User Reviews

First of all i haven't read the manga. This episode is probably my favourite in the series tho along with 2-3 more. So for most of the seasons our main characters are seperated , each playing the games he is best at ( chishiya playing heart and diamonds game ).

This episode really showed the stakes tho , no one is safe not even your favourite characters , i would've guessed that aguni will die as it's classic redemption arc story but to kill chishiya in the opening scenes, that was 100% unexpected as he is most people's favorite character. Then as much as i love that they showed how brutal the king of spade is ( was annoyed they skipped king of heart). Killing basically all of them was surprising , i thought they would just kill 1 or 2 max.

Overall, very good episode like the previous one.

Wow, that was an epic battle sequence. Each with heroic commitment to the cause and each other, putting themselves in a fight they can't win, in order to save the prior person's demise. Giving quite a resonating feeling. Though there's lots of ridiculous dodging and the conclusion with the bomb silly. I mean this King of Spades guy's human right, still alive after all that. Pretty much every character's dead, yet moving and talking still. The episode also has humorous moments here and there, like Chishiya "I thought I'd do something out of character" and then there's some filler as well. The strongest episode since the Hearts game of the 1st season.

Wow! This episode was PAINFUL TO WATCH!!! So many beloved characters get taken brutally out of the game in the matter of a couple of minutes is mind blowing. These characters have withstood some very intense situations, so to see them go out like this, in an alley, is like watching the end of Avengers Endgame; it's completely unexpected that they ALL go out so quickly in one fight with ONE ANTAGONIST. I had a visceral reaction to this episode, as I screamed at the TV, cried, got angry and couldn't even focus on the last part of the episode. I did NOT want to watch episode 8. My anger towards Arisu and his aerosol cans?!?! ARGH, this was an excellent episode of television that I won't soon forget.

Let me start off by saying, I absolutely love this show and I Cant wait for season 3. However, after rewatching the show for the 4th time and seeing this episode again, I had to make a review.

Realism goes out the window with this episode. When I first watched it, I was shocked and I thought they'd gone game of thrones and gone scorched earth with the cast like they did in episode 3 of season 1. However, that is not the case.

The choreography was second to none and the fight scene was epic but how do all these people survive?

Firstly Niragi, This man has been through the ringer already with his injuries and it's implied he's already slowly dying from his previous injuries then he takes a SHOTGUN blast to the stomach and still manages to lay around for what feels like about 2 hours until the games are complete and survives?! He should've been dead within minutes of that shotgun blast. There was no real reason to keep him alive either. He served his purpose as one of the series main antagonists, he's far beyond redemption and his arc feels complete. It feels like there's no real need to bring him back for season 3. It'll feel boring and tired if he's brought back as one of the main antagonists again and his character is far too unlikeable to join the group as a future protagonist, not to mention the bridges he's burnt with arisu & usagi. Even if they have him just as a bit part character in Season 3 or they don't decide to bring him back at all, this all just feels a bit pointless. They may as well and should have just killed him off instead of having a character that doesn't need to survive, survive an unrealistic death.

Secondly, Kuina. As season 3 is looming, I'm glad they kept her alive cos I love her character and I can kinda buy that she could survive multiple stab wounds at least for a short period of time. People have survived similar in real life I guess. The only slight issue I have is the fact she was just laying around like the others for ages bleeding out, waiting for arisu to finish the games but I'll go against my better judgement and give them the benefit of the doubt for her.

Thirdly Chishiya, Probably my favorite character, very happy he survived. One gunshot wound to the chest, I could buy him surviving. Keeping him alive is a must for season 3. So I'm happy with the way the show went for him. If they were that desperate to keep him out the finale tho they could've thought of another way why he wasn't at the king of spades fight or the queen of hearts. Just shoot him in the leg or something. However, he is a doctor so again I'll give the show the benefit of the doubt and buy that he could keep himself alive till the games are complete.

Next, Usagi. Again, Great character and had to survive. Stabbed in the thighs, she can survive that. Especially with the fact, we see she has a tourniquet to slow the bleeding and we see her getting visibly weaker and slowly dying. No problem with her surviving the injury and think this is realistic.

Next, Aguni. At first thought I was thinking this is crazy. He's seemingly shot in the head, however the show kind of implies that the bullet may have just grazed his head and whether he's playing dead or he's knocked out. If I'm really stretching, I can get on board with the logic that it was maybe just a graze. I mean we didn't see the bullet go into his head so again I'll give them the benefit of the doubt although the hardest benefit I've had to give yet.

