note: spoilers
As i did for Squid Game, I am going to write down my thoughts about Alice in Borderland and its ending, which I thought was lovely and satisfying, despite my initial impressions.
1. Firstly are the parallels I picked up on*, given the title and character names:
Arisu: Alice
Usagi: White Rabbit (I’m late, I’m late)
Chishiya: The Cheshire Cat
(Danma) Hatter: The Mad Hatter (and the Beach is his teaparty)
Mira: The Queen of Hearts
Kuina: The Caterpillar*
Ann: The Duchess**
*I did not note this one personally, but looked into it and it made sense, given Kuina’s bent for smoking and the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly
**Also didn’t pick up on this one, (and the connection is less obvious to me) but it’s rumoured along with several more about Arisu’s close friends Chota, Karube, and others.
2. Secondly is the unfolding of the plot:
So Season 2 was much anticipated, and was an interesting change of pace from Season 1. We’ve figured out the mechanics of the game now, the ins and outs of visas, game rules, what the suits mean, and the practicalities of the world. The focus shifted more to understanding how the world came about, who rules it, and most importantly, how to leave.
I loved the ability of the show to keep a steady pace that alternated between the mind-bending, sadistic games that still gripped in both conception and visuals (death by sulfuric acid was terrifyinnggggg I couldn’t watch it) and the middle bits, the exploration of character arcs like the romance between Arisu and Usagi, Ann’s exploration of the physical world, or the persistent questioning about the meaning of life.
3. Lastly was the ending.
I must say I initially didn’t like it. I fully appreciated the nod that was given to the most plausible theories at the beginning of the last episode: Is this time travel? Is this some sort of deep brain simulation? IS IT ALIENS??!?! This part of the Episode 8 conversation with Mira showed that the showmakers (author even?), knew that the audience’s mind had been asking these questions almost since the Moment Arisu arrived in Borderland.
Compared to all of these theories though, saying it was a rogue meteor strike was... a let down. BUT. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it could’ve been anything, tbh, that caused them to be transported, because the point is that ANY near-death experience can take you to Borderland, the space between life and death. And it brings to front and center the conversations that each person had been having thus far about the meaning of life. The hypothesis is that when the body is fighting to survive an accident of some sort in the real world, the mind is also doing a sort of ‘Systems Check’, trying to search for a reason to keep going, a purpose for which to exist. And Borderland provides a place for such a battle to take place, a limbo of sorts where people are forced to remember how precious life is and why it needs to be fought for- enough that they get shaken out of their stupor and wake up.
Of course, this is not a perfect solution. Did Chota and Karube die in Borderland because they didn’t think life was precious enough? (No.) And what happens to the physical bodies of those who choose to become citizens? (They die, eventually. Time works differently in Borderland, but even Game Runners don’t appear to live forever.) I don’t purport to have every answer. I just mean that... by all accounts, /everyone/ affected by the meteor could’ve died. (It was a meteor, which a huge explosion!) But Borderland took the consciousness? souls? of the dead people there and provided a way for /some/ of them to live.
If you look at it that way, Borderland, despite the random death games and constant terror, actually /reduces/ the number of people who die from a mass-casualty event, and, makes sure that, of those that come back to life, most of them are determined to live life to the fullest when they get back.
ALSO, in the Netflix version, we see that the last shot is of a player with a Joker card. This is expanded on a bit more in the manga, but basically he’s some sort of limbo-esque character, giving credence to the idea that Borderland is a last-chance type of world, where, if you fight hard enough, and convince enough people to try with you, and hold on to hope long enough, you can earn one last chance to be returned back to the real world and live.
TLDR; Alice in Borderland Season 2 did not pull any punches with the games, which were as visceral and heart-pounding as ever. I personally enjoyed discussing extensively with my watch-mate about how we would approach each game, and loved seeing the details of the Alice in Wonderland characters woven into the narrative so well. The ending was at first disappointing, but the more I thought about what the Borderland represented, the more appropriate the ambiguity became, and eventually I could accept Borderland for what it is: a train station between the real world and the afterlife, where people fight for the opportunity to go board the train back to the real world and live.