Do You Know What Someone With No Money Has In Common With Someone With Too Much Money? Living Is No Fun For Them.
Squid Game Season 1 Episode 9, 2021
Season 1
I came to Squid Game late, after all three seasons were already released (my motivation to start watching it was the ‘papa’ meme). Watching it this way was different. There was no waiting between cliffhangers or time to speculate, just a straight plunge into a story that pulls you in from the first frame. It’s not only the games that grip you but the way you begin to care about the people playing them, people already defeated by debt, shame, and expectations. I was immersed, pulled into the lives of people even when I knew most of them would not survive.
Season one was, on its own, an incredibly tight execution. The finale didn’t feel completely definitive, but it also wasn’t left wide open. It explained enough while leaving space for us to sit with what we had seen. The characters stayed with me: Ali and Ji-yeong, whose goodness was crushed in the cruelest way, reminders that kindness often meets betrayal in this world. Their kindness, their willingness to trust, became their undoing. Their deaths were devastating because they felt inevitable in a world where generosity has no protection. Sang-woo, in contrast, was the show’s most complex figure. He was not a villain written in black and white, but a man suffocated by expectations and shame. His betrayals felt brutal because they made sense. And Gi-hun, with all his flaws, gave the season its heart. He was weak, inconsistent, even selfish, yet his humanity never fully disappeared.
Season 2 & 3
The continuation of the story was more conflicted. The director had not wanted to extend it, yet the series itself became a product of its own critique, stretched under the weight of capitalism. Still, season two carried strength. It introduced new characters, allowed for moments of connection, and even offered survival that felt shared. Those moments of warmth left the audience with hope. But that hope softened the audience’s memory of what the games were meant to show. People began to forget that the point of the system was not to reveal kindness, but to expose greed and desperation.
The newer faces, Jun-hee, Hyun-ju, Yong-sik and his mother, Myung-gi, Nam-gyu, Min-su, Seri, Dae-ho, and the presence of the Front Man carried season two’s energy. Their temporary victories felt like progress. But season three tore those illusions away. The tone shifted to something harsher. The games felt crueler. Even the writing showed cracks, with moments that dragged or felt out of place. Gi-hun’s conflict with Dae-ho was one such example. At first, it seemed inconsistent. But on reflection, it revealed the truth of his character. He was never a model of morality. He was broken, grieving, burdened with guilt, and his missteps reminded me that he was human before anything else.
finale
The finale sharpened the central themes. One father was ready to sacrifice his child for money. Across from him stood a man willing to give up his life and winnings to protect that child. It was not only a duel between two men, but between two visions of survival: one stripped of conscience, the other defined by sacrifice.The ending was called bleak, unsatisfying, too heavy. But what else could it have been? From the start Squid Game was a world built on exploitation. To imagine it ending in uncomplicated happiness would betray its purpose. The system was designed so that survival came at someone else’s expense. There was never going to be a pure victory.
What lingers for me most is Gi-hun’s unfinished sentence. The Front Man insists humans are like horses, meant to be controlled. Gi-hun pushes back, begins to say, “Humans are…” and then stops. That silence is the answer. People are not one thing. We are fragile and cruel, kind and selfish, resilient and weak. No single word can contain us. Leaving the thought incomplete was the truest way the series could have ended, and that final pause has stayed with me ever since.
We are not horses. We are humans. Humans are…
Squid Game Season 3 Episode 6, 2021