"When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish. You say run, they run. You say swim, they dive in. You say light a fire, they show up with oil. But whatever happens, it's on you."
— Vander
In the aftermath of a violent conflict, two sisters mourn the deaths of their parents among the carnage. They are taken in by a man named Vander.
Several years later, the tough Vi and the fragile Powder have grown up as Vander's adoptive children in Zaun, the wretched undercity to the wealthy Piltover. Along with their adoptive brothers Mylo and Clagger, they sneak their way into Piltover and attempt to rob an inventor's lab. Powder accidentally drops a crystal that causes an explosion, and so the group goes on the run. They manage to evade Piltover's Enforcers, but upon their arrival in Zaun, they are held up by a group of thugs led by Deckard. In the ensuing brawl, Powder takes off with the loot, but accidentally tosses it into the water when cornered. However, she has kept the rest of the crystals in her pocket.
Later, Vander, now a barman and a community leader, scolds the children for their recklessness, knowing that the topsider Enforcers will be looking for whoever is accountable. Elsewhere in Zaun, a crime lord named Silco tests a mysterious substance called Shimmer.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Bandage Wince: Hard-boiled Vi winces when Vander tries to clear her face wounds with alcohol.
- Blow That Horn: When the break-in gets detected, horns ring out in the city to alert Enforcers.
- Brutal Brawl: The fight between Vi and Deckard's groups. Faces are punched, some people are slammed into walls or the ground, sand is thrown into eyes, and a wooden board is used to score the final KO. Everyone besides Powder (who didn't participate) is left battered by the end. The handful of slo-mo shots in the scene only serve to highlight how rough things are as faces get distorted from blows.
- Call-Forward: While blaming Powder for their lab break-in going south, Mylo says that "she jinxes every job." Jinx, of course, is the name Powder would later go by.
- While jumping across the street to Jayce's lab, Vi sees a plate of cupcakes left on a balcony. Cupcake is the nickname she would later give Caitlyn.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When Vi confronts Vander in front of everyone with the line "When did you get so comfortable living in someone else's shadow?"
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Powder covers her own eyes in the opening sequence, implied to be at Vi's behest, while they walk across the bridge where a brutal fight has just taken place. Unfortunately, Powder still ends up seeing the dead bodies of her and Vi's parents.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Undercity's fight against Piltover clearly went very poorly, since the Enforcers are still standing while the bridge is littered with corpses.
- Dies Wide Open: Vi and Powder's mother did, as shown when her body is revealed.
- Don't Look Down: Vi advises her team to not look down during their Le Parkour to reach the lab.
- Downer Beginning: The very first scene of the episode—and of the series as a whole—shows a young Vi and Powder walking across a bridge where a violent conflict has taken place, only to discover the dead bodies of their parents. It firmly establishes that this story will be a good deal Darker and Edgier than the game on which it's based.
- Dramatic Drop: In an Establishing Character Moment, Vander drops his cast-iron gauntlets so he can pick up and carry Vi and Powder to safety, literally and symbolically choosing to protect children over using weapons. He is revealed to eventually have gone back and retrieved them to hang in his bar.
- E = MC Hammer: The lab that the gang breaks into has a huge blackboard with sophisticated formulas written all over it, establishing the owner to be an inventor. Vi marvels at the sight.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- The show and Vi's first scene as a child showcase many of the character traits that define her. She's trying to protect Powder from the violence around them by having her sing a song while covering her eyes, but Powder still ends up seeing the corpses of their parents; this shows that despite her best intentions, Vi can't protect Powder from everything and can still indirectly cause her harm. Vi visibly tries to hold it together yet can't help but break down crying, foreshadowing that despite her tough personality, she's still just as emotionally vulnerable as anyone else. Finally, when she's being carried away by Vander, she curls her fist while glaring pure hate at the Enforcers, revealing the desire to solve problems with violence that she'll carry for the rest of her life.
- Vander is shown killing an Enforcer in hand-to-hand combat, but then throwing down his weapons to escort two orphaned girls to safety. He's a dangerous, but good man.
- Establishing Series Moment: The show starts with two little girls walking down a war-torn bridge, and finding their dead mother, making it perfectly clear that this is not a happy show.
- Everyone Has Standards: The Enforcers were willing to kill everyone on the bridge including Vi and Powder's mother, who may or may not have been even fighting; but when Vander abandons the fight to take them to safety, the Enforcers visibly let them go rather than shoot him in the back.
- Friends All Along: When Vander enters Benzo's place, the two are volleying insults at each other until it's revealed that they are in fact best friends.
- Furniture Blockade: At Vi's alert, Mylo jams a chair beneath the door so the group can get away with their robbery.
