[Editor’s note: The recap of episode four publishes December 29.]
It's addictive, isn't it? Once the jumpsuits go on, once the bullets start to fly, once the body count starts to mount. There's a tendency—I'm guilty of it myself—to treat Squid Game strictly as an intellectual exercise. To hold one's nose at all the blood spatter and screams, to ignore the tension of feet pounding on sand, and the horrible Rube Goldberg machines that swing into motion once live ammunition and human panic collide.
But the compulsively watchable nature of the Games is both part of Squid Game's critique of human nature, and of its own admission of the satisfaction it provides. "001" is already a more energetic episode of TV than the two that have come before, even before Seong Gi-hun finds himself facing down that damned "Red Light, Green Light" doll again. But once the game starts in earnest, Squid Game wastes very little time in reminding you why its combination of brutally high stakes, clearly outlined rules, and an undercurrent of human foibles made it one of the most watched TV shows on the planet back in 2021. More importantly, the episode avoids repetition by altering the framework of the story, making it clear to viewers that there's only one game really running, at least for now: The one being held between Player #456, and Player #001.
Which isn't to say we don't get introduced to plenty of new characters this episode, the show doing its usual efficient job of sketching out personality types quickly and distinctively. There's Jung-bae (#390), who previously popped up in the show's very first episode as Gi-hun's horse-betting friend. There's Myung-gi (#333), who we saw getting the shit slapped out of him by the recruiter back in "Bread And Lottery," and who's revealed to be a former YouTube crypto star who screwed over his followers. (There's several reminders, as we meet our new crop of victims, that series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has been paying close attention to the real world's own versions of the Games in the three years that the show's been gone.) Rapper Thanos (#230) is so thoroughly Joker-coded that he's hard to take seriously, while Im Jeong-dae (#100) is an old-money belligerent convinced he'll eventually come out back on top. The only things we learn about Cho Hyun-ju (#120) are that she's a trans woman, and heroic as hell—which doesn't stop Jang Geum-ja (#149), an older woman who joined to try to save her son Park Yong-sik (#007) from his gambling debts, from turning up her nose at her. And Kang Mi-na (#196)… Well, we're not going to have to worry too much about Kang Mi-na, are we?
The show introduces us to most of these people with its typically deft employment of shame as a social goad, the Game organizers showing videos of each of them taking their slaps-for-cash while a voice rattles off how deeply they're all in debt. Gi-hun hangs back, detached, watching as a crowd that seems younger, more fractious, but still easily cowed by the cash-backed authority of the Games lines up to give their unknowing consent to getting shot in the head. Convinced his Stupid Plan* is going to save everybody, he's only shaken out of his iron-masked focus once he sees Jung-bae, which seems to remind him that these are actual people about to be on the firing line. That rolls into the first moment of the Old Gi-gun we've gotten all season (and the first really big, dark laugh of the episode), when he realizes the Game organizers found his tracking chip, pulled it out, and no rescue is coming: The camera zooms in, his face falls, and a decidedly un-stoic "I'm fucked" echoes in his head.
(*Stupid Plan update: Woo-seok and Jun-ho spend a bunch of time floating around in a boat with the Stupid Private Army, following the tracker, which has been dropped in a container of literal bait. I continue to resent this plot line, because a) it's inherently boring, just dudes on a boat holding guns and trying to look cool, and b) it's obviously doomed to fail, because we don't have a TV show if Gi-hun's private army storms in and saves everyone before the Games begin. It adds no tension, satirical value, or interest to the episode, it's just more table-setting, and three episodes in I think we can consider the table well and thoroughly set.)
Anyway, back in the Good Show: We get our genuine stakes for the season, as Gi-hun breaks his air of detachment in a desperate effort to save this new crew of idiots from themselves, barking out instructions for survival and serving as a shot-caller for the "Red Light, Green Light" game. And it almost works, until one errant bee sets off a chain reaction of panic that sees roughly a fifth of the pack get gunned down in minutes. Meanwhile, the show's decision to widen its focus for season 2 pays major dividends, as we not only get to see Front Man In-ho watching the proceedings, but also that one of the snipers putting bullets in people's brains is last episode's No-eul. In its first season, Squid Game made a virtue of treating the guards mostly like a faceless, unfeeling force, but seeing No-eul adopt an attitude of calm superiority while gunning down "the trash" (at least, until she notices that Player #246 is the father of the sick little girl she befriended back in "Halloween Party") is genuinely chilling. We can talk about the Games, the Organizers, the Front Man, all these fun, faceless proper nouns. But underneath the masks, Squid Game reminds us, it's still just people pulling the trigger.
