"You're all I have left. I can't lose you."
— Vi
Vander plans to turn himself in for the robbery. However, the arrest is interrupted by Silco, whose concoction Shimmer has turned Deckard into a violent, powerful brute. Deckard brutally murders Benzo and makes off with Vander. Ekko, who witnessed the events, informs Vi. Vi takes Claggor and Mylo with her to rescue Vander, leaving Powder behind for her safety.
Up in Piltover, thanks to some interference by Councilor Mel Medarda, Viktor and Jayce make a breakthrough with their theories, and even manage to win over Heimerdinger.
Vi and her brothers find Vander in one of Silco's hideouts. Claggor and Mylo work on rescuing him while Vi fights off Silco's thugs. Though they get close, Powder, who snuck along out of a desire to be useful, thinks they are in trouble and unleashes a homemade bomb made of the crystals she had previously stolen from Jayce. Things go south — the explosion kills Claggor and Mylo and injures Vi and Sevika. In order to defeat Deckard, Vander resorts to taking Shimmer, and is killed in the ensuing fight.
Oblivious to what has just transpired and excited that her creation worked, Powder wanders back onto the scene. Furious, Vi lashes out at Powder and leaves her behind in the chaos. After realizing she has left her sister with Silco, Vi has a change of heart, but Marcus drugs her and takes her away before she can turn back. Silco takes Powder in his arms, proclaiming that they'll show everyone who doubted and betrayed them.
Tropes in this episode include:
- All for Nothing: Less than nothing, in fact. Powder sets off her improvised hexcrystal explosive in hopes of being useful to her adoptive family and contributing to their escape. Instead, the explosion kills half of them outright, just as they were on the verge of escaping, and badly injures Vi enough that she can no longer escape on her own or defend herself, forcing Vander to pull a Last Stand and eventual Heroic Sacrifice to get her out of the building before the mortal wounds he suffered claims his life. To add insult to injury, Deckard, who was the primary target of the bomb and the closest one to the blast, not to mention the least protected, survives virtually unscathed thanks to his mutation, highlighting how pointless Powder's interference was.
- All or Nothing: Jayce was already expelled from the Academy to be saved from exile, all because he wanted to help change the world with magic. With Viktor and Medarda's help, he risks everything to finish his work, knowing full well of the consequences if he fails or is caught by someone else.
- Almost Dead Guy: Vander lives long enough to deliver a Last Request to Vi about her to take care of Powder.
- An Arm and a Leg: When Powder's bomb goes off, Sevika pulls a Diving Save to push Silco and herself behind the metal doors on their side of the catwalk for protection from the explosion, with a slow-mo shot of the blast vaporising her entire left arm up to the shoulder when it reaches them. There a shot of her lying in a pool of her own blood in the aftermath and it's made clear that the only reason she didn't lose more from the blast was that she barely managed to get the rest of herself out of the way in time.
- Battle Amongst the Flames: The fight between Vander, Deckard and Silko after the explosion ensues while the building is aflame.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Before unleashing her hex-powered bomb, Powder wishes it to work for her this time. Once it's triggered, the bomb finally works, except it not only fails to destroy the intended target, but it kills her own foster family with the exception of Vi, which means Powder failed spectacularly at saving the day, which was the intended purpose of her bomb in the first place.
- Big "NO!": Vander when Benzo gets killed.
- Blood from the Mouth: Vander spits out blood when the kids find him.
- Brutal Brawl: Vi's Stand Your Ground moment on the warehouse catwalk, while containing some stylization, is mostly her punching out thugs while wearing heavy metal gauntlets, as said thugs try to kill her with knives and other melee weapons. Vi sends at least three of them over the railing to their possible deaths, seems to break another's neck, and her gauntlets quickly get bloodstained.
- Cliffhanger Copout: The previous episode ending with a Cliffhanger of Vi apparently turning herself in to the authorities. When this episode starts, it turns out it was Vander and Benzo approuching the door.
- Continuity Nod: The first punch Vi lands during her catwalk fight is an uppercut almost identical in form to the one she hit Urgot with in the "Warriors" cinematic for the 2020 season of League of Legends.
- Creepy Souvenir: Crossed with Tragic Keepsake. Silco's knife is one that he stole from Vander to defend himself during their falling out, and one he uses to stab Vander again.
- Dead-Hand Shot: We see one from Vi's perspective as she wakes up from the warehouse explosion and sees Mylo's dead hand sticking out from underneath the rubble.
