The Ending of 'Alice in Borderland' Season 3, Explained By Stars Tao Tsuchiya and Kento Yamazaki

Warning: Heavy spoilers for Alice in Borderland seasons 1-3 ahead, including the ending of season 3. In December 2020, Netflix debuted Alice in Borderland, the Japanese death-game thriller where everyday people are transported to a parallel world filled with fatal challenges. As Arisu (Kento Yamazaki), a game-obsessed slacker, and Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), a mountain climber mourning her father, fight their way through the games, they question not only whether they'll be able to return to the real world, but whether resuming their lives of pain and heartbreak are worth it. Once they escaped Borderland, viewers learned that the entire first two seasons took place in the few minutes following a meteorite hitting Shibuya; whoever survived in the dream world woke up alive.

While the first two seasons were adapted from Haro Asō's legendary manga series of the same name, Alice in Borderland season 3 is an original story. The six episodes, released September 26, follow Arisu and Usagi three years after the meteorite. Despite waking up with no memories of Borderland, the pair's lives now look very different; they're both gainfully employed and happily married, with Arisu working at a counseling clinic. However, Usagi still has nightmares about her father, a famous mountain climber who disappeared after he was accused of faking a no-oxygen solo hike. In her struggle to move on from his presumed death, Usagi is lured back to the Borderland, with Arisu quickly following to ensure they both make it through alive. (As in the Lewis Carroll novel, Alice/Arisu follows the rabbit—"usagi" in Japanese—down the hole.)

For actress Tao Tsuchiya, Usagi wanted to return to Borderland to face the grief that transformed her life before she arrived in purgatory. "She had the resolve to build a true family with Arisu, and because of that, she had to confront her vulnerability and trauma," the star explained to Marie Claire on a video call. "We as people sometimes are immersed in our own ideas, of things that can take us in a direction that we should not go. I think in her case, it was just a moment like that."

"I think as human beings, we have thoughts that are positive and negative," she added. "It's all about controlling those things to carve a future that you want to take a step in. Even from the beginning, life was the theme of this show, and I feel like with this season, we got to step into and explore that a little deeper. So as the viewers play the game together with the characters, I hope that they give thought to how they want to live their life."

Below, read an in-depth breakdown of the ending of Alice in Borderland season 3, with added commentary from stars Kento Yamazaki and Tao Tsuchiya.

Who wins the Joker tournament in 'Alice in Borderland' season 3?

Each season of Alice in Borderland followed sets of games categorized by each of the suits in a deck of playing cards: Season 1 had the numbers, and season 2 upped the difficulty with the face cards before lingering on a final shot of the Joker. Once Arisu, Usagi, and several other Borderland survivors are lured back to the realm, they're forced to compete in a Joker tournament, and can't choose which games to play. The games are the most difficult thus far, including the omikuji (or fortune) from the original manga, and the terrifying combo of kick-the-can and bingo on Tokyo Tower.

For the final round, when Arisu, Usagi, and the survivors unite, they all have to play Possible Futures, in which they're each given 15 points and must choose between the fates they'll meet back in the real world. While it's largely a game of teamwork, as each room deducts a random amount of points once you enter, it's also a sort of test of delayed gratification. As more players follow the positive visions instead of choosing to suffer a bit in service of finding a way out, the group ends up separated, and some members face large point deductions. The most heartbreaking moment is when Tetsu (Koji Okhura), whose drug addiction led to his separation from his ex-wife, is lured into an enticing room and killed when the point deduction is higher than he can afford.

Once the group makes it to the final room, there are eight survivors—Arisu, Usagi, Ryuji (Kento Kaku), Nobu (Daigo Kotaro), Rei (Tina Tamashiro), Sachiko (Risa Sudou), Yuna (Akana Ikeda), whose brother, Itsuki, also died in the game...and Arisu and Usagi's unborn child. (I guess the secret fetus-player is a trend this year.) The team has to roll a die to see how many of them can go through the exit door; Arisu rolls a seven, so one of them has to stay behind. After he sacrifices himself and forces a devastated Usagi through the exit, the screens around him show a Joker-like twist; Arisu is actually the sole winner. Stuck inside, he has to watch as floodwater storms through an empty Shibuya, washing Usagi away.

