Spoilers are ahead for 3 Body Problem season 1.
The 8-episode first outing in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem series does a stellar job of setting up a compelling universe and sci-fi premise, but the freshman installment leaves several key plot points unresolved. That said, 3 Body Problemseason 2 must answer some of the show’s biggest questions satisfyingly. If Liu Cixin’s remaining novels are any indication, the Netflix series has a lot to contend with in future adaptations. The Hugo Award-winning writer’s second and third books in the trilogy, The Dark Forest and Death’s End, take The Three-Body Problem’s premise to new heights as the San-Ti invasion draws nearer. At the end of season 1, the looming extraterrestrial threat is still 400 years away, but that doesn’t mean 3 Body Problem’s stakes are any lower than those of other sci-fi outings.
The series opens during the Chinese Cultural Revolution: 3 Body Problem’s Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng; Rosalind Chao), a young astrophysicist, watches as her father is brutally murdered in front of a crowd. The killing drastically shapes Ye Wenjie’s life. Not only does she keep his final moments top of mind, but she winds up being conscripted by the Chinese military. Forced and threatened, the astrophysicist uses her unique skill set to work on a secret project at a remote military base. Ever-sharp, she realizes that the military is attempting to make contact with extraterrestrials. Eventually, Ye Wenjie makes a staggering decision — the consequences of which ripple across space and time. In the present, her daughter, Vera Ye (Vedette Lim) is one of many leading scientists around the world to abandon their work and die by suicide.
This mystery, which is central to 3 Body Problem’s present-day storyline, directly impacts a group known as the Oxford Five. During university, the five physics students-turned-friends were close-knit. Now, their preferred field of study is crumbling around them. As one of them, research assistant Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo), puts it, “science is broken.” Saul, in particular, feels this very deeply: not only is his work disrupted, but his boss, Vera, dies because of everything that’s going on. Saul and his friends — college dropout and snack mogul Jack Rooney (John Bradley), nanofibers expert Auggie Salazar (Eiza González), terminally ill professor Will Downing (Alex Sharp), and world-renowned scientist Jin Cheng (Jess Hong) — start to unravel the show’s larger mysteries. For example, Auggie begins to see 3 Body Problem’s mysterious countdown, a clock seemingly embedded in her vision.
Soon enough, it’s revealed that the countdown — the thing that pushed many scientists into fearfully abandoning their work — is a means of manipulation developed by the San-Ti. The alien race is still 400 years from reaching Earth and, therefore, has very limited means of sending warnings or messages. The San-Ti don’t want humans to develop certain technology or gain any kind of upper-hand, hence why the aliens are disrupting humanity’s scientific and technological progress. Aside from the countdown, the San-Ti uses a bizarre VR headset to communicate with humans. A video game of sorts, the headset allows certain players to learn more about the looming threat, and their place in it. While 3 Body Problem season 1 opens a ton of mysteries, it clearly needs a season 2 to resolve the biggest of them all.
Hailing from an unstable three-body star system four light years from Earth, the San-Ti are looking to escape certain destruction. The alien race believes that in the future, their planet will be torn asunder or pulled into a sun. Whatever happens, it will be life-ending. In 3 Body Problem’s 1970s-era timeline, Dr. Ye Wenjie’s radio transmission reaches the San-Ti, prompting the aliens to build a massive fleet of ships and head toward the blue planet. The show aligns the San-Ti with a telling mantra: “If one of us survives, we all survive.” Essentially, the aliens want to ensure their species’ future. However, the particulars of that plan remain unclear even during 3 Body Problem season 1’s ending. Still, the Netflix series does a great job of setting up both the San-Ti’s plight and looming threat.
While Earth seems like the perfect home-away-from-home for the San-Ti, the extraterrestrials are unnerved by humanity’s propensity for violence and destruction. The Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) is helping the aliens prep for their arrival, which is a staggering 400 years off. Using their sophon supercomputers, the San-Ti generate the unsettling countdown clocks, forcing scientists to halt their progress and research. With Earth under surveillance, the San-Ti clearly have the upper-hand, but 3 Body Problem doesn’t quite flesh out what the aliens plan to do once they arrive. Clearly, they feel threatened and are threatening — and their survival is important above all else. Given that season 2 will pull from The Dark Forest, humans and San-Ti will likely play a game of chicken until 3 Body Problem’s Red Wedding moment plays out with a surprise San-Ti attack.
