Review: Squid Game

Squid Game is more than a global phenomenon — it's a layered exploration of power, desperation, and the human condition. Across its three seasons, the series evolves from visceral survival drama to a profound critique of systemic injustice. This review offers a comprehensive look at how each chapter deepens the narrative and challenges the viewer.

Review

Squid Game isn’t just a drama — it’s a scalpel that slices through the facade of modern society, exposing the nerve endings of capitalism, class desperation, and moral compromise. Across its three seasons, it evolves from a harrowing survival game into a slow-burning psychological war, revealing not only what we’re willing to do for money, but why we willingly become pawns in systems built to destroy us.

Season 1

The debut season takes the unsettling innocence of childhood games and repackages them as death trials, set in a world where financial despair turns people into contestants — not competitors, but sacrifices. Seong Gi-hun, a man at rock bottom, is our window into this chaos: debt-ridden, estranged from his daughter, and emotionally fractured. The most terrifying part? The contestants enter the game willingly. The fear of life outside outweighs the fear of death inside.

As the games unfold, we meet fractured souls: a defector trying to reunite her family, a disgraced financier hiding his shame, and a silent old man with secrets deeper than we expect. Each episode strips another layer of humanity from them — and from us. By the time “Gganbu” ends, we’re no longer watching to see who wins. We’re watching to see who loses themselves last.

Season 2

If Season 1 shows the horror of the system, Season 2 interrogates its machinery — and the people who oil its gears. Gi-hun returns not as a player, but a man seeking to dismantle the game. But the deeper he goes, the blurrier the lines between hero and villain become. Hwang Dong-hyuk uses a lean seven-episode arc to explore uncomfortable truths: the system doesn’t need monsters to function — just willing participants.

The recruiter (Gong Yoo), once a symbol of mystery, is humanized with a chilling backstory that challenges Gi-hun’s moral clarity. Their dynamic isn’t about winning or losing but about belief: in money, in fairness, in the illusion of choice. This season dials down the spectacle and dials up the existential tension, pushing us to ask: if we had a way out of our misery that hurt others — would we take it?

Season 3

Season 3 raises the stakes — and strips away the last remnants of innocence. Picking up after the rebellion, it presents Gi-hun as a fractured crusader, grieving and guilt-ridden, hunting redemption in a world that doesn’t allow it. His conflict with Dae-ho — a once-friendly face turned reluctant coward — is both tragic and necessary, a microcosm of how fear can twist even the kindest into antagonists.

The games themselves turn more literal and savage, none more brutal than the reimagined hide-and-seek, where survival means stabbing first. Past seasons toyed with metaphor; this one throws the knife into the player’s hands. Yet somehow, the emotional devastation hits just as hard — if not harder.

Perhaps the most jarring addition is the elevated presence of the VIPs. Once distant puppeteers, they now masquerade as guards, their cartoonish cruelty grating against the show’s otherwise grounded tone. And in a jaw-dropping twist, the game absorbs a newborn child, weaponizing innocence itself. It’s grotesque, brilliant, and deeply symbolic — a haunting reflection of inherited trauma in a system that feeds on the powerless.

Squid Game dares to ask what’s left when humanity is priced, sold, and bet upon. It never forgets the thrill — the ticking clock, the psychological mind games, the cinematic splendor — but it refuses to let you escape unscathed. It isn't just a show. It's a mirror — and sometimes, what it reflects is uglier than the game itself.

Information

Squid Game is a South Korean dystopian survival thriller series created and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk. It premiered on Netflix on September 17, 2021. The series comprises three seasons with a total of 22 episodes: nine episodes in the first season, seven in the second, and six in the third and final season. The cast features Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun (Player 456), alongside Lee Byung-hun, Im Si-wan, Jo Yu-ri, and Kang Ae-shim. Squid Game is available exclusively for streaming on Netflix.

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