Squid Game (S3) / Ep. 96

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:19):
I'm Jessica and this is Teba K Rambles, where a couple of
friends review Korean dramas andwe are back to finish off this
saga that we started years ago. We are reviewing Squid Game
Season 3 and I'm joined by my good friend Miguel once again.
Miguel, how are you? How you been?

(00:41):
Thanks for having me. How you doing?
I'm all right as all right as I can.
Right, right. We're as put together as we can
be under the circumstances. But yeah, for those who are just
joining right now, me and Miguelhave basically been reviewing
Squid Game each season when it comes out on the Tabak feed.

(01:02):
And we've had a long journey. And now that it's finished, we
are back to give our conclusion.Thoughts.
There will be no more Korean Squid Games.
So we figured we would just comeback and do this.
I fully intended to do this later after my big family
vacation, which is several weekslong.

(01:23):
But I was like, you know what? I also don't want to leave it to
where I'm too spoiled. And as it is, I did get spoiled.
We had set the date for this recording, and then I was
online, as one does, and I got hella spoiled for the ending of
Squid Game season 3. And so I went into it with a
little bit of rage at the fandom.

(01:48):
And I can say what exactly I gotspoiled on in the spoiler
section, but suffice it to say, there's a lot of feelings.
Tensions are running high, I think, in the community.
And by community, I mean world. So we'll just get into it.
But before we do, if this is your first time listening, go
ahead and subscribe on your favorite podcast app or on Apple

(02:09):
Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcastand many more.
And if you like us, please give us a review on Apple Podcast and
Spotify five stars only. Come check us out on social
media to stay up to date in our latest episodes and reviews.
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at Debak
Pod DAEBAKPOD. And lastly, if you're a fan,

(02:29):
thank you and please consider becoming a patron.
It's a great way for you to get involved and show your support.
You can check out the page on patreon.com/tibak Pod and shout
out to our patrons Janet, Curtis, Bale, Cindy, CD, Alana,
Grace, Lorna, Sammy, Caitlin, Julia #1, Michelle, Tanmaye,
Martha, Delphia, Maria, Sarah, Julia #2, Pam, Angie, and
Nadira. Thank you so much for supporting

(02:51):
the show And without further ado, we're going to keep the non
spoiler section I think a littleshorter.
I will read the Asian wiki synopsis and we will go over the
cast. But again, it is exactly the
same as Season 2, and we went into this in great detail on the
Season 2 review, so I don't think we need to belabor the
point too much. So this will be a little bit

(03:12):
more condensed than usual. The Asian wiki synopsis for
Season 3 of Squid Game reads. Sungiyan is returned to the
players dormitory by the Pink Guards, but he is baffled by the
actions of the Front Man. He is also haunted by the loss
of his closest ally, Pakjung Bay, and is even more determined
to end the Squid Game once and for all.

(03:33):
Meanwhile, the Front Man prepares for the 4th game, which
is possibly the bloodiest game yet.
VIPs are soon to arrive on the island where the games are held.
On the periphery of the Squid Game, Detective Huang Juno and
his partners race against the clock to locate the mysterious
island where the games are held.Within the ranks of masked
officers working the games, KangNu UL risks her life to save

(03:55):
player PAC Yong Sook. OK, so Season 3 aired several
weeks ago. From the time of recording on
June 27th, 2025. It is 6 episodes long.
Just as a refresher, Season 2 aired December 26th, 2024 Merry
Christmas and was 7 episodes long.
Season 1 aired all the way back in September of 2021 and it was

(04:19):
9 episodes long. So we are getting less episodes
as the seasons emerge. And season 3 was basically an
just an extension of season 2. It wasn't a whole new story.
We're just picking up where we left off.
It is season 2.5. It really should have just been
Season 2. Yeah.
Like, I don't. I was like, OK, well.

(04:41):
We're rolling our eyes over hereto I haven't.
This is anyway director and writer back Huang Dongyuk to do
Season 3, obviously. And then we've got a bunch of
returning stars. We have E Zheng Zei, he's back
as player 456. He is joined by Wea June, who
plays the undercover cop Juneau.We've got Eben back as the front

(05:06):
man. We have all of the players who
are still alive since the final episodes of Season 2 returning
for Season 3. So I think at this point, I'll
just go ahead and ask you, Miguel, what did you think of
Season 3 of Squid Game, the conclusion of this whole giant
saga that we've been on? Some of the more inventive games

(05:33):
that they've had, like it was really interesting to see the
scale of it, but as a whole, maybe a little underwhelmed.
Ultimately, I think I think thatthere was a few decisions they
made that they could have just not made.
But I think I I'm trying to decide whether or not that was

(05:57):
because they split a season in 2when they really didn't have to
and that I just lost momentum. But I think it entertaining, but
I think it kind of fell flat, honestly.
OK, how about you? So I it's difficult because I
feel a lot more positively aboutit because I'm looking at it

(06:19):
technically, intellectually, andfrom a goal perspective.
I see that it hit all of the goals and I see that it set out
to do what it wanted to do, and it had A to me, I understood the
ending completely. Yeah.
Totally understood the ending. I was not mad at the ending.

(06:40):
I was not upset with any character that lost their life
in the course of the show, but there is something about it,
about watching it and the experience of watching it that I
was like, can we just freaking like get through this?
Like there was? I was exasperated by this point

(07:02):
and I think it did have a lot todo with we're back for season 3
and why the hell is there a season 30?
Just give it a get. Put it all in one season.
It makes no sense. It made absolutely no sense.
It it was like picking up mid, mid sentence.
Yeah, I did. They do you know why they did
that? Like were they not finished

(07:24):
filming it? Were they not?
Is there some kind of logisticalreason that they did this?
This is Netflix to me. This is a total Netflix playbook
move. Yeah, Stranger Things is going
on 10 years. Stranger Things.
I mean, oh God, if you want to talk Stranger Things, like
that's another one where I'm like, just let it die.

(07:44):
Just let it die at this point because it's totally dead in my
imagination. It's totally dead in the
consciousness. Nobody cares anymore.
And I just don't. Even if I love any of the other
seasons, bringing, trotting out these characters, trotting out
these older actors now who are literal children in season 1

(08:06):
annoys me, Annoys me. I see the mechanism working, you
know what I'm saying? It's like I see the man behind
the curtain already. Just shut up.
Just stop the. Curtain is sheer like it's and
it makes the 80s they brought back the 80s again right by now
the 80s have gone and come back and gone again like even in like

(08:27):
like trend people are over the 80s.
People are over the sci-fi. They're over it.
So, so Squid Game pulling this really pissed me off.
And it really pissed me off because.
Squid Game has all of these lofty ideals and it is heavy on

(08:47):
the social commentary. It is heavy on the critique of
late stage capitalism, which thedirector, Huang Dongyu has
literally come out and said, yeah, it's a commentary on this,
but the Netflix is literally doing this to it.
Yeah, dilutes the message, Dilutes the message completely.

(09:08):
We stated this in Season 2 in our Season 2 review.
We were talking about this how Huang Dongyuk literally made
pennies on the dollar for Season1.
Disgusting. In the deal that he made with
Netflix, as good as Got conned out of any revenue that Netflix
made off of season 1, which was a runaway success.
And so he basically had to come back and make another season to

(09:33):
just make money on his creative work.
So. Which makes sense because you
can kind of see it reflected in the show.
While he's like, OK, let's go. Like, let's just I want to be
done with this. Can I be done with this?
Like let's. Just that was the feeling and I
don't, I wish that I, we were ina, a place and I was in a place

(09:58):
where I could literally shut offmy phone for five years and not
watch season 3 and not get spoiled and nobody talks about
it. And then I can come at it from a
better place where I can appreciate it.
And not that I don't appreciate it because what I'll say is very
positive about it, but like, I was freaking tired.

(10:21):
Like I'm sorry, I was tired. I hadn't make fucking had it.
Yeah, and you're bracing for impact instead of like waiting
for it. You know what I mean?
Instead of waiting it unfold, being spoiled for it will
completely. And then I got spoiled, which I
was raging about for like at least 24 hours.
Yeah, and that'll that'll it waslike that girl during Euphoria.

(10:42):
There was a girl on TikTok who went viral because she was in
her car at her lunch break screaming into her phone.
Can y'all just let me fucking get home?
Let me get home, let me get hometo watch it because spoilers
were everywhere. Like people will binge it within
an hour of it coming out. They'll break the space-time
continuum, watch the whole thingin an hour, and by the end of

(11:03):
the hour, oh, did you know that this happened and that no, I
didn't, I'm at work. Like, no I didn't.
I was freaking out shopping for groceries.
No I didn't. I had to put air in my tires.
No I didn't. I was just reading a book like
you name. It I live in a different time
zone, I it hasn't even come out here yet.
Like there's so many. It's literally like give me a
second. Right.

(11:23):
Give me a freaking 2nd. And that's a pervasive thing in
K drama land and obviously in other spaces as well.
And that literally put it oh I got so you have no idea how I
was raging. I can I.
Almost threw my phone across theroom.
I can because it's it's unavoidable.
It was within the day. I almost got spoiled.

(11:45):
I I got this close to coming spoiled.
A video came up on my TikTok andas soon as I saw like just a
uniform I was like boom gone andthe next.
Luckily the next squid game thing that came up was very
neutral so I just started disliking every squid game.
Video so. I could just like pull it from
my feed. Yeah, I was barely, I was not

(12:06):
engaging with any Squid Game content, so I was barely getting
anything on my for you. Then I got this once.
This is this video that got spoiled on.
I won't say what the spoiler is,but I will say what the video
was. So this girl was at some promo
event with the cast of Squid Game at a panel, like on stage
doing a panel. And she had whether this was

(12:26):
true or not, the video made it seem like she was having a
moment with Itung TE, the star of Squid Game.
Like he was like looking at her and like it was really funny and
cute. And I was like Oh my God this is
so cute. And I run to the comments
because I love looking at comments.
And there was a literal spoiler right there in the first
comment. I hate it I and it's so embedded

(12:49):
in the culture now. I was like every TikTok.
Video didn't have nothing to do,wasn't a review, wasn't from an
official account from Netflix, from School Dame.
It wasn't any official promo. It wasn't anything like that.
It was just a cute little video.That'll do it.
That was it. That'll do it because people

(13:11):
take, you've seen this in the comments, you got to go through
the top 4 just to get to an actual original comment because
everybody uses the whole copy posit thing like wow, 4 seconds
ago is crazy. So once you go through like 3000
of those regurgitated comments, but the spoilers have been the
comments for everything about Squid Game, the top 2 comments

(13:32):
are always a spoiler. So it's so.
It is so beyond frustrating. And did.
Wait, did you see the spoiler before you saw anything?
Man? Dude, it's not a good time.
It's not a good time. So anyway, now we're here and
we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about
everything that happened. So you you liked it?

(13:54):
I liked it. I did like I have.
I have way more good things to say about it than bad like way.
More right like same for me. Yeah, there's a couple things I
didn't like, but in general, like it's not even that it fell
flat, it was just. It's almost like going to the
theater and watching a good movie, but the theater
experience was shitty. That's.
This is what it felt like to watch Squiddy and Curry is that

(14:16):
you were like, man, people were talking the whole movie.
They were on their phones the whole movie.
And it took five years for me tosee this thing and finally it's
here. And the movie was good but like
damn. By two days after it came out.
It's like the discourse around Squid Game.
I'm like, what discourse? What disc?
It's been 2 days. This is problematic.

(14:39):
I'm like, is it? It's been 2 days but I have more
good things to say about them. Bad.
But you actually captured the feeling very perfectly.
That's exactly how I feel. I feel like I saw a movie I
really wanted to see and it was just marred by things
immediately outside of my control and I hate it so but but

(14:59):
it is good. I do.
I did like it. Let me be clear, I did like it,
but there are things that we're not.
They just don't work for me. Someone I posted a video about
the Emmy nominations which came out this week.
Squid Game got 0 Emmy nominations.
Now mind you, season 3 was not eligible for this cycle of prime

(15:22):
time Emmys. So Squid Game season 3, what
we're reviewing right now, wouldhave never gotten any Emmy
nominations. Wow, that's a tongue twister.
But Season 2 was totally within the awards campaign season.
Like it was eligible. It was eligible and it got 0.

