Spoilers are ahead for 3 Body Problem season 1.
Every character’s death in Netflix 3 Body Problem feeds into the show’s larger narrative about the San-Ti — extraterrestrials who are 400 years away from arriving at Earth. If anything, the sci-fi series, which adapts Liu Cixin’s Hugo Award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem, depicts how interconnected the universe can be. One astrophysicist’s fateful decision leads to communication with the San-Ti, but that boundary-pushing endeavor to communicate with extraterrestrials was likewise shaped by a tragic death. Translated to television by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, in collaboration with Alexander Woo, 3 Body Problem is Netflix’s latest epic.
Like its source material, 3 Body Problem spans multiple timelines, though its first season more or less chronicles the life of Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao and Zine Tseng). As a young woman, the scientist witnessed her father’s very public death during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. From there, the astrophysicist is drafted into the Chinese military to work on a top-secret project. The consequences of Ye Wenjie’s actions ripple across time — but, perhaps more importantly, space. Aware that their planet will soon become uninhabitable, the San-Ti are looking for a new world to call home, and Earth seems perfect.
In the show’s present-day storyline, scientists are mysteriously abandoning their work and dying. A freelance detective of sorts, Clarence “Da” Shi (Benedict Wong) is tasked with investigating the string of apparent deaths by suicide, which have claimed the lives of the world’s leading scientific minds. The latest, Vera Ye (Vedette Lim), just so happens to be Ye Wenjie’s daughter. Before she dies, Vera has a strange conversation with her research assistant, Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo), who’s connected to a group of brilliant minds: his former college classmates, a.k.a. the Oxford Five.
Aside from Saul, the other members of the so-called Oxford Five include Jack Rooney (John Bradley), a dropout who now owns a snack company; terminally ill professor Will Downing (Alex Sharp); the ever-curious scientist Jin Cheng (Jess Hong); and Auggie Salazar (Eiza González), a nanofibers expert who begins seeing 3 Body Problem’s haunting countdown timer — a warning from the San-Ti. While Jin and Jack investigate a strange VR headset supposedly left behind by Vera, Auggie contends with the fact that the San-Ti wants to derail her groundbreaking work.
While some of the characters’ deaths hold more personal or thematic resonance, they’re linked by something very particular. In the end, all the deaths play into the aliens’ plans. Whether characters were aiding the San-Ti or developing ways to thwart them, those who die in 3 Body Problem season 1 all have connections to the looming threat, and their deaths are felt across both time and space.
Netflix’s 3 Body Problem opens during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. From a crowded square, a young Ye Wenjie watches as her father is dragged into a “struggle session.” Also known as denunciation rallies, struggle sessions were Maoist public spectacles that hinged on violence and humiliation. Those accused of being “class enemies,” such as Professor Ye Zhetai, were accused and beaten. The idea was that these struggle sessions would instill a spirit of reform among all who watched by giving them a common enemy — and an example. Even Ye Wenjie’s mother doesn’t help her battered husband.
During the struggle session, the professor is accused of teaching Western and capitalist ideologies and of suggesting God exists by promoting theories about the Big Bang. Unable to appease his abusers, Ye Wenjie’s father is eventually beaten to death. His body is left on the makeshift stage as an example. The traumatic moment reshapes Ye Wenjie’s way of thinking, and, as a result, her eventual choices. Since she is the first human to make contact with the San-Ti, her father’s death is important to how 3 Body Problem’s larger narrative unfolds.
In the present, Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao) suffers another terrible loss, though she seems to take her daughter’s death more in stride. After working late, Vera Ye approaches her research assistant, Saul, who feels as though the last several decades of physics have been rendered useless due to a series of inexplicable phenomena. Saul proclaims that “Science is broken,” but Vera assures him that he can still achieve greatness. After asking Saul if he believes in God, Vera leaves. Moments later, she throws herself into a Cherenkov tank, though her death is the catalyst for bringing the Oxford Five together.