- Death of a Child: Claggor and Mylo, both mere teenagers, die in a rather graphic and brutal fashion — Claggor gets struck bloody in the head from Powder's bomb explosion, and Mylo himself is impaled in the chest by a pipe blown out by the force of the blast. Both are shortly thereafter crushed by debris.
- Death Wail: Vi screams in inarticulate grief right after Vander dies.
- Didn't See That Coming: Silco's eyes widen in surprise after Vi KO's his first goon.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Powder rigs up the Cymbal-Banging Monkey into a crude impact trigger for the hex crystals, never stopping to consider that she has no way to focus the explosion. She already knows one crystal has enough energy to blow up an entire apartment, and she loaded the monkey with at least three. The resulting explosion not only fails to kill her intended target but also ends up killing nearly everyone she was trying to save except for Vi.
- Silco shoves a dying Vander over the edge of the railing and right into a crate full of Shimmer, letting Vander take one of them himself, climb back up, and easily kill Deckard. If Vander hadn't had to choose between protecting Vi and revenge, Silco would have died then and there.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Vander dies in Vi's arms.
- Dies Wide Open: Grayson and Vander both die with their eyes open.
- Diving Save: Sevika pushes Silco out of the way of the explosion.
- Double-Meaning Title: Silco says the title phrase verbatim in reference to the crudity of his operation and his aims of revolution. The title also refers to the explosion, which separates Vi and Powder and sends their lives on completely different trajectories. There's also a more literal meaning: a good deal of violence occurs at Silco's base, and Violet physically lashing out at Powder (and subsequently abandoning her) is what drastically changes her.
- Downer Ending: Vander, Mylo, and Claggor all die in an explosion caused by Powder trying to come to their aid. Vi initially blames Powder for getting them killed, but stops upon realizing that she's only traumatizing the girl further, and leaves to cool off, with Powder screaming for her to come back. However, instead of returning, it's Silco who finds Powder, and Vi ends up drugged and taken away by Marcus to presumably be hauled off to jail.
- Empathy Doll Shot:
- An interesting variation of this happens during the warehouse explosion sequence: Vi's old rabbit toy is shown being flung mid-air in slow motion. Vi herself, meanwhile, has just witnessed the death of her friends and is on the verge of losing her father figure.
- An arguably more dramatic variation occurs when Vi sees the severed head of Powder's cymbal monkey toy she modified into a bomb amongst the wreckage, punctuated by the sparks from the damaged lighting setting the spilled chemicals from Silco's Shimmer alight in the room, further illuminating it as Vi focuses on it.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Silco reminds Vander that he trusted him and then got betrayed by him.
- "Eureka!" Moment: During her tantrum after being left out of the rescue mission, Powder drops one of the hex crystals and sees it discharge energy from the impact. From this, she realizes that the one she dropped during the robbery was responsible for the explosion, and gets the idea to use them to upgrade her bombs. Sadly, in her haste to help, as well as a lack of confidence that the bomb might not work, she loads her makeshift explosive with three crystals, overlooking how powerful the blast was with just one, which ends up costing her and Vi everything.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Marcus cut a deal with Silco, but he's absolutely horrified when Grayson is murdered.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Vander asks how Vi and the others were able to reach him within Silco's warehouse, Vi tells him about the open window they were able to sneak through, and then goes silent, presumably realizing that the window was left open and that she and the others have fallen into a trap.
- Foreshadowing: As Powder sobs into Silco's arms, there's a brief shot of her eye peeking out and angrily staring at the camera, colored a pinkish-red from the flames, just like present-day Jinx's eyes.
- Four Is Death: The shot of Powder's hex-crystal bomb's fatal explosion is repeated four times.
- The Glomp: Powder straight-up tackles Silco off his feet with the force of her desperate hug.
- Gone Horribly Right: After seeing so many of her grenades fail to work in the past, Powder prays that this time, her magic-infused grenades will work. And boy, do they work...
- Hallway Fight: Vi fights the mooks one by one on a catwalk.
