Squid Game - battle Royale but adults!

[Cactus Concerto]

I haven't finished Season 3 yet but the whole storyline with the baby makes me feel very uncomfortable and not really want to watch it. Surely even in the evil murder game they would allow a woman who was giving birth to leave with her baby? How is there not even a discussion around allowing her to go? Nobody even acknowledges it at all? Why are contestants not pregnancy tested before joining? Idk it's just too much I am sorry, the show is all about "but they chose to be there!??" ok the baby sure as fuck didn't.

"But they chose to be there!" is something I agree with to the extent of characterization. The mother was foolish enough to try and hide her pregnancy when faced with the reality of the situation (i.e. the first game), then she made no effort to explain she was with child and needed to get the fuck out. If I remember correctly, I think the granny just happened to find out because she was always a mother. She was lucky to get as far as she did and then she proceeded to physically carry the baby into another game after birth rather than plead with the organizers to help and watch over the kid. The mother was persistently self-centered; I mentioned before but her death flag speech was essentially about "me, me, me" with the child as a cliff note.

Outside of her character specifically, I don't think the writer thought that far ahead. Not even with the mother; her characterization was consistent but it probably came from a checklist of requirements. 'She must be stubbornly independent, but also helpless, but also likeable enough people want her to stay alive (make her pregnant?).'

In the story, from the way the VIPs reacted it seemed like this was fresh occurrence. But this was also the season where one of the VIPs was female, while another mentioned having at least one child, and neither really went against it. Sourced from Wikipedia, the director claimed the whole payoff of the child's arc was because 'something something, new generation, something something' plot-wise which read as code for 'I wanna be done with this shit; a baby immediately raises stakes and makes scenes thrilling, pregnancy makes a woman more sympathetic so I don't have to put legwork into writing a compelling character, and the male lead is largely irredeemable by this point in the story so he might as well suicide dive for a child, the ultimate sacrifice.'

The baby existed as a plot device for Gihun, likely accidentally tied into the old woman/son story (a happy accident of sorts), and was attached to the underdeveloped relationship drama between Junhee and MG Coin with little thought or care put into how this would affect the characters, the story, or the world overall. It shows in the way every character reacts and behaves towards the child outside of the old woman and how things spiral for the worst after the Hide and Seek game. The old woman's son actively trying to harm the kid was a clear showcase of how low he was willing to go and what a pathetic dead end he was, which is why his mother stabbed him, and it made sense considering how wishy-washy he already was towards his mother, other women, and anyone outside himself.

Outside of that? Maybe one of those men could have been happy to kill that baby in cold blood but there's no way in hell all of them were going to be gung-ho about it. Not when the vast majority of them clearly already had enough money to have voted to just leave after the baby was born, not to mention likely having children and families of their own.

Things progressed so Writer-ssi could white knight Gihun for the last leg of the story and get paid to be done with this season.

 

[Type 10 MBT]

This season was underwhelming in my opinion. While the baby plot was weird and the writing was a bit off that could have been forgiven if Gihun had more of a payoff. He wanted to stop the games, his rebellion got people killed and he lost it and killed the guy that didn't get them ammo (fair enough) but he ultimately changed nothing. The games in Korea ended at least for the foreseeable future but everywhere else the games are still going without hindrance. His goal wasn't to end all games everywhere so that's fine but I would argue he didn't even truly end the games in Korea. The front man is still alive and he set up the games after the old man died, he has access to obscene amounts of money, limitless connections with the VIPs and good will with them to top it off. We've had 3 seasons of the front man pleasing the VIPs so well that they call the Korea games "the best" throughout the series. It's hard for me to imagine they just let their favorite murder porn agent wander into obscurity. Instead of Seoul in 5 years time they could just get people from Busan or Incheon. I've been to those places, nobody would notice people missing.

