Final Cards: What to expect from Alice in Borderland Season 2
Welcome back my fellow readers to discuss more of the thrilling and one of the most stressful genres to ever watch, the survival games. For newcomers, we welcome you and will, of course, recap and brief today’s discussion of the 2020 Japanese Netflix series, Alice in Borderland, and the upcoming season yet to be revealed in December this year. So, let’s talk about it.
DISCLAIMER: IF YOU DO NOT WANT ANY SPOILERS, I ADVISE YOU TO COME BACK AFTER WATCHING THE SERIES.
Alice in Borderland became very popular in 2020, praising its intense and creative plot. The series tells the story of 3 best friends who find themselves in a survival game in Tokyo, and later discover other players who were somehow randomly chosen. The main focus of the series amongst the friends, Arisu, uses his knowledge of riddles and gaming to fight and survive. The series ends with the mastermind revealing themselves and hinting at what is to expect in the next season.
Now, what is to be expected in Season 2?
Alice in Borderland showcased intense and creative games, especially what seemed to be the main objective, (apart from trying to survive) the playing cards. Normal playing cards are used to identify different categories and difficulty levels of each game; the suit symbolises the game category and the numbers symbolise the difficulty level. At the end of the series, blimps were seen all around Tokyo with giant flags of the “face cards” attached to them: Jack, Queen and King.
In Episode 5, Arisu was introduced to the leader, Hatter, and the high-ranking players. During the meeting, Hatter explains to Arisu that they have been working out a theory and a reason why this is all happening. They all believe that playing cards play a big part in the whole organization and, therefore, believe that once all cards have been collected they can all go back to their normal lives. This reveals that the beach is just a paradise for players to enjoy their life, not knowing when they will finally lose their lives to the games. It’s portrayed that Hatter was using and blackmailing players to survive the games just to collect every card from them.
This leads to the discussion of how the playing cards are the main objective of the whole series, as the highest cards are yet to be revealed, ultimately foreshadowing that the upcoming games in Season 2 will be the most deadliest and difficult of them all. However, since Arisu and the remaining survivors were the only people that were seen at the end of Season 1, it doesn’t necessarily cancel out the possibility of new characters being introduced.
So, what’s so fascinating about the face cards? And, is there even a possibility of them going back home?
Since Jack, Queen and King are normally the highest numbers, it was clearly saved for the last which, we can all agree, must reach our expectations. As we all know, each card has 4 different suits and if Arisu and the other survivors are the only survivors in Season 2, then it will truly be a stressful season with either friendship or betrayal. Of course, we all want Arisu and Usagi to survive and win together, hopefully, be able to go back home safe, but we all know that sounds too cliche and an easy ending. In the original manga of Alice in Borderland, the answer to how people are even entering this side of Tokyo is that these players suffer from cardiac arrest and their consciousness ended up in the “Borderland” — Basically a near-death experience hallucination.
Unlike other survival games, Alice in Borderland is the only game that doesn’t reveal the story and meaning behind it: How half of Tokyo’s population disappeared in seconds, where the laserbeams from the sky came from and the whole purpose and reason behind this traumatizing plot. Despite the face reveal of the mastermind behind it all, Mira Kano, I’m still not satisfied with the ending of Season 1. I do believe that Mira could possibly be the “final boss” in the end game or simply play as a player to see who would truly be the last man standing. As she was already posing as a player behind the shadows, she was risking her life to play the games to live closer to the other players from the inside and therefore, in some way, she would have to survive like the rest.
I hope Season 2 answers all of our dying questions and reaches our expectations of the deadly games that are about to come. What do you guys think?
Until next time!