Who is the Watchman (played by Ken Watanabe) in 'Alice in Borderland' season 3?

The clear villain in Alice in Borderland season 3 is Banda (Hayato Isomura), the serial killer that Chishiya (Nijirō Murakami) played with in season 2's "Solitary Confinement" game. At the end of season 2, Banda became a Citizen of the Borderland, and he'd apparently gotten bored in the past three years with no "good players" around. It's implied that he set up the Joker tournament and brought all those survivors back, all so he could convince Arisu, the player who won all the games before, to join him as a Citizen. With this aim, Banda used Usagi as bait to lure Arisu back, and he had a contingency plan to make sure that Usagi, the one person Arisu loved, would be dead by the end of the tournament. (More on that later.)

Though Banda spent the whole season trying to brute-force his way to a bromance with Arisu, there was never any chance that Arisu would choose to become a Citizen. With Usagi possibly drowning, Arisu rips his way out of the "Possible Futures" chamber and drags his teammates to safety before diving into the floodwater to save Usagi. Both of them are swept toward a vortex that washes down into the land of the dead. For a moment, it seems that Arisu will drown; he's able to pull himself onto some rubble, but he's met with Banda, who offers to make him a Citizen or kill him right there. "Ask all you want, but I’ll never become a citizen," Arisu answers.

But in the split second before Banda can shoot, a laser shoots down and kills him, revoking his citizenship. A shadowy figure appears and says, "I misjudged him. It appears he wasn't quite ready for this role." The mystery man freezes time and offers Arisu one last game. He unfurls a deck of cards, selects two, and tells Arisu to choose between them; if Arisu chooses a Joker, then the man will decide his destiny. Arisu realizes that both cards are Jokers, but his opponent isn't cheating, as he reveals that he's using a standard deck. "You’re an intriguing character. I imagine it was no coincidence that the two cards that could seal your fate were Jokers," he tells Arisu.

Because of the quirk of Arisu choosing two Joker cards, the mystery man lets Arisu choose his own fate. This figure (played by Japanese film legend and Inception alum Ken Watanabe) describes himself as "no more than a watchman, watching over the rift between life and death." He says Arisu can either choose the vortex and die or choose to live. "Life is painful, filled with many trials to endure," the Watchman says, comparing death to a sort of peace. "There's no more pain. No more suffering," he adds, and Arisu refutes, "No more happiness, either."

In a roundtable interview, Yamazaki shared his thoughts on the moment with Marie Claire. "I think that Arisu didn’t have any doubts at all. He was very clear about living," Yamazaki says of Arisu's mindset. "Of course, when you come back to the real world, the characters forget what had happened in Borderland, but in Borderland, we had experienced heartbreaking things. He lost loved ones, including his friends Karube and Shota. But he also met Usagi there, and through their relationship is how he found the meaning of life. He comes to the conclusion that even if there are hard times, it’s worth living."

Does Ryuji die in 'Alice in Borderland' season 3?

Though Usagi and Arisu entered Borderland separately, Usagi did not fight through the games alone. Instead, she had an ally in Ryuji, a psychiatry professor researching near-death experiences and the afterlife. He meets both Arisu and Usagi while interviewing survivors of the Shibuya meteorite; when his investigation into the survivors's shared memories leads him to Banda, he's enthralled at the chance to explore the Borderland. All Banda wants is for him to bring along a woman named Usagi.

As Tsuchiya points out, Usagi and Ryuji were very similar. They both had traumas pulling them back to the Borderland; while Usagi wanted to see her father one last time, Ryuji was still reeling from the death of his student during an experiment. (Soon after, he was in a car accident that left him paralyzed; his heart briefly stopped, which was the first time he went to the Borderland.) As they fought through the games together, the pair's bond grew deeper, and Ryuji began to form feelings for Usagi.

"If Arisu hadn’t appeared, I think she would’ve chosen Ryuji," Tsuchiya says of her character. "Similarly to her, he’s someone who has to confront his own wound. He’s also someone who has a tenderness and a fortitude as a person. I think Usagi saw a lot of her father in him, so I think she feels safe in him."