Maybe with the coast guard and subsiquent investigation of the island the government would be made aware of what's happening but knowing the nature of Korea and the Chaebols, it's likely they could just go to another island and fund a new one with the right president. Maybe I'm dumb and the point is going over my head but I just feel unsatisfied with the ending. The MC killed himself for the sake of the child sure that's fine but his death changed nothing, his speech about humans not being horses won't stop future games or likely even change the hearts of the VIPs or onlookers and the detective once again failing to apprehend or stop his brother means the games will possibly continue. I feel like there needed to be 2 or 3 more episodes in total with atleast one focusing on the aftermath alone. Seeing something like the government's response, interpol involvement, invesitgation into VIPs, international awareness, the front man going in to hiding etc, would make it feel more like something changed. Then followed by the alley scene showing that despite this the games will always find a way to exist would be far better than "A bunch of people die, the island blows up, people are happy and sad, games exist the end". I just feel like it was all rushed so the creator can just be rid of this titanic weight he felt in making more seasons.

 

[Maker's Mark]

Thank God for this thread. It seems to have saved me from wasting my time watching the last season and I was already on the fence because of my dislike for season 2.

 

[The Token Ethnic]

Kaiji, I mean Squid Game was always pushing a narrative... but the immigrant sympathy from the first season turned into tranny propaganda in the sequel. Despite that, Asian culture always had an anti-vigilante angle. That's why you never see the protagonist get revenge without dying or going to jail for doing so. Even in the first season, once you had the decadent spectators indulging in depravity whilst watching the games, it ruined the whole supposed commie message of the show and focused on how gross the foreigners were. It already drove its point home.

 

[I Hate The Disabled]

Despite that, Asian culture always had an anti-vigilante angle. That's why you never see the protagonist get revenge without dying or going to jail for doing so.

I wouldn't say I watch a lot of Korean action movies (I'm more of a Korean slice-of-life enjoyer) but the first shows/movies that came to mind were Vigilante, I Saw The Devil, and Oldboy, all vigilante/revenge plots, and the protagonists don't go to jail or die in the end.

 

[Lovely Kin]

-333 didn’t bother me too much, though i guess it wasn’t very interesting. Early on 222 said something like “you don’t care about me you’re just pretending because you want my share of the money.” and we never really saw anything to the contrary.

333, like with many didn't even get to develop. Everything felt rushed about the characters, and I couldn't feel much about them. His characterization kept changing back and forth, so he's cold killer risky bastard one moment, then he wants to protect Jun-hee, then he doesn't give a shit about the baby, and then he does? I know I criticize Jo Yuri's acting, but the guy who played him wasn't any better.

 

[The Token Ethnic]

I wouldn't say I watch a lot of Korean action movies (I'm more of a Korean slice-of-life enjoyer) but the first shows/movies that came to mind were Vigilante, I Saw The Devil, and Oldboy, all vigilante/revenge plots, and the protagonists don't go to jail or die in the end.

That's good to know! The Korean movies I've seen that had that "crime doesn't pay" message were Bedeviled and No Mercy. Both are movies where the women are either killed by police or sent to jail for taking revenge on their tormentors. I forgot about the movies Kim Ki-Duk made; those are always depressing and have horrible characters in them. How was Vigilante? I heard it dramatized that fucked up case of the old man that assaulted a young girl and got off on a technicality since he was drunk, despite having a criminal record.

 

[los pepes]

I watched s3 recently after having binged s1/2 for the first time a couple months ago. I enjoyed the characters, the games and group dynamics, and some of the plots, but there was also lots I hated. Especially in retrospect. Having watched both s1/2 at the same time the manipulation they use to get you immediately on the side of their preferred character (jeet s1, troon s2) is not even subtle. Have them each engage in an act of selflessness to save someone else during red light green light to establish them as both highly useful in any group activities, as well as being humanitarians in a sea of sociopaths and puts them directly on team good with our hero for the rest of the show. I knew what they were doing with that as s1 unfolded, and the fact that they repeated it almost to the letter in s2 with the tranny just made it insultingly obvious.

