Squid Game is quite the contradiction. It’s a show with international appeal and an intriguing premise based around a style of acting and filming that is very much Korean. As a viewer who’s watched her fair share of Asian dramas and, specifically, K-dramas, the first season of Squid Game did not reinvent the wheel. It’s not the first time we’ve had a “last-man-standing” type story; by now, everyone knows how influential the 2000 Battle Royale was and franchises like The Hunger Games, but it was Squid Game’s commentary on social inequality and human desperation that really spoke to audiences. In a world struggling with COVID, only a year after Parasite won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Squid Game was primed for success. But then came the announcement for Season 2. Inevitably, the question arose as to whether the show needed more episodes. While you could say that the decision came from Netflix recognizing the show’s popularity and wanting to capitalize on it, the first season had a very open-ended conclusion. When Season 2 dropped, it was hard to watch and really review it as a complete series on its own. It was clear that Seasons 2 and 3 were really just one story, and now that Season 3 is here, my assumptions were correct. Season 2 left a lot hanging and felt woefully incomplete, but Season 3 is where Squid Game finds its footing and surpasses even the original show.
‘Squid Game’ Season 3 Doesn’t Pull Any Punches, and It Makes Things Worse

Season 1 of Squid Game was known for its brutal death scenes. Whether it was Sae-byoek (Jung Ho-yeon) and Ji-yeong’s (Lee Yoo-mi) heartfelt final exchange together, where they chose to connect rather than play the game, knowing one of them would die, or when Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) betrayed the good-natured Ali (Anupam Tripathi), the show never held back on tugging at your heartstrings and making you understand the gravity of each decision made. That being said, Season 3 blows these moments out of the water. Not only are the deaths more brutal, but they’re laced with tragedy. It’s more than just betrayals, it’s gutwrenching decisions that leave a character completely bereft. Without going into spoilers, Season 3 takes what worked from the previous two and cranks it up to 100 — and then goes past that. The show doesn’t hesitate to go to places any other show like this would never dare to. No one is safe, and it really embraces the brutal nature of this game. It’s not just about what someone would do for money; it thrusts moral and ethical dilemmas forward and forces a character to choose between what is right and what they want. While in any other show, this would be, no pun intended, overkill, in Squid Game, where deaths have become a normalized part of the story, these moments stand out — not because they’re particularly violent or gory, but because we’ve walked with these characters now for two seasons. We all have our favorites and the ones we can’t wait to get their just desserts, and in true Squid Game fashion, we lose the former too quickly and the latter not quickly enough. If you’re the type of person to shout at your screen when a character does something that you don’t agree with, prep some tea and honey; your throat will thank you.

Related

‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Recap: What To Remember Before the Thrilling Final Season

We’ve played these games before… but not like this.

‘Squid Game’ Embraces What It’s Really About, Rather Than Just the Games

It’s also important to understand that what we like about Squid Game isn’t actually the games, a gimmick that I quickly tired of. Sure, it was fun to see what clever and twisted new rendition of a childhood game would be presented, but they were only ever meant to be the stage for the human drama that was, by far, the highlight of the show. Season 2 leaned a little too far into this element, with the new voting system and a bevy of new games to help kill off the massive number of participants. Season 3, however, gets down to brass tacks, proving that the series is at its best when it’s not really about the games. Sure, there’s another marbles-level round that will likely go down in history as the best segment of the show, but that’s only because we’ve seen Squid Game do the character work. We get more quiet moments with Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), or scenes outside of the games with Hwang Jun-ho’s (Wi Ha-joon) investigation, and the show continues beyond the competition to give us a sort of epilogue that is both unsettling and satisfying.
Acting Awards Need To Be Handed Out After ‘Squid Game’ Season 3

Image via Netflix

With the remaining group of main characters, Season 3 is able to dig deeper into the characterization of each of them, and the actors can develop them more. Key among them is Kang Ae-shim’s Jang Geum-ja, the elderly woman who entered the games to pay off her son, Yong-sik’s (Yang Dong-geun), gambling debts. With one of the series’ most heartbreaking scenes, Kang shows off her acting chops and her range toward the midpoint of the season, and it’s the best performance in the show to date. Other characters, like the pregnant Jun-hee (Yo Ju-ri) and Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), the transgender former special forces soldier, rise to the top as well, offering some of the best scenes of the season and stepping up when Gi-hun has lost all hope. Similarly, more morally dubious characters, like Myung-gi (Im Si-wan) and Nam-gyu (Roh Jae-won), show their teeth in this final installment. The one thing that still stands as this series’ fatal flaw is the way it portrays its “VIPs.” Yes, those jeweled masked foreigners are back, and they’re as obnoxiously cheesy as ever. It’s hard to tell if creator Hwang Dong-hyuk is leaning into the parody of how Koreans view rich foreigners or if he actually thinks this is how they act, but in a show that trades on authentic emotions in extreme circumstances, these characters are both over-the-top and the most inauthentic. It’s a blemish on an otherwise entertaining season.
‘Squid Game’ Season 3 Is a Strong Conclusion, and There’s No Need for More

Image via Netflix

Season 3 is unequivocally the ending of this installment of Squid Game, but it’s clear that there’s an indication that the story could go further, perhaps to other parts of the world or in a different setting. This is where the show loses me. In the franchisization of IP these days, studios will do anything to lean into a successful story. If that means sucking the creative juices until they’re shriveled and dry, then that’s what they’ll do. The fact is that Season 3 is only this good because Seasons 1 and 2 laid the groundwork with Gi-hun and characters like Front Man (Lee Byung-hun). Sure, you might be able to tackle the same issues in another country or another language, but there’s no capturing lightning in a bottle twice. The industry in general needs to let sleeping dogs lie, but, as Squid Game teaches us, there’s nothing more human than human greed, so, unfortunately, I doubt this is the last we’ve seen of those pink jumpsuits. All episodes of Squid Game can now be streamed on Netflix in the U.S.

Squid Game

Squid Game Season 3 ends with a strong conclusion, but the indication of future spin-offs is completely unnecessary.

Release Date

2021 – 2024

Network

Netflix

Showrunner

Hwang Dong-hyuk

Directors

Hwang Dong-hyuk

Lee Jung-jae

Seong Gi-hun / ‘No. 456’

Jeon Young-soo

Game Guide

Pros & Cons

Season 3 features fantastic performances and strong acting, specifically from Kang Ae-shim.
The story is far more brutal, forcing characters to make impossible choices.
The season ties up all of its major storylines cleanly.

The season brings back the foreign VIPs, and the acting and dialogue are horrible.
Season 3’s ending suggests an extended universe for the franchise, which cheapens the finale.