Although John Bradley escaped death in Winterfell’s fiercest battle, the Game of Thrones alum meets a shocking end in 3 Body Problem season 1, episode 3, “Destroyer of Worlds.” After Vera dies, Jin Cheng visits Ye Wenjie’s home. Looking through Vera’s things, Jin asks what Vera had been doing before her apparent death by suicide. Wenjie shows Jin a strange VR gaming headset: sleek and silver, it doesn’t appear to have any power source or controls. Jin puts on the headset, advancing through a cryptic video game, and eventually shows Jack the headset, though he’s unable to activate it.
Although Jack isn’t much of a believer, he can’t resist trying on the VR headset when a second one shows up at his door. Together, Jack and Jin complete various stages of the game — even when Auggie warns them against playing it. During stage four, the pair meet Tatiana (Marlo Kelly), a human agent of the San-Ti. She tries to convince the duo to join her organization, which is prepping for the aliens’ arrival. Jack refuses and leaves. Later, Tatiana brutally murders Jack in his own home, and none of his security cameras are able to record the incident.
Played by Johnathan Pryce in the present, Mike Evans is the main point of contact between the San-Ti and Earth. Unlike other characters, who are immediately alarmed by the San-Ti’s future arrival and ability to mess with Earth’s scientists, Mike is the leader of a cult that worships the extraterrestrials. During a conversation with the San-Ti, Mike tries to explain what lying is; realizing that humans can’t be fully trusted. In episode 5, Auggie’s nanofiber tech results in the brutal destruction of the ship Mike Evans and fellow cultists live on. With the San-Ti no longer trusting Mike, he and everyone on board are killed.
The shift in the San-Ti plot to work with humans is a massive one. Although they have limited ways of contacting humans, the San-Ti manage to manipulate Earth’s leading minds. The countdowns, for example, were empty threats that helped dissuade scientists from pursuing landmark work. As a result, the San-Ti don’t have to deal with Earth’s advanced technology. Clearly, having a zealous cult awaiting them would have been quite the welcome. Mike’s death changes all that, though the aliens are still working with Tatiana in 3 Body Problem’s ending.
As a young astrophysicist working for the Chinese military, Ye Wenjie was able to make first contact with the San-Ti. At that time, one of the San-Ti warned her that their race was not to be trusted, though Ye Wenjie still invited the extraterrestrials to Earth so that they could escape the looming tragedy on their home planet. Alongside Mike, Ye Wenjie of the present leads the San-Ti-worshiping cult. After the San-Ti seemingly betray Ye Wenjie trust (and after Mike is torn in two), she returns to China, seemingly to die by suicide, though a San-Ti-instructed Tatiana kills her instead.
Although viewers never actually see Ye Wenjie’s body, the series confirms her death. Still, it’s hard to believe that the Game of Thrones collaborators, who plan to include 3 Body Problem’s version of the Red Wedding, didn’t show a lead character’s death in full. Since Ye Wenjie’s actions are what set the rest of the plot of the series into motion, her death is perhaps the most substantial. Thematically speaking, her death — and the regret she feels about inviting the San-Ti to Earth — is crucial. Clearly, believing in gods of any kind hasn’t worked well for the scientist.
Toward the end of 3 Body Problem season 1, episode 2, “Red Coast,” Will Downing confides in Jack that he’s living with a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. After Jack’s sudden and brutal death in episode 3, Will inherits the fortune amassed by Jack’s snack empire. Early on, viewers learn that Will has been in love with Jin for years, so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise when the hopeless romantic uses his new money to buy his crush a star. However, Will takes his undying adoration a step further when he learns about the Staircase Project.
Working with Da Shi’s boss, Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham), Jin has devised a complex plan to undermine the San-Ti. Part of the plan involves cryogenically freezing someone’s brain, placing it in a probe, and hurtling said probe through space toward the San-Ti fleet. Since he’s already set to die, and since he’s hopelessly in love with the project’s lead, Will offers up his brain to science. However, after the probe is knocked off course, what actually happens to Will’s frozen brain is one of 3 Body Problem’s biggest unanswered questions.
3 Body Problem season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.