Squid Game

Netflix's Korean drama Squid Game became a worldwide phenomenon, winning six Emmys and inspiring countless Halloween costumes. The series has now reached its bloody finale. As the current game concludes, more people die and we find out whether Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) and others can finally end the games for good. To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Stephen Thompson?

  Netflix's Korean drama Squid Game became a worldwide phenomenon, winning six Emmys and inspiring countless Halloween costumes. Now the series has reached its finale, and we've got thoughts. I'm Stephen Thompson. Today, we are talking about Squid Game on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

• 0:42Speaker 00

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• 1:11Speaker 02

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• 1:56Speaker 02

  $50 off.

• 1:59Stephen Thompson?

  Joining me today is Jaeha Kim. She's a syndicated columnist whose work runs in the Chicago Tribune. Welcome, Jaeha.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  Hi, Stephen. I'm so happy to be here and talk about this.

• 2:09Stephen Thompson?

  I am so happy to have you. We have so much to get into.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh.

• 2:12Stephen Thompson?

  So when Squid Game dropped in 2021, it told what felt like a complete story. Lee Jungjae plays Sung Gi-hoon, a gambling addict who's fallen deep into debt. Soon, he's recruited to participate in a competition in which 456 desperate people play children's games with life and death stakes. As the losers die in violent and bloody fashion, we learn more about the players and about a system that exploits their desperation and death. In season two, Gi-hoon attempts to use his winnings to put a stop to the games, only to get pulled back into another round. We meet new players, many of whom are quickly slaughtered, and see Gi-hoon attempt an unsuccessful coup against those running the games.

• 2:56Stephen Thompson?

  Now, the story concludes with a third season in which many threads are woven together. The latest games conclude, more people die, and many plots are resolved involving the various forces working to end the games, including a detective, a rogue employee, and Gi-hoon himself. Squid Game is streaming now on Netflix. Jaeha Kim, what are your overall impressions of season three?

• 3:18Speaker 03

  I thought that season one was complete, as you said, and it didn't need any sequels. But that said, I was looking forward to these season two and season three, and I enjoyed it. I thought the ending could have ended with the penultimate scene instead of how they did do it, and that would have made it stronger overall. But I enjoyed it. I've seen what people said, where they were like, oh, it's repetitive, the games, you know, they took too long on voting. It was just weird. But I thought it was compelling. It's highly watchable.

• 3:48Stephen Thompson?

  I actually found the voting stuff really compelling in season two because it's kind of, it introduces democracy as kind of this, the show of personal freedom, even though it is, it leads to the same end.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:00Stephen Thompson?

  Like, I thought that stuff was really interesting, and they kind of abandon it in part, I think, because it's just so obvious how it's going to go. Like, eventually, you kind of... Commit yourself to then having to go through these dramatic votes. Well, they're not going to be like, all right, now we're all going to go home with $30,000.

• 4:17Stephen Thompson?

  I found it highly watchable as well, but I also agree with a lot of those criticisms. I think anytime this season kind of takes you away from the games, which it does quite a bit, it loses a little bit of momentum. We spend a lot of time with this North Korean kind of rogue employee who is trying to bring the games down from the inside. We get quite a bit of the detective and the boat captain and all the intrigue around kind of trying to get to the island from the outside. That stuff for me kind of ground the show to a halt a little bit. I found it the most compelling when it was focused on kind of the most immediately endangered players. And, you know, one of the icky subtexts of Squid Game is it's most exciting when it's

• 5:02Stephen Thompson?

  showing you this bloody, violent kind of real life reality TV show with these life and death stakes. That stuff is kind of the most naturally compelling in a way that is intended to make you feel uncomfortable. Each one of these games plays out like a pocket horror movie. And as such, they are, they are very compelling. We're going to go ahead and spoil major plot points in this season, so consider yourself warned. In the second episode of season three, Jun Hee, she's the pregnant woman playing alongside her ex-boyfriend. Jun Hee gives birth to a baby girl who becomes a major, major plot point. Jun Hee is played by Jo Yoo Ri.

• 5:46Stephen Thompson?

  The baby becomes a player in the games after Jun Hee dies. Ki Hun becomes the baby's protector as the other players are conspiring against both of them. In the end, Ki Hun sacrifices his own life so that the baby can win the money. And while the Korean game facility is destroyed in that final episode, there's a final scene, which Jay Ha has referenced, set in LA where we see an American version of Squid Game starting to take shape with a recruiter played by none other than Kate Blanchett.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  All right, let's go again.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  As you wish.

• 6:28Stephen Thompson?

  Jeha, let's start with the Cate Blanchett of it all. What did you make of that?

• 6:33Speaker 03

  First of all, I think we all love Cate Blanchett. I mean, she's a phenomenal actor. But in this series, it was just so out of place. Everyone's going to be comparing her to the Gong Yu, the Korean recruiter. And for me, it just did not work out. I would have preferred if they would have brought her in as the surprise guest as like the alpha VIP. I mean, how great could she have been in that? Like, she takes off the mask and there she is. And, you know, you would have just heard her voice and been like, I know who that is. That's Kate. That's Kate, you know? It's not through any fault of hers, but it's just sort of like it was tacked on, almost like it's an ad for a potential series, you know? Because I guess the rumor is that David Fincher is going to be working on the American version of the series.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  And I don't know, it just seemed like a huge waste of talent to me.

• 7:19Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, it certainly feels like it's setting something up. Why would you bring in Cate Blanchett if you weren't going to, you know, make something of that in some future?

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:28Stephen Thompson?

