, that's a do nothing position. As soon as I'm healthy, I'm gonna go back to the enforcers. And he's like, actually, turns out your parents didn't want you to be an enforcer anyway. They pulled
a few strings and you have been removed. But she still wants to do it, still wants to solve this case. And she's like, Nope, I'm gonna do this on my own if I have to, and we get a really good interaction between the two of them, one of my favorite one on one interactions in this entire episode actually just makes me like Kate even more.
I like it too, Aaron.
It's again, I really like these two as friends. They're so warm with one another. But even when they're fighting or at odds, there's like a tenderness between them. I think they're very sweet.
Yeah, and it gives like real.
Childhood besties, like almost siblings energy between the two of them. And yeah, when she kicks them out, I was like, get it, girl, She's like, I don't want you here.
Actually, yeah, it's not helpful.
Even they're sort of misunderstanding of each other's wants. Gives like sort of childhood sibling energy, Like he's like, I just want you to be safe. And she's like, this is how my parents treat me. Don't treat me like this. And he's on the council, he's doing all this council shit, and she's like, you on the council, is this what you wanted? Did you want to like make heex tech? And that's what was the say science.
Jace literally turns into her parents. It's so fast, like not just.
In the way he treats her, which has sort of always been in a brotherly way of like you just need to be safe, but also I'll just swing my power around to help you get like, Yeah, she wants to earn her place.
That's the thing she's been saying the whole totally fricking time. Please listen.
This is why she's friend zoning you. Jays, you're not listening, geez. I also wanted to point out super quickly this is like not literally neither here nor there, but there is a shot in this interaction where Kate takes a step back onto a.
Stool to look at the map or something to.
Look down at the map. She's got that like red string investigation thing on the ground. Charlie the Charlie Day meme. Yeah, and the camera cuts wide. She steps back and we see their height differential, which I was like, no way, you're kidding me. She steps back on the stool and then matches height with Jace, which confirms that Jace is also over six feet tall. Probably I was ranting to Aaron in the last episode, Joelle, how Jace just has
it all. He's good looking, Yeah, he's smart, he's brilliant. Everyone loves him. He's charismatic, he's charming, and now he's also six feet tall. Next you'll tell me he works and find and has blue eyes?
Yes, yes, right?
And does he not kind of like maybe government, Like he's adjacent. Listen, if Chase had a profile on Bumble, it would be over in days, okay, Like the girls would be like there's a new number one, please move to the side.
Jase is clearly on Peltov Rayah, for sure, he's on the ryot. Yeah, oh yeah, but he hasn't he hasn't opened the app in forever, Like he's on there.
He actually goes to he's too busy. Yeah, I listen.
It's what makes his character really compelling is like he has it all, he wants to do well, and there's this constant temptation.
To be like, no, forget your morals.
You could have money and power, which is that's what everybody really wants anyway, And he's like, I do want to help the people, but oh, money and power and the hot shake.
Who wants it too? Like it's a really difficult position to be in and I'm so hot. What do I do to be Jason? I want a dream.
Truly to be jas The Trials and Tribulation, Okay, let's wrap up Episode four. Kate heads off to Stillwater Prison to question one of the survivors from the attack earlier in the episode, but it actually turns out that the survivor in the prison is in the medical bay right now because he has a broken jaw. One of the other prisoners beat them up. And that's the big reveal at this sort of like big mic drop moment at
the end of this episode. This other prisoner at Stillwater is violent, done, done, done, all grown up.
Oh thank god she's still here.
My sleep prices, baby. I was very nervous about it. This is so great. It explains so much.
Because you're really like, what happened? Where is she?
Like?
Oh no, this thing is making sense right now, and are we just abandoning that entire like line.
Of what was it?
And to be like, Okay, this is the world without Vie is a really compelling way to reintroduce her to the storyline because it's chaotic, it's advancing quickly and allegian to start changing every two seconds, like where people are who hold power. It's really quickly changing. Zi really is like with her dad, he was sort of this thing that was holding this tentative situation together. So he's gone, things fall apart. She's taken out of the equation at
the same time, and she's his progeny. So now that she's back in the mix, how is that going to change everything? And I think, of course we're particularly concerned about our dear Powder. How does she she does she didn't react well to thinking she saw her sister her sure to actually back chaotic.