- Gory Discretion Shot: We only see the blood splatter on the glass wall when the cat gets murdered by the mutant mouse at the lab.
- A Handful for an Eye: Claggor throws sand into the eyes of one of Deckard's crew during the brawl.
- Hit Stop: This effect is used several times during the kids' street fight when a punch lands in someone's face.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: The cat that was placed in Singed lab's terrarium to eat the mouse suddenly becomes the mouse's victim after the Shimmer infusion.
- Ironic Nursery Tune: In the opening scene, Powder sings a song about a poor Zaunite asking a "friend across the river" for a penny, promising not to envy. This as she covers her eyes to hide from the violence and dead bodies from Enforcers of Piltover gunning down an uprising by the people of Zaun furious at the wealth disparity.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: Downplayed. After Vi and her group win the street brawl against Deckard's gang, Mylo gives Deckard a small kick in the side.
- Killer Rabbit: The mouse infused with Shimmer turns into a killer machine.
- The Load: Powder ends up as this during the getaway sequence. She can't do much but watch as the rest of Vi's gang fights against a bunch of greedy fellow scavengers, ends up having to run away from one of them, and finally resorts to dumping their haul into River Pilt to escape. Mylo later calls her out on the latter, and complains that she jinxes every job they do.
- My Card: The female Enforcer hands Vander a capsule to reach her via pneumatic tube if case he changed his mind about giving up the culprits of breaking.
- "Open!" Says Me: When Mylo takes too long to open the door to the lab, Vi just kicks it open.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Powder eavesdrops on Mylo and Vi in the aftermath of their botched job, hearing Mylo criticize her outright and Vi respond with what sounds like agreement. Hurt, Powder leaves before hearing the rest of Vi's statement that indicated she was being sarcastic.
- Pre-Explosion Buildup: A particularly magnificent one involving one of Jayce's Hextech crystals rolling across the floor, becoming more unstable with each bounce, before striking the wall and exploding.
- Properly Paranoid: Mylo complains about the door on Jayce's balcony being locked in a "Who locks their balcony doors?" kind of way. Considering he's trying to break in, evidently it was a good decision. If anything, Jayce should have been more paranoid and locked up his Hextech crystals.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Grayson has been working with Vander to avoid conflict between the undercity and Piltover.
- Request for Privacy: Vander asks everyone to leave the room when he wants to talk to Vi in private.
- Rule of Symbolism: Vander's gauntlets are just plates of metal without any dexterity possible. Meaning they're only good for punching things. Vander literally has to drop them to be able to pick up Vi and Powder but it also symbolizes him giving up violence to take care of his kids. He also quite literally turns his back on the conflict.
- Security Cling: Powder clings to Vi when they spot Vander's shadow in the opening scene.
- Shout-Out: The two dishonest traders at The Last Drop are named Jules and Verne.
- So Much for Stealth: Powder almost loses her pursuer behind a corner but then she tips over a wooden board at the last moment.
- Take My Hand!: Vi saves Powder by grabbing her hand when the latter almost falls backwards off the roof after her jump.
- The Teaser: A particularly brutal one that shows us how Vi and Powder were orphaned, as well as Vander adopting them.
- Thematic Theme Tune: Playground
by Bea Miller plays during the group's descent and entry into The Lanes, and perfectly captures what a Wretched Hive the underside of Piltover really is. - Title Drop: Courtesy of the chorus to Bea Miller's "Playground," which plays when Vi's group arrives in Zaun.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Children don't typically build grenades and nailbombs in their spare time. Powder, however...
- Trying Not to Cry: Upon seeing her dead parents, Vi tries to remain strong for her sister's sake but swiftly breaks down. As noted above, this sets up her character quite well.
- War Is Hell: The opening shows the brutal violence of war, the chaos and terror children caught in it feel, and the loss of family and innocence people suffer in it. The armor and masks the Enforcers wear even make them seem like monsters.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Mylo chews Powder out on throwing their loot into River Pilt. Vander later points out that it was fortunate that their haul was lost, since that means there's no evidence to tie them to the explosion at Jayce's apartment, unaware that Powder still possesses the Hextech crystals she pocketed.
- Vander gives Vi one about The Chains of Commanding, since the three other kids look up to her and she can't afford to be reckless in her orders, since it comes down on all of them.
- Vi gives one to Mylo, pointing out that despite his complaints about Powder, he screwed up during the heist too, mainly by picking fights with the others when they needed to focus and sparking the conflict with Deckard by telling him about their haul.
- Wrestler in All of Us: During the fight scene, Claggor holds an opponent in the air and slams him to the ground.
