ICYMI:  Arisu & Gang Is Back! Alice in Borderland Levels Up in Season 2

SPOILER ALERT 

Alice in Borderland Season 2 is an absolute bloodbath, with enough fake-out endings to make The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King seem minimalist. Everyone was left for dead, until Arisu was victorious in the final game – giving his teammates a chance to decide if they really do want to return home. If you're still reeling from all that death and destruction but are a little foggy on the details, here's a breakdown of everything that happened, all the way to the bloody end. 

Who are the new characters in Season 2? 

We meet a naked rocker named Kyuma, a serial killer named Banda, a mean girl turned archery maven called Heiya and several others. 

Who is the King of Spades? 

The King of Spades is a mercenary whose Borderlands game involves him going on a shooting rampage to decimate as many players as possible. The players must kill the King of Spades in order to defeat him, but his endless ammo and expert marksmanship make him an ongoing threat for the majority of Season 2. He's finally defeated in Episode 7 by Arisu and Aguni, who use a kerosene-filled explosive to blow him up. 

What happens to Chishiya? 

The most Zen player in the Borderlands, perma-poker face Chishiya beats two Face Card games solo in Season 2 – the Jack of Hearts and the King of Diamonds. In the latter game, it's revealed that, in the real world, Chishiya is a doctor at a corrupt hospital where certain well-connected patients are prioritized over more vulnerable ones. After getting to know Kuzuryu (the aforementioned King of Diamonds), who prizes fairness above all else, the apathetic Chishiya begins to rethink how he's been living life.

After Chishiya stumbles upon Arisu for the first time since the King of Spades separated them, salty Niragi resurfaces and shoots Chishiya in the chest. But when Niragi proceeds to shoot Usagi too, Chishiya acts as Usagi's shield and gets shot a second time. Because of his injuries, Chishiya sits out the final two games – bleeding out next to an injured Niragi until Arisu defeats the Queen of Hearts. When offered the chance to leave the Borderlands, Chishiya opts to return home. He wakes up next to Niragi in the hospital, where they both receive treatment for heart attacks, said to be a result of a meteor blast. Chishiya vows that from now on, hell live a better and more selfless life.

How does Alice in Borderland Season 2 end? 

In the epic battle to conquer the King of Spades, all of Arisu's crew – Kuina, Ann, Heiya, Usagi and Aguni – wind up nearly dead. None of them (including Niragi and Chishiya) are in good enough shape to enter the final game.

But Arisu drags Usagi to the final game: the Queen of Hearts. The Game Master for this one is Mira, who you might recall from the end of Season 1 (she was the one seen on-screen in the abandoned control room). Mira proposes a simple game of croquet, but spends the majority of the game manipulating the two players. She convinces Arisu that this world is his illusion, and he nearly admits defeat until Usagi cuts herself to establish that the Borderlands are indeed very real. After Usagi proves this to him, the two make their feelings for each other known, and Arisu snaps out of Mira's hypnotic lies just in the nick of time.

While Mira does end up winning croquet, it turns out it doesn't matter, because Arisu wins the game overall by not forfeiting or quitting. Now it's official: All the Face Cards have been defeated. Mira is assassinated by that creepy sky laser, and the players are offered a choice: accept life in this world, or go back to theirs. With the exception of psychopathic Banda and his new pal Yaba, the remaining players decline to stay

They all wake up in the same hospital, and it's there that Arisu learns a meteor destroyed a huge chunk of Tokyo. When the blast hit the city, everyone who wasnt yet dead was sent to the Borderlands – a purgatory of sorts. None of the players remember spending time together in the Borderlands, but now-strangers Arisu and Usagi run into each other at the hospital vending machine, and it looks like they could have a future together. As the camera pans across the hospital grounds filled with impossibly happy people, we see a table full of playing cards. All of them blow away, except one: the Joker.

What does the Joker card mean? 

While fans of the manga books by Haro Aso might understand this reference (Joker is a character in the book), it's unclear exactly what this means in the universe of Alice in Borderland the series. Will Joker make an appearance in a future season if there is one? Is the Joker card merely a symbol that we should take life less seriously? Whatever the case, let's hope Arisu gets to opt out – poor guy's been through enough.

Who dies in Season 2? 

This season was somehow even more deadly and more gory than Season 1. Our sweet pal Tatta severs off his arm and bleeds to death after removing his game bracelet so Arisu can win the King of Clubs – which results in the deaths of Kyuma and his bandmates; Matsushita is presumably shanked to death by Yaba and Banda at the end of the Jack of Hearts game; Kuzuryu dies when the scales of justice dump acid on him in the King of Diamonds game; the King of Spades is killed by Arisu and Aguni; and Mira is killed by the game when Arisu wins the Queen of Hearts.