(15:43):
That's crazy. Mind you, Squid Game season 1
got 14 Emmy nominations and won six of them.
So I was shocked. I made a video about the snub
because it is clearly a snub. Yeah.
Completely, and someone said season 1 was definitely the

(16:04):
strongest of the series. It featured well developed
character arcs and the deaths felt meaningful and earned
within the narrative. I can agree with that.
You can agree with that. Yeah, yes, I can agree with the
meaningful death part. I can agree with it felt super
self-contained. Yes, if they didn't have.

(16:25):
I mean, is it a spoiler to mention any spoilers about
season 1 at this point? No, I think Season 1 spoilers
are on the table if you're listening to a Season 3 Squid
Game review. That's like on you.
Bro that's on you bro. But we're for season 3 spoilers.
We're keeping it clean in this non spoiler section.
I could agree with that because I wouldn't have even expected a

(16:48):
Season 2 if they didn't pull that Ronald McDonald wig for
Guillen. Like at the very, very end, we
got a phone call. It's like if they didn't hadn't
just shoehorn that in, I wouldn't have even asked for a
season 2. I would have been like, oh, OK,
so the entire show kind of operated from that.
Very scrappy doesn't feel like the right word.
But let's use it because it's such a big budget for a show.

(17:10):
That's so, you know, he really put everything into writing that
show and you can you can feel it.
And the second season feels like, OK, well, we can develop
some games and we can kind of dothis.
Like it was way more focused. So everybody brought their all
the next seasons were good, but they weren't as strong as I

(17:31):
wouldn't say they were as strong, but to get snubbed
completely is crazy. To get snubbed from the Emmys.
That's wild. There was plenty of good acting
chops like being thrown around there like.
Acting not even none of the technicals.
It got nothing. Oh, I forgot about the
technical. Yeah, that's.
That's nothing for production design.
Like nothing at all. This is one of the most

(17:51):
beautifully produced shows I've ever seen.
Like it's so polished. I don't get what they're
thinking. I don't know what that's about.
The Emmys really swerved this year, but as far as this
commenter and talking about Season 1 versus 2 and three, I
think I like Season 1 slightly more than two and three because

(18:16):
I'm considering two and three a single season, if that makes any
sense. Yeah, I I am too.
It is kind of, it is so ridiculous to split this season,
but OK. Anyway, I went back and
rewatched the final episode of season 1 just today and I was
like, this is really strong. This is so and the emotions were

(18:39):
there and I was like, Oh my God,this is just a different.
I don't know what it was about. Season one.
It was lightning in a bottle. I remember it being lightning in
a bottle and it's still fresh. It's so good.
It's so good, so there is something to it.
There is some magic sauce in Season 1 compared to two and

(19:02):
three, even though two and threeare very very strong.
It just happens though like thathappens with TV in general,
especially when you take an ideawhen you have an idea that's
more likely to be self-containedlike the bear.
Have you watched The Bear of? Course I've watched the.
Bear so the first season amazing, really on point,
whatever. And then everything else is

(19:22):
like, OK, well, yeah. Or like Ted Lasso, like it.
It's just so obvious that it wasn't supposed to go that long
or that far and they didn't planahead.
And I think that's what you lose.
It's like, oh, Squid Game now featuring this and everybody's
kind of on, you know what I mean?
Yes, there's something about it that's like, OK, don't muck this

(19:42):
up. Yeah, yeah.
Like, everybody's kind of like, oh.
Because they had nothing. I'm going to draw my inspiration
from this. Player, the actors, the crew,
the director. There was nothing to lose at
that point. No, like he already reached the
moon as far as. Afterward, when it lit up
everything and everybody watchedSquid Game, then it was like,

(20:03):
oh, OK, I guess. Then Netflix started funneling
money behind it and that's when you got the merch.
That's when you got the spin offSquid Game Game show craziness.
The Dalgona branded coffee, I see that little girl from Red
Light, Green light literally everywhere at the Asian market.
As cell charms, as this, as that.

(20:23):
Yeah, yeah. It wasn't meant for all that.
So I think nobody knew, kind of.They all acted very well,
obviously, but the magic's gone 'cause they're like, oh shit,
I'm on the global stage. Like they were doing a show
thinking they were doing a Korean drama, a Korean like
action show that might end up inthe USI could.
Always I think there's somethingspecial about like, you know how

(20:44):
you, I don't know how to put it,but like you filter yourself if
you think someone's watching you.
Yes, and you can see that with the actors.
And that somehow is in the DNA of two and three.
It feels bigger and bolder, but the things that they made bigger
and bolder weren't necessarily something we were asking for.
You could see it in the cast, too.
They kind of had parallels to the first season of the cast,

(21:08):
like the shaman was just like the crazy bitch from the first
season, right? Or, you know, they swapped out a
lesbian for a trans character sothat there's a parallel.
They switched out an elderly cowardly like gangster type with
an elderly cowardly salary man like office worker type.

(21:28):
So it's kind of like they, they didn't really go that far with
the characters in that differentdirection.
They they all worked with it butthere was a copy paste going on.
There is a lot of copy paste. There's a lot of parallel
characters and archetypes that show up in both season 1 and
then season 2/3. Someone on TikTok and I think I

(21:49):
re retweeted. I'm about to say retweeted.
I reposted the video because I really enjoyed it and I agreed
completely. I think it, I think it was a
Korean American who was talking about the structure of Squid
Game and how it's just a parable.
And I was like, perfect, perfectway to put it.

(22:12):
And yes, absolutely, they're 100% right.
And before I saw the video, I was thinking deeply about The
Canterbury Tales because I'm visiting Canterbury next week on
vacation. And I am a former English major.
So I was like, Oh my God, we're going to fucking Canterbury.
Like that's a huge fucking deal anyway, so.
Stop on the Shire on your way there.

(22:34):
And stop it anyway. We're not going there, but we
are going to Canterbury. And it made me think of the
Canterbury Tales. I'm learning the prologue to
Chaucer and all of those storiesthat I remember reading and
studying in school, Him saying, oh, Squid Game is basically a
Korean parable with all of thesecharacters representing

(22:55):
different facets of society, andthey're not meant to be these
deep character studies on these people.
They are meant to represent a very fractured and interesting
and diverse society. All of these different You have
the single unmarried mother who's about to give birth.
You have the crypto guy, the crypto scammer.

(23:17):
You have the drug addicts, You have the, you know, the gambling
addicts. You have all of these people
from the what is perceived as the underbelly of Korean
society. And there's not supposed to be a
ton of character development. Yeah, that makes sense.
Kind of like 5 characters in search of an exit.

(23:37):
Type. That's what I mean by oh,
there's archetypes that match the archetypes in season 1.
Yeah, yeah. And well, that's a spoiler, but
it's, you know what? I agree with that.
It is and it is. It is a parable, and it's a
pretty good one too. And it's an.
Amazing one. I, I, I love it for that.
I love it for the message that it's saying.
Cause again, tons of social commentary, a ton of critique.

(24:02):
It's, I think the director was like, it's allegorical, it's
satire, it's whatever. All of these terms that sort of
kind of mean the same thing, butyeah, it's saying something.
Yeah. And it's pretty.
It's it's heavy and familiar. It's very familiar.
To you're gonna recognize peopleand because it's from the Korean

(24:23):
perspective, because it's AK drama, these people are Korean
society. Yeah, what was cool and what was
global was that everybody saw maybe something that they could
relate to. Yeah, people are like all over.
That's the big take away honestly, especially with the
crypto guy. The crypto guy yeah let's talk

(24:45):
about the ending and in non spoiler terms because we got a
question on Instagram. Someone was like, I want you to
talk about the ending hate because people fucking hated
this ending. Yeah, this person said.
I liked it but I think the majority of people aren't
consuming K dramas who shit on it.

(25:07):
Oh. And so that was a different way
of putting it, of way of like kind of rationalizing why people
might not have appreciated the ending and what it was doing.
I can kind of, I can kind of getbehind that.
I can kind of get behind that. I think that the way that they
set up endings in the West is very different.

(25:30):
What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, it's a spoiler.
So like, it's, I guess I just mean they're more pragmatic in
Korean dramas. They're more pragmatic.
And it's like, I can't believe this happened.
And when you really ask that outloud, you look at it, it's like,
well, why did I think that, 'cause I'm used to the writing
that we have here against all odds, this, that kind of milieu

(25:54):
of like, we'll find a way to make it happen.
Yeah, Deus Ex machina happy. Deus Ex machina, Yeah, there
ain't no Deus, ain't no machina.I know none of that over there.
Like nothing, nothing. They're just like, all right.
Well, it, it kind of forces the viewer, especially I would say
one that's not in a Korean audience or familiar with Korean

(26:18):
dramas. It's like, OK, so you're
disappointed. Why?
Well, because I thought this would happen.
And why would you think that youdidn't watch the rest of the
show? That's what it forces you to
reconcile with. So I can, I can kind of agree
with that comment because yeah, no, this isn't an American show,
guys. Like it's.
Not yeah, I watched a couple Disney movies today and I was

(26:39):
like, man, we are so not that I hate them, I love them.
But I feel like as a society, we're so conditioned to want
the, you know, Avengers end gameending.
You know what I'm saying? When really it should have ended
like the Thanos snap. It's like he snapped everyone
out of existence, guys. Like there's no coming.

(27:02):
Right, right. There's a there's a don't worry.
The Prince comes and kisses her and she wakes up.
Don't worry, We're gonna. We're gonna reverse all of this
through crazy, fantastical means.
And it's something that, you know, historically we did
specifically Disney, right? Because Pinocchio was a

(27:24):
serialized comic where it was like a sadistic, A serialized
comic about making fun of the misfortunes of this wooden boy
who's pathetically thinks he's going to be like a real boy.
Maleficent holds the Prince until he's like 1000 years old
and then releases him. Like, it was a really mean but
realistic form of storytelling. For the longest time.

(27:47):
We got used to like, the better ending so fast.
Yeah, doesn't always work either.
Right. And I think that's the when the
Western audience sees, you know,their favorite characters going
through trials and tribulations.And then the the trials and
tribulations don't end. There's no reversal of fortune

(28:08):
that makes people upset. Sometimes you're just job guys
like, yeah, like that's it. Like, I personally really liked
the ending. I thought it was very powerful
and I thought it was a lot more positive than people were
thinking it was. I I could see where you're

(28:30):
coming. From I found a lot more Nuggets
of positivity. Yes, then.
I think most people saw maybe onfirst watch.
Oh yeah, yeah. People didn't look at it very
analytically, the Discourse or whatever we're calling.
I love when you say discourse. Every time he says discourse

(28:51):
people, he does air clothes withhis.
Hands it. It just feels like a buzzer now.
It's like, oh, the narrative around Squid Game, like, just
stop. We're talking about a show.
Relax. But I think it's so reactionary
how people have been commenting about the ending, yeah, that I
feel like they're missing. They're missing so many little
things. That's how I feel.
It's like, oh, you missed it. And you read it in the comments

(29:13):
too. But these are the same people
who are like, oh, fan theory. This was actually the game
leader sneaking into the game. It's like, no, that's not a
theory, guys. Like that's.
Yes. So I think they're missing it
and it makes me feel sad becauseI don't think people really
revisit anything anymore. I know.
So I think they're going to watch it, think that they hated
it, missed all this stuff. But there is.
What will come out of it is man,season 3 of Squid Games sucked.

(29:38):
And that's the whole thing. And that's the whole thing.
That's scores. Like.
And then you go, oh, why did youthink it sucked?
And they're they'll give you theending.
Yeah. Or they'll give you there was no
character development. That's not even true.
First of all. I think it's not even true.
We got character development like 2 of the episodes of this

(30:00):
fractured season we got to see they developed.
It happened. They gave you some, they gave
you a little bit, but again, this story was never, I think
built on this character is goingto surprise you and do something
totally different, contrary. Anybody.

(30:23):
This is my feeling on it when itcomes to character development.
Anybody who voted to proceed after the second game, you
should know what it's hitting for by now.
You know what I mean? Like as a viewer, it's like, Oh,
well, this guy went through these two or three challenges
and they still voted to keep going.
There is no development. There's no nothing.
We're just going to see the worst parts of what they've

(30:45):
already revealed to us. So that's what I find weird
about the whole character development thing.
It's like, oh, how could, for example, how could he have done
that? It's like, how could he have not
or she have not? Like they voted through every
single round. They're watching people die all
around them, main cast and extras, and they still proceed

(31:07):
to continue the game. Like what do you want to know
about this character? Like what is there to develop
like? It's sending a message, I just
don't think they like the message.
Anyways so this is I think as far as you can go is talking
about the ending without ever actually talking about specifics

(31:28):
for the ending. This I think we could talk about
in the non spoiler section. We had someone ask thoughts on
could the VIPs have just sat there in their masks instead of
being cringe? That's a question for the ages.
I think that they should have put them in AVIP room off

(31:50):
camera, never to be seen. We didn't need them.
It was horrible. It was horrible.
No word of a lie. I would out of cringe start
clicking. I have an Apple TV so it does
the little like 5 and 10 click by pressure.
I would just go like and just immediately go to the and I
would be like no I can't. So I would rewind.

