Alice in Borderland Season 3 is close to its official release, and with that, every fan is excited to see Arisu and Usgai back on their screens. However, it has been a while since the release of the second season of AIB. So, it’s better to jog your memory on what actually happened in the second season. Keeping that in mind, here’s every major event that happened in Alice in Borderland Season 2.
Introduction of the Face Card Games
The eerie, deserted streets of Borderland continue to haunt us, following the concluding episode of Season 1. Scattered survivors, including Arisu, Usagi, Chishiya, and Kuina, are seen running at Shibuya Crossing. A masked sniper is hunting them, keeping the rules a secret. Shibuya, which is the busiest landmark of Tokyo, appears as a kill zone in Alice in Borderland Season 2 Episode 1. Ann and Tatta help Usagi, Arisu, and Kuina escape, but Chishiya gets separated from the group. The escape leads to their encounter with Kyuma, the Kings of Clubs, who introduce the group to Osmosis, the first face card game. Niragi re-enters the game, heightening the tension.
The Osmosis Battle and an Emotional Sacrifice
Set in a ship yard filled with containers, Arisu, Usagi, Kuina, Tatta, and Niragi find themselves in a challenge against Kyuma and his allies. Kyuma explains the rules and mechanisms of Osmosis to the team. He starts saying that each group will start with 10,000 points. The points will be equally divided among the team members (the minimum point will be 100). The players can track their points on their wristbands. He then explains how one can earn the points. The game will last for two hours, and the team with the highest score will be the victor.
Despite putting their all, Arisu and Usagi’s team lags behind. The former’s guilt over not being able to protect Chota and Karube does not let him stop. Niragi’s deteriorating health starts evoking negative emotions in him, and rather than playing together, he attacks Usagi. Fortunately, Arisu intervenes and saves her. Seeing no other option left, Tatta devises a sacrificial plan and mutilates his own wrist, allowing Arisu to help the team by using the points on Tatta’s band. He dies tragically from blood loss. However, Tatta’s sacrifice doesn’t go in vain, as the players win against the King of Clubs and his team, who are eventually killed by the Borderland’s lasers.
Chishiya Faces Jack of Hearts
While Arisu and the group navigate the aftermath of the Osmosis game, Chishiya enters a prison-like game arena, only to find himself entangled in the Jack of Hearts game called Solitary Confinement. All the participants are given a neck collar that will show a card suit at the back, and the wearer must guess the number without looking at the symbols. Each round will have a time limit of one hour, and in the final five minutes, the player must enter their cell and announce the number. Those who guess it right will survive, while those who do it wrong will face death. However, with the guessing game, the players must also find out the Jack of Hearts, who has placed himself among the participants.
The majority of the players focused on their survival, while Chishiya stood there observing everyone and trying to bring Jack of Hearts to light. He was the one to sense the lies told by Matsushita, who emerged as the Jack of Hearts at the end. However, despite directly attacking him, Chishiya made Banda and Yaba tackle him.
Aguni Seeks Redemption
Following the King of Clubs game, Arisu is devastated, recalling Tatta’s sacrificial act. Meanwhile, Kuina leaves Arisu and Usagi behind to find Ann. The lead duo comes across a set of slaughtered bodies on the road, and are once again attacked by the King of Spades. Arisu and Usagi are separated; Aguni re-enters the picture with Heiya, his new ally, and protects Arisu. Aguni seeks redemption for killing Hatter and the others in the beach Arc.
Usagi and Arisu Face Queen of Spades
While Aguni, Arisu, and Heiya were buying plotting traps for the King of Spades, Usagi discovered a young boy in the deadly Borderland. His visa was about to expire, so Usagi brought him to the Queen of Spades game. There, she also reunites with Arisu. The game called Checkmate begins; a young woman appears on the screen and starts explaining the rules. The Queen’s team will consist of four players, and the Challengers’ team will consist of sixteen members.
Each team will have a King, and the woman makes the young boy the King of the Challengers team. Then she explains the rule that states that the game will begin with the four members of the Queens team chasing the players of the opponent team, and once a player from the Challengers team gets touched on their back, the color of the button will turn red from blue. The player who gets touched will play the game as a member of the Queen’s team from the next round. The King will not get a chance to change the team. There will be a total of sixteen rounds, and each round will last no longer than five minutes. At the end, the team with the high number of members will win, and the opponent team, including the King, will die.
Initially, Arisu and Usagi’s team lags behind, but then the latter uses her brains and convinces the participants to support her. The plan works, and our beloved duo wins the game.
Chishiya Encounters the King of Diamonds
Chishiya enters the Supreme Court and faces the Kuzuryu, King of Diamonds, who was a lawyer in his pre-Borderland life. The game was called Balance Scale, and the rules stated that every player in the room must choose a number between 0 and 100. The average of the numbers chosen by each one of them will be multiplied by 0.8. The one whose number will be the closest to that number will be the winner. Chishiya gave it his all and emerged as the winner of the game against the King.
The Final Showdown in Borderlands
After going through everything, our beloved duo, Arisu and Usagi, enter the Queen of Hearts game, hosted by none other than Mira. In this game, all Arisu had to do was continue to play the croquet game. The condition to win the game was simple: Arisu must not forfeit the game and must play all three rounds. In the midst of this, Usagi was bleeding from her injury, and to make things worse, Mira was extending the game intentionally.
Arisu also requested Mira to reveal the truth about the games and how they can head back to the original world. However, Mira gave several mindless scenarios to Arisu, and in the end, she almost makes Arisu believe that all these games have been happening in Arisu’s mind. Mira tells Arisu that he is a patient and Usagi is a fellow patient in the hospital. Mira asks Arisu to stop playing these games, as that’s the only way to embrace the truth. But Arisu refuses to believe that his love for Usagi isn’t real. So, he continues to pay the third round, which leads to Mira’s death.
Back to the Real World
After Arisu and Usagi beat the Queen of Hearts game, every living contestant was given two choices: become a citizen of this world or go back to the real world. Of course, every character we love or hate goes back to the real world. At this point, we learn that it was actually a meteor that fell in Shibuya, and everyone who played these games was actually in a coma. They were stuck between life and death: in purgatory. Everyone who survived these games came back to life, but everyone who died playing the games actually died in the real world.
As expected, nobody remembers what happened when they were in a coma, but they still had feelings for each other. That’s when Arisu and Usagi met each other in the hospital; they felt that connection and started talking to each other. Meanwhile, some patients were playing cards in the hospital, and that’s when the scene highlights the Joker card, implying that the games aren’t yet over.
In the end, Season 2 of Alice in Borderland implied that there are still more games that Arisu and Usagi must play, especially the Joker card. Of course, we have to wait for the third season to find out how and when Arisu and Usagi will be dragged back into the purgatory.
