Squid Games (Season 3)

Review with Spoilers

My rating for this third season is a 7/10.

After the relentless tension of Season 1 and the slow-burn rebellion of Season 2, I dove into Squid Game Season 3 expecting a climactic endgame—a moment where Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) would finally topple the sadistic machine behind the games. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk hyped this as a “devastating conclusion,” and he wasn’t kidding: the season is a blood-soaked descent into despair that makes the earlier seasons feel almost restrained. But devastation doesn’t equal satisfaction. Season 3 cranks the gore and psychological horror to soul-crushing extremes, introducing a newborn baby into the carnage and pushing moral boundaries past the breaking point. Yet, it sacrifices coherent character arcs and narrative payoff for a bleakness that feels more exhausting than profound. Seong Gi-hun’s (Lee Jung-jae) near-catatonic guilt and baffling choices left me frustrated, and the finale’s hollow sacrifice only deepened the disappointment. It’s a visually stunning, thematically raw story that mirrors society’s moral decay but stumbles over its own cynicism, leaving me desperate for a mental cleanse.

When Season 3 hits, it hits. The production value is jaw-dropping—every frame drips with dread, from the neon-lit arena to the island’s claustrophobic bunkers. The new games are nightmarish inventions: the knife-filled hide-and-seek traps players in a maze where “seekers” wield blades, turning every corner into a potential slaughter. The jump rope game, played with a massive cable that crushes instead of trips, is a grotesque spectacle, its rhythmic thuds syncing with the players’ screams. The “Sky Squid Game” platform challenge is a final blow in an already emotionally gruesome cadre of horrific one upmanship. You sort of know the outcome as the "Os" have already shown they were psycho before they got there. No sidebars between them and horrific murderous acts has not improved their characters.

Thematically, the season is a brutal mirror to our world. The inclusion of Jun-hee’s (Jo Yu-ri) newborn is a stroke of twisted genius—her labor during a game forces players to protect her while dodging death. The baby’s cries become a haunting motif, symbolizing innocence crushed by systemic greed. The murder of their friend who had protected them to that point, by the baby's father was stunning. I thought I couldn't be more shocked after all we viewed in the other shows but I was. The mother-son duo adds another layer of heartbreak; their desperate alliance unravels as the games demands betrayal. These elements elevate the stakes beyond Season 1’s cash-driven desperation, exposing how far humanity can fall when greed and survival trump morality. The VIPs, now more prominent, are cartoonishly vile yet chillingly plausible—think tech billionaires wagering crypto fortunes on human lives. Their masked revelry, sipping champagne as players bleed, feels ripped from headlines about untouchable elites.

But here’s where my frustration kicked in, it with Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae). His performance is magnetic—those hollow eyes scream a man broken by guilt—but the writing traps him in a mental fog for way too long. After his failed Season 2 rebellion, where a trusted ally (revealed as Player 001, Il-nam’s successor, played by Gong Yoo) betrayed him, Gi-hun is paralyzed by self-blame and obsession with that traitor’s role in the collapse. He’s convinced the failure was his fault, yet also fixates on Il-nam’s lingering shadow, muttering about how one man’s greed doomed them all. This internal spiral renders him nearly comatose for the first half, sleepwalking through games while others die. As a viewer, it’s maddening: Gi-hun was our beacon of defiance, the one who dared to fight the system with a plan that could’ve saved hundreds. Seeing him reduced to a passive observer feels like a betrayal of his arc. One scene has him staring blankly as Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) begs for help during her labor, and I wanted to scream, “Snap out of it!” Lee Jung-jae sells the trauma, but the script overplays it, sidelining our hero when we need him most.

The detective subplot with Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) is an even bigger letdown. You’d think a seasoned cop would be sharper, but Jun-ho’s arc is a masterclass in narrative faceplants. His mission to infiltrate the island and unmask the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), his own brother, sounds thrilling—until it isn’t. Jun-ho blindly trusts a shady captain (a new character, Kang Min-soo.

