Alice in Borderland S3: Top Theories On How Arisu Will Return to Borderland

There's no official news about when exactly Alice in Borderland Season 3 will come to Netflix, but that's okay. Because viewers are still getting over the initial surprise of the show's renewal.

The survival series based on Haro Aso's fan-adored manga has been a hit with Netflix viewers, and the upcoming new season is sure to bring many viewers to the streaming giant. But the Season 2 finale ended on a note that felt satisfying and complete, perfectly wrapping up the arcs of Arisu, Usagi and other players.

They managed to escape the Borderland, which turned out to be a kind of purgatory, an area between life and death for the victims of the meteors that hit Tokyo. But the show can't go on without the deadly card games, can it? So how will Arisu return to Borderland in Season 3?

Here are the top three fan theories on how exactly Alice in Borderland's new episodes will pick up after the Season 2 finale.

1. Joker's Game

In the series, after the final Queen of Hearts game, which Arisu won, all players were given a choice. They could stay (presumably to become game masters) or they could leave. Those who picked the latter woke up in a hospital with no memories of Borderland.

This finale took a lot from the ending of the original manga. However, there was one big change. The manga has a mysterious, powerful 'final boss', the Joker, who transports players between the world of the dead and the living. He was cut from the series, but on screen viewers saw his signature card landing in the hospital.

This led fans to speculate that the characters never actually left Borderland and still have a grand season-long Joker game to play, with the hospital serving as another arena.

2. Voluntary Return

This theory has the level of craziness and outlandishness that we love. Some fans think that the survivors might voluntarily re-enter the Borderland through a dangerous experiment.

After getting back to the real world in the Season 2 finale, the players have no memories of the games, but their personalities still change, and they feel an unconscious pull toward each other.

So when little bits of what happened to them start to come back, the survivors might band together and decide to visit Borderland to remember it all. In this case, an artificially induced short death will do the trick.

3. Retry

This is the most likely way things will play out. Did you know that Haro Aso wrote a two-volume sequel to his hit manga in 2020, when the Netflix show premiered? It's called Alice in Borderland: Retry and has a perfect plot for Season 3.

Retry begins after a time jump. Arisu became a psychologist and married Usagi, who is a professional mountaineer like her father. The family is waiting for their first baby and when the contractions begin, Arisu rushes to Usagi's side, which brings him into a terrible car accident and back to the Borderland.

There, he remembers his last visit and enters the survival games with a strong motivation - he has to return to his wife and newborn child.