{"id":67,"date":"2025-06-28T09:21:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T09:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/?p=67"},"modified":"2025-06-28T09:21:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T09:21:39","slug":"squid-game-review-game-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/?p=67","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Squid Game\u2019 Review: Game Over"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s time for Netflix\u2019s global phenomenon to give up its final answers, if there are any.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Contains spoilers for Season 2 of \u201cSquid Game.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSquid Game\u201d is back for what is said to be its final round, with a six-episode third season on Netflix. If only all beneficiaries of free-floating, pandemic-boosted nihilism would fade away as quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South Korean drama\u2019s creator, writer and director, Hwang Dong-hyuk<\/a>, had a couple of very profitable insights: that what was missing from \u201cSurvivor\u201d-style competition shows was machine guns; and that greatly increasing the pool of contestants \u2014 the show\u2019s dour hero, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), is No. 456 \u2014 would increase the amount of blood that could be shed while simultaneously giving most of the deaths an anesthetizing, video-game irrelevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then gave his package an Instagram-friendly visual wrapping of bright colors, gargantuan toylike structures and massed minimalist costumes, and replaced plot with a series of elaborate variations on children\u2019s games. No candy was ever designed and marketed<\/a> with greater effectiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the series wasn\u2019t strictly a consumer product, and it wasn\u2019t a reality show. As a work of fiction, it needed to do something to surprise us to merit a second or third season (they are really 2A and 2B). Most television shows may be formulaic to one degree or another, but it is harder not to notice<\/a> when the formulas you are repeating are ones that you just created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last batch of episodes picks up halfway through a set of the games in which debt-ridden proletarians are killed, or kill one another, as they compete for an ever-increasing pot of cash, all for the entertainment of anonymous, hyper-rich spectators. The previous winner Gi-hun, whose attempts to halt the spectacle and unmask its ringleader have failed miserably, is battered but alive. Sixty players remain for the final three games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proximity to a resolution of Gi-hun\u2019s fate gives this season a tension (artificial as it may be) that the show\u2019s second installment, released in December, lacked. Otherwise, it is \u201cSquid Game\u201d business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The characters, types drawn from the long history of westerns and war movies, are as one-dimensional and predictable as ever. The search by Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), brother of the games\u2019 orchestrator, for the island where they take place remains TV\u2019s most pointless subplot, right through to its conclusion. The scenes involving the masked V.I.P.\u2019s are, if anything, even more cartoonish than before, and they also lead nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hwang still orchestrates the action competently, though there, too, his imagination comes up short \u2014 the last couple of games are bare bones in their conception, the only suspense coming from the choice of victims. And throughout, after having made Gi-hun\u2019s guilt and his attempt at atonement the framework of the story, Hwang strains to bring those feelings to life, to make us believe in them. Here Lee, who gives a glum, one-note performance, shares the blame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether or not \u201cSquid Game\u201d works as drama, or as glorified game play, many of its fans appear to appreciate it primarily as a metaphor for life under late capitalism \u2014 a \u201cLord of the Flies\u201d for our era. It is that, and its depiction \u2014 or the picture it hazily suggests \u2014 of the masters of the game resonates with people who find their business and government leaders\u2019 behavior contemptuous and cynical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s a backdrop, not a vision. Some honest nihilism, on the one hand, or some old-fashioned, nuanced melodrama and compassion, on the other, could make it matter. Lacking those, we\u2019re left with a body count.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s time for Netflix\u2019s global phenomenon to give up its final answers, if there are any. Contains spoilers for Season 2 of \u201cSquid Game.\u201d \u201cSquid Game\u201d is back for what … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hot-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threadlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}