We return to the game in 3 Body Problem episode 3, where Jin and Jack figure out the game's true purpose, unlocking an even bigger mystery. Here's the our recap "Destroyer of Worlds."
Three body star system
Clarence (Benedict Wong) travels to Switzerland to speak with scientists at CERN after there was another death, bringing the number to 32. This time the dead scientist was found with his head in a tub, and in his safe he has one of the game helmets.
Auggie (Eiza González), Jin (Jess Hong), Saul (Jovan Adepo), Jack (John Bradley) and Will (Alex Sharp) talk about the latest scientist's death. Will asks Auggie about the numbers. They're gone, she says, along with her career. Jack offers snacks to his friend but Will stays behind to talk to Jin. Will says he's quitting teaching but he doesn't tell her about the cancer, rather he says there's more to life. He wants to go exploring, to Patagonia, perhaps. "Someday," Jin says, not knowing that Will doesn't have time.
Upstairs, Auggie finds Jack's bedroom and stumbles upon his helmet. She puts it on and sees the castle, but she's quickly killed off. She goes downstairs and confronts Jack about it. That's when Auggie learns Jin and Jack have both been playing the game. They ignore her and debate the finer points of the game, namely that the little girl, Follower (Eve Ridley), keeps asking to be saved and that they have to figure out the mystery of the three suns' movement.
Auggie can't believe that they'd play the game that Vera was playing, and Jack reveals he came home to find it. There's no sign of someone breaking in; Auggie says they were scrubbed from the video just like the woman who told her about the stars. Saul figures out that the helmet can exercise control over every aspect of someone's life, which means that Vera wasn't herself when she killed herself. They promise not to play anymore.
But soon they're back to playing, and this time they're playing over video chat. Jin says they're supposed to figure out the mystery of the suns, and she shows Jack her research. Clarence hacks into their video and watches their chat. Jin believes there's no pattern and that's the trick, but she needs help from Jack, aka Francis Bacon in the game.
They jump into the game and they're in England again. Follower sees them and greets them, hoping they're going to save this world. The Pope, she says, is about to make his decision. Jin apologizes for not saving her and Follower says she remembers each time it happened. Inside the church, Pope Gregory says he is about to make a decision on Aristotle and Galileo's proposal. Jin makes her pitch and thinks that the only answer is the planet is part of a three-body star system. That's why they keep entering chaotic eras. The other players protest and the Pope sentences Jin to burn. However, the world starts burning again. Follower rides in on a burning horse saying that there are three suns in the sky.
Jack pulls Jin to safety and they see everyone burning in molten lava. They're not dead because they were right. The game host appears and says that Civilization 152 was destroyed by a "Three-Star Day" but they move on to the next level because they figured it out.
Wade (Liam Cunningham) asks about the helmet and Clarence explains what he's heard from Jin and Jack's conversation. The helmets have a biometric retinal scanner, which Wade deduces means that while you're in the game, someone is "playing" you.
Level three
Jin comes out of the game to find her boyfriend, Raj Varma (Saamer Usmani), watching her. He knows she's nervous about meeting his parents and cautions her about too much "science talk." After telling a story about multiverses, Raj's father tells a story about when he was nearly dead trying to fight the Pakistani soldiers. He played dead, which allowed him to kill the soldiers and steal their supplies to save the men. The family toasts Jin for surviving dinner.
Jack and Saul pay Will a visit after his surgery. He's still groggy and tells them about having a conversation with his cancer. Cancer, he says, is just trying to find a place to live with its children. He made a deal and told it to stay in one small part of his pancreas and leave the rest of him alone. He tells them to "save" Jin from Raj because he's always smiling, then he laughs at Jack's hat. Jack isn't wearing a hat.
Auggie's colleague explains why he's upset: the lab has been shut down. She says she needs to re-check the system but he can't understand why they wouldn't want to lead the way. He says they'll start again without her if she continues to refuse. He even threatens her work visa. Later, Auggie tries to re-start the project on her own, alone, and the numbers return. The countdown is near zero so she quickly shuts down again and calls Saul. She thinks she knows why the scientists are killing themselves, and it's because of the countdown.
Jin shows up at Jack's house, ready to show him what happens in level three. They're in Xanadu. She reviews: they're in a three-star system that's unpredictable, which is the definition of a "three body problem," and there's no solution for it. They spot Follower in the army of soldiers, all holding signs. Jin promises to save her this time. "You're running out of chances, Copernicus," Follower says. "Soon the world will end for good."
Jin and Jack are presented to Khan, and this time Newton and Turing are there with a theory about calculating the movement of the sun with their human abacus, made from millions of soldiers. They run their computations, with the soldiers flapping their signs. They arrive at a solution and Khan says to dehydrate for eight months and three days. The man behind the keyboard watches as time advances to something that looks like a stable era. Jin says it won't last. Khan tosses them in a pot to be boiled. Jin goes to the bottom and advances time to when the suns line up, which leads the planet to be under the gravitational force of all three suns. Everything starts floating toward the sky. Follower floats into the sky.
Jin realizes their goal in the game is to find a way to help the people survive the chaos. The game host returns, telling them that they have found their true purpose in the game and have moved to level four.
It's a scam
The man in the control room prints out papers and presents them to Evans (Jonathan Pryce), who instructs him to vet Jin and Jack for the London summit. He gets back on his microphone and starts reading Hansel and Gretl to someone on the other end. The voice asks questions about humanity and fear. The voice's goal is to teach humans about fear again.
Jin wakes up to find a package at her door inviting her to an address. Jack got one, too. They end up meeting with the mysterious woman (Marlo Kelly), who congratulates them on being the only two people in the UK to make it this far in the game. She promises that answers lie in level four.
As they jump into the game, Follower and the game host are there and the host says there's no solution to the three body problem. Follower puts her hand on the ground and shows the rise and fall of civilization around them as she explains that their planet will eventually be torn apart. When you don't have hope of solving the problem, you find a new home. They built starships and are heading to Earth. "We can't wait to meet you," Follower says.
They pull off their helmets and the mysterious woman calls the civilization the San-Ti, and they're on their way. Jack thinks it's a scam, so he decides to leave. Jin decides to stay to hear more. The woman invites Jin to a summit featuring all of the other level four champions. She appeals to Jin's memories of being forced from her home during a flood in Hubei.
Jack arrives home and goes inside. Clarence is there taking pictures of him while someone else from his team watches over Jin. Jack's wi-fi is off, so he walks through his house looking for a signal. The mysterious woman corners him in his bedroom and pins him to the window, shattering the glass. Outside, Clarence doesn't see anything. "All you had to do was keep playing," she says as she plunges a dagger into Jack's neck.
The complete first season of 3 Body Problem is available to stream on Netflix now.
