Netflix dropped the final six episodes of Squid Game, and the main takeaway is – There are a lot of stupid people on the internet. Reddit (s/o the Squid Game subreddit), was a cesspool of low-quality opinions, with many lamenting the fact that a show about a series of death games did not have a positive enough ending.
The positive opinions were pretty straightforward. Most folks agree it’s an entertaining ride with a few flaws (Jun-ho The Explorer and and overly telegraphed ending come to mind). The negative opinions however, opened my eyes regarding how media is consumed nowadays.
First off, there were multiple comments stating they didn’t even watch the season yet had an opinion based off a few Tiktoks. There were others that “watched” the season, but fast forwarded through the “boring” parts. One person admitted to skipping half of each episode! “Seeing what the hype is about” is a common occurrence in the social media era, where being part of an event or chorus of opinions may compel one to consume media they otherwise wouldn’t.
Those aren’t the folks I’m concerned about. YouTube shorts and brainrot Tiktokers are a net positive because they bring more attention the series.
The haters that actually watched the season? Different story.
Even though Netflix bills it as “Season 3”, Hwang Dong-hyuk is very clear in his description of the final 13 episodes as one long season split into two parts. It’s weird to read complaints that a character “died early” when in actuality they died in the “eleventh” episode of a 13-episode story. Hide and Seek is this run’s Marbles-equivalent and may go down as the best game in the series. Before the Ali-stans blow me up, remember that all of the shock in Marbles was in the reveal. You had a decent idea who was going to make it through, it was just terribly sad to watch.
Hide and Seek matched the suspense levels of Marbles and had shocking twists and turns. A case can be made Cho Hyun-ju’s death is the most tragic and shocking in-game death in the series. Ali, Sangwoo, and even Gi-hun? You see it coming. Sae-byeok? Wasn’t in-game. Yong-sik comes close but that was after the timer elapsed.
The defense rests on Jump Rope though. This is definitely the easiest game in the series. If you had to pick one game to participate in for a cash prize, you’re definitely doing Jump Rope or Red Light Green Light depending on the physical ability. Jump Rope lacked creativity, and was especially disappointing because of the hype generated by the dolls in the trailer. This game lacked suspense as there is no way Jun-hee was making it across that bridge. Nam-gyu falling to his death thanks to someone he took advantage of was very reminiscent of Deok-su in Season 1.
Is it me or have both Squid Games had iffy penultimate games? The “difficulty” was either over tuned (S1 Bridge) or under tuned (S3 Jump Rope). I am not an expert on crafting build-ups and payoffs, but if we were to rank all the games in the series: Bridge is somewhere in the middle and Jump Rope is somewhere near the bottom. That’s some serious underperforming. To quote the great Mike Tomlin, “two is a pattern.”
The final game is very polarizing, and I want to give credit to Hwang Dong-hyuk for making some bold storytelling decisions that ultimately worked out. There are lots of complaints about half of the final group being “random thugs”, and that it would have been more interesting with some of the characters who died in Hide and Seek.
There’s a couple writing challenges that would be hard to overcome:
- Regardless of how many contestants there are, there needs to two warring factions to maintain optimal tension and drama. Gi-hun and Anti Gi-hun.
- If there was only one faction (replace MG Coin, Nam-su and the goons with Gi-hun’s friends) – It would likely result in Geum-ja sacrifice, Hyun-ju sacrifice, Gi-hun sacrifice. It would just be the Gganbu episode on steroids.
- If there were three or more factions, the most optimal strategy is a game of chance. There’s no guarantee it doesn’t devolve into chaos similar to what see in the finale.
It doesn’t help that the ending has been telegraphed for an episode and a half at this point. Short of breaking established rules (In-ho stopping the games to allow multiple winners), or some Shonen anime Hollywood ending (Worker 011 and Jun-ho The Explorer interfere and stop the games) – Hwang Dong-hyuk gave us the best ending he could given the circumstances.
It’s a shame some folks can’t see that. Was the second Squid Game flawed? Absolutely. I’m still not sure how to feel about the boat storyline. All that buildup just to get soloed by a fisherman? At first I was disappointed with the minimal interaction between Jun-ho and In-ho. But on second thought, succeeding in ending the games in Korea (forcing a self-destruct), a fortune, and your brother asking you to raise the baby that exemplifies the good in humans is pretty solid closure.
The Second Squid Game takes risks and hits on most of them. Over time I think it will be better received in its complete form.