ALICE IN BODERLAND
Arisu and Usagi then head to the final game – the Queen of Hearts – with the hope of putting an end to things, finding out what’s going on, and, hopefully, getting back to the real world. This is where the season finale starts – our two protagonists approaching the Queen of Hearts herself atop a Tokyo skyscraper.
The final game is a simple croquet match (another nod to Lewis Carroll), and the rules seem simple: play three rounds without giving up. Of course, it’s not really that simple. The Queen of Hearts begins psychologically manipulating Arisu during a compulsory tea break after the first round, in an attempt to make him quit.
She begins by offering an explanation of the reality of the mysterious world; they’re actually living a thousand years in the future, where humans have conquered mortality and suffering. The borderland world is a VR simulation which has been created by future humans. They actually miss their fear of death, and have an obsession with a thousand years ago when death was a reality...
... except, The Queen of Hearts reveals with a giggle, this isn’t true at all. She’s just winding them up. It’s the start of her psychological toying with Arisu. She then offers another explanation. Aliens have captured all of humanity and wiped our memories in order to conduct various experiments. But recently a new truth emerged among the players, that the alien theory was a myth, and actually, all players are androids being controlled by elite humans who watch the games for entertainment…
... which, of course, isn’t true either. Usagi warns Arisu not to pay any more attention, to simply finish the game, but her warning is ignored. Arisu continues to listen to The Queen of Hearts, who brings up his dead friends and taunts him, claiming that she designed the game in which they died (Seven of Hearts). This puts Arisu into a vulnerable state of mind, and, despite Usagi’s warnings, he starts to listen to another of Hearts’ theories.
This whole world is a creation of Arisu’s imagination. The fact that the games aren’t any more sophisticated than 'tag' and 'hide and seek' prove this. They’re child’s games, created by Arisu’s immature mind. Arisu wakes up in what looks like a psychiatrist’s office, or an institution, where the Queen of Hearts sits in front of him in a white coat. The scene we saw at the very start of the series – in which the three friends see fireworks before they find themselves in Borderland – was the beginning of Arisu’s self-deception.
His two friends were hit by a car and killed instantly at the busy Tokyo crossroads. Arisu blamed himself, and his manifestation of Borderland and its games was a subconscious attempt to come to terms with this. In an attempt to bring an end to Arisu’s delusion, the Queen of Hearts asks him to take medication. Crestfallen, and accepting this situation as reality, he starts to comply.
Usagi, appearing as a fellow inmate at the institution, jumps in and prevents this from happening. In an attempt to prove her existence, she cuts her wrist in front of him. Eventually, remembering his promise to protect her no matter what, Arisu breaks free of the Queen of Hearts’ spell, and returns to Borderland to finish the game.
Arisu finishes the game of croquet, bringing an end to the games once and for all. As fireworks erupt around Borderland, the surviving players are given the choice of either remaining there or returning to the real world.
We witness that opening scene again, in which Arisu and his three friends cross the busy intersection in Tokyo. This time, though, we see the other protagonists are also present; Usagi, Chishiya, Ann, Kuina, Tatta, Niragi, Aguni, Hatter, and Heiya.
The fireworks that we saw in the sky were part of a large meteor that crashed in that area of Tokyo. Borderland was a land between life and death, in which those who died in the games were killed by the meteor in reality. Arisu and his remaining companions from the end of the season – including Ann, who is resuscitated in the hospital – have survived.
Although they have no memory of their time in Borderland, Arisu and Usagi begin talking. They walk away together, beginning (or continuing) a bond as they walk through the busy hospital. Just before the episode ends, the camera zooms into a Joker card in the hospital gardens.
With all the red herrings from the Queen of Hearts about future civilisations, aliens, and psych wards – topped off with that Joker card at the end – you might be wondering if the meteor story is true after all...
Well, we believe that it is. The Joker card, in the manga, is a character who actually appears in the story. He’s a ferryman between the world of the living and the afterlife (the "borderland", of course, being in between), who brings Arisu back to the real world at the end.
While the ominous close-up of the card at the end might hint at another game, it could be interpreted as a symbol. The ferryman has done his job, and transported the surviving characters back to the world of the living.
Or perhaps we’re being too sweet and innocent, and there’s another deadly game ahead for Arisu and the survivors. There is a sequel to the manga, so maybe we shouldn’t relax just yet...
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