After years of absence, Squid Game finally returned last year with a commendable second season that once again paired death games with sharp political commentary, even if it couldn’t match the first season’s surprise haymakers. At its best, it recreated the stomach-churning turns of its predecessor as Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) placed himself in harm’s way to effect lasting change. But if this run had one great flaw, it was that it lacked closure, ending on an unsatisfying cliffhanger that came about because Seasons 2 and 3 were initially planned as a single season before being split into two for logistical reasons.
Luckily, after only a few months of waiting, the third and final season is already here, throwing Gi-hun and friends back into meat-thresher challenges that inevitably lead to tragedy and brutal ethical dilemmas. And underneath these buckets of blood are cutting critiques of the status quo that give the first season a run for its money. Unfortunately, there’s a catch, though: a relatively flat ending.
Events begin immediately where they left off (Season 2 spoilers incoming). After leading a rebellion against the people upstairs, Gi-hun’s comrades are routed, and his close friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) is executed before his eyes. Robbed of his purpose and consumed by guilt, our protagonist despondently stares into the middle distance as his surviving buddies fight for survival. Meanwhile, Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) continues his search to find his brother, the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), as the powers that be start to catch on.
One of Season 3’s biggest improvements compared to its direct predecessor is that it’s much better paced, immediately placing us in the aftermath of the previously mentioned events—the breakneck speed is a return to Season 1’s relentless barrage of soul-crushing games. Even the slowest arcs introduced last season, like Jun-ho’s circuitous adventures at sea, are kicked into high gear this time around, a gun often literally pointed at these characters’ backs.
Tying into this, the latest lineup of children’s games turned sadistic murder fests are as grotesque as ever, each designed to inflict maximum emotional damage on these participants and the audience. Under the watchful eye of giant creepy dolls and pink enforcers, these contestants are pushed to their ethical limits. Almost all of those who demonstrate any degree of kindness are eventually met with a cruel end for their good deeds, an intentional design by the games’ creators to reinforce their own twisted view of humanity. It all leads to the kinds of gutting deaths that Season 2 was mostly lacking, in large part because it ended right before things went fully sideways.
It’s all the more brutal because these two seasons have done a great job building up Gi-hun’s allies. There’s Kim Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), a pregnant mother doing her best to protect her soon-to-be-born kid, Cho Hyun-ju, who entered the games to afford gender-affirming care, and Jang Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim), a kind older woman attempting to pay off her son’s gambling debts. Watching them dash through labyrinthine hallways to escape knife-wielding murderers is nothing short of harrowing.
And as for Gi-hun, a man who has risked it all to end the Squid Game forever, we watch as he wrestles with the despair and guilt of his failed uprising. In some ways, he undergoes a similar journey to the first season as he battles to retain his faith in humanity. On the opposite side of the ethical spectrum, Lee Byung-hun continues to compellingly portray the Front Man as we’re further sold why it’s so important for this masked villain to warp Gi-hun. If there’s one downside to this performance, it’s the disparity between Lee Byung-hun’s subtle affectations against the distractingly clunky portrayals of the evil English-speaking rich people he’s serving—this was true in previous seasons, but these performances just don’t cut it. Still, these characters’ presence continues to successfully highlight the cruel impulses of those who run these games, as they turn mass suffering into sport.
And beyond critiquing how economic disparity has driven these people to desperation, this season continues the previous run’s clever allegories around how capital utterly corrupts the democratic process, swaying its participants to go against their own interests. These players continue to vote on whether the games continue or not, and the Front Man continues to pull levers in the background to manipulate the process.
It all leads to a full-throated criticism of how adhering to the “will of the majority” can sometimes lead to heinous actions, cruelties that would have seemed over-the-top if the series hadn’t slowly escalated this thinking to its unhinged endpoint. It’s no small feat that the series has both maintained the compelling critiques of capitalism that gave the initial season weight and also built on these themes by exploring why these inequities tend to persist despite only benefiting a tiny group of one percenters.
Unfortunately, while its political commentary remains sharp through the majority of the season, this messaging feels blunted by a lackluster finale. After building up a full-throated critique, it offers little in the way of resolution, falling awkwardly between a tragic and hopeful climax as it struggles to balance these impulses. Worst of all, it makes Seasons 2 and 3 feel somewhat perfunctory, as if this story would have been better off ending on the high note of its initial run. It’s not that the denouement is outright awful or entirely contradicts what the series is about, but it fails to build on what came before in any substantive way, resulting in a third season that’s engaging until it isn’t.
On the one hand, Squid Game Season 3 delivers the compelling mixture of high-minded political critique and lowbrow bloodshed that made the series a worldwide sensation. It taps into a growing rage over wealth inequality and exploitation, but bundles these concerns in a thrilling, difficult-to-look-away-from package. It’s a heightened allegory that hits too close to home. However, by concluding in such an uninspired way, it undermines what came before, making it all feel like a senseless struggle. Ultimately, the series understands the dismal realities of late-stage capitalism, but doesn’t know what to do with all that angst, resulting in a disappointing end to an otherwise compelling game.
Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.