(32:12):
What was with the ADR voices? Dude they were so the VI PS We
finally see the VI PS I guess. Minor spoiler.
We see them in season 3 because after a certain part, once they
surpass a certain game and there's less players, the VIP
show up to the island just like in season 1.

(32:33):
So the VIP show up in season 3. Listen this has got to be some
of the most cringe worthy goofiest dubbing blatant dubbing
that I have seen in K drama period.
And granted, we've been watchingK Drive for a long time.

(32:54):
English speaking characters, always without bail suck.
They're just the worst actors. Like just got somebody off the
street who could barely put two sentences together and they're
like, hey, you can you read? Read this.
And that is how it feels. And they're not even Korean.

(33:19):
So like, are they finding Dutch people, like on the street?
Like what is this accent? What is this?
Voice look. Or in the Korean dramas, when
they get back from Princeton or Stanford or Harvard and they
speak in the most broken Englishpossible, like it's.
Just. But they've been there for 10
years, right? Yeah.
It's just astonishing how bad the VIPs were.

(33:42):
It distractingly bad. Who okayed that?
Like, I'm baffled that, like, this is a mega.
This is Netflix, right? Like nothing gets past them.
How does even the actors, I had read the actors had actually
spoken out about that. The VIP actors.
Yeah. And they saw it.
And they're like, we don't know why we were dubbed over.
Like we're all native English speakers.

(34:04):
Like I don't. Yeah, now they've taken their
performance out of it. I was because these people are
swearing. Up and down, I can actually act.
I don't speak like that. Well, it's a good thing they're
wearing masks. In like a pantomime of a person
who speaks English. I heard a rumor that this is how
people English speak, so I'm basing it off that this is what

(34:27):
they say English sounds like. It's just, I don't know why they
tampered with it. It totally diminished the show.
They took too much screen time. They took up way too much screen
time. I hated the VIPs.
I mean, The thing is, they're supposed to be, on some level,
really cartoonish. Yeah, They're supposed to
represent the most horrible, elitist, deplorable people.

(34:51):
Yeah, I mean. So I don't know if he, the
director, is making fun of thesepeople by making them sound so
goofy. Goofy.
Yeah, I mean, I guess the English the script.
The script also was horrendous for them the.
Script was. It was a step up just.

(35:11):
Flimsiest thing I've ever seen. But you know what's crazy?
I can actually accept because I remember the first season.
I hate it. But you do the eye roll thing
where someone in a Korean drama was like, hey, you there because
you're not expecting English at all.
So I kind of rolled my eyes there or whatever.
Then it becomes a global phenomenon and it becomes this
massive explosion. Surely they can't make this

(35:32):
mistake twice. Not only did they fuck it up
again, but they had to dub over it so I'm just and then I could
forgive all of it. I honestly could fine, but it
was way too much time on screen.We should have gotten a glimpse
of them like twice and move on. We get it, rich people are

(35:52):
watching. It's, I mean, they're the choir,
right? In a Greek tragedy, they're the
choir. We don't need a choir.
They're the ones talking about what's happening, the action
that's happening. But I feel like they don't trust
us to, like, derive that nuance from it, you know what I mean?

(36:13):
Like. I think the director really
thought I want the perspective of the worst of the worst to be
commentating like sport commentators throughout the
Squid Games. And it would have been grueling
and had the effect he wanted if good.
If I wasn't laughing ass off every time they were on.

(36:35):
Me or just like cringing into a new life form just like like an
Autobot just crunching into myself it's.
Just. We didn't need it.
I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.
So that's the answer to that question.
All right. What would you give Squid Game
season 3 out of five told you bottles. 3 1/2, maybe a four,

(37:01):
maybe my initial thing here. I think my opinion will change
as we talk about it more. I haven't talked about it to
anyone, but for now I'm going togive it a 3.53. .5 OK yeah I'll
give it a 4 but I'm trying to offset the feeling of a bad
experience. You know, that's a hard one,
dude. That's a hard one.

(37:21):
That's really hard to do. I would love to rewatch this
down the line when the discoursehas died down and nobody.
Can come back and change the narrative.
I think it was incredibly unfairfor, for, for me, for, for a lot
of people because yes, I'm a fanof Squid Game.

(37:42):
Yes, I appreciate it. Yes, I've been doing views on
Squid Game, but the fact that this feeding frenzy has come
from my throat and diminish my view is, to me, unacceptable.
That's fair. O I'm giving it a four out of
five, kind of against my better judgment because I want to give

(38:04):
it a 3 1/2, but I'll give it a four because I do feel like the
craft is there. The story is strong.
I did have reactions throughout the episodes as they went on.
It was definitely a heavy show. This is not for the faint of
heart. This is not for those who are
squeamish and don't like blood and don't like violence.

(38:25):
Of obviously all those things still apply for Season 3 and I
think that the message was really powerful, if only diluted
by the capitalist machine that is Netflix.
Yeah, Yeah. That's, you know what, that's
fair and that's a really generous I.

(38:47):
But are you doing that for just Season 3 or are you doing that
knowing that two and three are basically one season?
No No. For Season 3.
For Season 3. OK.
Yeah. All right.
All right, all right. Fair.
And I feel like I have a lot of notes, but not that many notes.
But we'll get into it right after this.
Excuse me, I can't, you know, I am noting.

(39:10):
Oh, sorry. All right, we're on the other
side of spoilers and we are going to talk at length about
what the hell happened in Squid Game Season 3.
We're going to talk spoilers. We're going to go into, I think,

(39:30):
a little bit of detail. I think that's what the people
want. So let's talk about I.
Should we go in order? Should we just go in episode
order? Yeah, sure.
Episode 1 Keys and Knives we seethat 8 managers and 27 soldiers
died in the melee of the end of season 2, which was the

(39:53):
insurrection, the rebellion, theuprising, you know?
The fallout of it all. The fallout it was 8 managers,
27 soldiers on the Squid Game side, and 35 players died.
For those doing math at home, that is exactly the same number.
So 35 Squid Game employees and 35 players died and this game,

(40:16):
this Quid Games, they're obsessed with fairness.
Yeah. I think from jump 001 was like,
oh, if he wants to rebel and play this hero game, I'll let
him, but it has to be fair. That's pretty cool, honestly.
I was thinking that was interesting and something of

(40:36):
note. They string up the rebel players
as they're heading to the next game.
They see them hanging up there and I thought that was really
barbaric. They didn't clean up the walls
either. They didn't clean up the walls
or nothing. Terrifying.
Blood splatter and the bullet holes everywhere.
Aftermath of the massacre. There was something about the

(41:00):
rebel players being strung up that I was like, this is very
like, just medieval. Yeah, very.
Look at what your insulins got you.
Let this be a warning to you. Heads on the spikes type it was,
and even then, I'm really cautious about saying this, but
I think you'll know what I mean.Even then, that was probably as
dignified as they could have gotten with it because they were

(41:23):
hanging by their wrists from a centerpiece.
I thought they were going to do worse than that.
Like I thought they were going to make a real big shot.
I thought they were going to leave the bodies in place, not
clean anything up. And it's like, walk around.
You thought they were going to leave the bodies in place?
See, I thought they were going to do what they usually do,
which was just drag the bodies off, put them in a casket, and

(41:43):
then cremate them. Yeah.
But no, they went the extra mileand they hung them up as a
message. Yeah, to scare them.
It was gross and it was really gross.
We get the 4th game, it's hide and seek.
I heard someone online saying this is not a fair hide and seek
because the keys that everybody got who were hiding did not open

(42:07):
all the doors because the doors had different locks that were in
the different shapes of the triangle, the square and the
circle. And to open the final door to
escape the exit, you needed all three keys.
And they were like, that's not fair.
And then some doors led to nowhere.

(42:28):
They were just death traps. Yeah, like you would fall to
your death. Yeah.
Oh my God. I thought it this is like the
whole thing is that this is a bastardized democratic voting
process. This is a bastardized idea of
fairness as well. Because what other game then
would be fair, right? It's yeah, I don't really.

(42:50):
I mean, I can see where they're coming from.
I. Can see why they were upset but
also like they're they're under 24/7 surveillance.
There's an entire staff that's dedicated to watching their
every move, to listening to them, to facilitating the games.
Yeah, the fact that the keys were not opening every door, I
was like, this is like, beyond the pale.

(43:11):
Like I of course of course they don't open every single door.
Yeah, and isn't that like real high?
That's like hide and seek in real life too, though, right?
Because it's like, oh, I thoughtI found a place to hide, but
just kidding, I didn't, you know?
And and it's also a culling gamethough, isn't it?
Right. Because it's meant to get the
most players out of play. We're near the end.

(43:32):
You thought you found the exit 1800.
You thought you got. You need two other people.
They need distinct keys like Oh,I didn't expect Morgan, it was
1800 you. Thought but in this.
Episode this is this is a big culling game.
It was a it's like, OK, we're nearing the end now let's start
wiping people out so it makes sense why they did it that way.
And yeah, I mean, in hide and goseek, you can't really hide

(43:55):
behind a locked door. You can't hide like, you're not
supposed to do that. You have to hide in a place
where you could reasonably be found.
Because I saw criticism about that.
It's like, oh, that's BS. Like you can't even lock the
door once you've opened it. It's like, well, yeah, like if
you were. Saying hide and seek.
Yeah, like once you open this door, you cannot go back.

(44:16):
You can't lock it again. It's open forever.
And it's the same with all of these characters.
They're not. Even if they win, they cannot
return to who they were before. There's no winning the games.
I've had trauma from less. I don't know how they would
react to society and just like. So, you know, the fact that they

(44:38):
couldn't lock the door behind them and there was no sense of
safety, Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a game.
It's it's for entertainment purposes, to entertain the
elite, the the VIPs. Exactly.
That's the whole point. You're there for someone else's
enjoy. I mean, all things considered,
the games are very, very fair ina in a very psychotic way,

(45:02):
right? But they have a logic that all
the games have a logic that if you're paying attention close
enough, like it's like, OK, fine.
Like, but considering it's a game of life and death, it's
very sophisticated. At least it's not like, I don't
know, fight to the death. Here you go in an open like
airspace and they're just givingeverybody knives, you know what
I mean? Like, there's rules, there's

(45:22):
structure, there's. And it always devolves into
that. Every time.
Yeah, it every time. So we get red team, they're the
taggers. They have to hide.
Nope, never mind. Have that backward.
The red team of the Tigers, theyhave to kill the blue team and
they're given little toy, what look like toy daggers.
That was so funny and it's like sailor moans.

(45:43):
Like the scene where Gian is walking like angrily like a man
on a mission and they focus on his hand with this little knife.
Cracked me up. Yeah, it looks like a little toy
knife. I will say Gian at this point is
a different man, right? You see how the games have taken

(46:05):
a toll on him, how the rebellionor the the losses that he took
has played on his mind, on his spirit.
He feels guilty. Yeah, he feels.
Incredibly guilty. He's putting that all on his
shoulders because he's like, I LED these people to their death.
And for what? And for?
What? He took the all the way
downtown, like the whole like hejust got on and never got off.

(46:28):
I felt so bad for him. I'm like damn, Nope, I got Una.
Like everything that he does is so.
Yeah, but he was it. The only I can remember, a
couple of players basically cometogether and they're like, hey,
Kangan Dole, who's player 388 Bao is the name of that
character. Yeah, he fucked up.
He came back for the magazines and was in a puddle in the fetal

(46:53):
position on the floor. Never made it back, just sat
there and didn't do anything andwas cowardly.
That is all that Kia needs to place blame on somebody else.
He needs a scapegoat. Yeah, you know, for his own
psyche. Because even if he would have
gotten the magazines out there, like let's be so for real,
they're not going to win. Like they were like they might

(47:15):
have gotten a couple of more of the pink soldiers down.
This was. Controlled chaos.
Yeah, if he wanted to, the leader could have just opened
fire on everybody and just endedit.
Yeah. Oh, well, he What about that
reveal though? I mean, not really a reveal
because we suspected it. Yeah.
So next episode is * night and we get this reveal that 388,

(47:38):
which is Kongano's character, did not serve in the Marines.
Now, I think a lot of people were upset because the
translation was off. It made it seem that he had
never served ever in the military when really he had
served in sort of like a servicepersonnel capacity.
He was not in the Marines, but he did technically serve his

(48:01):
time in the military. Like when someone says they're a
Marine but they work a desk job in Kuwait or something or like.
No, it's not even that it was. It was like another like AI
don't know how to explain it buthe did not.
Like he's never seen combat basically.
OK, so he served in the militaryunder social services personnel,

(48:23):
implying that he wasn't considered mentally fit to go to
the regular military service. So he gets a Marine tattoo even
though he never was a Marine. That's so sad.
He's a wannabe, a pretender. A liar.
A liar because he did go to the.He did serve.

