(SPOILER WARNING)
When Alice in Borderland first aired in 2020, it struck a rare balance: games were brutal, the stakes existential, and the characters were well-drawn enough to make the mayhem hurt.
Seasons 1 and 2 built something rare in the survival‑thriller genre – atmosphere, dread, emotional investment. So much so that Squid Game was born as a copy. Yet in season 3, Netflix’s once lean sci-fi thriller returns bloated, self-serious, and with the faintly metallic aftertaste of a series trying to outgrow its own genre without fully understanding what made it tick in the first place.
Unfortunately, while Season 3 delivers in visuals and in a few dramatic moments, it often fails to recapture what made the show feel so vital and exciting before. Alice in Borderland truly is an amazing and original show however I can’t help but feel as though this season was not only unnecessary but also did not fit the standards of the previous seasons.
Set three years after the events of Season 2 – which saw Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) and Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya) escape the liminal Borderland after a meteor decimated Tokyo – the new season opens in the “real” world. Except, of course, it’s not that simple. Dreams, hallucinations, and emotional scars linger. Usagi, still haunted by her father’s death and her own guilt, is drawn back into Borderland by Ryuji (Kento Kaku), a scholar obsessed with the afterlife. Arisu, ever the reluctant savior, follows in her wake with the help of returning characters like Ann, and in opposition to the old-foe‑turned‑citizen of the borderlands, Banda.
It’s not a bad premise, but it immediately runs into a structural problem: having neatly wrapped the story in Season 2, Alice in Borderland now has to untie the bow it just finished tying. The writers attempt this by re-entering the Borderland under new rules, with a new mythology, and crucially a new cast of players who bear more than a passing resemblance to the ones we’ve lost.
Indeed, the new ensemble feels oddly like watching familiar archetypes play musical chairs. Kazuya, the battle scared mafia member, who leads with brute force but secretly aches for meaning – sound familiar? Because he might as well be Aguni in everything but name. Likewise, Ryuji bears a shadow of Kuzuryu, the game master from earlier seasons: both are cerebral, both question the rules, and both serve as philosophical foils for Arisu. Even the supporting cast, a wily trickster, a stoic observer, a self-destructive nihilist, feel drawn from the same character templates, as though the Borderland recycles not only its players, but their personalities too.
The effect is disorienting. On one hand, the similarities are thematically consistent: the Borderland is a place outside time, where fate loops, and trauma repeats. But dramatically, it risks becoming a rerun. Where Season 1 invited us to get to know its misfits and watch them evolve or perish, Season 3 seems content to skim their surfaces, banking on our residual affection for character types we’ve seen before. It’s like ordering your favorite cocktail only to discover it’s been made with cheaper liquor.
With only 6 episodes it becomes clear that not enough time is given to many of the new characters. Their journeys feel rushed, their backstories often inserted via flashbacks at what should be tension‑building moments. The result: the emotional stakes, for a fan who’s invested in all the characters, are thinner than they should be.
Similarly the character choices with the returning cast seem odd. Arisu and Usagi have always been characters defined by cleverness, moral conflict, authenticity. In this season, there are moments where Usagi’s decisions feel incongruous with what we know of her – more driven by plot requirements than internal logic. Arisu is again cast in the “chosen one” mould, which undercuts the subtlety he enjoyed before. When the core duo start making moves that feel less earned and more “for the sake of drama,” a lot of the trust built over previous seasons wobbles.
One of the great things about Alice in Borderland has always been its ability to maintain an almost oppressive mystery about what rules govern this world, what Borderland really is. But in Season 3, that boundary gets pushed and stretched until some of that mystery is stripped away. Attempts near the finale to offer philosophical weight and explanation takes away from what the show used to be about.
That said, there are still moments of visual and emotional clarity. The production values are consistently high. One late-season game involving a deadly, point-deducting labyrinth across a shattered Tokyo is tightly choreographed and dripping with tension. It is revealed in this game that Usagi is pregnant and her unborn child is now a player which made little to no sense and wasn’t at all relevant to the plot. Following the lazy writing that has been seen in Squid Game a few months prior it is disappointing that a show that heavily influenced this genre of TV is now replicating the mediocre storylines of shows it helped create.
Nevertheless, Arisu sacrifices himself to allow others to escape. In a chaotic flood in Shibuya Crossing, Usagi is swept away; Arisu breaks through physical and metaphysical barriers to reach her. Director Shinsuke Sato knows how to frame despair as spectacle but this time, it feels like the emotional stakes are more decorative than fundamental.
Then there’s the climax and here, the series tries for profundity but lands somewhere closer to hokey mysticism. The appearance of another new character known only as The Watchman, played with grave charm by Ken Watanabe, delivers a pseudo-philosophical monologue about choice, memory, and life beyond life. It’s the kind of scene that thinks it’s solving a Rubik’s cube of existentialism, but really just rearranges colours without meaning. By the time Arisu and Usagi find each other again, after a laughably intense water-logged escape sequence, the tone has gone full opera.
The final moments do deliver a nostalgic punch: a quick glimpse at beloved characters from past seasons – Chishiya, Kuina, Niragi, Aguni – all alive and well in the real world, living quiet lives touched by something they can’t quite recall. It’s a nice note to end on, even if it feels more like fan service than genuine catharsis.
But just when you think it’s over and the credits threaten to roll, the show can’t help itself and there’s an inevitable franchise nudge: an earthquake, a mysterious woman named “Alice” in LA, and a whispered promise of more Borderland to come. The Borderland isn’t just a Tokyo problem anymore – it’s global. Or, more accurately, it’s franchise-ready.
The scene isn’t so much a cliffhanger as it is a neon sign reading: “Now casting for Alice in Borderland: USA.” And honestly – who’s going to tell Netflix that not everything needs an American spin-off? One of the show’s original strengths was how deeply rooted it was in Japanese culture, identity, and existential crisis. Transplanting that to the West risks sanding down the sharp edges that made the series unique in the first place.
There’s something perversely amusing about imagining what a Western Borderland would look like (Hollywood Hills turned battleground? Fight to the death in a Costco?). But after three seasons of thoughtful, if uneven, world-building, the tease feels less like creative ambition and more like a marketing strategy in disguise.
Sometimes, the best games are the ones that know when to end.
However not all is bad, the Borderland is as visually striking as ever. Cinematography, set pieces, the design of the deadly games are still among the best in the genre. It’s clear the budget was spent where it shows. I respect that the creators dared to go beyond the manga this season, to explore new territory: what happens when Arisu and Usagi try to live “real lives,” what memory and grief mean in the liminal space they occupy. That ambition deserves credit.
Yet, it’s hard not to feel a little cheated. Season 3 had all the tools to evolve the show into something deeper, an exploration of memory, post-traumatic reintegration, or the psychological cost of surviving the impossible. But rather than lean into that promise, it opts instead for more games, more spectacle, and the same existential wallpaper, just slightly faded. It’s not a betrayal, exactly but it is a reminder that some doors are better left closed.
It’s not the worst fate, but it’s certainly not a win.