Yes, uh, it sets up a very juicy rest of the season for sure, But holy sprockets, guys, look at the time, we have to go to another ad break, So stick around, folks. We'll be back to talk about Arcane episode five in just a minute. Okay, we are back. Let's talk about Arcane episode five. This one's titled Everybody Wants to Be My Enemy, which is an Imagine Dragons song that I actually sometimes run two. I have to admit that, wait.
A minute, we didn't get Oh my god, keep going. You know what music Jase works out to. It is literally just Imagine Dragons. He doesn't listen to anything else when he works out.
It is I know, I've been thinking about this all week Like, I spent all weekend being like, do I tell Eron that I listened to Imagine Dragons or do I just play along and pretend I don't. But here we are, okay. This episode opens up on a flashback to young Caitlin and the late Great Sheriff Grayson in a friendly shooting competition. Caitlyn wins the competition, but at the after party, she gets a little suspicious. She sees her parents schmoozing, and she asks Grayson if the Sheriff
fletter win because of a bribe. Her parents have always done things to make life easy for her, was this one of those things too? Grayson admits that she did let the child win, but just because she's like a cute child who shows some promise, and not because any money was involved, and Grayson actually leaves Kate with what will clearly become like a life defining question. Quote. It begs the question, young kierman, what are you shooting for?
End quote, which I think is something Kate is still exploring even to present day.
We cut back to Stillwater Prison in the present day and Kate's questioning the v Sorry, VI. It's tough because she now has the joker fied six Roman numeral tattoo under the eye that says VI. It's a little not my favorite transition character design wise, but she's questioning Violet, and after some unpleasant back and forth, Caitlyn realizes that she really needs her, and she goes and uses Jace's newly appointed position to forge documents to get ye out
what Jace has just been elected. We're really speed running election to corruption in Yeah, I don't know a day basically here.
Yeah, incredible. She shows a lot of gumption, Yes, gets things done. I think Sheriff Grayson had the right idea. Back in Piltover, Your guy, Aaron, your guy. Sheriff Marcus is giving a speech at the funeral of the dead enforcers from Powder's attack earlier. He is genuinely broken up about these losses, and he even visits Grayson's tombstone with his daughter. You can tell he's very affected by the
death of his comrades. We then cut to an absolutely furious Marcus yelling at Silko, demanding that he'd be allowed to arrest Powder. But Silko obviously has another suggestion. Hey, remember the firelights. She use them as a scapegoat.
So win win, which I mean kind of.
Makes sense, crooked police. Yeah, when will you learn?
What does this kind of really makes sense? Why is Marcus not thinking of that?
Well, because Marcus wants to be a good cop. Marcus is out here being like, I want to be an outstanding cop. I got caught up. Yeah, maybe I can make the best of a situation and make it worse. But no, you're already in bed with the criminal, Marcus. The only thing you can do is turn yourself in. You're screwed. This never works out for the crooked Coughs. I don't know why I haven't figured this out.
Yeah, you're in too deep, Surpuco. Let's keep going at the Hexgate. Doc Jase is taking his new council position very seriously, and he's uncovering months and months of shipping discrepancies. This corruption has been running rampant since I guess as long as he created the hexgates, however long ago that was, and he's here to drain the swamp. Victor is annoyed that his friend is too busy focused on the council
work to be focused on the hex tech work. So Victor is complaining, and then he coughs up a little bit of blood and his head rushes, and he rushes to the lap with a brand new idea.
Right, he has a sort of epiphany here. Now back in her layer, Jinx is trying to figure out Jase and Victor's hex Tech. She's got the notes, she's got the gemstone. She's trying to crack it all on her own, and she does to activate it, causing like a sort of chaotic explosion, and this is obviously deeply traumatic for her. She flashed back to the explosion back in the cannery that killed all her friends, that killed Vander, and it's
a pretty horrifying scene. And we see that Powder is still deeply hurt from that incident, and this brings a lot of that grief back up to the surface for her. Witnessing another hexstack explosion.
Kate and Violet are at the escalator shaped the circular escalator Bathosphere ticket office, and Kitlin's like, we should make sure we get a ticket, you know, we should get an aisle seat. I don't know what the inflight movie is today, but I think we might be able to watch Joker on the ride down, and Violet is like, no, no, no, no, we're parkouring ourselves down and that's the fastest way to the under city, and impressively, Caitlin, a little slowly does
manage to follow her down. I don't know if as someone who's afraid of heights, I don't think that would have been I probably would have stuck in to see what in flight meal was. But as Violet gets down there first she steals, not steals, she borrows some clothing to help her new partner, Caitlyn blend in because she
can't be dressed in an enforce her outfit. And as she's doing it, or as Caitlyn comes down, Violet's like, my sister could have done that faster than you when she was seven, So clearly she's still thinking about her sister too.
