Squid Game Season 3 Review: Violent, unexpected, and emotionally charged, season 3 is a fitting finale to this game of surprises

The final season has multiple additional layers of the story converging on the narrative. The North Korean deserter and sniper, who wants to save a player with a sick daughter, makes choices that complicate the plot. The super-wealthy and sickening VIPs emerge as key characters in the plot in this season. The VIPs reflect the wealth divide in Asia’s real world. And the Frontman’s policeman brother, who is having to live alongside a traitor on a boat, is getting closer in his search for the secret island where these games take place.

Bloodier games and moral dilemmas

The final season has six episodes (this review is based on the first five episodes), and each one exceeds 50 minutes, but none drop pace or tempo at any point. Unlike the past season, the games are bloodier and deadlier, and the gore quotient grows in each episode. The mastery of this series’ narrative remains in its positioning of the human condition and choices when wealth and desperation make an unprecedented blend. While some players become like hunters—cold-blooded and bloodthirsty—to get ahead, others show their humane side while strategizing to survive. Each episode ends with a climactic moment, with tragedy marking the closure as some of the characters we root for (as viewers) are eliminated. In some ways, ‘Squid Game’ Season 3 is the closest to its creator’s original thought for this story—this game draws a likeness to the battle for survival that the have-nots (an alarming majority of the world’s population) must fight while the haves (also a rapidly growing number of billionaires) watch people suffer and die. It is hard to ignore that the VIPs are portrayed as outsiders—figures who represent a faceless, powerful elite watching from the shadows.

The baby twist and narrative excesses

A big dramatic turning point is the arrival of player number 222’s baby, who is delivered in the most adverse circumstances. The crying sound of an infant was part of the Season 3 teaser. While this element is introduced to make the story even more dramatic and trigger emotions, it doesn’t always work. Pragmatically speaking, the baby never seems to need diapers or frequent feeding. It is almost a prop. In terms of storytelling, it is used to mirror the wealth-crazed frenzy of participants and included as an unreasonable detail to complicate the story. Besides this, Chul-Su, the giant mechanical male doll, makes an appearance alongside Young-hee in a deadly game.

Powerful performances and a satisfying end

As performances go, each one is solid and appropriate. Not surprisingly, favourites from Season 2—Lee Jung-jae, Park Song-hoon, Yim Si-wan—maintain the consistency of their characters. Cumulatively, it is the ensemble cast of actors that makes this series peak in an unexpected finale. This time around, the games perversely raise the thrill and chills quotient as they leave almost no room for escape. Many fans of the series had been left frustrated when the first part of Season 2 concluded with a mid-journey hook. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has maintained that his personal struggles with money and survival while trying to make this series reflect in the story. As Season 3 delivers emotional peaks and extreme measures of this survivalist drama, fans will not be disappointed. ‘Squid Game’ will have set a benchmark in bingeable, genre-fluid content that will continue to grow among audiences.

Cast: Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Wi Ha-jun, Park Gyu-young, and Park Sung-hoon

Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk

Rating: 4/5

(‘Squid Game’ S3 is streaming on Netflix)