Squid Game didn’t need its second and third seasons, no, but I’m glad they existed anyway. The imagery makes every other TV dystopia look like they’re sleepwalking through the design phase, the supporting cast is unforgettable, and Lee Jung-jae — who spends the bulk of this third season mute, his face his only instrument — delivers an incredible performance in a role without much precedent on the small screen. It’s not hard to see why so many millions of people wanted to swallow this show’s bitter, bitter pill.
But if there’s a central theme to the second and third seasons of Squid Game, maybe the meaninglessness of rules is it. Maybe it’s that Gi-hun doomed himself the moment he agreed to continue playing by their rules — that no matter how good his intentions or how hard his efforts, you simply cannot destroy the system from within. Writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk presents life as an epic struggle between humanism and barbarism, in which barbarism holds all the cards while humanism rolls all the dice. The only way anyone wins is by refusing to play at all.
I reviewed the series finale of Squid Game for Decider.
Tags: decider, squid game, TV, TV reviews