"Squid Game": how many would play to not share the prize?

Here we go again, and it looks like this is the one. After a first season that was supposed to be a one-off and a second that seemed to wrap up the story once and for all — but it didn't — here comes a third and final season of "I swear, I swear, I'll fall here blind if I'm lying" of Squid Game . I liked the first season to an unhealthy degree, but I was quite shocked by this collection of episodes that came out six months ago. And I don't call it a season, because it clearly wasn't one. For me, it was nothing more than a six-month break between episodes, with the most recent ones having premiered on Friday, June 27, on Netflix.

They made the fish yield, I understand perfectly, everything is the same, you have to do it for life, it doesn't fall from the sky, etc., etc. But it is at least ironic that the platform, the producers or even the creator of the series made such a blatantly gargantuan choice, when we are talking about Squid Game , a dystopia about the ultimate consequences of savage capitalism. So, do I think it is absolutely possible that one year or another, they will dig up player 456 again for another ride on this bloodthirsty merry-go-round? That is most likely. Given that I am writing this piece of text before watching these last episodes (by the time I get to the end of these lines, I will have seen everything) and it is quite possible that this is when the cute Gi-hun will stretch his leg. Especially because the boy does not look at all good.

[the trailer for the third season of “Squid Game”:]

The second season ended badly. It ended badly because the last episode is the weakest of the season, even being a little boring, something that Squid Game has not accustomed us to, quite the opposite. And it ended badly for the hero of our story, who after having convinced his unfortunate companions to follow his plan to abort the game, saw the consequences of his decisions blow up in his face and once again a double meaning, involving someone very close to him taking a deadly bullet from a very unhygienic distance from his face. So, one more twist, one more trip and this is the situation.

After an attempted rebellion that had everything to go wrong (and it did), the game resumes its course. There are 3 games left, 60 players left and the prize money is growing at a good pace. The greediest ones' eyes sparkle with joy and they are already counting their lives, the others are just trying not to die of fright at every moment. The group is now preparing to hold a new vote and decide whether or not to stay in the game. Player 456 returns to the hellish ward and does not understand why he was spared. Meanwhile, the boat with the search group led by ex-detective Hwang, who survived the first season, is more disoriented than the PS. Given that the captain of the boat is a kind of Sérgio Sousa Pinto, and he is tied to the other side of the bench, that is, the barricade, which, although it may not seem like it, does not make things any easier.

There’s a subplot involving Guard 011, who seems as evil as a snake, especially since her job is, in general, to kill people. But she gains our empathy, thanks to the glimpse we get of the bingo of tragedies that was her life until she arrived on the island, which included fleeing her home country, North Korea. And look how good she is now in the South… Guard 011 opposes an organ-selling scheme that runs parallel to the game, carried out by some of her comrades to earn a few extra bucks. I was initially excited about the idea of ​​having a point of view from someone behind the fencing mask with a geometric figure, but so far it has yielded very little, in my opinion.

That said, it almost seems like I'm doing an act of altruism and selflessness by watching this last season to complete the report. But I'm not that good of a person, nor is the series that bad. Or even bad. The first episode was what got my expectations up, up, up. That said, let's get to the audiovisual giblets, because I had a light lunch, on purpose. In my review of the second season, I wrote that "although Squid Game has lost its subtlety, it hasn't lost its purpose". Let's see what's lost and what's gained in the final season .

In episode 4, one of the VIPs who is drinking his cognac while watching a live massacre on which he is placing bets says about the outcome of a certain game: “It’s a bigger twist than the resurrection of Jesus”. I won’t go that far, but when I started this text I was far from thinking that I would write what follows, but it is what it is. Unlike Cavaco, I am often wrong and there are few things about which I don’t have one or two doubts. And gentlemen, I have made a splash with great fanfare. What a great season, what a beautiful ending, what a magnificent slap in the face, Susana Maria! Squid Game is back and is in good health, in inverse proportion to the majority of those involved.

There was death in spades, in various ways, more or less graphic, with the balance clearly tipping towards the worst. I was very upset watching this, physically uncomfortable for a while, too emotionally involved “I’m really like this, what do you want me to do?” in so many others. Unsolvable dilemmas that showcase human despair in all its splendor, with that detail of sadism in game after game, death after death, the majority choosing to carry on. Watching this season is like going back to the sentimental ping pong I experienced in the first, a continuous bouncing between “With a little push, we’re all shit! Some don’t even need the little push…” or “There are still good people in the world, damn it! We just have to do our part. Tomorrow, I’ll go…”. And this is only possible with a great script, beautiful direction and tremendous performances.

I have to highlight the cutest of the old ladies, Geum-ja, who stole my heart and brought tears to my eyes, our 456 putting on a great show once again and his rival, I-ho, ditto ditto in quotation marks in quotation marks. It may seem like I'm trying too hard, but I sleep better on the side I'm on (and if there were any doubts, it's the left side): the weakest characters are the VIPs, millionaires who pay a lot of money to watch this unbridled bloodletting from a box seat with beautiful golden masks. Most of them are Westerners, they are very caricatured, very unconvincing, weak, whatever. It may be intentional, it may be a way of characterizing the mega-rich standard. I may even be being too linear, but I thought they overdid it.

Now, the question that won't go away and that I should take to therapy: how distorted is it to have complained loudly, in the second season, about not being able to get involved with the characters and, now, to be extremely satisfied with the human wreck I was left in, for having witnessed the atrocious suffering of these same characters? Doesn't that make me a low-cost version of the aforementioned VIPs? I went overboard, I apologize, I'll use a phrase from the loving Geum-ja: "Bad people do bad things, but they blame others and live in peace. On the other hand, good people blame themselves for everything and nothing."

When I finished watching the series, as the obsessive that I am, I went to watch Talking About Squid Game , a half-hour chat between the protagonists Lee Jung-jae and Lee Byung-hun and the creator, director and screenwriter Hwang Dong-hyuk (who had this idea 10 years ago, when he was practically broke and would be a good candidate to join the game, and now has enough money to last 10 centuries and a few extra bucks). Squid Game came into the world during the pandemic and, without taking anything away, it was the perfect storm for the phenomenon to become global. It was a merchandising jackpot, having appealed to the most unexpected or even wrong audiences.

The South Korean series was the subject of conversation on several forums and even made the news on the TV news, because it reached a young audience and there were kids in the playground playing a game with 456 participants in which 455 died. It is curious that 5 years later, the next phenomenon to emerge from the platform for discussion in educational communities was Adolescence , in which the killer is himself a young person. I will leave the conclusions to someone with more studies than I. At one point, the author says: “Don't forget us. Amidst the flood of series and media content, it would be an honor if Squid Game would be special in your hearts and memories for many years to come”. It seems to me that people will remember the series, when they saw it, what they felt. My doubt is whether they remember what it is about.

And if you think I'm the one politicizing everything (which is true, because almost everything is political), I'll quote the author himself: "Capitalism fuels relentless competition. So if that doesn't stop, the game won't stop." Some people interpret dystopias as a premonition of the future on steroids, in the light of science fiction. I think that's often not the case, and here, it certainly isn't. This dystopia is about today, the now, and how the value of human life has been sliding down the pyramid of priorities. Hwang Dong-hyuk focuses on the reality that is closest to him, that of South Korea, but he doesn't say that he is exclusive to the country where he was born, as is clear in the last scene of the series. If the world were to vote today, how many would prefer to keep playing the game so as not to have to share the prize?