The game itself, meanwhile, is typically thrilling, as Gi-hun manages to organize the surviving players into something like an actual team, helping them hide little jitters from the all-seeing eye. (It also continues to highlight the arbitrary nature of the supposedly "fair" Games, as plenty of people get gunned down because of the actions of others—most notably the group of people that a tweaking Thanos deliberately shoves into the firing line before going skipping across the sand.) There's even a life-or death moment for our otherwise over-competent hero, as Gi-hun goes back (with an assist from Hyun-ju) to save a man who'd taken a bullet to the leg, just barely getting them all across the finishing line. With only 91 dead—as opposed to the hundreds who didn't survive "Red Light" last time around—it's a qualified, but clear, win for Team Keep Everybody Alive… all the better to set up a much more crushing defeat in the episode's final third.
Because while Squid Game does love, and need, the Games, it loves the shit that comes after even more: The massive argument and fictionalization that breaks out when Gi-hun tries to capitalize on the survivors' shock to call a vote to shut the Games down. Clause 3 has always been the cruelest trick in the Organizers' arsenal, the one that hammers in the illusion of choice that the Games thrive on. (Because, after all, you voted to be here, right?) By tweaking the rules slightly (first, by announcing that contestants now keep their existing prize money if they vote to shut down, and by asking each player to publicly identify their vote with patches on their jumpsuits), the show widens its satirical net to take in concepts of tribalism and politics. Even Gi-hun—who we know literally knows better—starts to feel like just another voice shouting in a room, trying to boost his side and shut down the Other, in the face of this new, nastier spin on democracy in action. It's almost gilding the lily when Player #001 shows up to break the final tie… and we see that In-ho has decided to follow in his old mentor Oh Il-nam's footsteps and join the Games as a Player. After all, the thumb was already on the scale even before he tossed on the jumpsuit, as Squid Game finally gets to The Good Shit after two episodes of screwing around: God knows, where it goes from here.
Stray observations
- • It's something of a bummer that Hyun-ju is being played by male actor Park Sung-hoon, rather than an actual trans performer. Hwang addressed the decision in recent interviews, saying, basically, that trans people are still so discriminated against in South Korean society that he couldn't find anyone to play the part.
- • The most ominous character in the episode is the mysterious #044, a fortune teller who seems fixated on Gi-hun.
- • The show's set design is still top-notch: The Escher-esque, bright pastel staircases still sell the surreal nature of the world so well, and the doll itself remains an amazing piece of design.
- • The addition of the "Everybody keeps the money they already won" rule is an interesting tweak: It gives players even more of an illusion of choice, telling themselves they can opt out before things get really bad.
- • We'll presumably get into this more in future episodes, but it feels telling that, unlike Oh Il-nam—who, for all his evils, still played in the first several games—In-ho doesn't infiltrate the players until after "Red Light, Green Light" is done.
- • The reveal that Hyun-ju has also gone back to help save #444 is genuinely thrilling—and only makes the misery of No-eul shooting him anyway all the more dispiriting.
- • FYI, 24 million won—the share the survivors of "Red Light, Green Light" would each take home if they voted to quit—is roughly $16,500. The full prize that Gi-hun received is about $31.5 million.
- • One of the nastier touches of the voting: The Organizers accusing Gi-hun of election interference, and shutting his arguments down at gunpoint.
- • Thanos, Jeong-dae, Myung-gi, Hyun-ju, and the mysterious #044 are all in the "Keep Going" camp. Gi-hun, Geum-ja, Jung-bae, and a reluctant Yong-sik all vote to stop.
- • It's fascinating how quickly the votes become a signifier of identity, right down to both sides adopting hand symbols to try to sway #001's vote.
- • "We always prioritize your voluntary participation."
