The last season of “Squid Game” is both exactly what fans can expect and not really what they hear. Speaks to the latter point first, season 3 of NetflixGlobal Hit Drama Series is actually not a third complete season of “Octopus“It’s the second half of the second seasonWhich in itself is so strong reminds of the first season that I hesitate to consider it as a continuation as much as a conversion.
Just like Original sectionSeong Ge-she (Lee Jung-Jae) find their way into the octopus games. Just as before, Hwang Jun-Ho (Wi Ha-Joon) leads an investigation of where the games are held, who runs them and why. The majority of the action, again, is devoted to the games themselves, as well as the players’ various motivations and interpersonal dynamics, which creates a suitable allegory to capitalism: you devote your life to the pursuit of money – money that you desperately needs, but money that dangles out of reach of powerful abuses that would rather be able to survive than to help you than to help you.
Granted, season 2 introduced Some smart changes To keep the chaos fresh: Gi-Hun had played these games earlier, so he knew how to help his fellow players (or he thought anyway). Hwang In-Ho (Lee Byung-Hun), alias the front man, joined the games himself and posed as another desperate stranger to better judge Gi-Hun’s righteous crusade. Then it was New characters And new games, a new voting procedure and a new rebellion, all while the action dignified forward.
But these smaller tweaks and natural developments were not enough to regain the news that made “octopus games” so initially fascinating. Instead, the creator Hwang Dong-Hyuk relied on a two-stretched formula to satisfy their massive audience: give them what they want (mainly more wild games that indicate a wild world) and trust that they have absorbed enough of the first season’s message about the inequality of wealth to appreciate how unpleasant he went about a wild world) balance their own scales. (One “one for them, one for me” strategy I have no choice but to respect.)
So here we are. Season 3. The last season. Whatever you call it, the “Squid Game’s” end must still pan, and even if the ultimate conclusion becomes obvious quite quickly (if it is not already), Hwang sees his message to keep the increasingly brutal new sections from skewed to cruelty. While the general vibbs are dours (there is very little space left for humor), “Squid Game” provides enough closure to saturating someone still on the edge of their seat, and its short, volatile deficiencies of bright frames the darkness with the strong truths.
Without getting into spoilers, I will do my best to short unpack that analogy. Picks up right after Season 2 Final’s failed coupSeason 3 finds Gi-Hun in difficult Sund. He barely speaks, refuses to eat and even refrains from the next vote – not because he knows it is doomed, after so many red circles were killed and tries to overthrow the front man, but because he is simply too desperate to get off the ass.
Gi-Hun’s subsequent bow is simple and related. After suffering a huge, unexpectedly setback-watching on his dream of a better world, with dozens of his co-believers-must-find the will to continue, if he hopes to survive. But more dangerous is his loss of faith in his fellow human being. In the midst of the physical fights during each game, the broader battle between Gi-Hun and the front man has always been existential: are people worth saving? Are they in themselves good and behave only badly because of the crushing Maw of capitalism? Or are they in themselves bad, and all they need is an excuse for throwing their friend under the proverbial bus or shooting an enemy from a literal cliff?
“Squid Game” has distorted the question through various relationships and situations, but the threatening presence of another deadly game not only tests the trust (or is considered established) between players, it also distills their decision to a basic immediacy: at the beginning of a new game, Gi-Hun sets its view on a contemptible goal. But when he penetrates, which looks to add his frustrations to a deserving stoge, his natural disgust for the primary behavior is evoked by the Games Head-to-Head with Do-or-Die the circumstances of the game he has to play. “Kill or killed” is not a mentality he can decide on; It is a reality he has to face, over and over again.
Seeing that expansion and contraction over and over again in six episodes (even less three seasons) can grow tired, and Season 3 certainly suffers from a feeling of fatigue. The game can only do so much, and the island’s meaningless stories make even less. (Jun-Ho and his search party are never deliberately given anything essential to achieve.) New games do not give the same impressive production design as we saw in season 2, especially an overly simplified (and digitized) playoffs. Most characters end up exactly where you expect, but at least the performances remain strong and moving, and some flourish in the epilogue have a lasting impact.
It is Hwang’s unclear vision that wears “octopus game” over the finish line. Although it would be easy to claim that you can see everything he sees after the first season, with a little space for extra depth accordingly, his steady conviction makes the heartache that he expresses for every eliminated player to be so much longer. Although there is no definitive answer as to whether people, as a species, are good or bad, there is also no dispute that they deserve better than octopus games that this world goes on.
Rating: B-
“Squid Game” season 3 premiere on Friday 27 June on Netflix. All six episodes will be released at once.
