Stream It Or Skip It? 

Are you ready to play a game? Cool, don’t die. As Alice in Borderland returns to Netflix for its six-episode third season, it’s with stars Kento Yamazaki and Tao Tsuchiya still loving and surviving after defying and/or solving the games that hounded them in an alternate dimension version of Tokyo. And sure, they escaped this strange place at the end of last season. But how are you gonna have a show about a mysterious, dangerous borderland without putting your dream team back in it? Based on the manga by Haro Aso, and once again directed and co-written by Shinsuke Sato, Season 3 of Alice in Borderland also features Hayato Isomura, Kento Kaku and Tina Tamashiro.

Opening Shot: Arisu (Yamazaki) is being interviewed by university researcher Ryuji Matsuyama (Kaku). What were his dreams like while he was in a coma? “Can you remember if you were dreaming about games?”

The Gist: Out of the bloodshed and gameplay destruction of Alice in Borderland Season 2, at least one thing survived: the true love of Arisu (Yamazaki) and Usagi (Tsuchiya). As the third season begins, it’s a few years later, and those who experienced trauma and comas after a massive meteorite strike in Shibuya are analyzed by researchers like Ryuji. This includes Arisu and Usagi, who are now married. This is also the real-life Tokyo – they have no memory of their experience living and fighting not to die inside the alternate gameworld of the Borderland – and while they enjoy married life, Usagi is haunted by nightmares of her mountaineer father (Yusuke Hirayama) committing suicide.

For Arisu, this real life is upended when Usagi suddenly goes missing. The cops are barely a help, but one of the only clues they do have is her visit to the Seaside Paradise hotel and resort. It’s a place we know better as The Beach, as it was called inside the game, and when we see it from Usagi’s perspective, it’s a place she seems to recall, forget, and dread all at once.   

We always understood the real world to still exist in Borderland. In previous seasons, the series often flashed back to reveal the past personal lives of players we met on the silent, violent streets of its alternate world Tokyo. But here in Season 3, that sense is flipped on its ear. While Arisu and Usagi have no direct memories of their time in the game, they feel themselves grasping in their minds for something just out of reach. Was it a near-death experience? Some glimpse of the afterlife? This is the crux of Ryuji’s research, and he finds himself invited to a mysterious seminar that might provide answers.

At the seminar, Ryuji is forced to lift himself out of his wheelchair in order to sit beside others at a regular table. There are playing cards on that table, including a joker card, and a game of Old Maid ensues. He understands the terrible stakes when people in the chairs around him are electrocuted for losing. “You must win this game to participate in the journey,” the host says, and suddenly, in the flickering light, he appears to be Banda (Hayato Isomura), the serial killer who stayed inside the alternate-dimension Borderland at the end of last season.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The forced compliance aspect of Squid Game – which returned for its final Season 3 run in July – again permeates Alice in Borderland. The 8 Show is another South Korean series with this component, sometimes played for gallows comedy. And we’ll also mention 3 Body Problem here, Netflix’s ambitious adaptation of a novel that imagined alien communication with humans through games – and violence. 

Our Take: Even though the third season of Alice in Borderland begins IRL, outside the Borderland, the series still makes wonderful use of clean, empty spaces by giving them a foreboding air. Combine this with the evocative music of Yutaka Yamada, pulsing and urgent all at once, and we felt re-immersed in the world the series imagines before we even re-entered the world it imagines. This is part of how it doesn’t try to tease the viewer that it won’t revisit Usagi and Arisu’s adventures in that bizarre, death game-obsessed alternate landscape. But we also love the rational, yet sci-fi-inflected way in which it establishes these two Tokyos, the real life one and the one in that “world between worlds” place, as it’s described to Arisu.

The question going into this season is: which world will Arisu and Usagi wish to truly be in? There’s a restlessness within Usagi established early on, something that affects her life in the real world with Arisu. Once they find themselves in the Borderland, might she wish to stay, as other gameplayers have? Or will their goal be to escape once again? We’ll have to see. But getting back in there also means risking it all again, every damn time. Alice in Borderland has never shied away from sudden bursts of violence and death, so returning to the desolation of its dreamlike yet all too real game realm also means risking one’s life with every face card turned.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, besides some skimpy in-game beachwear. But you’ll note the people wearing those bathing suits are also covered in blood. 

Parting Shot: “In” is still right there in this show’s title – you know they weren’t gonna spend all of Season 3 outside the Borderland. So without spoiling anything, we’ll hit you with the phrase that pays. Or kills. “The game will now begin…”

Sleeper Star: It’s cool to see Ayaka Miyoshi as Ann pop up in Arisu’s real life. In past seasons of Borderland, inside the game, she was always coolheaded and creative. This time around, the position Ann finds herself in is both important and precarious. 

Most Pilot-y Line: Here’s an excerpt from Ryuji Matsuyama’s research notes. He’s onto something big. “We interviewed ten people who were in a comatose state. We heard about their experiences. And all of them had the exact same dream. An empty city. A long journey. Games. Fireworks.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re so ready to dive back into the game! Season 3 of Alice in Borderland brings back the escapism, mystery, heightened suspense, unsettling violence, chemistry-building victories, and characters who must discover their fortitude while fighting for their lives.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.