This review will contain spoilers for all three seasons of Netflix’s series Squid Game (all of which are currently streaming). If you haven’t watched the entire series, finish it up and then come on back to this review. You have been warned.
Squid Game was never going to have a happy ending. This wasn’t going to be the tale of one man standing up to the atrocities around him and ending up victorious. And, even if those trying to take down the sadistic Game succeeded, this was never going to be the end of it all. Which is exactly how things played out in the final installment of Squid Game. Our central villain escaped, but turned out to be much more morally gray than a pure black hat. Our hero sacrificed himself to save an innocent, proving that humanity still has the capability to be good in the face of so much death and greed. And the Game itself, destroyed in South Korea, appears to continue, this time in a larger nation dealing with its own decline.
When I reviewed season two of Squid Game back in December (technically, seasons two and three are part of a single season of storytelling – since season two cut off right in the middle of the story – but are considered two separate seasons in terms of awards consideration), I said that the series was telling the same story it did in season one, just with our hero Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae, who gets to emote a lot more this time out even if he doesn’t get as much screen time) in the role of trying to take down the Game from the inside rather than trying to win it. And with that as our central story arc, it was clear there were only two possible endings to his tale: Either he wins and destroys it all or he dies a martyr. Once that little baby showed up, well, it was pretty clear just how Gi-hun’s story was going to end. And it was a fitting ending for a character who was the epitome of selfish, self-absorbed, and short-sighted when we first met him all the way back in season one. To recognize that sacrificing himself to prove that there was still goodness to be found in the darkness of this world, even if it was a small moment in the midst of the much larger take down operation that Gi-hun wasn’t even aware was happening around him.
And that’s where, for me, much of Squid Game went from a rehash of season one with a minor twist to a mess of characters with similar wants trying to stop the “villains” from continuing with the Game. My main issue with season two was the clashing storylines taking away the focus from the series’ two most compelling characters – those would be Gi-hun and the Front Man (Hwang In-ho, played by Lee Byung-hun), who entered the Game in season two only to thwart the players’ attempt at overthrowing the guards and taking control in the final moments of the season – leaving far less time for us to really get to know the players (who are the ones dying left and right throughout the season) because we have to keep jumping to the storyline with Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young), a North Korean defector and guard who is trying to save player 246 (Lee Jin-wook), a man she didn’t even know at the amusement park she worked at whose child is dying. Or the story of Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) trying to lead a team to extract Gi-hun (although by the time we get to season three, it’s clear the team mostly wants to take down the whole island and if Gi-hun gets out, good for him) and stop his brother, the Front Man, once and for all. There’s also the nonsense of the mole on the boat, and the criminal duo trying to prove he’s a mole, and the VIPs, and the organ harvesting operation, and 222 giving birth.
So, so much was happening that it started to not only strain the bounds of credibility, it was just plain frustrating. Just when things started to get interesting with the current game – our favorite supporting characters were on the verge of a key breakthrough or one was about to die – the focus would shift to one of the other, less interesting arcs. Because, despite wanting to tie all the storylines together, the hierarchy of storytelling was clear. What was happening outside of the Game itself was never going to feel as important or emotionally compelling as what was happening within. Watching people come to the realization that they must kill – or sacrifice – in order to go on living (or to allow someone they cared about to live) is always going to mean more than watching two minor characters try to escape or watching another supporting character try to infiltrate the Game. The best and worst of human nature is on display in the Game and that’s what’s going to take precedence over any other story point that occurs within the series. Especially when Gi-hun, the character we know the best, the one we’re rooting for, the one who truly understands what is at stake, is involved in one part of the story and not the others. It also doesn’t help that most of the new contestants weren’t nearly as compelling as those from season one – where the story’s focus was almost entirely on the game the whole time. So, while we know a bit about Jun-ho, Gi-hun and In-ho are the show’s most developed characters. We care more about what happens to them than the others.
But enough complaining about how the final act of Squid Game couldn’t live up to the excellence of season one (which, you might recall, was supposed to be a one-and-done season until it became a massive hit and its showrunner and creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, saw absolutely none of the profits due to his deal with Netflix and needed to make these final two seasons to see some success from the show – the perfect distillation of the show’s message of the horrors of late-stage capitalism). The true ending of the series was, in fact, the perfect way to close the door on the series – and I sure hope it is closing the door and not simply setting up a spin-off. Having In-ho complete the passing on of Gi-hun’s remaining money to his daughter was a nice touch – and what he would have wanted. It leaves open the question as to just how much of In-ho’s participating in the Game was his own desire to become part of the machine that broke him and how much he was coerced into that world precisely because of the things he had to do to win the Game. But the realization that the Game continues, now in America and with Oscar winner Cate Blanchett playing one of the recruiters, is a fitting coda for the series. Because a game like this one with the promise of riches and security? That’s something that would become a huge success in America. And there are so many potential players here, desperate for money to right a wrong, pay a debt, save someone or something.
The real sinister thing about Squid Game wasn’t watching people do horrific things to others for a chance at life-saving money. Or that rich VIPs would gladly bankroll a game where they got to watch people fight to the death. It’s that we all know this could easily happen in our real world (and that, in many ways, the nature of capitalism pits people against one another to further their own interests even without a secret game of fighting to the death). That there are plenty of people desperate enough to enter such a game. And that there are people with money who would bankroll it. That’s why that ending was, to me, the perfect button on a series that was hit or miss throughout its final two seasons. In the world of Squid Game, the Games go on. And for us, we all know that as capitalism continues rushing towards its inevitable result – the gulf between the haves and the have nots widens and widens – we can imagine that such a future, with such a Game, could be right around the corner.
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