Alice in Borderland: Season Two
January 19, 2023 2:11 PM - Season 2 (Full Season) - Subscribe

Arisu and his crew face a new round of deadly face card games. Who are the citizens? Will the winners get to go home? Does home still exist? Why is the world like this? What makes a good leader? What is the value of life? Questions such as these will be repeatedly asked in Season 2 of Alice in Borderland.
posted by fleacircus (5 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
"And I awoke and it was all a dream" would normally be an unacceptable ending. Here, as a pastiche of Through the Looking Glass, it's OK. The Queen's name, Mira, recalls mirror, a looking glass. And the "You're nothing but a pack of cards!" symbolism is obvious. (Other than the Joker, which is likely the creator winking at the audience.)
posted by SPrintF at 1:59 PM on January 22, 2023 [1 favorite]


Yeah I think the Joker is a cute THE END...? execution. It's nothing really, unless there's a sequel of course.

I laughed at the fake reveals of what's really going on. I suppose if the Borderland is people fighting to stay alive, citizens are comatose people...

There's a lot of speeches and dialogues in this season that were really bad, but idk the games are interesting.
posted by fleacircus at 3:01 PM on January 22, 2023


It is such a fun watch and I hope there's a third season.
posted by the webmistress at 6:04 PM on January 27, 2023


Debating about whether to watch season 2, if I just watched the last episode or two would I get the gist?
posted by skewed at 9:32 PM on February 25, 2023


I went ahead and watched the whole thing, I liked season 2 better than season 1, the first four episodes of this season were top notch, especially the episode with the King of Clubs. There were indeed a lot of cheeses speeches and overwrought confrontations, but pretty fun to watch.

The last episode could have been tighter, it didn’t really make a lot of sense as to why Arisu would have forfeited once Mira dropped all pretense to the hospital ruse, so the tension wasn’t really there. But overall I liked the game design for the Queen of Hearts—you just have to successfully hang out with Mira for a few hours without falling into despair.

Doesn’t make sense to me that the ten year old made it through, but I guess some people just stayed clear of the King of Spades areas and hoped someone in would clear everything before their visas expired. But it was really weird how Arisu and Usagi just never see him again after winning the Queen of Clubs game.

The only players who accept permanent residency are the psychopaths from the Jack of Hearts game (which I was disappointed did not include any reference to the Bob Dylan song). Other face card players are said to be citizens, and I guess they could be the new face card bosses, but that only makes sense in an eternal cycle of games, which doesn’t seem consistent with the way things ended up (or maybe I’m missing something or just overthinking).

Also, that bubble-gum pop song “Good Times” which they played 3-4 times over the course of the series is now indelibly stuck in my head.
posted by skewed at 9:11 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]


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