- Harmful to Minors: Both Vi and Powder experience this, as it's in no way good for a teenager or a child to see their siblings killed by an explosion and their father figure apparently dead. Worse for Powder, she made and triggered the bomb that did it.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Non-villainous example: furious that Powder carelessly got their family killed, Vi slaps her, cruelly calls her a jinx, and storms off away from her as Powder wails and begs for her to come back. When she turns back and sees Silco standing over Powder, Vi desperately starts to run to her to save her but is captured by Marcus before she could make amends with her. As such, Powder thinks Vi abandoned her and seeks Silco's love and guidance.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: The explosion renders Vi helplessly stuck under debris making her an easy target for Deckard. Cue Vander's Big Damn Heroes moment when he comes for her rescue.
- Hero Harasses Helpers: Vi harshly rejects Powder's wish to come along on the mission to save Vander.
- Heroic BSoD: After seeing the corpses of her slain siblings buried under the rubble, Vi turns over and sees the detached monkey head from Powder's makeshift explosive, making her think Powder was killed as well.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Twice over. Vander stops Vi from giving herself up to the Enforcers, intending to go in her place. When Silco throws a wrench in that plan, Vander ultimately gives his life trying to defend Vi from him.
- Hit Stop: Used when Vi punches a thug out with her Power Fist.
- Hollywood Tactics: Silco lays a trap for the kids coming over to save Vander...and he unveils this trap with his goons on the opposite end of a bridge who are without ranged weapons, preventing them from making full use of their numbers against the four kids and allows Vi to hold off most of his thugs alone on that bridge. If they just brought a bunch of rocks to the trap, Vi would have been in a lot more trouble. As well, the door to the room Vander's in still closes and locks effectively which allows Vi to close it and keep out Deckard for a while.
- Hope Spot: Much of the climax is made up of Vander's kids, led by Vi, falling for the trap he's bait for. Mylo picks the locks on Vander's chair, Claggor manages to find a weak spot in the wall to escape through, and Vi holds off most of Silco's thugs with her fists and a door. Things are looking up... but then Powder tries to help with an experimental explosive...
- Hulking Out: Vander under the Shimmer effect looks much like an enraged Hulk.
- I Have No Son!: Power exclaims that Vi is no longer her sister.
- I Lied: When Silco has the mutated Deckard kill Grayson, an outraged Marcus tries to take him to task:Marcus: What the hell have you done?! ...THIS WASN'T THE DEAL!
Silco: (nonchalantly) Deal's changed. - Inelegant Blubbering: A disturbingly realistic example in Powder. After being left behind and forbidden from helping in Vi's attempt to save Vander from Silco, Powder has a startlingly realistic breakdown complete with saliva and snot running down her face.
- Instant Sedation: Marcus sedated Vi instantly with chloroform.
- In the Back: Silco uses the fact that Vander is distracted by his fight with the mutated Deckard to shank him from behind.
- Ironic Echo: A visual one. The promotional poster image of Power being hugged by somebody and staring out at the viewer is re-created here, but instead of it being her beloved sister's arms it's instead Silco's arms she's finding comfort in, and instead of a wide-eyed and fearful gaze, Powder's eye is hardened and hateful, lit by the flames of the blast she started, tinging her Innocent Blue Eyes pink like her future persona of Jynx's will be.
- It's the Only Way: Vander's response to Grayson asking why he turns himself in.
- Let Me at Him!: Downplayed. Near the end of Vi's beatdown of Silco's thugs, Sevika, who has stayed back with Silco and Deckard up to this point, makes a move as if to go and get a piece of Vi herself. Silco stops her with just a raise of his arm, before offering another dose of Shimmer to Deckard so he can take care of Vi instead.
- Licked by the Dog: Silco doesn't know how to react to Powder hugging him towards the end.
- Licking the Blade: One of the mooks facing Vi on the catwalk does this right before engaging in combat.
- Literal Metaphor: Marcus makes a deal with Silco to alert him when they move in on an arrest, giving Silco a chance at Vander. When Silco's arrival causes the death of Enforces, including Grayson, Marcus is horrified as he never intended that to happen. Silco just says that the plan changed and tosses Marcus a purse full of coin, some of which falls into one of the pools of blood on the ground. Literal blood money.
- Lured into a Trap: Silco lures the kids into the building with Vander as the bait.
- Made of Iron: Apparently, whatever mutation Deckard's transformation grants him also increases his physical durability as well as his strength, speed, and aggression. Despite being closest to Powder's bomb when it goes off, as well as having absolutely zero protection from the blast, he's merely blown away by the force of the explosion and rises to his feet in the aftermath, winded and stunned but not meaningfully incapacitated. For reference, Vi and Vander had a thick steel door between them and the bomb and they still got badly hurt from the blast tearing the walls down on them, with Vi even breaking her arm in the chaos despite her high durability, and Sevika, who was at the other end of the catwalk and arguably furthest from the blast, got her arm disintegrated from the magical explosion.
