Squid Game Season 3 Review: … Have Violent Ends

This review contains no spoilers for Squid Game season 3.

Squid Game is one of the most bracingly cynical pieces of mass popular media ever produced.

At its best (which is most of the time), the Netflix survival drama feels like creator Hwang Dong-hyuk screaming “And another thing that fucking sucks!” into a bullhorn over and over again as the viewer nods in agreement. Why the show’s depiction of modern capitalism as literal bloodsport came to resonate with global audiences is a topic best left for sociologists. The question the rest of us are left to ponder, however, is how can such an ugly little story about desperate people killing one another possibly generate a satisfying conclusion? That question is answered with style and skill in Squid Game season 3.

It’s certainly not a spoiler to say that Squid Game season 3 provides no happy ending to this saga, as happy endings are antithetical to the show’s premise. It’s also not a spoiler to point out that the season may not even offer much of an ending at all. The “franchisification” of Netflix’s streaming golden goose is well underway with a David Fincher-produced spinoff already announced and many more projects sure to come. But Hwang Dong-hyuk has made clear that season 3 represents the terminus of the path he first set upon with the show’s first season. And reader, what a conclusion it ends up being!

Squid Game season 3 picks up in the immediate aftermath of season 2’s bloody, but failed rebellion. Player 456 Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is forced back into the competition as his archenemy Hwang In-ho a.k.a. The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) correctly surmises that living is a much more painful punishment than dying. Astute viewers will clock that there are at least three more deadly children’s games to endure and indeed three immensely creative, cruel matches are sprinkled throughout these final six episodes – culminating in a climactic game that notably improves upon season 1’s confusing concluding duel.

Through it all, the cast of this edition of Squid Game continues to shine. Several villains and rogues step up in the absence of season 2 breakout Player 230 “Thanos” (T.O.P.), in some cases even bolstered by his necklace full of drugs. Player 222 Kim Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) takes on an elevated role as the doomsday clock that is her very pregnant belly inches closer to midnight. Player 120 Cho Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon) once again proves worthy of her status as a fan favorite.

The most useful tool in Squid Game season 3’s ensemble, however, is its lead. Lee Jung-jae’s performance as Seong Gi-hun in Squid Game season 1 was remarkable precisely because of how unremarkable it was…right down to the character’s afterthought of a number. Player 456 won the 33rd edition of the games not through athleticism or shrewd gamesmanship but rather through childlike innocence and dumb luck. This time around, however, he operates with a ruthless efficiency that causes his peers to view him as something between a Terminator and a Baba Yaga. Combined with his uncompromising and well-earned moral code, Mr. Seong establishes himself as one of the more interesting heroes of the streaming era.

By the commandment of Netflix’s spoiler embargo and just plain old good manners, we’ve been deliberately vague about specific season 3 plot points thus far and will continue to do so. Suffice it to say that anyone invested enough in the story could probably accurately compose a rough outline of these final six episodes themselves. That is not to criticize the series’ writing. In fact, it’s to praise it. Hwang, who again writes and directs all episodes this season, has a tremendous sense of dramatic inevitability. Events occur throughout season 3 because they simply have to happen this way.

It’s not a novel observation that Squid Game, the series, frequently operates like Squid Game, the games, but it still bears repeating. Players and audiences alike are promised a series of deadly, yet ultimately equitable games and they receive exactly that. At the same time, the game’s conductors – Hwangs In-ho and Dong-hyuk – understand that the VIPs must be entertained, whether those VIPs be rich douchebags wearing animal masks or working class schlubs using their mom’s Netflix password.

At one point in season 3, the Front Man assures his guests that the next game will take place despite the remaining players’ seeming squishiness to continue. How does he know that they won’t vote “X” this time around? To borrow a phrase from another veteran: he’s played these games before. He understands that any population of people can be prodded into a desired outcome from bad actors. At the end of the day, folks can’t help but look for their happy ending, despite all the mounting evidence that it will never arrive.

While season 3 likely isn’t the end of Squid Game as exploitable IP for Netflix, it still deserves as enthusiastic a eulogy as we can deliver. One thing that often gets lost in examining Squid Game as a cultural phenomenon is just how great it actually is as episodic television. The series stands tall as the ultimate synthesis of fundamentally-sound storytelling technique, iconic production design, and righteous fury at The Way Things Are.

Our children’s children will wear numbered green tracksuits on Halloween and adorn their phone cases with pink triangles, circles, and squares. Hopefully the show’s themes of economic inequality will feel as foreign to them as George Lucas’ Vietnam War commentary feels to the storm trooper armor-wearing cosplayers of today.

All six episodes of Squid Game season 3 premiere Friday, June 27 on Netflix.