Akane. This was the one that did it for me, she is absolutely lit up like a Christmas tree. Multiple point blank AR15 shots in every part of the torso, there is absolutely no way she could've survived this. There's no way none of those bullets hit any of the vital organs in her body, and even if on the off chance they did. She'd of bled out in minutes. She wouldn't have had time to lay and wait for 2 hours for arisu to finish his tea and crumpets. This is a character I like, but one you could've killed off. She was a new character so wasn't super important yet and I didn't expect her to make the end anyway when she was introduced. Even if you wanted to keep her alive, which I'm fine with. Why make her 'death' scene so brutal and unrealistic? Just tone it down or at least provide some explanation afterwards, I mean she seems a bit of a survivalist. Just show her wearing a bit of homemade forest armor or something. Just make some attempt to explain or imply how she possibly could've survived this.

Finally, Ann. She literally died! However, Shockingly, I'm fine with this. They explain that the time in the borderlands doesn't work the same as time in the real world, so even though she's dead for what feels like hours in the borderlands, she was probably only dead for a minute or two in real life before she received medical help. People have been brought back after being dead for longer.

I know this is based off a manga, and having not read it I don't know how faithful the show was to the manga. So if all these characters had to survive because they did in the manga then that's fine, but they could've toned the death scenes down a bit to make it a tad more realistic. I am fairly new to Asian cinema, I am well down the rabbit hole when it comes to Korean cinema but only just scratched the surface with Japanese. So I don't know if Japanese shows tend to do this often especially with shows based off manga/anime where realism tends to take a back seat and the Japanese public are accepting of it due to the fact that manga and anime which are huge in the culture don't tend to be very realistic themselves.

It feels like the show wanted that game of thrones shock factor of 'killing' off their main characters in brutal and shocking scenes for the OMG moments but then didn't have the nerve to go through with it. Feels like they wanted best of both worlds and to a degree it can leave your audience feeling cheated. In my opinion without changing the show and toning down the death scenes, they should have killed off Niragi and Akane at the bare minimum to at least keep a semblance of realism. Maybe even Ann too as that emotional death scene between her and kuina is ultimately mitigated when you see she's survived. I mean come on, Tatta has a crushed hand and bleeds out in 5 minutes in the king of clubs game yet half of these characters have mortal gunshot or stab wounds and can wait about for an hour or two without bleeding out. Make it make sense.

Despite my gripes with this episode tho it was an exhilarating one and I really love the show and I'm very excited for season 3. I'm really hoping season 3 attempts to make some good explanations of how some of these characters survived this though. Whether going into depth about some special logic with something to do with the borderlands or whether a character or 2 had a couple tricks up their sleeve. Anything will do. I just hope they don't gloss over it and are just like everyone's alive now, doesn't matter how, let's crack on with season 3.

I know this has been an excruciatingly long essay and I'm sure no one will read this nor do I expect them to due to the sheer length but I just had to get it all out. Anyone who got this far, congratulations, I hope you enjoyed my rant.

From my IMDb list "Scriptwriting So Brilliant It Can Make Your Brain Hurt" - AIB S02E07, I am not aware of any other list that is tracking extraordinary plot arcs, so this list will have to do. In many decades of media consumption I have never seen so many original cast members get eliminated so quickly. Viewer loyalty? Out the window. This series was never in the same class as Squid Game (brilliant but with traditional arcs) so this an entirely new level of out-of-the-box writing. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

..for how RIDICULOUS it is, LMAO. The producers were definitely taking the piss with this one. I've given it a 5/10 because the entertainment factor is 10/10 but the logic/realism is 1/10. Honestly I was in stitches laughing at some of these scenes.

The craziest has to be Aguni clearly being shot in the head, then able to not only get up, but also fly through a window, and accurately shoot a small cylinder MID-AIR to finally put an end to the King of Spades (who of course still survives the explosion!!). I couldn't help but find it hilarious that when they were plotting, Aguni said "he's just a human like us, he's not invincible", then 30 mins later he wiped their entire squad practically with his bare hands.

Then there's Akane surviving 10 point blank AR bullets to the chest. Simply incredible stuff, if there's one thing I can say about this episode is, I've never seen something like it before in my life.

What an absolute disappointment this episode was. The show has decided to go full Bollywood and while doing that the creators felt like saying goodbye to any common sense and logic the show had left in it.

• That Niragi guy that was and still is coughing up massive amounts of blood is somehow still alive, and after getting shot with a hunting rifle at point blank range in this episode, still lives on. What in the hell?

• Tens or maybe even a hundred people with weapons can't kill a single dude with a bullet proof vest, even when he's caught in a car explosion, shot with an arrow (Kevlar doesn't protect against sharp objects), or just punched in the head 20 times in a row. Oh, did I mention he also gets caught literally in the middle of a massive gas explosion, flies 10 meters down on the concrete rubble and still lives after that? Yeah. Apparently the king of spades is Superman, but I must've missed the episode explaining this.

