Squid Game Explained

This is another surprise hit for Netflix, but unlike Tiger King (which for some reason is set to have a sequel soon) this is a genuinely good show. This article will be discussing the events that happen in the show and, most importantly, the ending. So, I'm begging you to watch the show before reading any further.

Unlike a lot of South Korean series, there are only nine episodes and the only one that goes over one hour is the final episode. One criticism I've seen of a lot of Korean shows is that they drag on a lot. This is not one of those shows. It is fast-paced, with the exception of maybe the first episode. But there are quite a few characters being introduced and it really needed to get across some points before the rest of the game continued.

At its core, Squid Game is about poverty and how much that can ruin someone's life.

Our main character is Seong Gihun (456). He works as a driver and lives with his mother. He has a daughter that lives with her mother, who has gotten remarried and has another child. His problem really revolves around his gambling addiction, and even when we see him win in the beginning, he quickly loses it while trying to run away from

He goes into the game wanting to make money so that he can get custody of his daughter. Her family is moving to the United States and Gihun knows this might be the last time that he sees her.

At first, he's frankly not that likable. But he grows on you and by the end of the series you are desperately rooting for him. He votes to leave after the first game but ends up returning when his mother is diagnosed with diabetes. And that she might need surgery to remove her leg due to illness.

Growing up, Cho Sangwoo (218) was friends with Gihun. And Gihun is incredibly proud of Sangwoo having gone to the best college and got a degree in business. But he's still playing in the Squid Game because he has scammed a lot of people out of money. And the police are looking to take him in. Something that his mother learns about while she's bragging about him.

He voted for the game to continue but was ready to commit suicide when faced with the consequences of his actions. He's the only person that is there that had money, had an opportunity, and screwed it all up himself.

Sangwoo ends up being a pretty major villain in the game. He lies to a group that is relying on him, betraying 199, and he ends up killing 067 when she's already seriously injured.

His end comes from stabbing himself during the final game, Squid Game. This is because Gihun was fully willing to give up so that the game could end and they could both go home. Which kind of shows what kind of person Gihun is, a little too kind.

As a North Korean defector, Kang Saebyeok (067) really has the world working against her. South Koreans don't trust her and she's trying to make money so that she can bring her mother over. Her brother is already in South Korea, staying at an orphanage. Her father was killed while trying to escape. So, that's why she's playing the Squid Game. Because she wants her family to be together again.

She's pretty cold at first, but as time goes on we see that she's just really scared. Since she didn't grow up in South Korea, a lot of the games that they play aren't ones that she's familiar with. But she's strong and cunning, so she's able to do pretty well during the games.

The most difficult part of the show for her is when she spends time with Ji-yeong (240). They both were removed from the world for a period of time. Saebyeok when she was in North Korea and Jiyeong when she was kept in prison for killing her father. They both missed out a lot of the world, and all they want to do is go to Jeju Island. It's such a small jump out of the mainland for them, but it would make them both very happy.

And it's that simple desire for a normal life that makes it heartbreaking when Saebyeok is mortally wounded at the end of the fifth game. The glass they had been walking across exploded, impaling Saebyeok with some of the glass. She ends up being killed by Sangwoo while she was starting to die.

I certainly had hoped there was a way for her to win along with Gihun. It must have been my love of Hunger Games that had made me hope for that kind of ending for her. Not in a romantic way, just two people trying to survive and live a normal life.

To emphasize what kind of person Gihun is, he actually adopts Saebyeok's little brother and leaves him in the custody of Sangwoo's mother. He doesn't tell the brother what happened to her, which is understandable considering what might happen if he knew.

The major villain in the game is Jang Deoksu (101). He's a gangster, he did something stupid while out in the world and he needs the money to keep himself alive. He is not a good person. He's not a smart person. He's not even a brave person. But he scares people and he's physically intimdating, so that's how he gets so far into the game.

He kills quite a few players without hesitation when they realize that there's no intervention by the guards when violence breaks out outside of the games. He is perfectly fine with cheating and manipulating. The major manipulation he did was having sex with Han Minyeo (212), who helped him cheat.

He then stabs Minyeo in the back when they reach the third game of Tug of War, leaving her behind and working with a bunch of strong men. She vows that she's going to get revenge on him. And she absolutely does at the fifth game. She's kind of like a cockroach but when she goes down, she takes Deoksu out with her.

