No one signs up for the Squid Game—contestant or viewer alike—expecting to have a good time. Netflix’s smash-hit Korean thriller series was a massive, massive hit in its first season, partly due to its uncompromising (but hardly subtle) exploration of the vagaries of late-stage capitalism, literalizing the rat race we must all suffer through a series of deadly children’s games. The walls may start out pastel, but they run red not too long after the games begin. But off the back of that success, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk returned for a two-season continuation of the series; much like his protagonist, Seong Gi-hun (an Emmy-winning Lee Jung-jae), he felt the need to return to the thing that nearly destroyed him—in one interview, he described the shoot as so stressful he lost several teeth—partially out of economic necessity.
Thus we have a bifurcated season, split into two parts but which feels (and was shot) like one continuous story; last year’s “Squid Game 2” saw Gi-hun scheme his way back into the Games to put a stop to them, going so far as to lead a rebellion that would get nearly all the way to the control room. (“One way out,” anyone?) But the revolt is quickly squashed, in large part due to the machinations of The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who spent all season cozying up to Gi-hun, masquerading as a fellow contestant. Season 3 follows up on that soul-destroying setback, and carries the rest of “Squid Game,” both season and series, to a muted, cynical climax that feels as grim as the show has ever been. And that’s saying something.
In the wake of his failed mutiny, Gi-hun is a broken man: He’s seen his close friend Jung-bae get gunned down, and the remaining group of contestants is whittled down to a scant few (many of whom are the bloodthirsty, winner-take-all folks who have been voting to stay in the game no matter the body count). It feels like a repudiation of what he reentered the arena to do: Stop the games, save everyone, and in some way restore his soul in the process. He’s lost, hopeless; the remaining group is forever tilted in favor of the money-grabbers who will perpetually vote to stay in the game. Only a few worthwhile contestants remain, among them the capable transgender contestant Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), grandmother Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim) and her grandson Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun), pregnant contestant Jun-hee (Jo Yuri), and her ex-boyfriend, Myung-gi (Yim Si-wan). Last season’s OTT villain Thanos may be gone, but his spirit (and secret cross of speed pills) beats on in the remaining contestants, including sleazy club promoter Nam-gyu (Roh Jae-won).
Where Season 2 felt like a sharp departure from Season 1’s formula, Season 3 plays largely the same game as the previous season (understandably, since they serve as two halves of one tournament), with an added dose of tortured pathos. The stakes feel higher, and the lows feel lower this season; with a single round of games being stretched out into 13 hour-long episodes, “Squid Game” suffers mightily in its pacing during this second half. The nihilism of its remaining characters also carries quite the strain: Rest assured, Hyung is far from done killing your darlings, and he will manufacture all manner of agonizing and poetically fitting deaths for them. And the quicker those characters die, the more dismaying it is to see who’s left behind as the games start closing in, including several characters thrust into the spotlight far too late for us to develop strong feelings about them one way or the other.
That’s somewhat par for the course for “Squid Game.” Still, there’s something meaner in the focus here, a kind of anger not just as the richie-riches who organize the game (who, like last time, are personified here by a gaggle of English-speaking actors wearing gilded animal masks and spout the creakiest English dialogue) but the working poor who screw each other over as long as they can increase their already life-changing share by a few million more won.
It’s a very Nietzschean show in that respect; Gi-hun, like the rest of the characters, learn over and over again the value in never trusting anyone, and accepting that your friend can become your ally (and vice versa) if the practical calculus of life forces it. Life is meaningless, except for what we can do for each other. Granted, Season 3 finds a few ways to re-introduce glimmers of hope to Gi-hun, so despondent in the season opener that he barely moves from the bed he’s now handcuffed to between every game. “Good people beat themselves up over the smallest things,” Geum-ja tells him in one of the season’s most effective heart-to-hearts; it’s the bad people who make mistakes without remorse. What’s more, Jun-hee’s pregnancy comes to fruition in a way that stirs up the mechanics of the game, not to mention the life-or-death stakes; it’s a bold move for the series to take, and both complicates and simplifies the ethical exercises at play. Suddenly, everyone’s personal calculus about who to kill and who to save changes on a dime, and the bloodlust of others takes on an even more unconscionable dimension.
The games, just as last time, only increase in spectacle and shock value: a game of hide-and-seek among a brick-wall labyrinth where half the group has to kill at least one of the other half to survive; a game of “jump rope” not unlike the tug of war from Season 1, where a huge swinging bar will swipe you off a narrow bridge to your death if you’re not coordinated enough; and ultimately, the kind of choose-who-dies death lottery that would make Shirley Jackson smirk with recognition. The production values of the show remain steadfast from Season 2, as does the stylish, if occasionally overwrought, camerawork. (The hide-and-seek game definitely benefits from the camera running and weaving down the corridors with the contestants; one expects Adam Scott from “Severance” to go bounding down one of the hallways right past them.)
That said, Season 3 by necessity doubles down on all the non-game hijinks, as detective Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) continues to trudge around on that damn boat looking for the Squid Game island. At the same time, North Korean defector No-eul (Park Gyu-young), having infiltrated the games as a guard, attempts to save just one participant presumed gunned down in the massacre, and engineer his escape. There are a few interesting threads in both those stories, but for the most part, these elements feel like filler—especially as Jun-ho doesn’t quite get the showdown with his brother In-ho, aka The Front Man, that we might want or expect. Then again, “Squid Game” is all about disrupting those expectations and making audiences reckon with the bitterest of all endings.
Ultimately, “Squid Game” is a testament to the best and worst the streaming Netflix model has to offer. The first season was a huge swing, and it hit, offering a brutally riveting action thriller that made household names of its leads and creator and kicked off a new international popularity for Korean-made stories. But Netflix, in its zeal for more content for the trough, went back to the well for an extensive, overlong repetition of the beats of the first show, just more and tougher and nastier. It’s tough to say what new lessons we’ve learned from Squid Games 2 and 3 that 1 didn’t already hammer home with blunt force. But the ride was altogether unforgettable, even if just through the thud of thematic repetition.
Full season screened for review.