• The main characters get several deadly injuries fighting him, but somehow still live after everything. One of the women even gets shot like 10 times to the chest with an assault rifle and still lives for a good while after. Just ridiculous.

Setting aside the lack of logic, the fast-forward montage at the start with the blimp explosion walk is cringeworthy. Also, near the end, the episode even tries to humanise the king of spades, who has probably murdered thousands in cold blood, by showing some unnecessary war flashback before he dies.

Such a bizarre episode and a disappointing drop in quality towards the end of the season. I hope they redeem themselves in the final episode, but I'm definitely not holding my breath.

It's no doubt that king of spade is the best villain in this show. I mean look at that spectacular fight scene choreography of king of spade versus the protagonists. That has to be the highlight of this episode and season over everything else.

Now the garbage parts : Niragi is just annoying and how did he survived few minutes after getting blasted with a shotgun through the stomach. I mean c'mon a shotgun, you know how much power/impact it has on a person when it has been fired right? Sheesh put some common sense and realism for god sake. I know it's based on a manga/anime but there are thing called realism when it comes to shows.

Again with the gun wounds, How is ann & Heiyaa still alive and bearly breathing after being hit with an Automatic Rifle specially heiyaa. That many bullets through the chest is game over for anyone.

Kunia is still breathing with that many stab wound??? Aguni got shot in the head right or did he get shot in the throat? What was that blood stain on the wall? How was he able to move like that after being hit on such vital organs? Same with chisiya too how is he still alive at the end ?

MAKE IT BELIEVABLE for god sake.

This show always always this problem, It starts good and then dumbest stuff happens that doesn't make sense at all and you're left wondering...

Okay wtf. The show is okay and the games they need to do are cool and interesting. But the fighting in the season is less then horrible.

One guy killing everyone with unlimited ammo in his clip while being hit by a car at 30 mp/h that somehow explodes? On top of that, the trained super soldier keeps walking in the open while being shot by 10 people but never gets hit or wounded. And then all the main characters suddenly loose al their common sense and survival instinct en decide too attack one by one and give the guy time to (finally) reload.

And how did they kill him? The immortal supper human... By filling a store with deodorant and jumping through a window and shooting a can mid jump. As a cherry to the pie, the guy who jumped and shot couldnt even crawl 20 seconds before that and couldnt even load a gun because he was so wounded. And he even got shot in the head in the meantime.

This episode was a full one wtf. Don't ever do this again. Please.

To start, I want to make it clear that this series has been dreadful. The first was superb - such a good idea. Series 2 is just full of grandstanding. Every character has endless monologues to fill the runtime.

This episode was truly horrible to watch. Soldier guy gets hit by a car, is fine. Shot with an arrow, fine. Punched in the head 20 times, fine. For some reason he takes off his Kevlar vest when he can see other people holding guns.

The leading cast were awful. So many pointless deaths. Letting him reload constantly. After he's put 20 rounds into the archery girl he literally just stands there for a good 10 seconds while the protagonists who have guns just stand there looking shocked. I was sat there saying "shoot him now, shoot him now, shoot him now"

This episode should be called "Fight like a hero for 14 episodes and die like a moron"... A team that went through so much behaving like a total morons. Aruni - the biggest looser of all times. I never liked this character but what showrunners done with him here is a complete tragedy. He's done so much to help his friends got killed.

So disappointing and so painful to watch....who created the storyline for this episode? I think it's very close to being as bad as the ending of the Game of Thrones.

I hope that persons who created the script will be fired and won't be allowed to kill any other show.

There's no respect for the characters shown at all by the writers and director of this episode. The choreography is amateurish and the plot holes go beyond anything that series has given us before. Nothing makes senses. The emotional contrivance is sickening, misplaced and pace destroying. 13 episodes ruined in 1. This episode will do to Alice in Borderland what Season 8 did to Game of Thrones. Writers must have been drunk. Goodness knows what the director was on. I'm not entirely sure how it currently has an 8.0 out of 10 on here. It's ruined the entire experience for me at the moment and the only way that i forgive anything portrayed in this episode is if S2E8 tells us it was all a dream.

