In September, 2021, Squid Game was released on Netflix. It was an almost instant success, and with good reason. This survival horror serves us a metaphor for the current state of the world, and the oligarchs who run everything.
Season 1
The series follows Seong Gi-hun, a divorced father and gambling addict who can’t catch a break. His lack of responsibility has caused him to fail in almost all aspects of life. He can’t hold down a job, fails to be there for his daughter, and relies on his mother to pay his way through life.
After learning his ex-wife plans to move to the USA with his daughter and her stepfather, Seong Gi-hun is a man who has nothing left. And this makes him a target for a secretive organisation that runs a series of games allowing the competitors to win a substantial amount of money.
466 players join the game in total, and it isn’t until the first game starts that it becomes obvious how deadly the games will be. They play Red Light, Green Light, and anyone who moves on a red light is shot dead. Afterwards, they learn that the prize money is based on the number of people who died.
Later, we learn the true purpose of the games. Extremely wealthy billionaires watch the games for entertainment, placing bets on who will live and who will die. The metaphor for how those who are rich and powerful play with the lives of people every day is obvious.
The series ends with a bitter and broken Seong Gi-hun as the sole survivor and winner of the games. He refuses to use or spend any of the money he has won. He still behaves as if he is broke, begging for money, and depending on his mother. It suggests his trauma, or perhaps survivor’s guilt, is preventing him from touching the blood money he’s earned.
At first it seems like he is going to follow his family to America, but he is unable to. Rather than pursuing a fresh start with his daughter, Gi-hun turns his attention to dismantling the organisation behind the games.
(Half of) Season 2
After a 3 year wait, Season 2 of Squid Game was released to the world. It picks up several years after the events of Season 1. Seong Gi-hun has found a use for his winnings that he finds acceptable. He has hired his former loan sharks to hunt down the man who is recruiting innocent people into the games.
We also get to see another perspective of the games, as we follow a character that acts as a guard for the games. She is also in a position of desperation, with a sick child that needs money for medical care. While she is shown to be an efficient killer, she opposes how some of the other guards use people who don’t die immediately to harvest their organs.
With this character we get to see how the soldiers that fight for the oligarchy are just as much victims as those who are targeted by the soldiers. The guard character’s desperation mirrors that of the players. A choice that challenges audience assumptions about power and victimhood.
Eventually, Seong Gi-hun is allowed to rejoin the games, and he uses this to his advantage. Front Man, the man who runs the games, joins as well. He remains undercover and carefully undermines all of Seong Gi-hun’s plans.
After they work together to break out of the games and fight their way through the facility, Seong Gi-hun is betrayed by the Front Man at the last minute. Front Man, donning his mask to hide his true identity, asks Seong Gi-hun if he enjoyed playing the hero. Then he murders his friend right in front of him.
For me this shows that even the resistance movements can be controlled and manipulated. They are just as much a part of the system as everything else. Resistance isn’t just futile, it is expected and taken advantage of.
While season 2 wasn’t as good as the first, it was still a decent follow-on from that series. It did feel like it was only half a series. The ending was more of a cliffhanger than a conclusion. Of course, given that we have another season incoming, this isn’t really a major criticism.
This, as it turns out, is exactly what happened, as Hwang Dong-hyuk originally envisioned the series as one, but split it into two due to the number of episodes required.
Season 3
Next month, season 3 of Squid Game will be released. Based on the trajectory of the first two seasons, Season 3 has the potential to provide thematic closure, but the series must reconcile its message with its growing spectacle.
Whether Season 3 can reconcile the show’s critique of capitalism with its own role as global entertainment remains to be seen. But Squid Game has already proven that no one escapes the game unscathed, not even the audience.
If you haven’t already been watching this fantastic series, now is the time to catch up.
