‘3 Body Problem’ Episode 3 Recap: Coming Soon to a Planet Near You

Season 1, Episode 3: ‘Destroyer of Worlds’

Anyone else feel like a deer in the headlights? Anyone agree that this is a great way for an alien-invasion story to make us feel?

With its subtly stunning third episode, “3 Body Problem” reveals the double meaning of its title. On one level, it refers to the physical impossibility of consistently and accurately predicting the movement of three bodies in relation to one another in space. This is the dilemma facing not just the characters in the advanced virtual-reality video game Jin and Jack have been playing, but the very real alien civilization upon which the game is based. Its three suns move and align in such a way as to create regular but random apocalyptic events, from infernal heat to sudden ice ages to gravitational vortexes, that destroy the civilization again and again.

But sometimes there are stable eras that can last a long time. The aliens, known as the San Ti or Three-Body, have lived in a stable era long enough to develop interstellar communication and travel. They know their eventual fate will be the same as that of all the fallen civilizations before them, so they’re seeking a new home. Thanks to Ye Wenjie’s invitation back in 1977, they’ve found one. And a secret society of human quislings led by Wenjie’s friend Mike Evans is preparing the way, using the mysterious video game headsets to either recruit prominent scientists to the cause, or root out those who can’t be trusted.

So why does the San Ti’s arrival feel both ominous and inevitable? The former feeling is easy enough to explain: The alien Lord, represented as a female voice in a loudspeaker in conversation with Evans, has decreed that humanity must be taught to fear again lest it destroy itself. (She is voices by Sea Shimooka, who also plays the formidable recurring character in the game.)

But the feeling that the San Ti’s decision to take our world for their own is so irrevocable comes courtesy of that video game. Jin solves the final level and “wins” the game when she determines the real three-body problem isn’t how to save the planet torn between the three stars — that’s scientifically impossible — but how to save the people who live on it. Jin’s own logic and ethics alike point to the only solution: The people must flee, and find a new home. Through the skillful writing of the series co-creator Alexander Woo, the revelation hits the characters and the audience alike with the ironclad certainty of a mathematical equation.

Humanity’s reign over Earth is not alone in having received a terminal diagnosis. Will, the humblest member of our group of five heroes, learned last episode that he is dying of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He has only months left to live, but though he’s talked to his guy friends about this, he can’t bring himself to tell Jin, the object of his unrequited affection for years. Not even when he reveals he’s quitting his beloved job as a teacher to travel and invites her along with him does he explain his rationale. When she tells him she might be up for it some other time, just not now, he doesn’t tell her now is the only time he has.