Others have already spoken about how dumb, dangerous, and even out of character most of the decisions made by everyone in s3 was so I won't rehash. I'll just agree with those that have commented that while the specific sacrificial ending worked for that character, everything that got him there was pants on head retarded. These people were literally pointing at him and telling him "we are going to murder you and the baby the next possible opportunity" and somehow this seasoned bloodied man whose been through hell is still too stupid/naive enough to kill them? Or even allow one of them to be killed by the others to guarantee all of their survival including the baby? Unwillingness to kill a person (or simply stand aside and allow to be killed) in the active process of trying to murder a helpless baby is not some grand moral statement about keeping your humanity. Just the opposite. It's cowardace and moral depravity.

The worst decision of the series was made by the powers that be in forcing the baby to compete as a player. It goes against the central core ethos of both the organizers of the games and more importently the hundreds of minions they need to operate it. Not to mention the midwit snarky moralfagging against "democracy" that the show spends 3 seasons wallowing in. It's made obvious that many of the soldiers (including inho) need to be able to rationalize their behavior away that these people are degenerate trash who brought it on themselves and even when they know what is in store for them continue voting to be slaughtered. A baby can do none of those things. If you are willing to force a baby to participate as a "player" then all that goes out the window and you might as well just kidnap people off the street and force them to partake. Or threaten their families if they vote to leave. Any rules or supposed fairness that these organizers use to justify their existence goes out the window and even the competitive balance of the games itself. Here you you have an ultimate "winner" who only participated in 2.2 out of the 6 games. It's not even good sport for the observers.

Also how is giving out knives to contestants that are under the "violence against other players is no longer tolerated" rules and encouraging them to cheat and murder other competitors not rigging the contest? In s1 giving inside info about what was coming was treated as a terrible crime against the fairness of the games warranting instant death. Now they are using soldiers to stop one group of players from murdering their way to victory while secretly arming and coaxing another to do the same? And its apparently not even the first time since we saw the same thing happen to inho. How do the VIPs feel about their "horses" they've been riding all this time getting killed by some knife ex machina that magically appeared in the middle of the night before the climax games? Hell they even got the contestants good and drunk so they'd be too deep asleep to hear the others being murdered. Total and complete show runing rigging.

This is getting long so I'll just close on my observations that the idea of this continuing anywhere else in the world after what happened is not practical to say the least. With all the evidence that has been accumulated, including hard physical evidence there is no longer a doubt that these games happened in Korea. They have a player found in a pink costume with a gunshot wound that directly matches descriptions given by our two main characters about what they saw in s1. Now the police also found an exact copy of that costume buried in some guy's yard under a pile of money. They also found a boat with corpses of 2-3 other people with gunshot wounds wearing those same costumes. Also the weapons they were all carrying are the same mp5s that guards/soldiers in these games were described as carrying in two separate reports made years ago (including one by a police detective). That alone is case closed to get over any sort of police skepticism. They may be stupid, but when you corpses and guns piling up like this it's not something you can brush away as the ramblings of a drunkard. Oh yeah and the corpses/survivor all have microchips inplanted in their necks that identify them as numbers. And of course there is a giant fucking island right next to where all this unfolded that magically had dozens of explosives detonate right as the coasties pulled up. Even if the damage was so great that you could not indentify specific objects, you would still be able to see that there were giant buildings and structures dug into earth prior to their collapse by explosive. There is no rational explanation for such massive complexses to exist on some random island of the bumfuck coast.

All that evidence, and the testimony that it existed so billionares could bet on ~450 people being murdered every year instantly makes it the biggest news story in Korea, and shortly the world. 24/7 wall to wall coverage. The fact that white vips were identified also means the FBI and Euro law enforcement beging their own investigations to hunt down and identify these people for what they did in Korea. And then the next obvious questions of if its going on anywhere else. Now every country begins deep diving into its missing persons cases going back decades. Global governmental investigations+hysteric never ending media coverage+ social media/podcast speculations until the end of time means that no one is going to take the risk of having more games in another country under all that heat. And even if they did the vips that are connected in any way are going to burn and disappear all those connections. They are not going to be showing up to more games in other countries. So the idea of a spinoff that just keeps business as usual is dumb enough that I'm sure netflix can't wait to dive in.

