REVIEW: ‘Alice in Borderland’ Season 3 Overplays Its Hand

Time has passed since Arisu (Kento Yamazaki, Golden Kamuy), Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya, Rurouni Kenshin: The Final), and their friends escaped from the Borderland. In Alice in Borderland Season 3, the couple is pulled back into the deadly world as threats intensify and revelations expose the true nature of the perilous place. 

When the series began, it pulled you in quickly with sudden dangers and a constant level of tension that never let up. As the games played out, you learned about the cast and the lengths they were, or weren’t, willing to go to live. Keeping the focus on the cast and the challenges they faced, let the series deliver what it needed to at a clip that rarely let up. 

For the bulk of Alice in Borderland Season 3, this remains true. Once Arisu and Usagi find themselves back in the familiarly vacant world, the games begin in earnest. Each game is creatively crafted, allowing for complex rules and ingenious solutions. Even after three seasons of watching the characters discover loopholes that could lead to a sure death, it remains enthralling.

The nature of the numerous threats and the demands they make on both the minds and bodies of the contestants greatly helps the thrills stay fresh. What will be demanded next is always unknown. Given how wild some of the early games are, the sky is truly the limit as the dangers escalate. 

New characters add some excitement in Alice in Borderland Season 3.

New characters are introduced to travel alongside the starring duo as well. This expanded cast is initially brought in with minimal backstory. Blink and you’ll miss them flashbacks and explanations allow the audience to understand the major beats of their personalities without stalling out the story initially. However, while this works at the beginning of Alice in Borderland Season 3, it becomes a problem as things progress.

As Alice in Borderland Season 3 approaches its finale, the games are weighed down by a barrage of backstory. Every new character still standing gets a significant amount of time in the spotlight. This saps much of the tension from the most critical challenges, as well as undercuts when some of the characters inevitably die. Being shown a tragic backstory, minutes before offing a character, attempts an emotional response that feels cheap. 

Alice in Borderland Season 3 would’ve been better served by giving a couple of characters some backstory sprinkled in amongst earlier episodes, where the lighter stalls in its progress would be less noticeable and more natural. Making this approach even worse is that the most impactful deaths occur in characters for whom no full backstory is given. 

A barrage of backstory isn’t the only stumble in the back third of Alice in Borderland Season 3. The final episodes also find themselves weighed down by the overwrought exploration of a new question: What is the Borderland? As everything is crashing down around the surviving players, the show grinds everything to a halt to poke at what this world actually is. 

In attempting to wrap everything up and explain remaining questions, the finale stumbles hard.

There are so many aspects of this choice that fail. Not only is the timing terrible, but nothing is truly gained from the discourse it elicits. It strives to add a grand, dramatic element to a series about surviving deadly games so a satellite doesn’t shoot you in the head with a laser beam. The theatrical style of drama the ending strives for could’ve worked, had it been present all along. Instead, it just feels weird and out of place at this point, despite the best efforts of those who deliver the moment. 

The strong acting extends beyond the ill-conceived ending. The entire cast brings a feeling of genuine presence to the narrative. They each feel like they are not properly equipped for the threats ahead, and are making do as best they can. How they react to both seeing death and causing it does a lot to pull you in, making you want to see certain characters survive and others die.

Another element that helps bring the world of Alice in Borderland Season 3 to life is the cinematography. There is a ton of great camera work in this season. Tension and danger are often greatly amplified thanks to immersive camera placements. Even more striking, though, is how wonderfully the camera captures the rare quiet moments. 

The visuals of Alice in Borderland Season 3 continue to immerse viewers in this other world.

In a couple of key scenes, all is calm. With a game just completed, the tension is released, and a breath is rightfully earned. What the camera does, combined with gorgeous lighting, in some of these moments, drives the power of the peace home. They are few and far between here, so the production gets every meaningfulness out of them they can. 

The presentation is also aided by some strong visual effects. A truly calamitous moments are brought to life thanks to skillful CGI. These moments are sewn into practical sequences well, helping to blend the computer-enhanced moments with real-life shots. 

There is also a fun moment where I initially believed I had caught the show in a poorly implemented attempt at green-screening a background, only for it to be revealed that it was that way for a reason. The purposeful limitation of the moment made the final purpose of it far more reasonable than if it looked flawless, until it was explained. 

Alice in Borderland Season 3 delivers a lot of what fans will expect of the series, only to stumble at the end. Poor backstory implementation and an attempt to expand the scope of the world weigh down the final episodes, leaving the season to land with a largely underwhelming thud. 

Alice in Borderland Season 3 streams globally on Netflix on September 25, 2025.

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