- Moment of Weakness: Vi goes through one after Powder unintentionally makes things worse when her bomb ends up killing Mylo and Claggor. When Powder arrives while bragging about how her bomb finally worked, Vi loses control of herself and hits Powder, calling her a "jinx" and (not incorrectly) blaming her for their adopted family's deaths. While she soon realizes the gravity of her actions and leaves so she won't hurt Powder any further, this only makes Powder think Vi is abandoning her, and Vi is captured and taken away by Marcus before she can go back to Powder and apologize. While Vi's reaction was only human, it's still the cause of major trauma for Powder and becomes part of her Start of Darkness as Jinx.
- Mood Whiplash: The story intercuts between joyful discovery in Piltover and terrible violence in Zaun.
- Mook Chivalry: Played with. Silco's mooks need to charge across a narrow causeway to get to Vander in case they get in each other's way when attacking, letting Vi dispatch them one by one, but a few times, when some of them recover from behind Vi after she's smacked them down and moved forward to the next challenger, they get a chance to team up and almost overpower her.
- Moral Luck: Powder sets off a huge Hexgem-fueled explosion to help her sister and friends free their adoptive father. Unfortunately, her timing is unwittingly so bad that she causes their deaths, instead. And just when they managed to make a safe opening. Vi, overwhelmed by anger, mourning, and trauma, blames Powder for it, calling her a jinx and even going as far as hitting her. Subverted because, immediately after the fact, Vi comes to regret this her actions. Unfortunately, since Powder admires her big sister so much and they don't get a chance to talk it out, she keeps blaming herself for years. It's further Played for Drama when this is what causes her to go insane.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Marcus has one when he gets Grayson killed through his deal with Silco.
- A heartbreaking one when Powder realizes what her explosive has done.
- An equally heartbreaking one when Vi realizes she hit Powder afterward and is making the situation even worse. The action lines in the script even mention the trope name almost verbatim here.
- Neck Lift: Deckard does this to Vi during their fight.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: All Powder wanted was to prove she was capable of helping Vi and the others save Vander, but her desperate attempt to be useful gets most of her adopted family killed and her sister Vi separated from her. What's worse is that said separation lands her straight into the arms of Vander's enemy.
- Not Quite the Right Thing:
- Powder tries for a Big Damn Heroes moment. If she hadn't intervened, her family would probably have escaped by the skin of their teeth. Instead, they get blown up by her uncontrolled bomb.
- A livid Vi hits and blames Powder for the bomb that killed their foster family, which she immediately regrets. When she leaves to calm down and avoid hurting Powder more, this only breaks her sister further because of the perceived abandonment. Silco winds up taking in the resentful Powder himself and Vi is drugged and dragged away by Marcus, confirming Powder's belief that Vi abandoned her, destroying their relationship for good.
- Oh, Crap!: Silco is visibly terrified when he sees Vander amped on Shimmer.
- Once More, with Clarity: The warehouse explosion is repeated several times, each time focusing on a different character or characters it affects, including those not in the immediate area.
- One-Winged Angel: An interesting inversion of this trope. Vander, having been stabbed twice and thrown off a catwalk, resorts to using Silco's Shimmer serum to fight off the hulked-out Deckard and protect Vi. Unlike Deckard, Vander can mostly control himself and saves Vi's life, though at the cost of his own.
- Papa Wolf: First inverted when Vi takes up Vander's old gauntlets to hold off Silco's thugs, then played straight when Vander must pull himself from the wreckage, battle Deckard when he's hulked-out, then survive a stabbing from Silco and a fall-off a catwalk to rescue Vi again, this time hulking-out as well.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Powder begs this repeatedly towards Vi after the explosion and Vi lashes out at her. It almost works...until Vi is taken away by Marcus, leading Powder to believe that Vi abandoned her.
- Power Fist:
- Vi dons Vander's gauntlets to take on Silco's goons.
- Vander uses parts of his restraints as makeshift knuckledusters against Deckard.
- Power Floats: Viktor and Jayce successfully tapping into the Hextech crystal cause it and them to float in the air.
