Squid Game season 3 was filled was wasted potential

The final season of Squid Game has debuted on Netflix, and while it got many things right, it fumbled the ball massively in bringing the series to a satisfying and conclusive end. I’m now left feeling that since Hwang Dong-hyuk has finished telling the story he wanted, Netflix will now milk its cash cow until the udders sag and run dry.

Of course, to go into these issues, and some of the positives of this season, we need to dive into spoiler territory. If you haven’t watched this season, then why are you here? Be off with you.

GAMINGbible’s Kate Harrold already wrote about how ridiculous it was for Netflix to split this season into two halves when the creator had quite clearly wanted to put everything together in one season. However, even combining the two halves wouldn’t make up for the wasted potential here. It felt like so many plot points were left up in the air, completely unresolved, or fulfilled with a lack of the panache we saw in season one.

Netflix

Take Hwang, the detective, for example. He spent all season two, and the majority of season three, sailing the ocean in search of the island where the squid games took place. The tension was being built up constantly with the betrayal of the captain, the murder of his team, and the potential face off with his brother when he finally reached the island.

When he finally arrives at the island, worms his way into the complex, shoots out the glass partition overlooking the final game, where his brother is collecting player 222’s baby, nothing happens. He’s calls out to his brother, screams “why?” and In-ho simply turns his back and leaves while the building self-destructs. There’s no satisfying conclusion, he just goes back to his life and shrugs it all off, and the same can be said for the confrontation between In-ho and Gi-hun.

The last season saw In-ho infiltrate the players and befriend player 456, with the cliffhanger of the season seeing In-ho back behind his mask to kill Gi-hun’s friend. While the show was off the air, viewers will have been waiting for the inevitable meeting of the two in the hope of Gi-hun releasing his anger after realising the set-up and betrayal. Instead, In-ho gives him a leg up for the next game, and we get an unnecessary flashback to In-ho’s life within the squid game and how he took advantage of the same leg up. No questions, no release, no closure for either character.

Was he simply hoping that Gi-hun would turn his back on his morals? Did he want to show that even the mighty Gi-hun would succumb to greed? How did he feel about Gi-hun in the end, after they had bonded? We don’t really know, because they barely said anything to each other. Props to Lee Jung-jae for his masterful performance as Gi-hun, adding some drama to this otherwise disappointing scene.

Netflix

I don’t think anyone expected all the answers to be revealed, but there was no crescendo to the threads. Sure, Gi-hun’s death by suicide showed that he could beat the games, and he left the baby as a symbol of hope, but then we’re shoved through a montage of half-baked after thoughts. Why was Detective Hwang the best person to take care of 222’s baby? Who really cared that Choi Woo-seok took over the love hotel to turn it into a business? It was nice to see Kang No-eul venture off to find her daughter, but it felt like an afterthought, as if Netflix pressured the creative team to give us something happy in the closing moments.

The only meaningful part of the finale saw In-ho deliver the bloodied jacket of 456 to his daughter - who must have been baffled - along with the money left over from his initial win. His legacy as a fighter survives, and he finally provides for his daughter, but this is then deflated by In-ho driving through Los Angeles and discovering Cate Blanchett playing Ddakji in an alley, setting up the American spin-off soon to be filmed with David Fincher at the helm. Why in the hell was she playing a Korean game with an American? Surely hop-scotch, patty-cake, cat's cradle, would have been more realistic?

This whole scene felt like a lazy, tacked-on ending to feed into the idea that Netflix is going to run this franchise into the ground. It’s no wonder the creator is sick of his own creation.

You can explain away all the inconsistencies by saying “well, in real life we don’t always get the answers we want or need,” and you’d be right, but this is entertainment, and entertainment should have some form of pay off.

Netflix

There were some highlights to this season. The hide-and-seek game felt like the strongest of the new games, providing a terrific balance of hope and danger. This gave way to some brilliant, if heartbreaking moments, like the death of Cho Jyun-ju who protected her friends in dire situations, only to be stabbed in the back. It was a tense piece of soap opera storytelling that only kept building as mother and son met at the exit for perhaps an even more gutting death.

This whole game, felt like a finale, filled with excitement, fear, grief. The combo of so many amazing characters dying, characters we’d grown to love, was like being smacked around by a prize-fighting boxer. And these deaths and upsets were led by some superb acting, with lingering shots on mourning players, showing the brutality of greed.

The jump rope game, which, again, provided some of the most emotional moments, was only let down by some shoddy CGI. The turns of each character, the threat of the player who started pushing people to their death, then the emotional end point with 222, all provided the thrills that we’ve come to expect from Squid Game, and did it while skewering the idea of greed overcoming morals.

Netflix

This excitement was undone for over half of the last episode where we already knew the conclusion coming, and had to sit through long scenes with characters we barely knew, while player 456 simply stood to one side, doing nothing. It was baggy, too loose, no showing of why 456 was the hero. And the less said about the cringe, horribly written VIPs, the better.

I get it. Greed sucks. Late-stage capitalism is rife, and people who have no money will stop at anything to see a better life. This message was clearly delivered in the first season, and while the thread of this should indeed have carried on to the finale, it should have been the background to what Squid Game did best - dramatic life and death choices and powerful character portrayals. And this is where the third season failed, or at least lost momentum.

I’m sure we’re going to get numerous spin-offs with a finale revealing the head of the global concept of the squid games, and this intricate web of games across the globe. Fine. Right. Okay. I guess I’ll watch it. It feels like Netflix has missed the point completely, becoming a player in their own game, chasing after bigger and bigger payouts, even if that means diluting their product and throwing decent plots into the incinerator.