Finally, the last chapter of the series, <Squid Game> Season 3, was released on the 27th at 4 PM on Netflix. <Squid Game> Season 3 tells the story of Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), who loses his best friend in the game he re-enters with his own purpose, and the Frontman (Lee Byung-hun), who hides his identity while infiltrating the game, as well as the final fates of the participants who survived the brutal game. The Cineplay journalists shared their impressions after binge-watching the final season. There are super strong spoilers, so it is recommended to read the reviews below only after binge-watching. After binge-watching, please share your one-line reviews and ratings in the comments.
※ The following contains spoilers including the ending of <Squid Game> Season 3.
Seong-chan Eol _Should have gone to Moro Garden Seoul
To speak frankly, we did not wait for <Squid Game> 'Season 3'. We were waiting for 'Season 2 Part 2'. How would the last season, which ended around the middle of the story, continue? That is why we waited for 'Season 3'. In fact, since it was filmed simultaneously and had to continue from Season 2, <Squid Game> Season 3 faithfully fulfills that duty. The problem lies in the process and the outcome. This drama, which takes a step back at necessary moments and suddenly sprints when there is time to catch its breath, makes the shortcomings of Season 2 look like 'fairies'. The story, which tries to deeply portray the inner lives of each character, repeatedly fails because the camera cannot capture the characters' psychology. Even when feeling suspense from the characters' wavering psychology, it is insufficient, and only after shocking results are shown do we have to guess that this character must have felt this way. It feels like witnessing the harm that occurs when actors perform well. It is like trying to include everything in a larger game but spilling it all. The parts of the game that are still ongoing are fun. Therefore, the shortcomings become more pronounced. The other parts are so loosely added that it would not be a problem at all if they were all deleted. As if to prove the syndrome, or perhaps to appease the fans, the season finale offers a cameo that elicits a gasp. However, what we need is not an expanded worldview or shocking cameos, but a satisfying conclusion to this grand narrative of capital and violence. <Squid Game> Season 3 does not meet that requirement.
The most expensive way to get scolded twice instead of once ★★☆
Kim Ji-yeon_If that's the case, then don't do it
I can't sleep because I'm curious. Why did it happen then? Even after completing the final chapter of the series, there are still mountains of unanswered questions. Why did Gi-hun participate in the game again? Why did Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) search for his brother so desperately? Why did No-eul (Park Gyu-young) protect Kyung-seok (Lee Jin-wook) so much? Perhaps, it is due to Netflix's demand to stretch what should have been released as about 6-7 episodes combining Season 2 and Season 3 into two seasons, that there are too many unnecessary characters and scenes. That is not the only disappointment. Despite being a 'death game' genre, the characters exit in overly convenient and easy ways. Moreover, as mentioned in the article 'What I Hope for in Season 3', Gi-hun's 'hero play' should have been ridiculous. However, whether intended or not, it was indeed ridiculous. At least until the second episode. Up until Season 2, Gi-hun, who was plotting a rebellion for a greater cause, suddenly feels murderous intent towards the weak (Dae-ho), which resembles the reality of blaming the most insignificant individual when the structure should be blamed. However, when Gi-hun's child with Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) is born, he exhibits a holy fatherhood as if he were his godfather. How should this character be interpreted? Is he Don Quixote or the Virgin Mary? Furthermore, in <Squid Game> Season 3, the codes regarding life and death, children and parents overlap, only accumulating fatigue. Why do they want to live so badly? Because of the child. Why do they want to escape so badly? Because of the child. Why did they suddenly awaken? Because of the child. Why do they fight? Because of the child. By substituting all the characters' motivations and turning points simply as 'because of the child', it naturally reduces the dramatic fun.
Only the 'sad' of tragedy exists, but there is no 'drama' ★★
Lee Jin-joo_The game crushed by the weight of the narrative
What is the essence of <Squid Game>? Undoubtedly, it is 'the game'. From the 'Mugunghwa has bloomed' that led the syndrome of the first season to Dalgona candy picking, tug of war, and marbles. Traditional games that stimulate the collective memory of Koreans brought nostalgia to domestic viewers and fresh shock to international viewers. However, <Squid Game> Season 3 has strayed from that essence. The rules, tension, and meaning have blurred, and the game exists merely as a device for the characters. In fact, this is already a predetermined fracture. Seasons 2 and 3 were originally filmed as one chunk. With the explosive popularity of the first part, and with the so-called 'flying' actors participating in large numbers, the scale of the characters has grown. The narrative has become richer, but the branches have dispersed. Among characters who are crying while embracing their own stories, the game has lost its place. Like parents who cannot leave the house because they are busy soothing crying children from all directions, <Squid Game> Season 3 stands still, catching its breath.