- Rasputinian Death: Vander starts out the episode having been tortured, then gets hit by Powder's bomb, trapped under rubble, trades blows with Deckard, gets stabbed twice by Silco, and then tanks an explosion to protect Vi before he finally succumbs to his wounds. The Shimmer probably helped, but he took a truly incredible amount of damage before dying.
- These Hands Have Killed: At the end, after slapping Powder in the face, Vi looks at her hand in horror.
- Sinister Suffocation: Vander drowning Silco in the river is played for this effect.
- Slow-Motion Fall: Powder's fall from the building during the explosion is shot in slow motion for dramatic effect.
- Solemn Ending Theme: Goodbye
by Ramsey plays during the ending credits, perfectly encapsulating the despair of Powder being separated from Vi. - So Proud of You: Vander tells Vi he's proud of her and always has been after she attempts to sacrifice herself for the group.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: After blowing up the warehouse with her improvised hextech explosive monkey, Powder and the rest of the characters in the scene are thrown back by the resulting explosion. The soundtrack that accompanies the entire sequence is a hauntingly beautiful set of strings and a choir singing as the scene unfolds in slow-motion, underscoring Powder's subtle wonder and admiration for the sheer destructive power of what she's unleashed, and Foreshadowing Jinx's own love of explosions and mayhem.
- Stand Your Ground: Vi holds off Silco's goons from getting to Vander by defending a narrow catwalk, using mostly just her fists.
- Start of Darkness: The traumatic events of this episode are the reason that Powder turned from a sweet, innocent girl into a deranged nationalistic terrorist.
- Symbolic Serene Submersion: Silco delivers a calm Opening Monologue as he peacefully drowns in a large body of water while a One-Woman Wail plays on the soundtrack.
- Take Care of the Kids: With his dying breath Vander asks Vi to take care of Powder.
- Title Drop: Silco says it when describing how crude his own operation is.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness:
- Ultimately, it's Powder's impulsive desire to help Vi and make herself useful that causes things to go From Bad to Worse. If Powder hadn't set off a highly volatile bomb, it's likely Mylo, Claggor and Vander would have survived, since Claggor had created an escape route just moments earlier and Deckard seemingly wouldn't have gotten through the door in time to stop them.
- Rather than focusing on getting Powder and herself home safely, Vi gives in to her anger and slaps and scolds Powder before storming off to calm down. This allows Silco to corner Powder and Marcus to capture Vi, and Powder is so devastated by her outburst that she runs to Silco and disowns Vi as her sister.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Very, very subtle, but it's there. After getting caught in her own improvised bomb's explosion, Powder can be seen mid-fall in slow motion, her face showing not fear, nor panic or horror, but subtle awe and wonder at the sheer destructiveness of her bomb's power. It's even more pronounced by the Soundtrack Dissonance that plays as this happens.
- Underestimating Badassery: Silco and his men don't take Vi very seriously. After she KO's one of his goons in one punch, they start to.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Deckard on Shimmer has no real style or skill, but is so strong and durable that he doesn't really need any. When Vander, who is both, is amped by Shimmer, he's quickly killed.
- Visual Pun: When Silco hands Marcus the fee for luring Grayson into their ambush, a few of the coins fall into the pool of blood, i.e. blood money.
- Weak, but Skilled:
- Vander is by no means weak, but he isn't superhumanly strong. His skill still allows him to get in several good blows on Deckard, only failing to Deckard's inhuman durability and Silco's intervention.
- Vi similarly is strong but is still a teenage girl fighting opponents bigger, heavier, and stronger than she is. Her skill allows her to wipe the floor with them, though the steel knuckledusters and the narrow catwalk serving as a bottleneck admittedly helped.
- Wham Episode: Grayson, Deckard, Benzo, Mylo, Claggor, and Vander all die, Vi and Powder have a falling out over the deaths of their family which Powder inadvertently caused, Silco takes Powder in after said falling out, and Vi is drugged and taken by Marcus.
- When Things Spin, Science Happens: Viktor and Jayce use a spinning device to unleash the hextech crystal's power.
- Where's the Kaboom?: To Powder's surprise her hex-powered bomb doesn't go off at the expected time leading to a Delayed Explosion.
- The Worf Effect: Deckard is scrawny normally but when amped by Shimmer is nearly unstoppable. Vander, both well-built and much taller, becomes a hulking monster under the effect of Shimmer and ragdolls Deckard with ease before snapping his neck.
