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 extreme spoilers, so it is recommended to read the reviews below only after binge-watching. After 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 waited 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, it was filmed simultaneously, and it had to continue from Season 2, so <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 'fairy tales'. 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 everything. The parts of the game still being played 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 completely 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 criticized twice ★★☆
Kim Ji-yeon_If you were going to do this, you shouldn't have
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 Seong Gi-hun re-enter the game? 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, which is the 'adult's circumstances', but there are far 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. Furthermore, as mentioned in the article 'What I Hope for in Season 3', Seong 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, Seong 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 Seong Gi-hun's child with Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) is born, he suddenly exhibits a holy fatherhood as if he were his godfather. How should this character be interpreted? Is he Don Quixote, or the Virgin Mary? Moreover, 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, and there is no 'drama' ★★
Lee Jin-joo_The game crushed by the weight of the narrative
What is the essence of <Squid Game>? It is undoubtedly '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 merely exists as a device for the characters. In fact, this is already a predetermined fracture. Seasons 2 and 3 were originally filmed as a single entity. With the halo of the explosively popular first part, and with a large number of so-called 'flying' actors participating, 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 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' ★★
Chu Ah-young_A world where heroes have fallen, utterly empty and despairing
In a cruel world where survivors are chosen through games, and to survive, one must kill others besides oneself. The <Squid Game> series has received enthusiastic support from people around the world by depicting life itself as a survival in a neoliberal society of infinite competition. 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 observation as a creator. 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 observation. 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 the plan to push Min-soo to the edge are not the older generation adults. A different young man, Myung-ki (Lim Si-wan), leads this plan, and Min-soo is killed by Myung-ki, who has a more brilliant mind. Min-soo's death vividly 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 young people 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 sketches 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. The frustrations of Gi-hun and Jun-ho 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 the 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 Seong Gi-hun, who was portrayed as a hero leading the revolution in Season 2, and the 'character collapse' is incomprehensible. Seong Gi-hun's cynicism and despair towards society are not clearly focused. It merely ends up as 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 Seong 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. Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) eats away 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 leans 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 be careful of others, but as a warning to be careful of one's own helpless self. In any case, <Squid Game>, which caused a global syndrome, has finally come to an end, and there has never been a series that depicted the drama of human greed so meticulously through childhood games. As the saying goes, 'A habit formed at three lasts until eighty', one might say that even the greed of three lasts until eighty. Therefore, I am curious how each viewer will fill in the rest of the title of the last sixth episode, 'People are'. Please check what Seong Gi-hun said directly.
In the end, what remains are individuals, the most despairing emotion of Season 3 ★★★