"That said, personally I think [instead of] being with someone who is like your mirror, [it is better for Usagi to] be with someone like Arisu, who can do things that she can’t," she added. "Arisu and Usagi complement each other, and I feel that taking on life with somebody like that is more meaningful."

In episode 4, Banda offered Ryuji a deal: the professor would finally learn the truth about the land of the dead and get to choose whether to become a Citizen or return to real life if he killed Usagi. Initially, when the opportunity comes following Possible Futures, Ryuji can't bring himself to shoot Usagi with the gun that Banda gave him. However, when Usagi is swept away in the current, Ryuji follows her and attempts to pull him into the whirlpool along with him, so they would go to the land of death together.

But Arisu and Usagi can't be separated that easily. As Arisu swims after them, and Usagi calls for her husband, he sees the power of the love they have for one another. He remembers that at the end of the game, Arisu told him to promise that Usagi would return to the real world alive. So, when they hit a solid piece of rubble, Ryuji gives Usagi to Arisu and tells her to keep on living before he's pulled to the land of the dead.

Who survives at the end of 'Alice in Borderland' season 3?

After Ryuji is washed away, Arisu and Usagi can climb up out of the water. This is when Usagi reunites with her Father, as she's transported into the shadowy moment before his death. She's able to hug him one more time, and as the sun rises over the mountain, he tells her that he wants her to live and be happy. Finally, three years after she first arrived in the Borderland under such immense grief, she processes his death and chooses to live on.

After Arisu and Usagi awake in the real world, we briefly see a bit of their home life as they try to decide on a baby name. Tsuchiya highlights Usagi's growing family as a large part of her new resolve to live. "She herself is pregnant, and that means that there’s somebody she has to protect above all. That’s kind of an awakening, a huge change in your emotional landscape," she says. "I think in season 3, we see that her memory of her father, instead of sad, has become something more positive. I think that’s going to help Usagi as she goes forward."

At the real-world Shibuya Crossing (still under construction after the meteorite), we catch up with all of season 3's survivors: Nobu, who was previously unemployed and suicidal, has graduated from college and vows to take care of his mother. Yuna has a boyfriend, who she's taking to "meet" her brother, Itsuki (Joey Iwanaga), at his grave; though he did not survive, his sister has the happy future he fought for. Sachiko is happy with her son, who says that he takes after her, and Rei has found a new job on an anime movie and reconnected with her mother.

Then, when Arisu returns to his work as a counselor, we get life updates on a special set of patients: the survivors from seasons 1 and 2. Each has something that gives their lives new meaning: Kuina (Aya Asahina) has started teaching kids karate at her father's dojo. Aguni (Sho Aoyagi) is running the hat shop previously owned by his deceased best friend, season 1's Mad Hatter. Heiya (Yuri Tsunematsu) is an influencer hoping to see the world. Niragi (Dori Sakurada) works with troubled kids and is trying to live a better life. (Ann, played by Ayaka Miyoshi, doesn't appear again, but she was instrumental this season in helping Arisu go back to the Borderland.) Finally, the ever enigmatic Chishiya offers an answer that could help many people. "Even if you don’t know the answer, it’s not so bad, is it? Life, I mean."

What happens in the L.A. scene of 'Alice in Borderland' season 3?

The original Japanese series Alice in Borderland could've ended beautifully on Chishiya's answer, or Arisu and Usagi's chosen name for their child. Instead, in Netflix fashion, fans are left with a cliffhanger that leaves the franchise open to continue.

Earlier in the finale, the Watchman had hinted to Arisu that a disaster "much bigger" than the Shibuya meteorite was going to bring "countless others" to the Borderland "very soon." In the final scene, a small earthquake shakes Arisu's office, one of several unprecedented simultaneous quakes around the globe. As a Japanese news broadcast switches to an American one, the finale takes viewers to another area of a quake, in L.A., California. Two men enter a bar and talk sports as a waitress takes their order. Her face isn't shown, but the camera zooms in on her nametag for a final shot: Alice.

So, it seems that viewers will return to the Borderland in some capacity, whether the show follows a new international cast or Arisu and Usagi are somehow sucked in for a third time. For more on the franchise's future, check out what we know so far about a possible Alice in Borderland season 4.