The fifth game has each person jumping on glass and hoping that they'll be able to land on something that can hold them up. If not, they'll fall to their death. Minyeo ends up pulling a major WWE move and taking them both out at the same time.

They deserved each other.

I was surprised to see Abdul Ali (199) because it is very rare that a South Korean drama has someone that isn't Korean or Chinese. If there is someone non-East Asian, they're usually white. But Ali is from Pakistan and he's really likable. We're introduced to Ali when he saves Gihun from being shot in the first game. He's strong, but he doesn't know Korean that well and needs to rely on the goodness of others.

Which, until the fourth game, had done him a lot of good. His strength was a major help in the Tug of War. And in general, he's just super likable.

He agreed to go into the game mostly to avoid being caught by the police. At least long enough that he can give money to his family so that they can continue to survive. He had accidentally caused his boss' hand to get caught in a machine, absolutely decimating it. To be fair to Ali, it was an accident and this was also because the man wasn't going to pay him.

Sangwoo kills him during the fifth game. It's a game of marbles, but the winner survives. This breaks up a lot of the friendships that had formed during the games. And it's really heartbreaking to watch. During the game, Ali is winning. And Sangwoo ends up cheating, stealing all the marbles, and sending Ali away.

So, by the time that he realizes what has happened, it's too late. And I think we all started to seriously hate Sangwoo at this point.

Up until the sixth episode, we all probably had a little bit of heartache about Oh Il-nam (001). He's a very old man with a brain tumor. He doesn't see a point in not playing these games, he has nothing else to live for. His closeness to Gihun is really heartwarming because he's never left behind. Even when Sangwoo is complaining about needing a strong group, Gihun doesn't want to leave him behind.

He understands each of the games and he does a really good job up until the marble game. It's during the game that he seems to have a break from reality and Gihun struggles a lot. At least, until the end of the game when Gihun survives.

There are a lot of signs pointing to what is revealed to us at the end.

He is the last person that votes to stay or leave. He convinces Gihun to go back. The riot ends when he starts to yell about being scared. He knows every single game that they're playing. We don't actually see his death. It's so subtle that during the first watch, there's no reason to think that he's anything but canon fodder that you've become emotionally attached to.

He is the person behind everything. He decided to play this round of Squid Game because he knew he was dying. And he also knew that he could survive the games until he was tired of it. He reveals this all to Gihun a year after winning the game, not having spent a single cent of the money.

Gihun's daughter has gone to America. And his mother was dead when he finally got out of the game. She'd gotten sick and passed away on the floor of their apartment. This is normally a twist that I hate, but it worked in this case.

The death of the old man does finish Gihun's self-hatred over winning the game. He dyes his hair, he starts to change his life around. He's even going to go see her daughter. But then turns around when he realizes that another game is going to be happening.

The game was set up by the old man and has been going on for a long time. It is excused as giving people the chance to fight for the money, so that these people could help themselves. It's a very Jigsaw kind of perspective. But at it's core, it's a fight to the death amongst a bunch of poor people while rich people watch and bet on who will win. Completely removing any kind of humanity that the players have and treating them like game pieces.

A lot of what is exposed to us is done through Hwang Junho, a police officer that follows after Gihun to break into the game. He kills one of the men running the game and takes on his appearance for the duration of the game. His brother is missing, but he's not in the game. Unfortunately, Junho finds out that his brother won the game several years ago and is now running the games. The face of the games, as best to explain it.

He witnesses some of the people that are helping in running the game having removed some of the bodies from the cremation. So that they could have the organs removed and sell them on the black market. There's a boat that comes off from the land that takes the organs. They are using one of the players that is a doctor to get this done and giving him hints of what the next game is going to be.

It goes poorly when they don't have the information for the doctor. Junho is also exposed for not being the proper person. But he's able to sneak around and find out more information.

Specifically that most of the VIP (Very rich people that are betting on the players), are white. There's also at least one that's a sexual predator, specifically trying to prey on Junho, who had snuck into being a server.

Unfortunately, Junho doesn't end up surviving. He finds out who his brother is and is shot to death, falling from a cliff.

I don't know if there's going to be a second season. It seems to be setting it up with Gihun heading to the game at the end of this season. Most kdramas don't have more than one season, but with Kingdom being a multi-season short series, it's entirely possible.