Auggie (Eiza González) gets more information about the numbers she's been seeing while Jin (Jess Hong) dives into the game in 3 Body Problem episode 2. Let's break down what happened in the episode.
Shut it down
In the present, Saul (Jovan Adepo) visits Vera's mother, Wenjie (Rosalind Chao). Wenjie notices him looking at the altar. She asks if he has a theory about the blinking stars. He thinks it's a deep fake because none of the global satellites saw anything, though he has no idea who did it.
Auggie heads into her building ahead of the first experiments on her groundbreaking work. Her office is buzzing about the blinking stars, but her focus is on the numbers, which indicate that she has just over nine minutes to stop her work…or else. After some pomp and circumstance, Auggie initiates the test and it works flawlessly, with the nanofibers cutting a crystal cleanly into tiny cubes. The countdown keeps going, so she tells everyone to shut it down. They’re confused. As soon as she shuts down the experiment, she runs outside and soon the numbers go away.
Clarence (Benedict Wong) is there watching her. She doesn't think he can help her, but he asks if she wants to know why "the stars flickered for her," which makes her stop in her tracks.
Betrayal and revenge
Back in 1968, Wenjie listens to the Chinese greeting message being sent out into space. Later, she asks Yang how long they've been transmitting the message and whether other countries have been doing the same thing. She says their signal is too weak, which means no one will hear it. She asks him to contact an American scientist, which could get them in trouble.
But as Wenjie listening to the static during her shift, Yang bring her the response from the American scientist. Soon she's sketching out a map of how they picked up a message after the Americans did, explaining how the key to boosting their signal is to use the Sun, which will make their message stronger. She wants to take her plan to the commissioner. Instead Yang takes the message to the commissioner himself, and when the commissioner calls her to his office to double check Yang's math, she realizes she was betrayed. She revels when Yang is berated by the commissioner for coming up with an idea to aim the transmission at the Sun, which is the symbol of their political belief system.
Later, in the control room, she moves the satellite into position while running a test transmission. No one realizes she changed the direction it was aiming at.
Playing the game
Back in the present, Clarence asks Auggie what she knows about Mike Evans (Jonathan Pryce). She only knows he was at Vera's funeral. He shows Auggie the footage from the alley and there's no indication there was a woman talking to her, but when her cigarette lights up it's a sign that someone was there but was scrubbed from the video. He reveals other scientists have seen the countdown and they all "quit": they either quit their work or killed themselves.
Jin (Jess Hong) puts the helmet on again. A man and young child approach. He says he's the Count of the West. He's affronted when she touches him to see if he's real. He calls the young girl Follower (Eve Ridley). He says this isn't a game, rather he hopes she's the hero of their world. Jin gives her player name as Copernicus.
The Count says they need to see the Emperor because it's a "chaotic era" and if they don't solve the riddle, the entire civilization will be wiped out. As he talks, a star passes by rapidly but then the sun starts to rise. They seek shelter behind a rock, but there's only enough shade for two people so the Count pushes Follower into the sun, where she pulls off her coat and lies on the ground. Soon she dries out, and once the sun sets he rolls her up and explains that if she is rehydrated then perhaps she can survive. Jin tears off the helmet.
Not invited
Jack thinks the game might be a beta test, but Jin insists it's way too advanced. He puts it on and looks around at the scenery, calling it "mental." The game host appears and says he wasn't "invited" before killing him. When he tears the helmet off, he says the technology is too advanced. Jin says Vera was playing it before she died so maybe they shouldn't play it anymore, but it's not long before she has the helmet on. What they don't know is that Clarence is listening to their conversation, having tapped into Jin's phone.
Clarence clears debris from his wife's headstone. It's her birthday and he presents a red velvet cupcake, which he places on the grave. A woman appears near another grave and says she brings her dad cake on his birthday. One stupid mistake, and he was gone. She asks what happened to his wife. She died of cancer. Her father, she says, was shot in the head. He apologizes but she says it was a good way to go. He gets up and leaves, feeling unsettled by the conversation. The woman walks away, but the grave was for a child who died in 1909.
Jack gets home and finds a case with his name on it. Inside is a helmet with an invitation to play. His first level is in England and he's dressed in old time finery. When a man and child approach, he punches the man in the face. It hurts his hand. The man says his name is Sir Thomas More, and that Jack needs to choose a better name. Jack punches him again and Follower winces.
In his classroom, Will Downing (Alex Sharp) talks to the class about the possibility of multiple universes. His phone rings and it shows he has several missed calls from his doctor. Later we see him meeting with the doctor as we still hear him talking to his students about how your consciousness could carry on in one world while it ends in another. His expression as he leaves the hospital is stricken.
Later, Will and Jack meet up and Jack is raving about the game. Will reveals he has stage four pancreatic cancer so he has two to six months left. "F- that," Jack says. He promises to get the best doctors to fight it but Will says it's too late. Jack says he’s always giving up on things, including quitting physics and asking Jin out, and he refuses to see his best friend give up on his life.
Rehydration
Jin is in bed playing the game. She's inside the palace and the Count of the West presents his prediction for salvation. He thinks he can predict the movements of the sun. Jin says it's not science, it's divination. The Count says it will be eight days before the next stable era, which will last 63 years. He tells Jin to put her hand on the ground to speed up time until the very moment when stability arrives.
The Emperor calls for the followers to be rehydrated; the soldiers toss the rolled up bodies into water. They start to turn into fully formed and very naked people who emerge from the water and celebrate, so Jin tosses Follower's body in and watches as she fills out and returns. She emerges and thanks Jin for not abandoning her. Jin looks into the sky and sees the sun moving away, which means it's not really a stable era at all. The winds pick up and start blowing toward them. Jin searches for Follower, who screams for her to save her. When Jin reaches her, she's turned into dust like everyone else.
The game's host appears and says that Jin didn't save them, but she did prove that science overrules mysticism. In the next level science will need to prevail over superstition. A man in a control booth watches Jin play the game.
"We cannot save ourselves"
Clarence meets with Wade and gives him an update about Evans. He says in 1977 a group of researchers heard a signal that sounded like it could be an attempt at communication, but only one site outside of Ohio State detected it — the one in China. And it turns out Evans was in China in 1977.
In 1977, Wenjie walks through fields of newly planted trees and meets a younger version of Evans. He also has a copy of Silent Spring. She and Yang are there to find a new place to build a radio station and Evans is there trying to save a bird. Before they leave, Wenjie quotes Silent Spring, telling him that nothing exists alone.
Later, Wenjie tells Yang the first site is better but Yang and the commissioner have picked the second site, which will destroy Evans' work. He goes on to tell her that there is a labor camp at the second site where the girl who killed her father has been imprisoned. The girl, who lost her arm in the prison, refuses to repent, which only infuriates Wenjie even more.
That night Wenjie picks up a message. The message tells her not to respond because if she responds their world will be conquered. She aims the satellite toward the sun and types out a message: "Come. We cannot save ourselves. I will help you conquer this world."
The complete first season of 3 Body Problem is available to stream on Netflix.