  Season or series? And you alluded to the fact, Jeha, that we get a lot of the VIPs.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh.

• 7:37Stephen Thompson?

  In this season. And really, one of the very best things about season two was that it-

• 7:41Speaker 03

  They weren't there.

• 7:42Stephen Thompson?

  In case you're listening to this and you haven't seen season one, these games are being played out for the benefit of these extremely wealthy patrons. They're coded as Americans. Their accents are a little all over the place. They are generally speaking, not exclusively, but generally speaking, white people. And they're clearly meant to portray kind of these vicious, immoral, massively wealthy people. They are written so badly. They are acted so badly. And they come back with a vengeance and we see them kind of again and again. So you would think maybe if you have access to a Cate Blanchett, you might cast, if not Cate Blanchett, known quantities?

• 8:27Speaker 03

  Right, right. To me, the VIPs took me out of the universe, more so than the lack of the games and the blood and the fights that you're talking about earlier. I don't know really why they're there. I think the series could have gone on without them, having them sort of implied but not seen or hearing from them. But, you know, on the other hand, I did see some stuff on social media where people are like, you know, they represent, actually, I don't know what they represent, but they like the representation.

• 8:55Stephen Thompson?

  Well, yeah, they represent the deep, deep well of am morality slash immorality behind this stuff.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  When you think about it, in this season, I think they kind of set up that Myung Gi, the father of the baby, he in many ways is more immoral than the VIPs. The VIPs are doing all this for their entertainment. And, you know, that's always been something that, you know, we've grown accustomed to. Myung Gi is willing to sacrifice his child. I mean, at first I thought that his story arc would show that, oh, no, he would do everything to save his baby. But I don't think that was the case. I think it was between him and anyone, he would have been the survivor because he would have made it that way. I don't know, when there's baby involved, I just can't, I just can't wrap my arms around a character like that.

• 9:42Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, so Myung Gi is the crypto bro who's the father of the baby in question. If you didn't have an actor of the caliber of Im Shewon, playing that character who takes, who kind of is taking heel turns, seemingly has a redemption arc, and then another heel turn, it takes a really strong actor to pull that off. I found his character arc among the most interesting of this kind of second wave of players, in part because I found that performance very, very committed and intense.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  One of the best, if not the best, on the show. I was personally thinking that, you know, oh, you know, it's Im Shewon, so of course I like him. And even when he was, you know, showing that he wasn't a good guy, I was, I literally, I had hope, I had hope that he would change. And that last, oh my God, when he had the baby and he knew that the baby was just a prop.

• 10:36Stephen Thompson?

  He's literally dangling a baby over a precipice.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  It's like, I had no doubt that he would drop that baby so that he could live. That, to me, was one of the most compelling scenes. It was not what I expected, it was not what I had hoped for. And when he, you know, catapulted down and... Pretty much just fell and died. I was kind of like, oh, no, but okay, but the baby's alive. That was the more important thing for me, you know, because he was not a good father.

• 11:03Stephen Thompson?

  You and I are both parents. We are both very easily manipulated by babies.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 11:08Stephen Thompson?

  I'm glad you brought up the baby again because that's kind of the last thing I wanted to talk about here, which is the way the baby is used as a plot device in this season. We meet Jun He in season two. We know she's pregnant. It's Chekhov's baby, right? It's Chekhov's pregnancy. You know, she is at some point going to give birth and that a baby is going to be a factor in the show. But the baby winds up becoming kind of the driving narrative impulse of the third season. I just don't know that it entirely worked. Starting with the fact that she goes into labor and gives birth during the span of a 30 minute game.

• 11:49Stephen Thompson?

  Anyone who has ever given birth or known somebody who has given birth, you know, vaginally knows that that is not a process that takes 15 to 20 minutes.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  No.

• 12:01Stephen Thompson?

  I found that so silly and obviously there's always going to be a certain amount of suspension of disbelief.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 12:08Stephen Thompson?

  But man, that baby just never stops being a kind of a plot device.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Well, and I think in this show, which is, you know, unbelievable in so many ways. And that's what we're meant to believe. A lot of us didn't believe that you could have a baby that quiet, that long, under duress. I mean, if I'd been dangling my son over a precipice, he would be able to sense that danger, you know? And there would be crying and squawking and the will to survive.

• 12:32Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, not since A Quiet Place.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:36Stephen Thompson?

  Has a, has a baby been kind of a more problematic presence?

• 12:42Stephen Thompson?

  When it comes to the plot of a show, but you, you would agree. I mean, Jay Hi, you kind of said at the top of this, like, this is still watchable. This is, you would say flawed, but extremely compelling.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Right. I mean, I would say the first season is a must see. The second and third season should be seen together. I think people would enjoy it more that way. But, you know, I can't forgive that ending. It's just did not work. And that unfortunately, that that is a remainder of like what I will think of the series, you know, what I will think of how it ended. I was like, it didn't have to end that way. It should have ended with with the frontman after he gave the money and the bloodied 456 tracksuit to Gihun's daughter. I think that would have just been so much stronger. I think viewers would have reflected on that ending as sort of like, this is what his life came to. He, he died rich, you know, not poor like he started, but he still died. He has no life.

• 13:36Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, I really, I'm remixing this show in my head. I'm moving that last scene to a post credit scene. Well, we want to know what you think about Squid Game. Find us at facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Jay Ha Kim, thank you so much for being here.

• 13:51Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me on again. I love this. Thank you, Stephen.

• 13:54Stephen Thompson?

  And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour, or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello, Kamin provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.

• 14:29Speaker 02

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