There was a time erstwhile Arcane writer and co-executive maker Amanda Overton wanted to be a geneticist. It was college; she was studying molecular biology and even working in a genetics lab. To her, this was the best way to figure out what made us the way we are.
Now, a fewer years, a fistful of shows, and plenty of writing credits later, she sees it differently. “That is simply a very micro way to approach that,” Overton laughs. “Whereas storytelling is simply a much more macro way to approach the question of why we are the way we are.”
Her exploration of that thought has brought her to respective gigs, including Severance, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and, most recently, Arcane, where she’s delighted in bouncing characters off each another in epic battles and desperate longing (though, as she’ll happily tell you, no 1 is happier than her about Cait and Vi).
It’s been about six years since she was working on the show, technically (and an eventful six years for Overton, having her now 2-year-old son, going on strike with WGA, writing a feature movie and 2 pilots, and working on 3 another seasons of television). But in the years she worked on Arcane, she moved from executive communicative editor to co-executive producer, helping to run the writers area and produce the animatics for the second season. Post-finale, Overton sat down with Polygon over a video call to reflect on the season, the unique process of working with a game company and an animation studio to make a Netflix show, and her final notes on the Cait/Vi sex scene.
[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Polygon: Tell me a bit about erstwhile you were going into period 2 — what were you guys trying to focus on as an arc of the season?
Amanda Overton: I think the kind of large arc for the full series for us was: Would these 2 sisters repeat the sins of their fathers? And if not, why and how — and is there a way to break that cycle? And I think it was truly large to yet get to have that conversation out in the open with Silco and Jinx in episode 8. I was like, And now we just pay off everything we set up! quite a few those scenes in episode 8 are kind of telling us what we thought characters arcs were.
So I think in period 2 we were just like, OK, what versions of this can we put our characters through? How different can we have them start the period with, and have them end the period at? And how hard can we make those journeys? And I think Caitlyn’s, in particular, was very interesting, due to the fact that she was a character so focused on justice. And then we’re like, Oh, but what does that look like if it fits into revenge? And where is that line there? Also, she kind of had to step up and be the Kiramman her mom thought she was, and what does that look like? Is she going to be the good daughter, the leader of Piltover? And even for me, I [thought of it as]: Is she going to date individual her mom would approve of? So that was why the Maddie character was truly crucial to me, to kind of have her truly look at all parts of her life and see, Could I be the Kiramman my mom wanted me to be, or am I going to find my own version of that?
Vi’s arc was besides super interesting to me due to the fact that it was like we always ask that question: Who would Vi be if she had no 1 left to protect? She’s a protector character; she never thought erstwhile about herself. So kind of getting to tell a full communicative about forcing Vi to answer that question — what do I want, at the end of the day? Who am I, what do I want with my life? — and we answered that, with actions! In episode 8. [laughs] She gets to answer that question for herself. And so I think going after Caitlyn like that, in that scene, was so gratifying for me due to the fact that it was the culmination of the romanticist arc, but besides her communicative arc, her character arc for period 2 — she got to answer with actions in that scene.
I saw in a different interview you did that you truly wanted characters to do the “right things for the incorrect reasons, and the incorrect things for the right reasons.” With you having that as an ethos going into period 2, and knowing where the communicative was going to conclude, were there things you knew for certain were going to happen to characters, or did you find any of the nuances of their arcs as you were building the story?
We had our end scenes in head from the beginning. So I think for us, the creative challenge was making certain we earned those the most we possibly could. And anything that we explored or tried or didn’t do in period 2, or did do in period 2, was all in service of trying to gain these final moments. The last minute between Mel and her mother, erstwhile [Ambessa] says, “You are the wolf” — we knew that line from the first minute that Ambessa entered the show. So making certain we earned that, as difficultly as possible for Mel and Ambessa.
And then I actually wrote a version of that final Jinx/Vi scene in period 1, due to the fact that we actually thought Arcane was going to only be 1 season. But that scene is almost identical to the first version I wrote in period 1, down to her taking the crystal out to deactivate the gloves so that they fall. It was the same. And so I think that quite a few those final moments, having them in our minds gave us both the work and the freedom to kind of see what we could do to gain those moments and make the audience feel the most they possibly could in those moments.
Image: Fortiche, Riot Games/Netflix
With queer romances and multiverses and time travel becoming more common tropes, how did you go about making Arcane feel different and distinct?
I think the good things about tropes like that becoming more popular and [becoming] tropes is that you can shorthand them a small bit. So we were like, Oh, we can be very free to just let people experience the planet as Ekko was. It’s fine! You can be confused the first 5 minutes of this episode due to the fact that people are going to figure it out. They’re going to figure out it’s a multiverse thing due to the fact that they’re more popular. Even though it felt like a stand-alone episode that was kind of outside of what Arcane traditionally is and was (which are any of my favourite episodes), you only get to gain them if you so thoroughly set up what your show is that then you can break it, which almost never happens. But then besides making certain that what you learn in that episode carries through and is essential and integral to the remainder of the story.
So, what you learn in [episode 7] is, erstwhile Jinx says in episode 8, “There’s no good version of me” — we know that’s not true, due to the fact that we’ve seen it. And I think what Ekko learns, and takes distant from that episode and carries into the remainder of the season, is integral to his arc and his character, and the communicative wouldn’t work without it. And I besides think that, thematically, that episode got to show the different side of the coin of breaking the cycle and stuff that we wouldn’t get to show in our universe, but we get to show there. So to me, making it feel like the fabric of that episode is absolutely interconnected to the remainder of the period was how we were able to, I think, do our version of the multiverse in a way that felt satisfying to us.