(48:43):
In the in the military technically, but social services
personnel is not the same as active duty Marine.
I still can't help but feel somewhat bad for him, but Oh
well. He just wanted to play with the
guys. He just wanted to be accepted.
The thing is, I do and I don't because the tattoo is like a a
step too far. Definitely.

(49:05):
The tattoo. That's like hypey territory.
Yeah, and him being in that situation, I under, I understand
him lying through his teeth. Yeah, but also, what the hell?
He was also lying before he everentered the Squid Game because
of the tattoo. Yeah, yeah.
So stolen valor. I wonder if that's a thing over
there. Well, people are saying it's not
technically stolen valor becausehe did serve his, you know, 2

(49:29):
year military term, but it was under this this other like
social services. Yeah, which a lot of people do.
Yeah, that's fine. It's but it's not he's in.
There's nothing wrong with the job, but it's the very
intentional. Like you hear Marine, you think,
damn, he was on the front lines doing the GI Joe thing and like,

(49:53):
girl, you weren't GI Joe, You weren't GI anything like you
were like you weren't doing that.
No, to represent. Yeah, OK, it's slimy.
It's slimy but it sucks because the light caught up with them
and look at what it turned into.Right.
I was really frustrated with this character at the end of
season 2 because he is very cowardly and he cowers in a

(50:15):
corner and he's having this trauma response.
I understand that, but trauma tonothing.
He's just scared. Yeah, right.
It's not. AI wouldn't say it's a trauma
response at that point. I think it's.
He's just fucking scared out of out of his mind.
Yeah, because you would think, OK, my whole thing with him was
like, all right, this sucks, butyou know, we lost another one to

(50:37):
PTSD. Like, OK, no problem.
Like, it's lousy timing, but youcan't control that.
He saw combat like he probably. And now.
So it's like, oh, you were just like, scared.
Right. And The thing is, I I feel for
him because yes, it's scary. The situation is awful.
Of course everyone is afraid. But if this was a military

(50:59):
operation, he's a deserter. And also how does that?
But whatever, that's fine. Like.
The thing is, in episode 2456, Kyun is out for blood.
He's going directly to 388. He is letting people go on the
blue team because he wants to kill specifically Kanganol's

(51:21):
388. Yeah, 'cause they're screaming
for their lives and he just walks past.
I actually think I wrote a note about that.
Let me see. 0456 is crazed. Look, suits him well.
It's very scary 'cause it's true.
He's a man on a mission, He's ina, he's in a trance.
He's like going for it. He doesn't care who's getting

(51:41):
stabbed, who's in his way. He's just weaving through and
just looking for him. That was wild.
What I found interesting with that, we'll just follow through
with them until the end. Before we talk about other
things in this episode, 'cause this episode gets wild, but the
whole reason why the knives werebrought out in the first place
is that people were like, you expect us to kill people on the

(52:03):
blue team with our bare hands? That's crazy, that's barbaric.
No, we're not. We can't do that.
There's no way we're going to beable to do that.
So then they're like, Oh well, here's a gift for the red team,
the taggers, and then hand out the knives.
I think the bare hands thing would have been more
interesting. And 456 doesn't use the knife to

(52:24):
kill 388. He uses his bare hands.
Yeah, to suffocate him to death.It's like real primal rage, like
real, just very Cane and Abel very back to basics, very like,
no, I'm going to use my own force to just kill you.
And he didn't take any handouts from the soldiers to do it.

(52:46):
Like he's like, I don't need their help in killing you.
I I got this. It was really intense.
It was one of the most intense killings in the whole.
Thing and the fact that Kanga Noel's character and I love this
acting here, Kanga Noel again, really amazing actor.
I really, really respect him. His standoff with him is
fantastic. Even before, you know, he gets

(53:06):
strangled to death. He's he's challenging 456 and
saying, no, it's your fault thatall of these people died.
It's not on me. Oh my God that this operation
failed. The gall of it all.
Because it's like yeah, but alsolike no.
I mean, he's a cornered person. It was never, he was never going

(53:27):
to say the sanest thing. He was never going to be.
You're right, I definitely am totally to blame for this thing
going South. The childish Gambit, one of my
favorite. It wasn't really a gag, but one
of my favorite things about thatscene is he's hiding behind the
door. He's just hiding behind the

(53:48):
door. And just like you do as a little
kid, it's like, oh shit, they found where I'm hiding.
So you'll try to like do this thing where you'll hide in like
a coat in the closet or you'll hide behind a door or whatever.
That cracked me up. I don't know.
It's such a small detail. It is a small.
Detail, but cowering like a child.
Like a literal child. It's not a bad plan.
I would do the same thing, but when you butt that up against

(54:11):
everything else you know about 388, you're like, this guy's a
fucking punk, like. And and that's what it tells
you, because anybody who's not apunk would do that same thing,
Wait till they hear the footsteps, peek over to see, and
then just slip out the door and run in the other.
But no, he's too scared to even do that.
I just I do love how it's mind games before that because 456 is

(54:33):
staring his ass down. Yeah, the whole time and he just
keeps looking out of the corner of his.
And it just, I mean, it riles him up.
It gets him so anxious. And I, I just love that lead up
to both of them. But 456 after he strangles him,
he does come to terms pretty instantaneously with his own
guilt. And he admits it is my fault,

(54:56):
even though it's really not his fault.
He had noble intentions. They came together as a team.
He went into the games with these intentions to shut it all
down. He wanted to save people, right?
Like it wasn't. That was the plan all along.
Like that was the execution of the whole reason he came back.
So. And if not, like what's the

(55:17):
alternative when it comes to blame?
Like what's the alternative? They were all just going to die
in the game anyway. Everybody was probably.
Going to die him raging against this game in all of the the
whole he doesn't want to be a cog in this machine and die and
have all of these people die too.
He's really trying to save people and.

(55:40):
People died. You got to break a few eggs.
Like it's like they were going to die.
I do remember talking about thatin the season 2 episode of How
it is challenging 001. The front man in disguise is
challenging him and saying, oh, so it's OK that, you know, some
people die while we're doing this and.

(56:01):
Yeah. And he said, yeah, the ends
justify the means, basically. They have to when you're up
against something like that, Yeah.
I mean, what's the alternative? People are going to die.
And it was very damning, I think, for the 456 character.
And he senses it now when he blames himself and he actually
tries to commit suicide with theknife and they don't let him.

(56:26):
That was so vile. They don't let him.
They shoot the they shoot the knife out of his hand.
That was vile. And then they tie him to a bed.
He can't even sleep in a bed waiting for the next game.
That's wild. I don't it was.
I love this episode. It's really good.
But this we haven't even coveredthe other thing, which is we got
Team 2, which is the pregnant girl.

(56:47):
We got player 222, that's Chuni.We have Kumja, which is player
149, she's the Harmony character.
And then we have Hyunju, the trans character player 120.
Icon. Doing A tag team, they're a trio
trying to help each other out inthe game.
They're all in the blue team. What do you have to say about

(57:09):
this? I don't even know where to
start. I just don't even know where to
start. Her water breaks.
Yeah, the baby is born inside 15minutes.
Like it comes fast. Yeah, I don't know.
Like it's CGI. Oh.
Oh, we. Want to talk about how they
Renes made the baby? Oh.

(57:31):
And they kept the bit they kept,they kept showing the baby,
like, show it once, cover it in a swaddle.
We'll trust that the baby's there.
You don't have to keep showing us this Cronenberg baby like.
I agree, I thought the CGI baby.That shit was rough.
Bro it's the big 20 fives what are we doing?

(57:55):
Renesme a baby. And for those who don't know,
Renesme is the name of Edward and Bellis baby in The Twilight
Saga. You.
Imprisoned on my baby. Famously in the final Twilight
movie they have a CGI baby and it's pretty horrendous, but it's

(58:15):
better than the the animatronic baby that they had developed,
which was terrifying but I can'tbelieve that they CGI had the
baby. That was scary like that was
that was a scary baby. I I love that trio, by the way,
I got to say I love that trio. Iconic set, perfect skill set,

(58:36):
perfect everything. We have a beautiful quote from
the Hellmany, she says. I knew we made a great team ever
since we went to the bathroom together.
That's sisterhood that was so iconic.
I almost I teared up right there.
But it was so good. Shit's going down.
They are delivering the baby. Hellmany 149 uses her Pino to

(58:57):
cut the umbilical cord, which isthe little knife that she uses
as a hairpin. And she ends up using that knife
just a few minutes later to stabher son because her son
purposely switched places with her to be on the red team and

(59:17):
have to basically murder at least one person to pass the
route. And.
He couldn't even do that. And he couldn't do it.
There was a less at least one ortwo times where it was very
easy. I don't want to say easy because
it is. He was perfectly in the position
where he could take someone out like he it was handed to him and

(59:38):
he still couldn't do it. So and you learn a lot.
I mean, that's the thing about the character development,
right? It's like, oh, there was, of
course there was this guy who was a total bum who was a shit
to his mom. We know that.
He stopped short of murder and stopped short of like, like he
can't do it. He can't do it.
We know that he couldn't do it. He was soft, the mother said.

(59:58):
So multiple times, she said I, Iraised him to be this way, to be
better. He was never like his father,
who was abusive toward. Yeah, How about that quote?
That's one of my favorite quotes.
When it's like, Mom, do you think that we really should
switch? Like, you're an old lady and
she's like, your father abused me like routinely.

(01:00:19):
I don't have the exact quote, but it's like and who's still
alive And she's like you are andshe goes exactly like I'm still
here. She's a hard bitch so.
She's hard. She This really rocked a lot of
people. First of all, I think Koreans
really hated this, the fact thatthe mother killed his son.

(01:00:40):
Well, if that's where they're going to start drawing the line.
Well, The thing is the Korean audience really lambasting this
choice for the mom to kill her son.
Blood runs thicker than water inKorea.
But it's a mercy killing like it.
It's a beautiful, like I thoughtit was a beautiful moment.

(01:01:01):
Right, I was going to ask you how you interpreted it.
Was she killing her son to save the mother, the new mother and
the baby? I think she was doing two
things. OK.
I think, and I think she was doing both.
And I thought, I, I thought it was a really beautiful moment,
as sad as it was, but that was her keeping score.
She's like, I think she calculated it this way.

(01:01:23):
I'm an old woman. I don't have that much time to
go. My son is not going to survive
this game. This the time's going to run
out. He's not going to survive the
game or he's going to take the life of a mother or of a baby,
whichever that was going to shake out.
And even if he wins, he's never going to make it past this.

(01:01:43):
So she spared everybody. She very quickly did the older,
wiser person thing and decided, OK, well, he's not going to kill
me because I'm his mom. Can't let him take offered these
people. Yeah, she offered.
She. Said like oh he will kill me
then. Yeah, and he wasn't going to do
it. And she's like, well, at this
point I'm just going to have to kill him.

(01:02:06):
And then at least I can spare him completely being killed by
the game itself. And I can spare this baby and
spare this baby's mom where theyhave their whole life ahead of
them. What do you mean by being killed
by the? Game well, because he does get
killed by he gets finished off by the pink soldiers.
Ostensibly they go in and shoot whatever life is left out of

(01:02:27):
him, but he's as good as dead. She stabbed him in the spine
like he's gone, but she was like, rather than let my son
live long enough to kill someonewho really does really, really
doesn't deserve it or get killedby this game because he's not
going to win this game. She knows right off RIP he's not
going to win. I would rather take him out

(01:02:48):
since I brought him in, Let me take him out.
It's better if it's done by someone who's familiar at least.
It's a very warped thing, but everything in Squid Game is very
war. It's a mercy killing.
She's like, you're not going to survive in this game and I'm not
going to let you kill someone. But also, I'm giving you an L
and you're not taking it, so there's nothing left.
I see. I thought it was a very

(01:03:08):
dignified, It's a tragic situation, but I thought it was
a very dignified death. I agree with the dignified part.
I am like kind of adjacent to your other feelings about it
because yes, she did in essence save the the new mother and the
baby who she just delivered, right?

