Netflix’s Alice in Borderland Season 3 Review: A Satisfying Finale

Ending a show isn’t an easy task by any means, and that’s especially true for an incredibly popular series like Alice in Borderland. The Netflix series really sparked imaginations with how it tackled death games compared to some other shows of the same vein like Squid Game. It holds the distinct honor of being the first Japanese series produced for Netflix to get a third season, and even more impressive is the fact that it’s telling an entirely original story that was not seen in the original manga that it was initially based off of. So the pressure was undoubtedly on.

Alice in Borderland also seemingly wrapped up its story with the end of its second season. The final moments of that season not only fully revealed what the Borderland actually was, but saw its main characters escape and free themselves from those death games within it. It was also the end of the adapted material from Haro Aso’s original manga of the same name, so there are a ton of questions leading into this third and final season as the games in the Borderland are starting anew. But even with all of these new questions raised, Alice in Borderland Season 3 bravely heads into uncharted territory and brings it all to an incredibly satisfying ending.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Alice in Borderland Season 3 Kicks Off a New Story

Alice in Borderland Season 3 takes place a few years after the events of the first two seasons. Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) and Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya) have since gotten married following their escape from the Borderland, but they have no real memory of anything that went down during that time outside of small flashes they get during their dreams. When Usagi is approached by a mysterious researcher named Ryuji (Kento Kaku) and suddenly goes back into the Borderland, Arisu then finds his own path back into the games when he’s recruited by the mysterious Banda (Hayato Isomura) and given the Joker card.

With the start of a new wave of death games also comes a return to the Borderland itself. The central conceit of bringing Arisu and Usagi back into the games was a complicated bridge to cross as it ran the risk of feeling like an unnatural extension of the story. With the two of them already getting their happy ending, the new season indeed finds a very compelling reason to bring both participants back into the dangerous world to fight for their lives once more. And on top of that, with Banda’s return from Season 2 and the new Joker card, there is a compelling mystery for this new slate of games as well.

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Netflix’s Alice in Borderland Season 3 Trailer Shows Off New Death Games

These games in this final season are also very well constructed in terms of scope and rule sets. It starts out small with just a deadly game of cards with a brutal twist for the losers, and steadily expands from there. The games all have concrete rules that are explained, and that’s already a huge improvement from the second season. The second season had fewer games overall, and were a bit messy in execution due to how many people were involved. But without giving too much away, it’s fixed here in the final season with a format that not only limits how many players make it through each game but in how they are pitted against one another too.

There’s clearly a lot of care in how the games were crafted with this third season. There’s a new central conceit that makes the Joker different from the rounds seen in the first two seasons (which highlights the fact that Arisu and Usagi have played the games before), and it makes it a much more intriguing watch overall. There’s a clear balance of the number of games that force players to work together and those where they have to face each other to survive, and it really adds a level of suspense as there’s a greater level of unpredictability as a result. Especially when it comes to the new roster of characters.

Alice in Borderland Season 3 Introduces a Ton of New Characters

With only Arisu and Usagi returning for this new Joker round of the games, it also means that fans might not get to see any of the characters they were hoping to see from the previous seasons. In place is a new roster of characters who are also in the midst of these games, and each of them is a great addition to the story overall. One of the most important things a death game narrative needs to accomplish is making viewers care about any of the participants, and it’s even more important to get that done with the limited screen time that these players will have. Because viewers will expect Arisu and Usagi to make it through various games due to the overall focus of their story, there needs to be a level of spontaneity for the new characters instead.

Alice in Borderland Season 3 walks that fine line of maintaining that level of unpredictability thanks to its new roster of faces that aren’t necessarily guaranteed to survive on that same level of Arisu and Usagi, but you will still care about each and every one. It’s a strength of both the writing for each of these new additions that you find something to care about for each of them with the amount of time they get dedicated each episode, but then also the cast themselves as they help to inject it all with that much more energy and personality. Which definitely is welcome when it comes to the fact that the final season also feels a bit self-contained from the other seasons.

Alice in Borderland Season 3 is almost serving as an epilogue to the story, but also feels like the full and proper finale that characters like Arisu and Usagi deserve. It’s on a scale that was not seen before, and has a much tighter focus than seen in the second season when it comes to its characters involved and the layout of the games instead. There might not be a lot of connective tissue to the past when it comes to certain characters fans might have wanted to see again, but in its place are some new faces that bring a great energy in their own right. There’s a close attention to detail from the writing to the final product, and it all comes together in the best finale seen for a Netflix original in years. It’s just a success all around.

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