Yeah. I really felt like this was an important line because we know that Powder still thinks about Violet, and it's important for us as the audience to also recognize that Violet has also not forgotten about Powder all these years later, and the two sisters are still thinking about each other in equal but also dramatically different ways. Powder clearly sort of traumatized by even someone with similar hair to Violet, whereas Violet uses it to flirt exactly and
remembers the things her sister was good at. You know, this is a fond memory.
It's also an important moment in buying Caitlyn's relationship because it shows the first time we see how everyone is like, God, you're slowing us down and you're terrible at this. Yeah, And so either VIA's remembering Powder as being better at doing this stuff than she actually was, or it's really showcasing the distance between Vi and Caitlin as far as like what you need to be aware of and how to survive in this space, Like you're you are worse than a child.
It's really bad. Yeah, And it's an important line doing so.
With so little words, really exploring a lot of relationships at one time.
Yeah, amazing point, Joelle, You're spot on all right. Back in the lab, Victor is obsessively working with the ruins on the hex Tech machine to try and build what, to my understanding is basically just hex Tech GPT trying to make AI happen, while Jasons in the background clearly just checking his hair. Does this guy do any work in the lab anymore? No, I haven't seen him put any hours in honestly the faith now it's wild and
understand Victor's frustrations. Like if I was here recording this episode and Aaron was just like off in the corner combing his hair, I'd be like, are we recording right now?
Or what are we doing?
The amazing thing is with my hair, I can do it at any time, just with my hands, or I can fix it, so I don't need to leave screen for that. Don't worry.
Now. Meanwhile, down in the under City, Violet is eating a delicious Undercity meal of sloppy fish while a frustrated Caitlin is trying to get her to focus. We're here to do a job. We got to crack this case. Tell me about the soko, tell me about this investigation. Let's go do stuff. The stall owner after the meal secretly hands Via a note and they walk off, and clearly this was more than just a meal. This was a subtle business transaction as well, and an exchange of
information happened here. And I liked how this You know, once again, Joel, to your point about Caitlin maybe not knowing how to operate in the under city, This shows us that Caitlin is out of her depth. She doesn't understand the subtle ways that you oper right down here. You don't just go around asking questions.
She's literally an enforcer. Subtle subtlety is not in her handbooks. She's she is somewhat the pampered princess. She doesn't want to be in that She's always had a lot of privilege and ability and access. And then on top of that, her job is an enforcer. Like nobody tells you not to go somewhere except your commander, who she didn't listen to anyway, Like she has no subtlety is not in this girl's menu. I love in opposites the tract storyline.
I love the banter chemistry between these two, these enemies. To love her storyline. It's not quite enemies, but definitely the other side of the tracks.
Angle for sure with these two.
And like these opening scenes of them just trying to get through the city like they're really not to anything but talking to mostly friendly people and it's such a train wreck for them because are so opposites.
That's a lot of fun.
Yeah, definitely.
We head back up to Piltover and at the Piltover Opera House, Mel is giving Jason little politics one O one lesson, and she's basically explaining, you've done a great
job of rooting out all the corruption. Unfortunately, a lot of the corruption around the hex Gates was with members of the council, and you kind of put a target on your back, and you kind of gotta go grease some palms and make up for the little dust storm that you kicked up here because so and so wants their wine brought in from this part of the town, and so and so over here has been skimming a little off the top. And that's okay. You gotta learn all this, but it's time for you to make nice
with everyone. Everyone that is except heimer Dinger, who is just focused on loving the performance. Heimer Dinger is out there like a boo listening to imagine dragons on a run. Heimer Dinger's just like losing it.
Oh wow, shots fired. Yeah, yeah, I loved these cutaways. We see all of this like politicking happening during this scene, and every so often we just cut back to Heimerdinger, who's.
Just adorable teddy bear, clapping.
Eating his snack and being like, this is my favorite violinist. Woo.
It's so good.
And I think, what's really like that scene again, just artistically in the way they shape these scenes, the way they're filmed so beautiful and sunning, because you understand, like Heimerdinger's negligence on this look, he doesn't understand the beast that he's created within Jase.
Oh yeah, because what he.
Knows of him is his good, sweet boy heart. They're like, that's just young Jace. He just wants to help the people, and he's really smart and I gave him a leg up and I'm just so proud of him.