(01:03:29):
That's AI feel like that's a special bond, right?
You know, you just delivered this child.
You just been with this girl. You've given her your food.
You know, in this dire situationthat we've seen in Season 2,
like she gave her the egg. Immediately became a mother
figure. She's a mother figure.
She's very caring toward her, been caring and was looking out

(01:03:53):
for her the whole time and she wasn't going to let anything
happen to her period. But her son, she knew her son
didn't have it in him from jump.She knew that he didn't have it
in him. At some point in the tussle that
happened earlier, he lost his glasses and the glasses get
stepped on. I feel like that is symbolic

(01:04:15):
because he couldn't see clearly,literally and figuratively after
that. He lost his perspective, his
morality after that, which is why he's just immediately is
going for the most vulnerable person in the room to kill.
When he had plenty of chances, he had chances and he didn't

(01:04:37):
take any one of them so. Now I took it as the actual
killing like the mother killing him I took it as and this is an
oversimplification but follow me.
I just rewatched Sinners the other day and when Stack kills
Annie before she turns into a vampire, I thought it was the

(01:05:00):
same thing here. You know, to avoid a calamity of
moral, ethical, spiritual proportions, she preserved her
son's essence by killing him. I could say that.
Yeah, that's why when you said mercy killing, I was like, yeah,
like it, It's it's we're on the same wavelength.

(01:05:21):
We're on the same wavelength. I think it's more to save him
from being killed because I don't think he would have gone
through with it. But I think but I still agree
with. So you don't think he would have
gone through with killing the mother?
No, I don't. I don't think it was going to
happen. I don't think I think he would
have gotten close enough and it just wasn't going to happen.
Oh no, see, the time was going to run his.
Glasses. He was fucking Velma out there

(01:05:43):
and he was going to. He's going to do it.
Patting the ground. OK, he's desperate.
I could take. I can honestly take either one.
I think that that's a really good interpretation.
I hadn't considered the glasses and I think that the moms, I
think her perspective was to spare him.

(01:06:04):
Whichever shape that interpretation takes, it wasn't
a malicious killing, and it wasn't like I'm going to save
this woman I just met over you. It's just like, I think that's
true. I don't.
Think it was explicitly that. Yeah, I don't think so either.
I think it was more of a numbersgame and more of like really
soberly looking at the situation.
I mean, like, you know what, I don't know who's going to get
out of here, but this girl and this baby need a chance.

(01:06:27):
Like this girl was born like 35 seconds ago.
We already we had our time so. I thought it was sad that she
brought in new life. She cut the umbilical cord with
the Benignon, and then she So she brings a new life with the
Pino, but then she also takes her own son's life with it.
And this cruel irony. That was heavy.

(01:06:48):
Was heavy on me and then someonesaid hi.
This is not an original thought someone was putting out on
TikTok. 222 gives birth in A room with an under the sea theme
and then there's squids on the wall.
And most species of squid die after they give birth, so it's
kind of fitting or portends the end of 222.

(01:07:09):
Jesus. And I don't know if the creator
necessarily thought I'm going toput squids on the wall to
represent that the mother is going to die because squids also
die after they give birth. I just think Squid Game squids
see under the sea theme children.
That's that's I think how it kind of happened.

(01:07:29):
I'm not sure if they read into yeah, this particular sea animal
does die after giving birth. If you didn't, I love it when a
writer gets lucky. It's like, I love what you did
with the squids because, you know, cephalopods, when they do
this and this not, you're like, yeah, totally.
And you just sleep. Now, the death that really
rocked me in this episode was the trans character.

(01:07:53):
That one, I had to pause the show.
I was really, really emotional after 120 Bit the dust.
Gutted. Gutted, Completely gutted.
How did how did you come across this?
I the writing was on the wall assoon as she was going to walk
through and she's like, wait, I got to go back.
Killed because she was a good person and she went.
Back she thought and she thoughtabout it for a split second, her

(01:08:16):
instinct, the smallest, the tiniest moment.
She was going to walk into that congratulations room just from
the adrenaline, the relief and everything.
And then she's like, and then she thinks and then she runs
back to get them. I knew from I just knew as soon
as she ran back that that was it.
And of course, like that whole death was really sad and but I

(01:08:40):
love the respect they gave it because they didn't show her
like bleeding out and all this other stuff.
Like it was a very solemn death.They really treated this
character with so much respect. It was fantastic.
Yeah, I love. The way that Paksungan talks
about the character as well in interviews.
So there's a lot of love there, a lot of respect for the

(01:09:04):
character and how it's portrayed.
Because I think in one, one cliphe says, yes, trans characters
in Korean media are really traded like caricatures.
And I didn't want to do that forthis character.
I thought this needed to be different and wanted it to be
respectful and all this stuff. So I really liked this

(01:09:24):
character. I didn't know how much I loved
the character until 120 died andyeah, killed by this
motherfucker. That guy is such a piece of
shit. I wanted him dead from episode
1. Bro.
I wanted him dead from episode 1.
I'm like, Oh my God, this guy isjust, I hate him.

(01:09:45):
I I hated him since the very I despise cowardice.
I really, really do. But his specific brand of
cowardice was unrelenting. Unrelenting.
I was surprised that 333 had such a high body count.
It was shocking. It was shocking how many people
he was taking out. A proactive coward, just sick

(01:10:08):
and for for her to diet his hands really pissed me off.
Because you could tell this guy is constantly fucking around.
Constantly not. Failing upwards.
Failing upwards and not keeping his promises because he
promises. The mother promises 222.
I'm going to come find you afterI pass the round, she hears on

(01:10:30):
the loudspeaker. When he passes around, he's
nowhere to be found. He's off fucking slaying people
that, again, he doesn't need to do.
He's doing extra. Yeah, he could have just done
one and been done. And then he's the one that pulls
up, kills Hyundu. That was the only way anyone

(01:10:51):
could have killed Hyunju becauselike of course waited for her
back to be turned to just like like, there was no way.
Stabbed her in the back. Horrible.
I hate that character. I hated him.
He hated him. Almost as much as the salary
man. 0100 player 100. Yeah, but someone did want us to

(01:11:12):
talk about this, person said. Your thoughts on our favorite
soft boy, Imchi Wan, playing a morally terrible character.
Yeah. Player 333 is played by actor
Imchi Wan, who is amongst one ofmy favorite soft boys.
He's always like a really pleasant, soft, ethereal kind of

(01:11:32):
good character, and then he doesplay really unhinged evil
villains sometimes, and this is one of those times where he just
goes full send in the other direction.
That's really funny. Brilliant.
Idol actor. Yeah, I have crazy eyes right
now, but like, yes, he's morallyreprehensible in this show and

(01:11:55):
he does even more than just killthe trans character like.
It's so bizarre. It's so bizarre.
But you know what it is? I've known people like that.
Oh my God, they fail upward in everything.
In everything. And of all the people who could
have killed her somehow, that one pisses me off the most

(01:12:18):
because of course it was him. And then his baby is there and
he's just like. It didn't matter like, and
nothing mattered to this guy. He really, he thought he was a
good guy, which is so juicy of athing, yeah, of a thing to write
in is that he thinks, he thinks he's, he's got it all figured

(01:12:39):
out. He's got it in hand.
It's giving promising young woman casting all those really
like conventionally nice guys tobe these horrible.
That's what this is giving. Yes, because I think there's
also a pervasive notion that there's still people that loved
333 and are making excuses for his character.

(01:13:01):
And I love reading the unhinged rantings of delusional.
Like. People who cling to these
characters. There's still people talking
about the girl who TOP Thanos like shoved in the first one.
Like I've seen edits about this girl.
It's like she was in the show all of like 3 minutes.
Like this is like your Boba Fettfor like Squid game.

(01:13:24):
Is this like girl? Yeah, but pretty privileged is
on full display here because what do you mean you're making
excuses for 3:30? He's deplorable.
Dude ain't shit. Yeah, and look at the way he
treats women and a Chilton. Whatever.
And a newborn? Not only a newborn, it's his

(01:13:48):
newborn, his flesh and blood. He's the father.
Doesn't even ask to see the baby.
No, no, he's just. Doesn't do anything.
What a piece of shit. Like he's the piece of shit
that's like playing video games in the delivery room and like
taking up the bed in the hospital room while the.
Forgets to bring the car seat tothe hospital when they're on the
day they leave the hospital. Ask for an extra warm blanket

(01:14:10):
for him. Ask the nurse, how long is this
going to take? Drinks his girlfriend, drinks
his wife's ginger ale because like, she's probably feeling too
queasy anyway. Right, right, right.
Oh my God. We could go on and on.
Oh the there's so many cowards in this, but David Lee, who
plays player 125 means sue Ah. OK.

(01:14:33):
Gets hopped up on drugs, Thanos leftovers and he kills the
shaman. What did you think of the
shaman? Cause the shaman, we talked
about her and what she kind of represents and how the Korean
populace would totally understand this archetype, this
character, this religious extremism.

(01:14:54):
Yeah, just absolute delusion. That she has all these followers
and she's lying to them. She's lying about knowing what's
going to happen. She has no fucking clue what's
going to happen. She does predict a few things,
but. She gets some things right, but
it's always because she's she knows what to look for.
Like it's one of those game recognized game kind of things.
It's not the spirits. It's like, oh, like I know

(01:15:16):
someone who's full of shit when I see one and I'm going to wield
that to my advantage. Right, Right.
She's just a master manipulator and she does try and manipulate
456 when she's like, this is what you get.
He's handcuffed to the bed or whatever and she's taunting him
and saying like this is what youget.
There's all these vengeful spirits around you and this is,

(01:15:37):
you know, basically trying to. Had like a supernatural element
to his suffering to make him feel worse to.
Make him feel worse because he already knows that there's lives
lost here. Yeah, and she's adding fuel to
the fire. I wrote something to that.
And then choking the spirit chick out was iconic.

(01:15:58):
But because it was like it was so well deserved.
Like he had to, he had to. Like, she was crazy.
I thought she was a really interesting character, though I
never got to the point necessarily where I hated her.
Like hated her hate her because I think they paced her really
well. Her arc lasted exactly because
the thing that would have reallymade me hate her happened in

(01:16:19):
this episode. But by the time I would start to
hate her, she was killed in a brutal way.
So one of the things that I loved about it was when she's
guiding her followers through and she opens the door, that was
such a terrifying scene. She opens the door and quietly
closes it and starts scurrying away, and they come out and kill
her followers. That was so scary.

(01:16:42):
But then taking the arrows out of blood and marking, she's so
committed to the bit because shefinds the exit, realizes again,
the like the symbolism that everything about it is so
genius. It's like, OK, you conned your
way. You got here by yourself, you
can't get out. You needed to rely.
She should have had her followers with her.

(01:17:02):
They all had a distinct key. But I love that she adds these
arrows to a point where she's going and you can tell she's so
used to being a con artist for being a spirit shaman.
Or maybe she's delusional enoughto think that she is a shaman,
but she's so committed to this bit that even after getting
these people killed and everything, she wields that to

(01:17:24):
try to get 100 and tell him, oh,I can hear the spirits, I know
where I'm going. It's this way, It's this way.
It's that way. And he finds the exit.
I thought that was genius. She was a cool character.
Yeah. 100 Leaving her in the room, though that was dirty
work. Dirty work.
That was so scary. I don't think we ever see what's
inside the congratulations, you made it through room.

(01:17:48):
It made it that much more eerie we never saw.
It we never saw what was in thatroom 'cause they.
Everyone was a reused room though.
Episode 3 is titled It's Not Your Fault, and here we see that
the VIPs has free reign of the place and they are able to
masquerade as pink soldiers. Yeah, we get the bad English.

(01:18:12):
We see that they're excited to kill.
I hated everything about it. I hated it.
They're just exhilarated by participating for once.
There's no stakes for them. It's just it's.
Ridiculous. At least it was honest.
Like they're boring people and they're cheesy people.
Like very disconnected from reality.

