What happened to Jinx at the end of Arcane? A tiny animation detail and a massive throwback could explain Powder's fate

What happened to Jinx at the end of Arcane season 2? While our Arcane season 2 ending explained article will give you a full rundown of everything that happens in the finale of the League of Legends spin-off, Riot and Fortiche have left a touch of ambiguity to the fate of some characters, and some eagle-eyed fans are already picking up on some compelling details.

This article contains spoilers for the final of Arcane season 2.

Towards the end of the final episode of Arcane, Jinx, Vi, and Vander find themselves stuck in the destruction around the Hexgate. While Jinx is relatively safe, Vi and Vander are on a platform that's threatening to fall a dangerous distance. With Vi injured by her fall onto the platform, and Vander re-entering his frenzied state, it looks certain that both are about to fall to their deaths.

Jinx chooses to act, using her enhanced speed to body slam Vander, sending both of them over the edge, but leaving Vi safe. Vi tries to catch Jinx, and Vander also manages to grab her before falling himself, so Jinx removes the Hex crystal from Vi's gauntlets, deactivating them and causing both her and Vander to fall, telling Vi they'll always be together as she does so. 

As Vi wails in anguish on the platform, Jinx and Vander fall, the former removing one of her grenades from her pocket in a moment reminiscent of her earlier scene with Ekko. A wide shot then shows a pink and blue explosion - pink for Jinx's grenade, and blue for the Hextech core that is destroyed in the blast. Jinx is absent from the rest of the story, and the combination of her apparent sacrifice and her apparent lack of interest in living after the events at Viktor's commune suggest she met her end at the bottom of the hexgate.

Is Jinx dead in Arcane?

As it turns out, however, I'm increasingly convinced that she didn't actually die. Eagle-eyed fans might have noticed a fast-moving streak of purple moving away from the explosion just as it hits - it matches the color often associated with Jinx, and fits with her enhanced speed, a tool that allowed her to hit Vander a few moments before.

Later, we see Caitlyn using her family archives to investigate the architecture of the hexgates, focusing in particular on ventilation vents found at the side of the structure. Given that we know Jinx has knowledge of Piltover's ventilation systems already thanks to her colorful attack on Piltover in episode 3, Caitlyn's handling of the shrapnel from the grenade in this moment seems symbolic. Caitlyn returns to Vi when she hears her humming - the same song that Powder is singing in the very first scene of Arcane episode 1.

The final clue as to what happened to Jinx at the end of Arcane actually stems from the second scene of Arcane season 1. As Vi, Mylo, Claggor, and Powder climb towards their heist on Jayce's apartment, they reach a rooftop. As a blimp flies over their heads towards Piltover, Powder remarks "one day, I'm gonna ride in one of those things." That moment - the character's third line in the entire show - seems to pay off in the very final scene of Arcane Season 2, when an almost identical airship flies out from the screen over the open ocean, away from Piltover and Zaun.

There's no guarantee that that's Jinx in the pilot's seat, but there are no other obvious candidates, and we already know from her balloon ship that she's a capable pilot. Coupled with her hallucination of Silco in episode 8, in which her former father figure explains that the only way to break the cycle of violence is often to walk away, it does seem likely that this is intended to be Jinx turning her back on her previous life, in order to put an end to the cycle of violence that underpins Arcane. Whether there'll be an Arcane season 3 seems fairly unlikely, but that doesn't mean that Jinx's story is over for good.

Now that it's over, check out our Arcane season 2 review.