And he's getting a corruption.
He's doing all the things that I taught him. Congratulations us. He doesn't see this change coming at all. I don't think Jace really sees it. But oh the seduction of being like, Babe, I'm gonna help you maximalize your potential. I mean, this couple really won for the ages.
We cut to the lanes and Jinks visits the gang's old hangout with the boxing machine and the shooting gallery, and she starts us using violets boxing training machine to uh burn off some steam and trauma, and we get like a boo you had mentioned this. We get Jinks kind of mimicking her sister here, which is pretty powerful.
Oh my gosh, so beautiful. Yeah. It sort of fades in and out of young Violet practicing and we see Jinks just mimicking her sister's moves on this machine. But I want to note this feels important. She still only comes in.
Second place, second right.
Violet still holds the record on the arcade machine at the Pizza Hut. No one is better than her at punching this thing.
This is like a Costanza needing to move the arcade out before the pizza place shuts down.
Bob me Jimmy Pestow's high score.
Yeah yeah, all right, let's check back in with Vi and Kate. They go to a pleasure house to try and go get information. Via tells Kate to blend in impersonate one of the workers here. You're a hottie, mccatti. Just do your thing, blend in, do your job, get some information for us, and go over there. Leave me alone.
Meanwhile, no, no, no, aboo, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
One second, one moment because.
Also the important hand against the wall like men or women, check of are you into this girl or not?
Like wow, we cannot have this very important moment be glossed lesbian iconic moment.
I'm sorry, Continia, Yeah, no, definitely steamy.
So Violet heads to the back of the business to meet with the proprietor and get a little bit of information on her sister in Soco, and she doesn't learn too much, but she does get information on Sophika. And Marcus is meeting with Soko again. He's trying to stand up for himself, but surprise, surprise, he just doesn't have the guts and he can't stop working with him. He's in too deep, we already said. But Soko's feel the pressure to right now, and so he tells Jinks to
hurry up and figuring out hextech. And you stole these prototypes, and I know that two episodes ago you couldn't even make a bomb that worked, but why don't you, without any notes, figure out this brand new technology? On your own in a cave with a box of scraps, and
spoiler alert, she does. We head back to Piltover and this is the steamy scene that unfortunately, I'm gonna have to do part of the recap by myself because I don't think a Boo or Joelle are just mentally able to talk about this without blowing all the mics out. But Jason mel become intimate.
They fall stars motion, the universe collides around them.
It isn't epic coupling.
Okay, yeah, Jace gets busy. However, let's not forget about Victor, because while this is going on, Victor is low on sleep. He's still a obsessed with figuring out the hex tech. And his cute lab assistant comes in and is like, Oh, I wish someone would walk me home to the restaurant. How late are you going to be working? I could leave whenever you're ready, And he is like, I'm not working.
I'm sleeping here tonight, and she's like, oh, well, you probably need something to eat, right, Like, we could walk to the restaurant together, or I think someone maybe left the door open. I'm not strong enough to close it, would you? And he's like, I am busy, please leave me a.
Little locked in?
Yeah?
Do you guys think that he was unaware or he's just genuinely uninterested because we haven't seen him have any romantic inklings or conquest or anything. And I don't know what the read is on that guy. I'm like, does he you know? Is it totally fair if he's just like, I'm not interested? I have science to do.
I mean, as we learn. I think if someone was like, hey, you got maybe a couple of days to live unless you solve this, I think I might be pretty locked in on We'll see.
I'm going for love. This is too much pressure? Fine, God days left? Great, heism, Let's go.
Victor, very frustrated that his research is not yielding any results, costs up more blood and collapses, and as we mentioned before intercut with Jase and Mel we get the hex tech reacting to the blood and truly like a sci fi horror movie montage of like, uh oh, the technology is becoming sentient and alive because it attached to human blood. And now we have this other thing. No way, this is bad, right, I'm sure this will be good.
Yeah, the ominous music really gave it away. That this is a good thing. Now back in the under city, Jinks. Oh, this scene is beautiful. I love this. Jinks has a baptism of sorts in the same waters that Soilco nearly drowned in that Silco nearly got drowned in by Vander Silko imparts some advice on his adopted daughter. She's clearly struggling with her trauma and these feelings and these memories of her sister and her friends, and so he imparts
some advice. He says, quote, you need to let powder die.