(01:18:33):
So it's like funny to see them just like acting like this.
I'm like, oh, you really got nothing else going on.
They're like, wow, look at this one.
It's like. One of the pink soldiers VIPs
says Mamma Mia. It's a me Mario.
What the fuck? The Harmony gives a beautiful

(01:18:54):
monologue. Player 149 says I'm not going to
read the whole thing. But she says no matter how you
look at it, life is just unfair.Bad people do bad things, but
they blame others and go on and live in peace.
Good people on the other hand beat themselves up about the
smallest things. And she goes on to say like my
kid was like that. My young chic was a soft kid,

(01:19:17):
foolishly so blamed himself whenhis employer went bankrupt.
And gives a little back story onthe son.
She says one day I got sick of him being so pathetic I couldn't
take it anymore. So I yelled at him.
I regret all the pain I went through to bring you into this
world. I'll just pretend I never had a
son like you. So get out of my sight now, you
useless idiot. And that night he overdoses and

(01:19:40):
he had even left a a suicide note saying he was sorry for
being such a failure. He took it really bad, really
badly, as one does when their mom says I wish I'd never had
you. Yeah.
And she rushes him to the hospital and prayed to God, this
prayer that I'm sure a lot of people have thought at least in
their lives. That she'd do anything if her

(01:20:02):
boy was saved, even jump into a pit of fire if that's what it
took. But guess what she says in the
end? I killed him with my own hands.
I killed my own child that. Was really intense.
And I think a lot of people weresurprised that the next morning
rolls around and player 149 has hung herself.

(01:20:24):
She's committed suicide. I wonder why they would find
that surprised. I was.
Not surprised because I was fully expecting that.
Yeah. Like I thought that this was
like her monologue. This is her big send off.
Yeah, I wasn't surprised. It was gut wrenching, yeah.
Don't get me. Wrong, but this lady just said
there was basically never going to be a scenario where she lived
without her son. Yeah, that was so sad.

(01:20:47):
Everything with those two associates.
I knew they were headed for it, but I like, I'm not like I can
appreciate the way they went out, though in its own, there
was a dignity to the way that they went out.
They're like, you know what, let's go like.
I could see where you're coming from.
I think that her saying that herson wasn't a perfect, her son

(01:21:08):
was a failure, and she at some point in her life did resent him
and said that said as much to his face.
You know, these people are extremely flawed and imperfect.
And as a mother figure who has been such a beautiful mother

(01:21:28):
figure throughout the show, for her to give this speech and say
this really sad story about saying I had wish I had never
had a son like you is extremely vulnerable and painful for her.
Yeah. It's it also serves to make 456
feel a little better about himself and not blame himself
because she's like, look, I fucked up.

(01:21:52):
I fucked up in the worst way a parent can.
I killed my own child. And it makes 456 kind of gain a
new perspective, really. I the fact that even in the
first, even with all his problems, she wasn't even close.
Yeah, she. Loved her son.
That's all it was. So I don't I, I don't see the

(01:22:14):
reason for the backlash for her killing him.
I think that it was all very well-rounded and very well
explained. So I don't know, powerful
moment. How did they not get an Emmy?
I don't. Know, I don't know.
That, that's one of those. Well, The thing is, this was
this season wasn't up for any Emmys because it wasn't
ineligible. But The thing is, it's a year is

(01:22:39):
a long time to keep this thing fresh in the campaign cycle.
That's true. So will it get Emmy noms next
year? I don't know.
There's shows we haven't seen and haven't come out yet.
It's. Only July.
It's only July. That's what I'm like.
I'm like Oh my God, this is horrible because this was

(01:23:00):
released right at the beginning of the next cycle.
Yeah, that wasn't a good idea. So if they were gunning for
Emmys, this is the wrong timing.They should have just released.
Never mind, they should have just released it in one season.
It should have just been season 2.
Release it like 2 weeks into youknow, and then but whatever.
I know whatever anyway you. Never listen to us.

(01:23:21):
I know. So we get to the fifth game, the
jump rope. That was sick.
Just so they have to cross this bridge, which has a hole in the
middle. It's it's broken, it's a
rotating rope, and they have 20 minutes to get across.
Bad news for 222 because she just fucked up her ankle in the

(01:23:42):
last game. She fractured it really badly.
She was not going to make. It she was not.
Going to make. I had no suspense for that
whatsoever. I'm like even 456 can't carry
this out. She was done.
The fact that the rope spins faster.
And it's a thick ass rope too. It's made of brass, like it's

(01:24:03):
this brass rope. That was the that was probably
the scariest game. I don't know if you feel.
It was scary because I've never,I think maybe once in my life
I've played like double Dutch. Yeah, which?
I think one of my favorite jokesthat you've ever said is like,
let's make other words and slangwords.

(01:24:26):
Like what about double Dutch? Like oh man, she got double
Dutch. Yeah, double Dutch on someone so
erratic, so quick. All these people get double
dutched in this episode. They really did.
They really. Did.
Yeah. And we see, we finally see.
There's so many theories about what the hell was going to be

(01:24:49):
this game. That was interesting because it
didn't the trailer. The teaser was like a train
light. And.
Then they just abandoned that. I don't know what that was
about. Did was did anything look train
like about that? Yeah, they were on train.
Track, they were on a track, butlike it still felt like it was
going to be something else. I thought it was going to be

(01:25:10):
like the the main theory that was going around.
What is that moral dilemma? Oh, like the chain dilemma?
Yeah, yeah. That was like the main front
runner for a theory of what it was going to be.
Yeah, what it is is, and I thinkwe covered this in the Season 2
review, is the doll is Yonghi, which is based on a character of

(01:25:33):
the same name from South Korean textbooks from the 70s and 80s.
And then Yonghi has a boyfriend and his name is Tolzu.
And some of these two dolls, Yonghi and Tolzu, are on either
side of the tracks and they're spinning this fuck ass rope
round. Listen, did I think that 222 was

(01:25:58):
going to make it? No, no.
Was it really sad when she decides to jump off and fall to
her death? Absolutely.
She does have an interaction with the baby daddy.
Fuck ass 333. She says that baby is mine.
The baby has nothing to do with trash like you.
We never want to see you again, not even in our dreams.

(01:26:18):
Like she reads him for Phil. That's a sick burn.
Yeah, I love that. Because he's saying, you know,
you have to get up. Whatever.
She's like get the fuck away from me.
Like I'd literally rather fall to my death, let her break every
bone in my body, leaving my child an orphan, than to cross
this bridge with. But you know what's funny?
It shows how much more I hate this guy because he doesn't

(01:26:41):
notice how he doesn't offer to help her at all, or even to like
none of that. He doesn't offer to take the
baby, but he doesn't offer to help her either.
He does the coward thing and waits till the very last minute
when things speed up to give heran out.
So maybe she'll be like, no, yougo on without me.
I can't make it like he waited till the last minute.

(01:27:02):
It wasn't everything he does. He's one of those very
calculating, cowardly people. I, I couldn't cope with it.
I couldn't cope with it. Like, you let another man save
your kid. You're completely disconnected.
What's going on? He's like, I'll come back for
you. Like, 456 is like going off.
Like, I'll be back. Whatever.
He's just standing there. Like, yeah, OK, cool.
As long as I don't have to do it, like, I don't know.

(01:27:23):
Oh. My God, anyway, so.
I hate that he made it. Through I hate that he made it
through. But anyway, 333 was never going
to be the saving grace for 2/22.And I also love how if you add
11111 to 222 it is 333 for some reason.
I like that. Like.
That's like that. That's how I remember their

(01:27:47):
numbers too. I love that actually.
It's pretty great because like, this whole thing is is nuts.
I think I want to talk about howthe baby inherits the mom's
number. Oh yeah, that was.
It was completely because of theVIP's that they changed the

(01:28:10):
rules of the game and they considered the baby another
player. That was really weird like even
for the game, I thought that wasreally weird.
I I don't know why I thought they would be like, OK, hold the
phone, there's a baby out there.At least let's get this baby out
of here. Something.
No, I don't know why I thought that, but the VIP's.

(01:28:31):
So you gave them more credit? I gave the game runner.
More credit maybe, front man. Front man, I gave front man way
more credit. Especially because you know that
you lost a child. Right.
I didn't think that he would letthat happen necessarily.
If the VIPs weren't there, I wonder if he would have had them

(01:28:53):
collect the baby and be like, you'll get the baby at the end
of the game if you survive something like that.
But I didn't expect him to leavea newborn baby on the field.
But maybe I can't fathom that level of evil.
Like, I don't know. Because if it were me and I was
a sadistic game runner, I would have still been like, you know

(01:29:14):
what this counts as PTO. Let's get this bitch out of here
and get get her her kid, get herthings, send her out.
Let's get her out of this game. Just go away.
But no. Or at least I'm going to grab
the baby and keep it in captivity.
Captivity. Well, one of these pink like
soldier people like will take care of this kid and if the mom

(01:29:34):
lives then great if not, but I didn't expect them to be like
OK, well the baby inherits the number.
That was crazy. Work The baby is now Player 222.
Horrible. She's got a spot on the roster
because 456 took her across. And what if we freaking?
The IP says this is a bigger twist in the resurrection of

(01:29:55):
Jesus. I think I threw up a little in
my mouth because it was just. That it's corny and boring, like
they thought they ate with that.The symbolic nature of the baby,
I guess we have to talk about that because someone does want
us on Instagram. Someone did want us to talk
about the baby. Everything about the baby, and I

(01:30:17):
understand like the baby is so, you know, a wild card in the
show. So the baby inherits some other
spot. And if the baby wins, the baby
would win the money, right? Like, and now if even if they
stop the games now they vote to stop, the baby would get an
equal share. And this enrages the rest of the

(01:30:38):
players. And they're like, that's not
fair. And they're saying that's not
fair over and over. They're just pissed because the
baby is not a true player. It's totally dependent on
somebody else, is completely helpless.
I mean, there's a lot of things here, Like the creator Pang
Dongyuk is definitely trying to say, yeah, it's not fair that

(01:31:02):
the baby should inherit the money, But it's also not fair
that the baby is in this hellhole, that the baby is now
paying for the mother's sins. Why do future generations have
to suffer for the sins of the past?
The baby is the future represents the future.
Hands across America, right? Right.
But it's true, though. It's true.

(01:31:23):
And it's it's funny how in theirabsolute greed, they don't see,
OK, there's a newborn baby in a clandestine blood sport game
who's freshly an orphan. Both her parents are dead, but
it's not fair that it gets money.
If what? Horrible.
Yeah, they're all horrible, especially 100.

(01:31:44):
Yeah, especially 100, who's the ringleader on all of this?
And 100. We're just waiting for 100 to
die at this point. The whole time we're just
waiting. Couldn't come fast.
Enough no player 333 still votes, still votes to keep going
even after witnessing his baby Mama jump to her death.
And the baby is now considered aplayer and can obviously die and

(01:32:07):
is just helpless. It's hours old.
Because they keep the pot anywayif they all reject it.
That. That's what kills me every time.
I think my brain just doesn't let me acknowledge that rule of
the game because I always I think it would just enrage me to
a point where I wouldn't watch it.
Like they that's enough. There's like 6 of you now you

(01:32:30):
can stop now. Like you can just like leave and
get your money and go. Right.
How much more? Right.
Like what it because what is it?What is the cost like the bounty
on each person? Isn't it like?
The pot is CN¥45.6 billion, so each contestant is worth
CN¥100,000,000, which is about 67,836 U.S. dollars.

(01:32:53):
I mean if they went that far I'dleave that much on the table
even out of laziness too. Like just I don't want to play
another game. Let's go home bro.
Like. Yeah.
Hate it? The next scene, I think major
scene, is we have a face off against Ebogen's front man and
4:56 because in the night they're planning on killing

(01:33:14):
them. Yeah, the other guys are like,
OK, well, we're just going to off the baby and off 456.
Keep going, right? Keep playing.
But now there's two less people to contend with, two less
players, and the front man gives456A blade and unmasks himself.

(01:33:35):
I thought this was going to be abigger moment.
Me too. I thought this was going to be a
lot bigger than it was. They kind of downplayed that the
front man is the man behind the curtain.
Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I thought that it fell flat.
I thought I thought so too. It's like that was they treated
it like it was like this guy killed your best friend and he
was on your team and he's still alive.

(01:33:55):
Like there's so many shocks that4-5 sixes, 450 sixes, like
response just didn't click really.
And I'm surprised given the opportunity that he didn't just
kill him. I'm really surprised at that.
But that's the whole thing is that his character is not a
murderer. He's not.
He's a good a good man. What was cool about this

(01:34:17):
interaction is that he was calling him by his name.
The whole interaction, you know,frontman was calling him, you
know, Kian. Yeah, instead of his number.
Instead of his number, this whole interaction, pleading with
him with very real emotion to kill or be killed this night is
important. You're going to die.

