Episode Context Block:

• Episode air date: 25 September 2025

• Runtime: 1 Hour

• Streaming: Netflix (global release)

• This is Season 3, Episode 4 of 6

• Quick content warning: violence, gore, suicide themes

• Catch up links to Episode 1, Episode 2 &  Episode 3 recaps

In Alice in Borderland Season 3 Episode 4, it opens with chaos on a runaway train. The players are trapped in cabins filled with poison gas. Usagi makes a wrong guess, which wastes their 2nd last canister. Two cabins remain, but only one cannister is left. The air turns deadly fast.

Usagi takes charge. She suggests a wild move: jumping to a parallel train that will run beside them. Matsyusama, who uses a wheelchair, refuses to be left behind. He forces himself to stand, clinging to the metal bars.

At the right moment, Usagi and a couple leap across. Matsyusama swings his body with sheer willpower and follows. Not everyone makes it. Two players fall short and die.

On the other different train, Usagi spots Arisu. He is alive, stuck in the same deadly game. Their hands reach out, but the trains split onto different tracks before they touch. His train slams into a dead end. The impact crushes everything. Arisu survives but lies unconscious, bleeding badly. His teammates rush to stitch his wound before it’s too late.

Matsyusama then reveals his past. A flashback shows him as a professor obsessed with death. His student Yano admired his work. When he asked her to simulate a near-death experiment, she agreed. But the experiment failed.

She died, leaving him with guilt and nightmares. Afterward, he tried to kill himself but lived, ending up in a wheelchair. His fascination with death never left him.

Matsyusama from a mere obstacle into a complex, tragic figure. His motivation isn’t just survival; it’s a twisted form of academic atonement.

His presence in the Borderlands is a self-imposed purgatory, which adds a profound layer of philosophical depth to the action. For viewers, it prompts the question: Are these games punishment or perverse fulfillment for the players’ past guilt?

Arisu finally wakes. The sun is setting, and a new game awaits. His friends refuse to abandon him despite his injury.

Two Games, Two Paths

The next challenge is the Bingo Tower. Usagi ties a rope and climbs Tokyo Tower, where players must press buzzers scattered across the structure.

The goal is to form a bingo line—vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. At the very top sits a free buzzer, linked to the center of the card. Reaching it could decide the game.

Meanwhile, Arisu enters another deadly trial: Kick the Can. Ten cans are hidden, each starting a countdown when touched. The player must return the can to its base before the timer ends, or it explodes. Every death or handoff changes the timer, dropping it by five seconds each time. The rules are brutal.

Arisu is too injured to run. He guides his team through strategy instead. The first round ends in disaster when the can explodes. No one survives that turn. In the second round, chaos erupts. The can is smashed before reaching base. Again, failure. In the third round, Sacchiko saves the team by delivering the can.

The narrative then brilliantly splits, contrasting two distinct types of survival. Usagi’s ‘Bingo Tower’ is a test of pure physical endurance and agility—a solitary climb against a deadly environment.

In stark contrast, Arisu’s ‘Kick the Can’ is a strategic team-based game where cooperation is the only weapon against a ticking clock. This juxtaposition highlights the different strengths of our protagonists and the varied horrors of the Borderlands.

Falling Players and Narrow Escapes

At the tower, Usagi presses her first buzzer. Instantly, steel balls rain down, knocking players from the structure. She tries to save Himawari but fails. Himawari falls to her death.

Back at Arisu’s side, Shion dies when another can explodes in the confusion. The team keeps pushing. Rei delivers one. Tetsu secures another. Nobu survives the next. Slowly, they crawl forward.

On the tower, Usagi nearly falls. She slips from the handlebars, but Matsyusama grabs her hand in midair, refusing to let go. She lives because of him.

Arisu’s game narrows to the last rounds. Rei, Tetsu, and Nobu each succeed. Then Arisu himself, with Kazuya’s help, returns a can safely. But in the final round, Kazuya can’t hold against stronger players. He loses the can. It explodes in the fight, ending his run.

Usagi reaches the top of the tower. She presses the last buzzer—the free space. Her bingo line is complete.

The Last Game Begins in Shibuya

The story shifts again. Matsyusama secretly meets Banda. Banda tells him the next game will be the last. He gives Matsyusama a pistol with a cruel order: kill Usagi during the final round. In return, Arisu will be trapped in this world forever, just as Matsyusama desires.

The episode closes on Arisu and his surviving team—Rei, Nobu, Tetsu, and Sacchiko. They walk into the arena for the final game. It is Shibuya. The same place where the meteorite once hit. Around them stand many other survivors. The stage for the end has been set.

The choice of Shibuya as the final arena is deeply symbolic. It’s the epicenter of the original disaster that brought them to this world. This brings the narrative full circle, suggesting that to escape, the players must finally confront the trauma that defined them.

This setup isn’t just a cliffhanger; it’s a thematic statement, promising a conclusion that is as psychologically resonant as it is action-packed.

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