Squid Game started out as a phenomenon a few years ago. I think the show premiered in 2021. In my eyes, it was almost perfect. It was unpredictable, beautifully set, and totally absurd. Yet, both frightening and an insight into what desperate humans can do to each other for greed.
The game itself takes hundreds of people who are in great financial trouble and offers them a way to pay off their enormous debt by playing a game. Of course, they don’t really know what they’re signing up for, and that the game itself will mean that hundreds of people will die, and that they will face dozens of moral dilemmas playing it. Also, there’s a huge risk that they will lose their own lives in the process.
How Squid Game is financed is not really explained in detail, but we have a few VIP’s who seem to have more money than they will ever be able to spend anyway, and by watching and betting on the games, they add some excitement to their lives. I guess this is a comment on society, too. You can’t live without any money, but unfathomable riches might not necessarily make you happy either.
The first season of Squid Game featured player 456, who finally beat the game and survived. He was the sole survivor, and by winning, he got immensely rich. But he can’t really let go. His memories taunt him, and instead of just paying off his debts, seeking out his daughter, and showing love, living in the US, he tries to take on the organisers of the games head-on.
I think this is an interesting point of view. We needed something fresh. To just continue on and do another season with new people and a new game would have been a little tedious. I actually think this was a genius movie. During this Season, player 456 once again finds himself playing the game. It seems pretty far-fetched that he would ever be able to once again participate, and also that he would have the mental capacity to do so.
But he’s there, and everything seems to start all over again. The second season is tight, and while it did not come up to the level of the first series, it’s pretty close, and I was excited all the way through it. When it was over, I was anxious to see what would happen next and was a little frustrated that I had to wait for months to see what was going to happen.
But finally, season three was here. I’d rather see it as a continuation of season two, because the story starts exactly where it left us in season two. Since there have been months between the parts, it took a couple of episodes to come back into it again. To remember what the characters were like, who could be trusted, and who could not. But on the other hand, could anyone really be trusted? It’s hard to say. As I said earlier, people will do almost anything for money. Greed can never be overestimated.
Squid Game season three is still very macabre, as season two was. Neither of the seasons had the same shock value as the first season, though. How could it? We really know what the concept was this time around. The third season also slows down the tempo a little too much. This might be necessary to tell the story, but I think the tension hurts from it, and I think that it kind of tells the story that the writers were out of ideas. They dragged out the games over several episodes, and even though it was still really macabre, it lost something in the process.
I think that the opportunity to explore the behind-the-scenes of the red guards, or if they’re pink, gets lost somewhere, and I feel like the only reason we got introduced to that process to begin with was because the opportunity to tell a little sympathetic back story. Back stories are important, of course, but I think they get a little lost in the whole spectrum of things happening.
Likewise is the part of the story where the police who survived the first season, kind of dragged out. Out course, his attempts to locate the island are like looking for a needle in a haystack. But it should be a little exciting, Correction, it should be a little more exciting, because there is suspense there and you are a little excited about what should happen once/if he finds the island and hence his brother. You’ll have to guess if he succeeds or not.
As a whole, I still find this series a very good one. I feel like the first season deteriorates little by little, but the whole concept is still very interesting. I’m a little disappointed that the ending turned out to be exactly as I anticipated it. Or at least close enough. There might have been some details that I was not thinking about in the aftermath. But as a whole, I had it figured out.
Apparently, there will be an American spin-off to continue the legacy. I have high doubts that this will ever top the Korean series. But who knows, maybe they can create some kids’ games that are more rooting in Western society, which can be easier for us in this part of the world to identify with. I hope that they start to explore the world behind the games a little bit more. How is it financed? Who is the mastermind behind it? And are there indeed only victims involved in every layer?
I guess we will have to wait and see. If there’s any truth to the rumor of the American spin-off, then the sky is the limit, and I’ve also already seen rumors of more spin-off series being designed for the years to come. But, of course, it all depends on how much money they can squeeze out of the project. In all cases, it’s safer to watch other people suffer and die on your own TV screen than to be forced to participate in the Squid Games themselves.
