Ella Purnell is having A Moment. After anchoring Prime Video’s Fallout as Lucy MacLean — a performance that balanced sincerity, grit, and off-kilter humor — it’s no surprise viewers are looking for more. Fortunately, her most acclaimed role is also one of the most ambitious animated series ever made. If Fallout Season 2 has you locked in on Purnell, Netflix’s Arcane isn’t just a good follow-up — it’s essential viewing.
What ‘Arcane’ Is About (And Why You Don’t Need to Play the Game)
Image via Netflix
The animated series Arcane tells the story of a vertical split between two divergent cities, Piltover and Zaun, from the League of Legends game. Piltover is known for its great wealth, cutting-edge technology, and innovations. In contrast, Zaun is a subterranean city where its inhabitants have no choice but to scavenge anything they can find and fabricate their own tools to survive. One of the show’s central themes focuses on how brothers and sisters, particularly sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Powder (Purnell), were affected by the war between the two cities.
Because of Arcane’s graphic-novel-style writing, players may fully immerse themselves in Piltover and Zaun’s world without being overtaken by superfluous backstory or allusions to the game’s environment. Instead, each character’s choices, the consequences of those choices, and the dynamics of their relationships throughout the series all contribute to the formation of this world. You don’t need to recognize a single reference or mechanic from League of Legends to follow what’s happening — or to feel it when everything goes wrong.
Ella Purnell’s Jinx Is the Heart of the Series
Jinx’s sacrifice in ‘Arcane.’Image via Netflix
For Fallout fans, the biggest draw may be Purnell herself. As Jinx, she delivers one of the most emotionally layered performances in recent television, animated or otherwise. It’s a role that demands contradiction: Jinx is playful and cruel, brilliant and broken, desperate for love and terrified of it. Purnell threads those extremes with precision, using vocal shifts and emotional timing to make Jinx feel painfully honest.
What makes the performance even more striking is that Arcane marked Purnell’s first-ever voice acting role. Rather than feeling tentative, her work is fearless. In an instant, Jinx can go from laughing to panic; her courage hides her childish need to be comforted. Jinx is very similar to Lucy from Fallout in that an unkind world has molded them. Unlike Lucy, who learns to adapt, Jinx is broken by her experiences. Watching Purnell navigate those differences highlights her range and explains why her star keeps rising.
Why ‘Arcane’ Is Worth Watching Beyond the Performances
Arcane isn’t just well-acted — it’s meticulously crafted. The animation, created by Fortiche, blends painterly textures with kinetic action, allowing micro-expressions and body language to carry as much weight as dialogue. Fights leave lasting consequences. Emotional beats are allowed to linger. Every frame feels intentional.
Narratively, the series refuses to reduce its characters to simple heroes and villains. Characters across both cities make choices they believe are right, only to cause harm they never intended. Scientists chasing progress, revolutionaries fighting injustice, siblings trying to protect each other — all are trapped by systems larger than themselves. The show’s tension comes not from surprise twists, but from inevitability. You often see a disaster coming and can’t look away.
Music also plays a crucial role, weaving modern influences into the fantasy setting without breaking immersion. The soundtrack amplifies emotion rather than distracting from it, helping Arcane feel contemporary and culturally plugged-in rather than niche.
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From ‘Fallout’ to ‘Arcane’: Why the Transition Works
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Jinx (Ella Purnell) is sitting on a chair holding two guns in Arcane Season 1.Image via Netflix
What links Fallout and Arcane isn’t genre, but tone. Both shows are interested in how people survive inside broken systems. Both balance spectacle with intimacy. And both trust Purnell to anchor chaos with emotional truth. If Lucy MacLean pulled you into Fallout by grounding its absurdity, Jinx will pull you into Arcane by making its tragedy feel personal.
The result is a fantasy series that doesn’t require homework, rewards emotional investment, and leaves a lasting mark. Arcane earned its rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes score by redefining what animated storytelling can do on a major streaming platform — and by proving that game adaptations don’t have to feel like adaptations at all.
If you’re following Purnell from the wasteland to wherever she goes next, Arcane should be at the top of your queue.