What's the point of all this character development and deep, long-winded conversations between characters when they are all just going to die just like that? We saw this in the third episode of season one when 3 of the 4 main (!!!) characters all died in one game. After that, I became hesitant to root for any character because I fear that they will die eventually. And the way some of my favorite characters died was absolutely ludicrous. They got this far by winning the most difficult games just to jump around this guy who is loaded with weapons? Also, it's hilarious that the main characters were able to dodge all the bullets every time the King of Spades show up but most of them ended up dying in the alley scene, which is by far one of the dumbest fighting scene I have ever witnessed on television. I don't even want to watch the finale anymore. I have no one left to root for. And I no longer have the energy to meet new characters.

This season has been great so far but this episode was just absolutely rubbish. I would've honest love to give it a 9/10 if it made any sense which is exactly what this episode lacks. Did we miss the episode where the king spade was injected with super solider serum? Because thats the only thing that would explain how he survived all of what happened in the end of the episode and manage to kill half the protagonists and left the rest fatally injured. He was massively Over Powered.

As for the rest of the protagonist this episode just made them look like freaking weaklings who couldn't do anything right. I lost count of the number of time they had clear opportunities to end the King of spade and guess what they just stood there watching him pick them off one after the other. It literally made no sense as to how they couldn't win against this one guy (sorry super solider😒). Episode 7 was suppose the big stand off everyone had been looking forward to.

IT DID NOT DELIVER

All it was, was a disappointment!!!

The rest of the other episodes were fire thou.

Totally worth the bing.

I usually don't mind suspending my disbelief in shows like this, but this was way too much for me.

Random characters died immediately, but our main characters just kept on living having sustained deadly wounds. This girl gets shot multiple times at her chest and abdomen, it takes her way too long to die. The guy is coughing up blood for days and gets shot in the abdomen? He fine.

Not to mention the King of Spades that had supernatural healing or something and didn't get burned to the crisp by an explosion.

All that being said, this episode will get 10 stats if the explanation for what is going on is that the characters are in a video game (in a black mirror way that it feels too real), but they have paid extra so they are less difficult to kill or something.

Talk about a milked episode, next time il bring a cow it was that milked! I can't actually believe it took that long to kill the king of spades, like literally they had so many opportunities it was pathetic. Also the over use of guns was doing my head in, the fight scene was AWFUL and what was the point in building all the characters story lines through this season to just kill them off! The episode went on FOREVER, longer than it needed to! King of spades was way too over hyped throughout the season, I love this season but this episode let it down massively, I would advise people to watch half the skip to the end save yourself the time lol!

Remember guys, if you're going to lead a trained assassin into a trap put your gun away instead of shooting them and use these exact words. "Come here." I mean they were clearly hammered drunk when they wrote this episode. The sheer amount of people that got shot and stabbed multiple times and then survived only to die only to survive again was incredible. The plot armor was was thicker than the armor of the King of Spades who despite going against 300 people with a couple guns and a knife, dispatched almost everyone with ease. Idk other than that it was an alright episode I guess but man get ready to put your brain away for sure...

Ugh... This episode started with a fast forward pace of a few games that could have been a great plus to the series, if only they had been more faithful to the manga.

Unfortunately, they replace the manga's original games with a dodgeball variation and some crossfit-like games, ending them with a cliché scene of massive explosion with the heroes walking away in slow motion... cringe...

I really like the first season and think that episode 2 & 6 were awesome, but that this one was a massive disappointment and felt like they're really trying to rush things to get to the end quickly.

On a positive note, that action regarding the King of Spades was great but maybe a little too dramatic for my taste.

So far, the show has done a pretty good job to make all characters appear as humans, with all the limitations that entails.

Sure, there have been a few miracles here and there with how character X did this and that or how Y could have survived a certain wound.

However, it was quite limited and everyone was clearly meant to be a vulnerable human being.

But this episode?

King Of Spades survives an impossible assault of firearms, explosions, car crashes, arrows, knives, beatings... with naught but a scratch until the final explosion puts him near death.

Akane takes a full burst of an assault rifle from point blank across her body... but just crawl away in the end.

Kuina gets stabbed like a pin cushion for combat knives, but nah, she's just hurt.

Usagi is likewise just mildly inconvenienced by having her legs stabbed multiple times. Blood loss? What's that?

Mori gets beaten to a pulp and shot in the frigging head... but he's fine. Fine enough to survive being catapulted out of a window by an explosion. What?!

Niragi... whatever, really. That character is personified annoyance and edgelordiness. I wish he'd just die but I have a feeling the writers won't grant me that wish.

Arisu has plot armor, so I'm willing to suspend my disbelief here. He also actually gets hurt the least, so funny enough he's actually the most believable one in surviving this episode.

Ann gets shot twice and actually dies. Thankfully, at least one person adheres to some form of logic.

This episode was really taking the piss and if it continued on that arc of everyone becoming some superhuman beings, it'd just be a damn shame.