(01:34:37):
The baby's going to die. Here's this knife.
Do what you got to do. And then he says, as 456 is
walking out, player 456, do you still have faith in people?
And it's very important that he suddenly calls him by his player
number instead of his name. Yeah.

(01:34:58):
It takes away his personhood, his humanity.
It's meant to convict Ian. Convict.
A naive but good man, you know, make him not kill, perhaps in
the hopes that the other playersmight.
Maybe he would think, oh, the other players might do the right
thing and not kill me and the baby.

(01:35:19):
You know, it throws a lot of things in question for. 4
statistics Because he doesn't, Idon't think because he is
shocked at just how low people would get every time.
Yeah, he's just like. When he realized they're going
to kill him, he was like, and he's like swaddling the baby.
But I mean, he knew before he went up to see the front man, he
was like, this is they're going to come at my throat.

(01:35:40):
And that's going to be it, yeah.But I love that interaction.
It is a callback to the Season 1finale when the old man player
001 Oynam asks After all this, do you still have faith in
people even after everything you've been through?
So you can see the parallel between the original Old Man 001

(01:36:05):
Oynam and front man the new 001.That's so heavy.
It's so heavy. He was given the same
opportunity. The same question, the same
challenge. What do you believe?
Do you think people are still worth it, worth putting your
faith into? And that that is a heavy

(01:36:25):
question that hangs over the whole show.
It is like at the thesis of the of the show, I would say we get
in the very first bit of the next episode, episode 5, we get
a flashback to the Front Man's games where he was given the
same ultimatum and a knife, killor be killed and told to kill
the trash, looking at humans as trash.

(01:36:47):
That's the original 001 owing them saying this to him.
But in this case, in his scenario, he does do it.
He does commit this mass murder that night.
And brutally, too, yeah. And that was clever that we see
the person we see him killing was the last of all the.
Other people to. Finish Killing.

(01:37:11):
It's just such a heavy show. Like honestly.
It is. It is a heavy show.
We see 456 hesitating to kill even one person, and it's player
100, the most vile of the bunch.Like we hate player 100.
Hand it to me, I'll do it for you.

(01:37:32):
Hand it to me, I'll do it. But he has a vision of our North
Korean girl from Season 1 sayingdon't do it, Adashi, you're not
that kind of person. Stayed pure.
Not that she says that, but that's the sentiment.
Like stay. But I mean, he's rather he
stayed pure in his own way, in away.

(01:37:52):
Like in a way. Because he's already killed
Kanganol's character. Yeah, mind you, like he's
already killed someone with his bare hands.
He's already tainted at this point.
He was like, not for me like that was, but that's what's so
funny that he would go out to kill, but he wouldn't kill.
My God, he wouldn't kill the front man.

(01:38:13):
Still doesn't really make sense to me then, because you know
what I mean? Like that whole thing was a bit.
I still don't know how. Because there is He's calling
him hyung. Yeah, but it's still.
You know, Kyun is calling the front man hyung I believe, which
is older brother in that interaction that they had
earlier in episode 4. That's telling that he still

(01:38:38):
considers their bond. Their relationship still
considers him an older brother figure.
But this dude literally killed your best friend like Wyatt
like. I don't.
I know. I don't it, but that's the
complexity, right? Yeah.
So OK. But he doesn't do it and then we
he doesn't kill anybody that night and we get the final game.

(01:39:00):
It is sky Squid Game. I saw this production thing is
behind the scenes production thing where they were hand
painting all of flowers on the floor.
That wasn't like CGI. Interesting.
Yeah, so when they fall off of those pillars, that's all pan

(01:39:20):
painted flowers. OK, OK.
Just a note that I have. Are what did you think of this
game? This game, well, it's
interspersed with the like the North Korean pink soldier Noel
trying to save that other playertrying to save the dad with the

(01:39:41):
terminally ill child. That whole plot line was crazy.
What did you think of that? I liked it.
I liked it. I I liked it because it's like
this is a woman who her motive was pretty clear, right?
Like she was devastating. Like she was devastated from
living a life in North Korea, leaves now, can't find her

(01:40:01):
daughter, has to work as a mascot at a theme park, and not
even a very good one. Her life is just falling apart.
She's trying to. So I thought it made sense.
I thought it made sense with hercharacter.
And I do like the resilience shehad of just, yeah, I came from
North Korea, like. I know what goes on.
I don't, you know, I can take them, I can take them.

(01:40:23):
So I really liked it. I like that she saved somebody.
I like that she managed to save somebody, which is really
interesting when you consider Gian can't really save anyone.
Couldn't save anyone at all, youknow what I mean?
So I really like that whole story.
It was a good like B story because there's the AB and the C
story, right? Like.
Yeah, I had someone DM me another creator and they didn't

(01:40:48):
like her story and really thought it was kind of
pointless. I can read what they said.
Let's hear it. They said never understood what
Pacquiao Young's deal was either.
Wants to save a random kids dad dot dot dot yet shoots others in
the face and in the end dot dot dot ends up with nothing.

(01:41:09):
At least give her the baby and 45,000,000.
Well, you got to draw the line somewhere, right?
Like there's work and then there's life.
You know what? I Yeah.
I draw the line somewhere. She wanted to save this man.
I'm not going to let this terminally ill child become an
orphan. Like she felt some type of way

(01:41:31):
about the little girl, about thedad.
She didn't want the little girl to die or be left orphaned, but
likely just die because there was no one to care for her and
no one to pay for the hospital bills and and make sure that she
got adequate care. She did everything out of
necessity too. She.
Was a mother. I think this has to do with her

(01:41:52):
being a mother and not saving her own child or, you know,
bringing her child with her and escaping North Korea and the guy
that was the, like, lesser manager.
Yeah. He brought her on board because
he thought she was similar to him, was just as cold as him,

(01:42:15):
just as inhuman as him, because he too lost someone close to him
because he couldn't procure a kidney.
Which is why he in turn created the whole organ harvesting side
hustle. It's, and that's what I liked
about it, right? Because it's like we get to
humanize these pink soldiers a little bit.

(01:42:36):
And it also shows this idea is flawed from the ground up that I
think mercy and grace are very necessary to view the human
condition, right? Because without that, that falls
apart. It's like, OK, everybody in the
arena is trash. It's like, OK, but now you have
people over here doing an entireorgan smuggling thing.

(01:42:58):
Good intentions or not, everybody's trying to get theirs
no matter what level of the run they're on in this whole game.
I found it very believable. And I, I also kind of interpret
it as the girl just kind of going postal.
You know what I mean? She's like, you know what?
I did not lose my family and escape a fucking dictatorship to

(01:43:18):
come down here and work in a Bunny outfit and be trapped in
some kind of organized crime rate.
I think she just snapped. She this is a person who had
literally nothing to lose and she got to save someone in the
process. So.
Yeah, his quote for the managersquote about her, he says I was
wrong about you. I should have put you in the
game like them. I thought you were different

(01:43:40):
since you left your child behind.
Stop worrying about someone else's kid and go be with your
own in the sky. I'll give you a painless send
off. And I was like, oh, so she's fit
to kill others as a merciless pink soldier because she's a bad
mother. That's why he thought, oh, she's
perfect. Good job.
She's heartless. She left her.

(01:44:02):
Childhood, they thought, are sociopaths.
Yeah. So I thought, Oh.
I thought you were different. I thought you were a killer like
us. You're a killer like them, like
the trash. Yeah, that was very telling to
me that she was hired because she was a bad mother.
Do we even know why? I don't remember honestly.

(01:44:22):
Like what happened to her daughter, She just lost track of
her. She didn't leave her today.
So it's presumed that she's dead, that the her daughter is
dead. But these smugglers who help
people escape from North Korea, we're like, hey, we have a lead
on your daughter. She might be in China.
So there is some semblance of hope.

(01:44:44):
That's where we leave office. She's like, I'm heading to China
to figure it out. I'm going to maybe reunite with
my daughter. I don't know.
So we don't get an answer to whether or not it in fact is her
daughter. But I mean, was so I'm trying to
remember how she got there. She paid the service to get them
there and I don't think they could have gotten all three of
them. But it's not like she chose to

(01:45:06):
go by herself and leave her family.
She said what happened? She said I shot my superior.
Oh, that's right. OK, nevermind.
So it wasn't like a planned getaway.
She just got out. She just got the fuck out.
I bet her daughter is in China. It's up to you if you want to
interpret it as yes, she's goingto totally have a happy ending

(01:45:29):
and reunite with her daughter inChina who somehow is in China
and they got her out. She's not dead.
I think I could buy that. OK, I'm not going to burst
anyone's bubble if you want to leave that happy.
Happy you got to hope for something like if not, at least
she can adopt this girl who lived by like stalking her at

(01:45:51):
the theme park. I don't know.
Right blended family. Guess so.
Chosen family. Hey, hey, final game is Sky
Squid Game. As we said, we get a surprise
cameo from TOP, who's back as a hallucination hanging off the
Square tower. I missed him so much.
I was very happy to see him as they knows again.

(01:46:13):
Of course, kills me every time. Dude, I was confused because the
pink soldier Noel is going around trying to figure out
where the records are that she needs to destroy for the player
that she's rescued and she opensthe door and there looks to be

(01:46:35):
001 taxidermied. The old man is there and I
cannot for the life of me figureout if he was taxidermied,
preserved, or if it was just a wax figure.
A wax figure of him. Madame Tussauds.
Yeah, like Madame Tussauds got up in there.
I think it was AI think it was ataxidermy.

(01:46:55):
I want to. Believe it.
I genuinely think it's a taxidermy.
They're just crazy enough to do that.
Yeah, that was so fucking scary.When they opened it, I was like,
Oh my God. I was like, Oh my God, is that
him? That was the second scariest
jump scare in the whole series. Yeah, because the top one, I
think you know which one it is. We'll get to it.
I absolutely think it's no coincidence that the finale

(01:47:19):
players are all men. Yes.
Doing a pantomime of a fair democratic voting process, which
is, I think, a direct quote fromPlayer 100 to decide the fate of
a helpless infant girl. Yeah.
I'm like they. Really clubbed us with that one.
Yeah, clubbed us over the head with that one player, 333 doing

(01:47:45):
his big one here with him versus456 and the baby.
And I mean, I was really taken aback that even when 456 places
the baby on the gangway, he doesn't go and pick up the baby.
He uses the pole to pick up the sleeves and move the baby over

(01:48:05):
to his platform. No paternal instinct.
No paternal instinct, nothing there whatsoever.
No love, his first time holding the baby was to hold it over the
edge and threatened to kill it, threatened to drop it.
Which was so that was like anxiety on 10.
And I'm like, it's a sweater. It's not even a real swaddle.

(01:48:26):
You don't know if it's tide. I thought that like there was a
moment where it looked like the baby was going to slip and I was
like, I don't. I just, I hated him so much.
I really did like it. Just not a pleasure to watch.
And of course, you know, we havethe big moment.
So yes, so a lot of people were upset.

(01:48:47):
So there's a couple of things that I don't think I've
mentioned. So people, this is going back
earlier, but there's videos of people attempting the jump rope
game one legged or with somebodyon their back or whatever to try
and justify that 222 could have lived.