Did it end? It sure did not feel like it. We see they are still recruiting. None of the orchestrators were brought to justice. And there are a bunch of untied loose ends. The North Korean soldier woman is headed to China to potentially find her baby. The detective is given a baby and some money. Is he going to raise the child? It seems the structure still exists and we don't see any authorities rushing in and finding evidence. It felt very unfinished. And the one person who truly wanted to end the game is now gone. The Mr. "Why" detective seemed only interested in going to the island again and shouting why at his brother. Not sure what that accomplished but he sure did not seem that determined to end the game. So what? That is an end? It felt like a pause.

Synopsis

Season 3, the explosive finale released on June 27, 2025, comprises **6 episodes** averaging **60 minutes** each, delivering a disturbing crescendo of psychological horror and societal indictment that dares you to question your own role in the spectacle; if the first two seasons' thrills hooked you, this one is a bit of must watch as it does tie up some things

With the rebellion crushed and alliances in tatters, a broken Gi-hun awakens handcuffed in the players' dormitory, his quest for vengeance now a desperate bid for survival in the final, most sadistic iteration of the Squid Games—where floral fields hide lethal traps, VIP spectators wager on human frailty, and a newborn's fate hangs in the balance amid escalating betrayals, including a traitor in the detectives' ranks and a shocking international recruiter who seals the saga's grim reflection on complicity.

**Major Characters:**

- **Seong Gi-hun (Player 456) (Lee Jung-jae)**: Tormented by self-blame and the weight of lost allies, the once-idealistic survivor channels raw fury into a last-stand infiltration, his unraveling psyche blurring heroism with madness as he confronts the games' architects head-on.

- **Hwang In-ho / The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun)**: The iron-fisted overseer, haunted by his brother's dogged pursuit and his own faded ideals, enforces the endgame with chilling detachment, his fractured family ties exposing cracks in the unyielding facade of control.

- **Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon)**: The rogue detective, now leading a fractured team plagued by internal betrayal, risks everything in a high-stakes island assault, his unyielding quest for truth clashing with the lethal cost of proximity to the organization's core.

- **Park Jung-bae (Player 390) (Lee Seo-hwan)**: Gi-hun's loyal bar-owning confidant, thrust into the arena by debt and friendship, whose steadfast camaraderie provides fleeting hope amid the carnage, only to underscore the games' toll on unbreakable bonds.

- **Kim Jun-hee (Player 222) (Jo Yu-ri)**: A resilient young mother-to-be entangled in the new games, her fierce protectiveness over her unborn child fuels cunning alliances and moral stands, turning personal stakes into a poignant symbol of innocence at risk.

- **Hyun-ju (Player 120) (Park Sung-hoon)**: The bold transgender ex-sex worker, hardened yet hopeful, leverages her street-honed instincts and vulnerability to challenge biases and forge solidarity, her arc a defiant cry for dignity in the face of systemic erasure.

- **Jang Geum-ja (Player 149) (Kang Ae-sim)**: The sharp-tongued granny con artist, blending maternal grit with sly manipulations, becomes an unlikely matriarch of the survivors, her foul-mouthed wisdom cutting through the despair like a knife.

- **Park Yong-sik (Player 007) (Yang Dong-geun)**: The anxious, gadget-obsessed gamer boy, saddled with familial debts, whose nerdy ingenuity shines in tech-twisted challenges, evolving from wide-eyed panic to reluctant backbone for the group's underdogs.

- **The American Recruiter (Cate Blanchett)**: A commanding, enigmatic femme fatale who lures high-profile marks with icy allure, her brief but magnetic presence amplifies the games' global reach, delivering a dramatic capstone on exploitation's borderless hunger.

- **Captain Park (Oh Dal-su)**: The duplicitous police captain harboring a treacherous secret within Jun-ho's squad, his oily charm and hidden motives unravel the investigators' fragile unity, embodying the rot of corruption from within.