With How Season 2 Ended, ‘Alice in Borderland’ Season 3 Just Makes Sense

We still don't have a date. However, Netflix's recent Next on Netflix video has made a clear reference to the upcoming third season of beloved Japanese series Alice in Borderland. Based on a manga by Haro Aso, the show was deemed wrapped up by many fans in 2022, as its second season pretty much ended with the same conclusion as the original work. And, yet, Netflix surprised us all by announcing Alice in Borderland Season 3 one year after the release of Season 2. Now, after two years of waiting, we still don't know when exactly this new part of the story is going to drop, but 2025 seems to be the year for fans of death games taking place in the afterlife.

But there is still the matter of what games will make it to the series. Since a considerable part of the original cast has been confirmed for Season 3, it isn't likely that the show will adapt the two spin-offs released by Aso, one of which focuses on an entire other group of characters' stay on Borderland and the other, devoted to Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) as he deals with another near-death experience. While Alice in Borderland, the series, will most likely continue to draw inspiration from Alice in Borderland, the manga, there is a high probability that the story the show will tell in its third season will be completely new.

'Alice in Borderland' Season 2 Had a Subpar Finale

Now, whether Netflix will go the adaptation route or not is, of course, a fun debate to be had by fans of Alice in Borderland. However, what truly matters is that the show — or, rather, the game — must go on, with or without the influence of Aso's body of work. After all, Alice in Borderland Season 2 had a pretty subpar finale, one that left a lot of things hanging while also cheapening the story, avoiding the "it was all a dream" conclusion by just one inch. Of course, that's how Aso chose to finish his manga, but the show did not have to follow the same path. By choosing to do so, well, Alice in Borderland ended up with an underwhelming and kind of rushed would-be finale.

Here's how things play out: after going through all the major cards, Arisu and his Borderland companions finally come face to face with the final boss, the Queen of Hearts (Riisa Naka). After beating her game of croquet, they are given a choice between becoming citizens of Borderland, a.k.a. the people that run the games, or returning home. Upon leaving Borderland, Arisu finds out that he and the people that he met in this other world were all victims of a meteorite disaster that nearly killed them. Their time in Borderland was actually their passage through a limbo in which it was decided who would live and who would die. Arisu, Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), and the other survivors wake up in a hospital, and the whole thing ends with another card appearing on-screen, a card that so far hadn't made its way into the show: the Joker.

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Season 2 is already keeping us on our toes.

This is a kind of weird finale, first and foremost because it leaves room for fans to theorize that Arisu and his companions had actually been hallucinating the whole thing. Was this limbo real? Or was it all in their minds? The show leaves it to speculation, and this is what we mean when we say it just narrowly escapes that cheap it-was-all-a-dream conclusion. But even with this theory off the table, Alice in Borderland's Season 2 ending kind of came out of nowhere. We were never given any hints that the heroes were actually in a limbo, and the final scene is so rushed that we don't even get time to adjust to the idea. Honestly, it all seems very fake, like that isn't actually how the story is supposed to end.

'Alice in Borderland' Season 2 Leaves Room for Another Game

But, hey, maybe it doesn't have to end that way! That Joker that pops up on the screen in Season 2's very final shot? Well, maybe it's indicating that the games aren't really over. All games that appear in Alice in Borderland correspond to a card in a complete deck, but no deck is actually complete without at least one Joker. So it is possible that the games aren't done yet. Besides, considering that the Joker is usually associated with deception, there is a not-so slim possibility that the hospital and the meteorite are nothing more than a ruse that our heroes will have to uncover.

There is, however, one problem with this theory: in the manga, Arisu does meet the physical manifestation of the Joker and comes to the conclusion that he is a guide for souls traveling through the afterlife. How the show will deal with this information, though, is another matter entirely. Like we've been saying, they don't have to rely on adapting the manga too closely or even at all. And, even if they do, Arisu hasn't met the Joker yet in the Netflix series. So, no matter which way the showrunners decide to go, there is still a very important plot point that needs to be addressed — a plot point that was presented by the Season 2 finale as an open conclusion, but that also might serve as a cliffhanger.

Alice in Borderland is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

Alice in Borderland

Release Date

December 10, 2020