 

[Tinnitus]

Things progressed so Writer-ssi could white knight Gihun for the last leg of the story and get paid to be done with this season.

'white knight'

kills someone for panicking at the rebellion and refusing to kill until the very last game.

If Gi-Hun was more realistic he'd let the X players ambush the O's for an easy "stop playing the game" or inform them that "lol if the first games are possible to have everyone survive, the last three require half of you to die"

To me he came off as arrogant in hide & seek by targeting Dae-ho as if Sang Woo didn't kill Saebyok to continue to the final game.

 

[Ealen]

With all the evidence that has been accumulated, including hard physical evidence there is no longer a doubt that these games happened

One frustrating thing about the ending is how little closure there is regarding the game's secrecy or its origins. There are a lot of things that don't make sense in the show's world, but a viewer can suspend their disbelief at the prospect of the organization being able to recruit contestants and staff from the civilian population while also going under the radar. The detective's storyline makes it seem as though his investigation is the first one of its kind despite the games having been run for decades. It's difficult to believe that the games could really be hidden for so long, and it's disappointing that we don't even get to see what revelations are made in the wake of their discovery and the impact it would have on the public consciousness. In the final scenes it seems like the world is pretty much the exact same as it was before.

 

[Probably An Autist]

OK nobody near me watched this tripe and I need to moan about how needless season 2 and 3 were, and how utterly dog shit it was. Phone posting so I'm sorry if it reads like ass

I'm not saying S1 was The Godfather of Korean TV, but it had a good cast, a good setting, and a protagonist who had depth and character development

S2 started strong, I enjoyed the hunt for the subway guy. After he went back to the games it was downhill. He made very little effort to convince people past the first game, and the fact he was a previous winner didn't really make a difference to anyone. Nobody gave a shit, its not very realistic. Plus the tranny shit. The front man joining was interesting, but ultimately it made no difference apart from stopping the take over.

S3 had no redeeming features. The boat subplot was a waste of time, they discovered nothing, learnt nothing and he didn't get the confrontation he wanted. The meeting Gi had with the front man was dumb. The baby was retarded and made everyone retarded. Any depth the characters did have disappeared. I get he was gonna die, but he died for nothing. The Epstein VIPs were awful to watch and will have learnt nothing, the games still exist, we still don't know why the front man is in charge or what he's about. None of it mattered, but in the least satisfying way

Tl;dr it was shit and I wish I didn't watch it

 

[Lovely Kin]

S3 had no redeeming features. The boat subplot was a waste of time, they discovered nothing, learnt nothing and he didn't get the confrontation he wanted. The meeting Gi had with the front man was dumb. The baby was retarded and made everyone retarded. Any depth the characters did have disappeared. I get he was gonna die, but he died for nothing. The Epstein VIPs were awful to watch and will have learnt nothing, the games still exist, we still don't know why the front man is in charge or what he's about. None of it mattered, but in the least satisfying way

Barely any of the characters had depth, for how everyone wailed about Young-mi's death in season 2, I mixed her up at times with the pregnant girl because they made the same facial expressions. Even though Se-mi was a clone of Sae-byeok in personality, minus the North Korean, I wish they showed her personality more and allowed her to develop, even though she's good as dead in Hide and Seek if she was the hider. MG had no personality besides shittier Sang-woo, which I already bitched about along with Jo Yuri unable to act for shit as the pregnant girl.

The finale was where I felt the most dissapointed and frustrated. Besides 100, MG, Min-su and Gi-hun, I couldn't give a shit about the other finalists. (Even though I did find Min-su's death a little sad now when I rewatched it, and how he sought Se-mi's forgiveness). Some do say it shows how greedy the finalists were, but I'm honestly apathetic to them, and annoyed how they killed have so many major characters during hide and seek.

 

[Big Green]

Finished third season, that shit sucked. It's insane how pointless the detective plotline really was. Like, I really want to know what the internal discussions were on what the purpose of it was. As far as the actual games go, what was the takeaway supposed to be? It was all just rehashing of season 1 material. The players themselves were leagues behind what we got in the first season. I don't give a fuck about some tranny who wants surgery money, or drug addicts or boomers. Although I won't say it's impossible to make me care about them, as they did somehow previously make me care about a pajeet. I think the problem was that from the get-go we were led to believe that this was going to be about stopping the games. But the reality was that they needed the games to continue for Netflix to keep cashing in.

