Summary
Things at the Beach take a worrying turn, and what might be the most important game of all begins.
This recap of Alice in Borderland season 1, episode 6 contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
Check out our spoiler-free season review.
All is not well at the Beach. Arisu and Usagi clearly don’t belong there and are both determined to figure out what’s what so they can keep their promise of taking down the enigmatic game master and returning the world to normal, but that requires a degree of investigation that not many citizens of the Beach are receptive to. Most are quite happy with the lifestyle they currently enjoy and are too wasted to question it. When Arisu finds a skip full of rotting corpses, though, it exposes a harsher underbelly to the so-called utopia. As Silver Hair, whose name is Chishiya, says: This is the real utopia. As suspected, he and Kuina have an ulterior motive. Chishiya is planning to steal all the playing cards and bail. The militants are due to take over any time now, and the Beach won’t be quite as laidback once Aguni and his pet psychopath Niragi are in charge.
Niragi’s psychopathy is on full display when Hatter’s corpse returns from his unsuccessful attempt at a game. While intimating all the other executives into “democratically” electing Aguni, he starts beating Hatter’s corpse with the butt of his rifle. Most viewers — myself included — will be clamouring for Niragi’s death at this point, and I didn’t even particularly like Hatter.
But that means the militants are in charge. This, it seems, give Chishiya the opportunity he needs. As he explains while laying out his plan to Arisu, when there’s a change in leadership, the new Number One must be made privy to the code for the safe that contains the Beach’s collection of playing cards. By snooping while Aguni opens the envelope, and using his obviously considerable deductive abilities, Chishiya figures out the code and sends Arisu to break into the safe during Aguni’s inauguration speech.
Of course, it’s a setup. Arisu gets caught in the act and Niragi viciously beats him unconscious. He’s held captive, presumably with the intention of keeping him there until his visa expires. Meanwhile, An performs an autopsy on Hatter, who seems very much to have been executed, and Chishiya reveals his real plan, which was to use Arisu’s capture as a diversion so he could locate and rob the real safe containing the cards.
Usagi isn’t safe either, since Niragi and his goons grab her and pin her down — he obviously has the intention of raping her, and while she fights back, she’s overpowered. But suddenly, the lights go out. Outside, Chishiya and Kuina discover a laser border being erected around the Beach. It has become a game arena. The next game is going to involve everyone — and they’ll be playing for the last card, the ten of hearts.
When everyone assembles in the foyer, they find Momoka dead, stabbed in the chest. The game is called Witch Hunt. The objective is to figure out who killed her within the next two hours and burn them on the pyre outside. Let the game begin.
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