The final season of the Netflix hit brought the story to a largely predictable conclusion, with one last twist at the end.
This article includes spoilers for all of the final season of “Squid Game.”
The final season of Netflix’s international sensation “Squid Game” is officially labeled Season 3. But who are we kidding here? The six episodes that end this series feel very much like a continuation of the seven episodes that aired earlier this year as Season 2, covering the same characters, still in the middle of the same deadly tournament. Nothing new is introduced here in the “Squid Game” homestretch. The show’s writer and director, Hwang Dong-hyuk, just connects the last few dots. It’s no wonder then that Season 3 feels so dispiritingly rote.
This new set of episodes begins with the show’s protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) completely demoralized. In Season 1, he had survived a secret competition on a mysterious island — where the losers are killed and the ultimate winner takes home a fortune — for the entertainment of obscenely wealthy “V.I.P.s.” Shaken by the experience, Gi-hun in Season 2 tried to find and expose the tournament’s backers before deciding the only way to destroy the operation would be from the inside, by competing again.
The season ended with a massive miscalculation by Gi-hun, as he attempted to lead some other players in an armed revolt against the games’ guards and bosses, unaware that one of his supposed allies, Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun), was actually the operation’s manager — “the Front Man” — playing incognito in order to keep a close eye on him.
At the same time, In-ho’s brother Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) — a former police detective working with Gi-hun to end the games for good — kept searching for the island, unaware that the captain of the boat he chartered was in league with the Front Man and steering him far away from his target.
It may not have been the best idea to return In-ho to his Front Man duties at the end of Season 2, separating him from the now-despondent Gi-hun. One of the most rewarding elements of Season 2 were the conversations between In-ho, a misanthropic cynic pretending to be a compassionate human being, and Gi-hun, a fierce idealist determined to prove to the games’ masters that people are not inherently greedy, selfish and shortsighted. With In-ho out of the game and Gi-hun deflated, Season 3 loses some juice right from the start.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Source: Television - nytimes.com