At this point, it feels more like 'Squid Game' than 'Squid Conference' ★★
Choo Ah-young_A world of extreme emptiness and despair where heroes have fallen
In a cruel world where survivors are chosen through games, and one must kill others to survive. The <Squid Game> series has depicted the neoliberal society of infinite competition where life itself has become survival, receiving enthusiastic support from people around the world. In Season 1, director Hwang Dong-hyuk accurately pointed out the structural violence and contradictions of neoliberalism and the resulting destruction of humanity with his unique sharp observational skills. In Season 2, by introducing a voting system within the game, democracy was fully revealed. The <Squid Game> series was a work that persistently dug into the flaws of neoliberalism and democracy that penetrate the modern history of the world, and it could have been remembered that way. Until Season 3 came out.
In this work <Squid Game> Season 3, there are 'some' parts where we can glimpse director Hwang Dong-hyuk's sharp observational skills. In the drama, adults who mention the fair method of 'majority rule' in the high-altitude squid game, where those pushed to the edge fall and die, conspire to eliminate the young Min-soo (Lee Da-wit). Min-soo's drug addiction becomes a reason for them to label him as a dropout. However, the ones who orchestrate and manipulate the game to push Min-soo to the edge are not the older generation adults. A different young man, Myung-ki (Lim Si-wan), leads this game, and Min-soo is killed by Myung-ki, who has a sharper mind. Min-soo's death clearly reflects the current reality. Politicians who constantly shout democracy are blinded by their own interests, reducing the issue of drug addiction among the youth to personal responsibility, and further pushing the youth who have been cast out of society into the corners of society. (We need to remember that Min-soo is a victim of a rental fraud.) For the 2030 generation in South Korea, survival is prioritized, and others are not comrades to share social empathy but competitors to step on and rise above.
However, it cannot be said that <Squid Game> Season 3 accurately sketched reality. First, it repeatedly uses the setting of major characters representing each minority ending in suicide. Also, the narrative of Hwang Jun-ho, which weakened the immersion of the drama in Season 2, ends helplessly without unraveling the relationship between In-ho and Jun-ho. Gi-hun and Jun-ho's frustrations can be seen as stemming from the reasonable inference that a few individuals with good hearts cannot dismantle the system in the deeply entrenched capitalist era. Yes, this can be understood up to this point. However, this inference should not be used as a deus ex machina to resolve all narratives laid out in the drama. Such a deus ex machina is also repeated through Jun-hee, who is pregnant, and her baby. Above all, the fall of Gi-hun, who was portrayed as a hero leading the revolution in Season 2, and the 'character collapse' is incomprehensible. Gi-hun's cynicism and despair towards society are not clearly defined. It merely remains a passive caricature of the 586 movement that once led the revolution. In the extremely nihilistic world that Hwang Dong-hyuk depicts, solidarity among ordinary citizens and minorities can no longer be found. The fall of the hero Gi-hun led to the fall of the work itself.
Breaking both wings of <Squid Game> despair edition ★★
Joo Seong-cheol_The message of 'be careful of people' realized in Season 3
Expectations were off. Watching the ending of the last season, which wiped out half of the participants, I expected that the relationship between <Squid Game> Season 2 and Season 3 would be similar to the relationship between <Avengers> series where Thanos wiped out half of the world in <Infinity War> and <Endgame>. However, director Hwang Dong-hyuk shows little interest in the 'reconstruction' of what has been broken. Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) gnaws at himself with a personal desire for revenge against Kang Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul), and many things that I thought would be resolved humanely in Season 3, such as the birth of Lee Myung-ki (Lim Si-wan) and Kim Jun-hee's (Jo Yu-ri) child and the restoration of the mother-son relationship between Jang Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim) and Park Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun), are bypassed. How should we understand this desperate landscape that unhesitatingly pushes towards the latter between choice and abandonment? Will the director change as he continues to Season 3, or was it planned this way from the beginning? The climax reminiscent of the 'Mochinso Festival' of 'Infinite Challenge' peaks that sense of despair. The graffiti 'be careful of people' written on the wall in the second episode is read not as a warning to others but as a warning to one's own helpless self. In any case, <Squid Game>, which caused a global syndrome, has finally come to a grand finale, and there has never been a series that depicted the drama of human greed so meticulously through childhood games. As the saying goes, 'A three-year-old habit lasts until eighty', one might say that a three-year-old greed also lasts until eighty. Therefore, I am curious how each viewer will fill in the rest of the title of the last episode, 'People are'. Please check what Gi-hun said directly.
In the end, what remains are individuals, the most despairing emotional season 3 ★★★