Although the mysterious Tatiana Haas (Marlo Kelly) appears in 3 Body Problem season 1, episode 1, “Countdown,” viewers don’t learn much about her true nature until a few entries into the program. While the San-Ti countdown terrorizes Auggie in the first episode, Tatiana appears to share a smoke. She discourages Auggie from continuing her work, and clearly knows a little too much about what the nanofibers specialist is experiencing. After informing Auggie that the universe will “wink” at them come midnight, Tatiana vanishes. Later, she appears in relation to the strange VR headset game that Jack and Jin play. Although Auggie tells her friends to stop interacting with the headset, the duo clear several levels and meet Tatiana in the fourth stage. Tatiana encourages them to join the ETO and prepare for the San-Ti arrival.
After Jack refuses to participate — or believe — in what’s going on, Tatiana murders Jack rather brutally, delivering one of 3 Body Problem’s most shocking deaths. The show’s final episode reveals that the alien-worshiping Tatiana lives off-the-grid in the woods. As the San-Ti’s message in the penultimate episode proves, they aren’t done using Tatiana for their purposes. When Tatiana receives her own VR headset, viewers don’t get a sense of what she’s seeing inside the game. Since Tatiana already knows quite a bit about the San-Ti and their looming arrival on Earth, they’re likely using the video game to show her something else. Perhaps, Tatiana is being clued in on a scheme to betray humanity — or lull Earth’s denizens into a false sense of security. Either way, 3 Body Problem season 2 will delve into specifics.
In the world of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, wallfacers are tasked with saving Earth. More specifically, three people are dubbed wallfacers, and Saul is one of them. Given access to untold resources, the wallfacers have to formulate defensive measures to safeguard humanity from the impending San-Ti invasion. However, they can’t share any of their plans — or even say them aloud. In theory, this means the San-Ti will be unable to learn about the wallfacers’ plans, putting them at a disadvantage. So far, it’s not yet clear how Saul will tackle the near-impossible problem, but the 3 Body Problem finale does provide some clues. The eighth episode sees Detective Da Shi (Benedict Wong), Saul, and Jin visiting a marsh. There, a swarm of cicadas thrives. The whole scene is a crucial metaphor for the show’s narrative.
As Da Shi explains, people hate bugs and try to stamp them out. In the case of cicadas, individuals may die out, but the species itself persists. “Look around: they’re not going anywhere,” Da Shi tells Saul and Jin. Resilient, cicadas — and insects at large — are what humans should strive to be, at least according to the metaphor. Funnily enough, the San-Ti tell the humans that they’re all bugs in 3 Body Problem’s earlier episodes, reiterating the connection. It’s highly possible that Saul will be inspired by the insects when formulating his defensive strategy — another example of a scientist turning to nature for answers. Of course, Da Shi’s story could simply work to strengthen Saul and Jin’s resolve. It may not literally or directly inspire the wallfacers’ big plans, but reaffirm their ability to persist.
In 3 Body Problem’s first episode, the San-Ti try to dissuade Auggie from pursuing her research into nanofibers. By episode 5 of the series, the aliens are proven right, insofar as Auggie’s tech causes a massacre in the Panama Canal. The landmark product is transformed into a weapon with the nanofiber ship’s nature resulting in the deaths of hundreds. While Auggie appears in later episodes, and even tries to use her tech for good, she’s shaken by the events of episode 5. The ship incident reiterates humanity’s potential for destruction — even unintentional destruction. But it’s more than just a warning about science’s power. The moment also derails Auggie’s life path, potentially weakening her position as a threat to the San-Ti, and it’s hard to know if Auggie will return to form in the second season.
The terminally ill Will realizes he won’t be alive to deal with the San-Ti counter-measures. Although he’s hesitant about fully supporting humanity’s efforts, he does sign his brain over to science. In particular, Will signs his brain over to Jin’s Project Staircase endeavor. Unfortunately, the probe, which is launched into space, gets knocked off course. At the end of 3 Body Problem’s first season, Will’s brain is just hurtling through space. While scientists posit that the San-Ti will rebuild Will’s body with their tech, it remains to be seen if Will’s brain will even reach the alien travelers at all. In some ways, Will’s brain is a Chekov’s gun just waiting to go off. Someone — or something — will have to run into the wayward capsule. However, it’s hard to know how the San-Ti will understand 3 Body Problem’s space-traveling brain.