Did you guys approach the musical segments as a storytelling device in the same way? How did those affect how you were able to pace the period and build the timeline and everyone’s arcs?
One thing I love about Arcane is it’s just very dense. We’re very economical storytellers; we only say things 1 time. For example, a final scene between Jinx and Sevika — I wrote 1 actually, due to the fact that I love those characters so much. And all time I wrote that scene, I was like, [solemnly] We’ve already said all these words. This doesn’t request to be in the show, as much as I want to see it. But the action of Sevika joining Jinx in that final battle, that’s something we haven’t seen before; that answers all the questions that I needed to see.
[And] everything about the songs tell the story, tell part of the character arc. And all the montages, again, are kind of very dense and layered, and all the visuals, they’re just so dense and layered — it truly takes time to unpack and grow the show. You request to perceive to the music in your car on your way to work and think about what that means. And this is simply a show you request to talk about with your friends, and this is simply a show that needs multiple viewings in order to truly grow and find all the layers of meaning that were put into it.
I know [co-creator] Christian Linke has said that there were things in the script that sometimes the writing squad would toss to Fortiche and just kind of let them take it away. What was the line for you erstwhile you were writing? What felt useful to say, This is out of our hands?
Arcane period 2. Ellen Thomas as Ambessa in Arcane period 2. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2024Image: Fortiche, Riot Games/Netflix
I think the phrase we usage for that is “solve it in art.” This 1 they’ll solve in art! [laughs] I can tell you, for example, with Ambessa: We always knew that she would be a close-quarters fighter. That was the kind of individual she was; she was individual who was going to look you in the eye before she killed you. She was going to have 2 melee weapons. She was going to be a bruiser, soldier kind of thing, and we called them the Drake-Hounds, which is simply a wolflike creature in the lore. And then after that I was like, Solve it in art! [laughs] So then they had to spend months designing these weapons, and her fighting style, and all of that. So that’s kind of the fun example of how that relation works.
But in the second period in particular, we actually got to work much more closely at the communicative phase. So we would have communicative meetings where they would pitch us their ideas, and their visuals, and what they were thinking, and what they wanted to see the characters to do. And then the writers would go back and talk about, OK, well, how could we fit that in? What does that look like in the communicative arcs? Then we would kind of compose the outlines or the scripts, and then they would look at them, and then we would have a back-and-forth. And then erstwhile they were at the storyboard phase, we would talk more about the communicative and we’d be like, We don’t request this scene, or We can say this in the look, or This isn’t coming across, or Let’s thin into this more due to the fact that this is actually working and this is becoming more about what the episode is than this another thing. So then we would actually do a lot more rewriting in that animatic phase as we kind of got the communicative up on its feet and made it visual together.
Obviously it’s been respective years since you started working on the show — and respective years, even, since you were last writing on this show. And since then, you’ve worked on respective another incredible shows as well. What is it about Arcane you feel like you’re bringing with you moving forward, or that you’re excited to apply to the next thing you’re working on?
I’m always trying to make a show for my 16-year-old self, for one. [laughs] You know, the things that I want I had seen, and the things that I love in the video games, in the large sci-fi worlds, and those sprawling world-building shows. I always loved them so much, but didn’t feel like I saw myself in them. So wanting to be able to do the things I loved, but add more differences, add more diversity, add stories we haven’t seen before. I want people to be as different as possible; that’s going to be the most conflict we can possibly have. And then I want to find a way to see if we can bring them together. That, to me, is an exciting, fun, conflict-driven communicative with tons of drama. And if it can be a weird speech like Severance where they just let us come up with — literally, it was like, What’s the weirdest thing I can think of today?
But what was so large about that besides was just that you’re truly getting to ask and answer the question of why we are the way we are. I utilized to be a geneticist; I studied molecular biology and I worked in a genetics laboratory in college. due to the fact that I was like: Genes! Genes, they make us why we are the way we are. That’s going to answer that question. That is simply a very micro way to approach that. Whereas storytelling is simply a much more macro way to approach that question of why we are the way we are. So if you don’t have part of your memories, for example, in Severance, or you have magic, or something out of the average (which is what quite a few these immense IP shows have), you get to truly dig into what that means, why we are the way we are, in a unique and interesting way.
What was your favourite thing you got to do this season?
I mean, the Cait/Vi sex scene is evidently my favourite thing ever.
I’ll never, ever, always not say that, just due to the fact that it was so earned in that moment. It was yet the right thing for the right reason. It was the culmination of Vi’s character arc in a scene. So that’s a gift — it’s something I’ve never seen before, too, and that my 16-year-old same would’ve died to see.
I think it’s besides a scene that’s so delicately choreographed; it sets up a lot about their characters and where they are now without having to have them say a lot. It’s the way they are reacting to each other, it’s the way the scene is everything for them.
Usually I don’t script quite a few stuff, erstwhile it comes to things like that, but this 1 I was like, [laughing] And this minute and this minute and this moment. due to the fact that it was so much of their relation and actions that we needed to get across. But I think to Fortiche’s credit, they always do the overboard version. They’re like, OK, Amanda, we hear you. Here’s 7 versions of it. And I was like, I love it, but we only request one.
What were the things you were putting in the script, and how many of those made it to the screen?
Vi needed to be the first 1 to catch Caitlyn and kiss her, due to the fact that she was answering the question yet of: What do I want with my life? She’s never asked that question or answered it in her life before, so that was important. But then I think — the tenderness, the playfulness, the softness, the hardness, the mix of those beats there between them, we needed all of that in order to realize how they felt about each other. And I think we had kind of seen the romanticist part of their relation before, and this was the culmination of all of those unsaid, subtextual things — again! But now they’re saying them through actions.
