I Cannot Consider ‘Alice in Borderland’ Went Full ‘Squid Sport’

Alice in Borderland is a Netflix loss of life sport collection that’s lengthy been caught within the gravitational pull of Squid Game. Its second season dropped within the wake of Squid Sport‘s breakout first, and its newly launched third adopted months after Squid Sport‘s. For a time, the 2 reveals felt like twin series with Squid Sport because the breakout star and Alice in Borderland because the cult favourite. Their thematic overlap made comparisons inevitable, but additionally thrilling: two truffles, cool.

Alice in Borderland, created by Haro Aso, the creator of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, follows Arisu (Kento Yamazaki), a shut-in gamer who at some point is transported right into a parallel world together with his buddies, generally known as the Borderland. There, Arisu and his love curiosity, Usagi (Tao Tsuchiya), compete in loss of life video games to increase their visas within the mysterious world. In the event that they fail, they’re executed by a laser from the sky.

Initially, Alice in Borderland stood aside. Its video games have been crueler, extra cerebral, and fewer about class warfare and extra concerning the randomness of the universe, with psychological torment abounding. The place Squid Sport leaned into spectacle and capitalism’s failings, Alice explored survival as introspection. Its puzzles have been extra like pop quiz loss of life traps, inviting viewers to play alongside, decipher hidden clues, and undergo when characters unceremoniously chew the mud.

Nonetheless, the present’s tone managed to be much less dour and extra communal, with characters forming makeshift bonds that felt extra like summer season camp camaraderie in hell than a bunch of assholes sure to double-cross one another and never grumble over doing so. All through its seasons, Alice in Borderland gave its forged home and interpersonal depth, avoiding the trope of disposable aspect characters or “fridged” motivators whereas nonetheless partaking within the narrative of the loss of life sport.

In its newest season, Alice in Borderland returned with the chance to be greater than a placeholder, poised to seize these lingering viewer cravings for psychological carnage and narrative closure in a loss of life sport. What begins as a gripping evolution of the collection slowly morphs right into a perplexing imitation of its style friends, abandoning the originality that after made Alice in Borderland stand aside.

In a story set years after the occasions of season two, Arisu returns to the Borderland to save lots of his spouse, Usagi, who’s been kidnapped and transported again into the sci-fi loss of life sport realm. At first, it delivers: its video games are creative, the stakes are excessive, and Arisu’s evolution from a hikkikomori to a survival-horror husband feels earned. The present’s shortly deserted amnesia storyline with Arisu and Usagi is clunky, but it surely manages to serve the present’s sci-fi thriller field properly sufficient, permitting the story to unfold totally as they recall the horrors of the Borderland with out dragging viewers by way of limitless memory-recovery scenes.

But, because the season unfurls, the similarities to Squid Sport‘s second and third seasons go from coincidental to uncanny. For one, Arisu and Usagi’s return mirrors Gi-Hun’s solo reentry. Whereas one can chalk that as much as loss of life sport collection tropes, its story—particularly its ethical dilemmas and trolley drawback eventualities—begins to really feel like a copy-paste job. Technically, Alice in Borderland can’t be referred to as a copycat as a result of it was launched first, and its manga concluded in 2016, a full 4 years earlier than the Netflix live-action collection premiered. Plus, its second season ended the place the manga did.

And therein lies the issue: season three, untethered from supply materials, veers into canon fanfiction territory. It’s Alice Returns, however extra with the slapdash fashionings of Sport of Thrones‘ notorious eighth season.

To its credit score, Alice in Borderland‘s video games—together with poisoned bullet trains, explosive kick-the-can, and zombie-infested card wars—are thrilling. However the “why” behind them is foggy as hell. Ryuji (Kento Kaku), the pseudo-antagonist ally to Usagi, gives obscure motivations that shift with out payoff. The rationale behind Usagi’s return to the Borderland, which is revealed to be much less an abduction and extra a voluntary resolution between her and Ryuji, is even much less outlined.

What’s extra, a late-stage love triangle between the three comes off like a determined gasp for drama, with Usagi and Ryuji displaying extra chemistry than the central couple. Arisu and Usagi, regardless of being married, nonetheless really feel like they’re within the early awkward levels of relationship. And in a present whose entire intrigue is buckling at its very basis, the one meritorious wink in direction of one thing worthwhile to look at as an epilogue to an in any other case nice present is a travesty—particularly contemplating that from the midway level onward, Alice in Borderland goes full Squid Sport in probably the most unimaginative manner potential.

Season three’s finale leans arduous into Squid Game déjà vu, introducing a defied sport grasp who waxes poetic about nihilism and tosses in a quandary that fortunately spares us a CGI child, solely to exchange it with one thing much more absurd. The philosophical stakes, already murky, turn out to be obscured by spectacle. And simply if you suppose it’d wrap with grace, the ultimate episode pivots towards franchise enlargement with all of the subtlety of a loss of life laser from the sky.

It’s the type of ending that doesn’t depart you breathless—it leaves you slumped, watching the credit roll in quiet resignation. Actually, Cate Blanchett might’ve walked in carrying an embroidered go well with with “IP Synergy” on the entrance pocket, and it wouldn’t have felt misplaced. That’s how proudly the present parades its mimicry, echoing the identical pointless sequel bloat that’s turned its twin collection right into a scavenged husk—its once-brilliant premiere now a distant, commodified memory.

And that’s the tragedy. Alice in Borderland had the bones of a standout loss of life sport collection whose unique third season might’ve served because the decadently drawn horse head to finish the entire stallion. Its cinematography is modern, its CGI polished, and its homage to Cube and Battle Royale is honest. Up till now, Alice in Borderland by no means felt spinoff. However in attempting to stretch its barely-there concepts into a 3rd season, it grew to become what Squid Sport already was: a collection bloated by its personal success, gorging on spectacle whereas ravenous its story.

Within the pantheon of loss of life video games, Squid Sport might have devolved into a toddler’s sketch of a horse’s head. However Alice in Borderland already had the define of a whole sketch to adapt—decadent, detailed, and daring. Sadly, season three is the epitome of inventive greed, and if not that, one thing as bereft because it, drawing previous the end line and dropping the plot.

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