Jinks is perfect, great line. Really love this scene, and I love the idea of this is where Silko almost died and was born anew and this is where Jinks will be fully come into her own. We then get to really one of the lowest points of the show's run. We're treated to a montage set to the theme song with the band animated. You know nothing against the members of the band individually. What's going on here, like you're walking down the.
Streets as a whole. I have lots of concern.
Yes, yeah, individuals are fine, but when you come together, I don't like it.
Yeah yeah, And there's no skip intro button here. I don't know what's happening.
No, it's really difficult, right, and key things happen while it's playing, so you kind of can't sky. I would just skip it, and I said, no major things happen in this sequence. I think it was a small note to the creators and you've done fabulous, so it's really tiny. If you play the theme song for every episode, don't also stick it in the center of it's way too, and it would be with even with the theme song I loved, I would be like, this is a lot.
Too unless unless your theme song is like the X Men and animated series, something instrumental and you use motifs throughout, Like I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole musically, but there are ways that you can make this effective. And I think just playing the exact same part of.
The song totally makes sense.
Right, playing the exact same part of the song that plays in the opening credits doesn't work, and like, I get it. Maybe this song was written for this particular scene and then they were like, oh, maybe we should use this for the theme. I'm not entirely sure. The lyrics don't really hit for me on their own, but they don't hit in this part of the scene. I
don't know. Anyways, we didn't even talk about what's happening in the scene, just because Imagine Dragons was like we could go through like an entire thing about you know, Game of Thrones would have musicians in it, but they were like kind of hidden and it wasn't like, hey, here's the members of cold Play in the back of the Red or who is in the Red wedding cigaret ROAs I forget who it was, But it wasn't like Coldplay is in Game of Thrones and they're listening to
the scientist like at the same time, like he was a little more tastefully done. Vi is going off to confront Sevika. Marcus is struggling with his choices as we know, he's far too deep in the corruption, and Mel wakes up ditched in bed because Jason has actually run off to go try to be at the bedside of Victor,
who has collapsed and is in the medical bay. VI and Sevika get into an all out brawl, and Sevika reel reveals to Violet that Powder now Jinx is working for Soco and is like his daughter, and this is like, we get our first look kind of at the body augmentation power by the Shimmer, this opposite tech that we're gonna see as opposed to the hex tech stuff. We've
got the Shimmer powered arm and everything. But of course the culminating part of the scene is Violet's gonna lose and then Kate shows up and saves her life.
Yeah, and then they stumble off arm in arm. By the way, I feel like Joelle would want me to say.
That, thank you so much we're including this. She's like, Hey, guess why I actually am capable. It's you who can sometimes be hot headed and discharging in situations. Sometimes you need a detective know how to handle these situations. Like, hmm, this white lady who is always the powerful fighter has a cloak on any upgrade she might have gotten. Look both ways before you cross the street. Viy, this was
reckless as hell. I'm obsessed with Uying Katelyn together. I think they're so lovely and sweet and they push each other to be better people with like the best kind of relationships. Man, this episode sings this is such this. I don't know if it's my favorite episode, but it's up there.
We do I think need to just give our flowers. We've dragged him a lot this episode. But Marcus, I think, has done one good thing in this show, and that was at the end of episode three, Marcus saved Violet by what was it ethanol or whatever, knocking her out and preventing her from going after Soco and his gang. Because Sivika comes in and informs Soilco that Violet is back, and he says from the dead, so everyone thought Violet
was dead. I guess Silko's corrupt cops didn't inform him when Violet was arrested and put in prison and causing fights and clearly on the wrong side of the jailers as she's been. It's insinuated she's been beaten by the jailers multiple times. So I guess that news didn't leave Stillwater prison. But it is at least something that Marcus saved her until now.
Yeah, and to your point, maybe it is Marcus doing a bit of a cover job, just making sure the paperwork from Stillwater just happens to never make it to ghost Desk.
All Right. That was the end of our discussion on Ourcane episodes four and five. On tomorrow's episode, Jason and Rosie. We're back to discuss the Greatest Year of Horror nineteen eighty four. A Boo and I will probably not be on that episode because of Boo and I are not we're not horror heads.
Too spooky for me.
Yeah, not enough imagine dragons, So we really don't have anything to contribute next week. Admitted that next week we'll be back with Penguin episode six on Monday, Agatha episode seven on Tuesday, and Arcane episodes six and seven on Wednesday, and then a very special Halloween episode on Thursday.
Thanks for listening, We'll see you next week.
Bye.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sumsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mea Tale. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord. Kenny Goodman and Heidi are Discord moderator