It felt like my time was wasted because in the end we saw that the MC was noble and would do the right thing in spite of the games. Which is what we already knew from season 1. Then with the detective we found out he was retarded, which I guess we only suspected in season 1. The frontman was just a weak character in every season. The woman on the inside and her trying to save the cancer daddy was alright, but it was annoying to see another subplot introduced. I think if they could've interlinked her with the detectives thing somehow it would've been way better. Anyone else I don't care about and was just there to fill the games.

 

[Sergeant Major Buzzkill]

dammit right when i started on the first season

 

[Probably An Autist]

dammit right when i started on the first season

Just pretend the last episode ends like 10 minutes earlier than it does and you will have a solid, standalone series lol

 

[Cactus Concerto]

The finale was where I felt the most dissapointed and frustrated. Besides 100, MG, Min-su and Gi-hun, I couldn't give a shit about the other finalists. (Even though I did find Min-su's death a little sad now when I rewatched it, and how he sought Se-mi's forgiveness). Some do say it shows how greedy the finalists were, but I'm honestly apathetic to them, and annoyed how they killed have so many major characters during hide and seek.

It really highlights how poorly constructed this was as a story, first and foremost, rather than something to spread a 'message' or some bullshit. By the type you got to the final games in S1, you were left with the three characters the show had spent the most time with developing on-screen. Essayists and the Enlightened reviewers might whine about plot armor but if the story gives a plausible reason as to why their main characters make it through dangerous situations, it does not fucking matter that your MAIN CHARACTERS make it to the end of the story. That's good writing at its most basic level.

dammit right when i started on the first season

It's a very solid standalone series and didn't need a sequel at all. Don't let the unnecessary follow-ups cuck you out of an enjoyable experience.

 

[EpicGamerMoment]

333, like with many didn't even get to develop. Everything felt rushed about the characters, and I couldn't feel much about them. His characterization kept changing back and forth, so he's cold killer risky bastard one moment, then he wants to protect Jun-hee, then he doesn't give a shit about the baby, and then he does? I know I criticize Jo Yuri's acting, but the guy who played him wasn't any better.

MG Coin was one of my biggest disappointments this season. I thought that by leaving him as the last surviving new character they were gonna do something with him but no he's just another greedy bastard. Even the "reveal" that he's the father of the baby felt extremely underwhelming.

Also how is giving out knives to contestants that are under the "violence against other players is no longer tolerated" rules and encouraging them to cheat and murder other competitors not rigging the contest?

There's definitely a reason why the scene of In-Ho giving Gi-Hun the knife is spliced with flashbacks of the old dude from the first season (and organizer of the games) giving In-Ho the knife. The people who run the games operate on the idea that people are inherently selfish and cruel so this is In-Ho testing Gi-Hun's morality, to see if he would kill the others to rig the game. Also this is my theory but In-Ho could be trying to groom Gi-Hun to take his place as the organizer of the games. We've seen Gi-Hun completely broken spiritually and mentally so this would complete his transformation. But he defied all attempts at turning him and sacrificed his life to save the baby, while he lost, in a way he won ideologically.

Anyways I agree with a lot of the points said on here and find the 3rd season (or season 2 part 2) to be pretty meh, especially when compared with the excellent first season. I think the show suffered from the mid season break. As the surviving characters like the troon and the old woman and her son were hyped up only to all die in the next episode. Imo the hide and seek episode should have been the last episode before the break.

 

[Rudy Coleman]

everyone seems to hate the tranny character but i really didnt mind them,
i think them being a actual real man playing a transgender woman was what really made the performance for me, the awkward way they interact with people is something only a man pretending to be a woman can pull off and i actually liked that,
the actual character was not offensive and i thought their motivations to continue the games were not downright evil, this is the only character who is like this and thus stands out.