(01:49:09):
For what? Her ankle was fucked up.
And look, I think you're full ofshit and grasping at straws.
This is like the Jack could havemade it at the end of Titanic
argument all over again. It feels really useless to have
this conversation. She had just given birth with

(01:49:30):
nothing, no medical attention whatsoever.
She was sleep deprived. They all were.
They were all hadn't had proper nutrition and water and all the
rest and she fucked up her foot.Even jumping would have sent her
into extreme pain. She literally tried to stand and

(01:49:52):
was like ah and had to sit down like.
Never mind jumping all the way across like get out of.
That one legged bro I don't see.That's something that makes zero
sense to me. Could that have happened?
Maybe. Is it likely?
No. Sometimes you take the
likelihood this is a very narrowbridge with a hole in the

(01:50:14):
bridge. Mind you, it look like anywhere
from one to two foot circumference diameter like
brass, fast swinging like she wasn't going to make it across
and 456 putting her on his butt.That wasn't going to work
either. No, he's already compensating
for his own weight and you see him struggling to hold a footing

(01:50:36):
because of how narrow the path is.
You got to jump straight up. As somebody who watches double
Dutch competition, no, you're here.
I do. I love, I love like I really,
really, really love double Dutch.
I implore anybody who thinks that that's possible to watch
double Dutch fails on YouTube. A narrow quarter inch piece of

(01:51:00):
twine swinging under your feet and people trip over that and
bust their ass like so hard. You think this girl with a
messed up ankle is going to likeBunny hop over?
This. Never mind she just gave birth.
I mean, I, I was upset about that.
The second-half of that, which is what prompted going back to
that game, is that people were like 456 could have hit the

(01:51:25):
start button before he shoved 333 off the platform into his
death. He didn't have the chance.
And it's like, I this is reductive.
Like I don't, I don't care to have that conversation that that
is not. Watching the same show, like
there's a baby being held over aledge about to like, like, no,
he couldn't. Like, could he have?
Yeah, but that's not exactly your first priority when

(01:51:48):
someone's trying to kill an infant and you.
I was like, very upset about those.
I don't. I don't know.
I don't know, Yeah. I know.
I'm just mad about anything. But anyway, 323 Yum Shi won.
He should get an Emmy nom for best supporting in my opinion.

(01:52:11):
I agree, I already complain. Whether he gets one next year
considering season 2 was completely snubbed and locked
out. We can hope and it's and you
know what in. The Season.
Namu's kid is in China too, so there you go.
Like, and he'll get the Emmy andthen the kid will be found in
China and we're set. We're going for the happy
endings. But anyway, so 333 bites the

(01:52:34):
dust finally, and we're left with the decision, you know, is
456 going to kill the baby and win the game again?
Or is he going to kill himself and the baby wins?
He saves the baby. And at this point, if you're
still questioning and you're still like, I wonder what he's
going to choose, I think you've missed reading the whole show.

(01:52:58):
Yeah, there was only one way that was going to end.
Yeah, exactly. There was only one way it was
going to end. He was always, he even said at
some point I was. I was never a good father.
And he knew it. He knew his shortcomings.
He knew he was a bad son. He knew he was a bad father.
And you think this man who has raged against the Squid Games

(01:53:23):
and tried to save as many peopleas possible?
It's going to kill. It's going to kill that baby.
Get get out of here. No.
This CGI, this Renesme baby no. He's not going to kill Renesme,
no. So he spends the time, you know,
that is left to him. Yeah.

(01:53:43):
Staring up at the VIP booth and cradling the baby and he has
this short speech. The lines are we are not horses,
we are humans. Humans are.
And it trails off because he is falling to his death.

(01:54:03):
He has chosen to commit suicide and save the baby hard.
Way to go. And he falls back in like an
accepting backward cross motion to his death.
Very obviously sacrificial. Kind of a Jesus figure in this.
And I love this ending. Yes, I love this ending.

(01:54:25):
It is a call back to Season 1, the finale of Season 1, where
the front man takes 456 blindfolded in the limo back to
the city because he's just won the Squid Game.
And 456 is like, incredulous. He's like, how could you do this
to us? Just doesn't take it in at all.
Doesn't care about the money. Doesn't.

(01:54:45):
No, he's still like, well, how do you how do you figure that
you can do this to us? And the front man says you like
betting on horses. You people are horses, you're
animals. That's.
So horrible. Is what he says.
And so for Kyun to circle back at the end of season 3 and says

(01:55:06):
we are not horses, we are humans, I just get chills.
It's such a beautiful moment. It's a beautiful moment, and he
trails off. He doesn't finish the sentence.
Humans are, I think that The Hollywood Reporter asked the
director, Huang Dongyuk, what isthe end of that sentence?
And he says there is no end. You fill it in.

(01:55:29):
It's very hard to define humans because we're so capable of
immense joy, immense love and mercy and grace and all of the
rest. But then we're also so selfish,
so greedy, so horrible to each other.
That's true. And you can fill it.

(01:55:49):
I like that little Rorschach moment where you can fill it
with whatever you want because you're going to get a different
answer from anybody. And it's I just, I can see why
people. So now that we're here, this,
believe it or not, this was not what upset me about the ending.
It was really all about the confrontation with the game
runner game. Front man.

(01:56:11):
Front man, sorry, I don't like you saying the confrontation
with the front man was really what bothered me more than
anything. But I was really prepared for
this. Like when I saw the big when the
baby showed up, I'm like, that'sit.
The baby's the only one that's going to make it out of this.
Like there's no way. And I I love the ending, but I
can see why people would hate it.
But I would have hated even moresome kind of like, oh, you

(01:56:36):
thought he died, but I actually smuggled him out because he's
like the Batman to my Joker and my like, no, he he like, you
know what I mean? Like they could have gotten very
cartoony with it. It's like, no, like he made that
choice. And that I think that for anyone
who didn't like the ending, I would just say this.
It kind of reinforces the theme of humanity and it strengthens

(01:56:57):
it in a very powerful way. Because if he just lives, what
was it for? Like, that's the point.
He died. I'm human.
Yeah. To live.
And and even if him if, if they would have really cheaped out
and the baby and him lived rightwhere it's like, I'm going to
keep you both alive and da, da, da, like front man.
Because that's how I imagine an American version of this going.

(01:57:21):
Like, oh, I'm going to keep themboth alive so I can keep an eye
on them. Whatever.
That's what makes the ending powerful.
Like he had to die. He had to prove, hey, there's
somebody out here who actually does give a shit and doesn't see
us like animals. Like I thought it was a
beautiful ending. I thought it was a beautiful
ending. This was not the original
ending. The Hollywood Reporter did ask

(01:57:43):
the director about the original ending because Goon was
originally not going to die. The director said.
And I quote, I don't know if I can call it an original ending,
but in the beginning I had a vague idea about how I would end
the story. And back then it was having Goon
end the game in one way or another and leave alive and go
see his daughter in America. So originally I thought the

(01:58:05):
person who witnesses the American recruiter would be
Guillen. But as I begin writing the story
and as I begin to think more andmore about what do I want to
deliver with the ending of the story and also what should
Guillen's journey and what should his destination be, I was
witnessing more and more what was happening around the world.
And I thought it was more fitting for Guillen to send this

(01:58:27):
powerful and impactful message to the world with his death.
And that should be how the storycomes to a close.
Fair enough, I can get behind the ending.
I thought you were behind the ending.
No, but I mean, like, I can get behind that.
I can get behind him. Choosing this over even seeing
like an American recruiter wouldhave been exhausting.

(01:58:48):
I don't like it when things end so well and then it's like, oh,
it's the beginning of something new.
Yeah, exactly. It would have been the beginning
of something new. Just the thought of them
conducting another games of combuse, recruiter being in the
subway and doing it all over again this cycle.
It will not end. That alone at the end of season

(01:59:09):
1 made him not get on the plane and see his daughter.
He was like no I need to use themoney to end this fucking thing.
So if he went to America after possibly dismantling the Korean
Squid Game and sees Cate Blanchett?
We have to talk about. Which we have to talk about that
he sees the American recruiter. That would be the start of

(01:59:31):
another. He has to keep going.
He can't just live his life on the money and be with his
daughter. No, he's a good man.
He's going to take it all down as much as he can.
Yeah, I'm glad that it ended this way because I, I can't
imagine something more tedious like another season of this.
I can't like, it's been a good ride, but like, you know enough,

(01:59:55):
we can't miss you if you don't leave.
Like, like you got to go. Like you got to go.
Can we please to. Oh I I just wanted to point this
out apropos of almost nothing. A character that cracks me up
every time he's on screen. A much lesser character,
obviously, but Troy will soak, soak.

(02:00:15):
He just cracks me up. He's such a goofy guy, the one
who's like, I got to go with my gut feeling like there's
something about this, like Fisherman that robs me the wrong
way. Oh my God.
OK, we'll talk about that in a second.
Oh my God, we'll talk about thatin a second.
Because that was the whole thing.
That was the C plot. Yeah, that was AC plot, but yes,

(02:00:36):
so one of the thing that talkingabout the pink soldier 0 eleven,
who is Noel and she goes to China to see if her daughter is
still alive or whatever. At this point she's hopeless in
the story. She's still in those apartments
and found all of this stuff on her.

(02:00:56):
She's got a file and there's a photo of her husband, her
daughter in North Korea. It is just an emotional moment
for her because she's like, Oh my God, we're all under
surveillance. This is the rabbit hole is very
deep here. And she feels completely
convicted because she did abandoned her child in North

(02:01:17):
Korea. Nothing's going to take away
that from her. Yeah.
And so she's feeling the lowest of the low, but she sees 456
make this sacrificial jump, and she takes the finger off of the
trigger because she was going tocommit suicide in this moment of

(02:01:38):
despair. And his act emboldened her to
live that. Was beautiful.
It was so moving. Yeah.
And she just gets the hell out of there.
And then she gets the. Fuck out.
Yeah. As she should.
Yeah, as she should. Somebody, I don't remember if it
was just one person or not, but somebody was like, why does 456
die with his eyes open? I think this is my theory.

(02:02:02):
I haven't seen anybody talk about this.
So original thought for once. The season 1 old man, 001, Yeah,
also died with his eyes open, just as the clock struck
midnight and a Good Samaritan did come and bring help to the
homeless man freezing to death in the street.

(02:02:23):
Gian turns to him, his dead bodynow eyes open, and he says, you
saw that, didn't you? You saw that you lost.
And in the same way that Gian dies with his eyes open,
witnessing that despite technically losing, he won,
Yeah, he proved something that people still have good in them.

(02:02:46):
He's a witness to his own Good Samaritan moment.
That's beautiful. I hadn't linked that together.
I actually really like that. It's already at a point where I
really like the ending, but now this is just like, oh I got to
see this through, literally. Yeah, I like it.
He's looking on, maybe toward the future, the baby.

(02:03:06):
And it's interesting that the front man does not close his
eyes. Just leave him there.
He just leaves him there. But he did close the old man's
eyes. Yeah.
At the end of Season 1. It's mercy, right?
Like or respect or something. I think it's it's something the
relationship between Front Man Ebigen's character and 456

(02:03:31):
Guillen. They're two halves of the same
coin. They've gone through the same
thing, but Front Man has sold his soul.
Yeah, completely vacant. Completely sold his soul.
And so the other thing that I wanted to ask you was, why do
you think the front man participated in the games a
little bit? I think he just wanted to kind

(02:03:52):
of mess with 456, but at the same time, I think he wanted.
It's that curiosity, right? Yeah.
Like the bully who is ultimatelyjust, like, intrigued by the
person that they're bullying. I.
Agree. Like there's something it's
like, oh, how come he gets to godo this?
And I don't like how he wanted to see it up close and personal

(02:04:12):
and interact with this interesting person because I
imagine 456 has to be the most interesting person to like, roll
by there in a while. I would agree, yeah.
And somebody coming back into the game, that's a once in a
lifetime opportunity. The front man knows he's in no
real danger. And he gets to see this like,
it's kind of like his Marie Antoinette moment, you know?

(02:04:33):
Like he gets to be one of the pores, like, hang out in the
field. Do you know what I mean?
Right, right. Because that's how.
I had that Chateau that was likea little farm village.
Yeah, like cosplaying being a. Village, the proletariat.
Yes. She's like, oh, this is how I
buy bread. I think that that was like, I

(02:04:56):
think that was it. That was his Marie Antoinette
moment. I think he was so intrigued by,
like, here's a person who's going through the same thing
that I did, but he's choosing todo something different.
Yeah. And it makes him, you can't help
but wonder. It's like, damn, did I get it
wrong? Right.
This could have been my chance exactly.
I could have done something good, but I decided to take this

(02:05:17):
route. Yeah, so.
There's a hubris Yeah 2 front man that I'm not sure if people
picked up on. He is sure that he's right.
Yeah, he speaks with a lot of certainty.
Same with the original 001. I think that would have, I think
that's the kind of like festering prejudice that gets

(02:05:40):
proven in a like, they don't have a control for their theory,
do they? Like they're getting what they
perceive the worst of the worst,the most desperate people, and
putting them in a room and seeing the depths that they sink
to to kill each other, but they don't have a control of like,
oh, this is what a good person is.
This is what a standard person is.

(02:06:01):
So it's kind of like an inaccurate experiment that kind
of acts like a false positive totheir prejudices.
Oh, like, yeah, see, I knew all these people were trash.
And it's like, well, yeah, but you never stop to consider you.
Got people at the most. Desperate.
Exactly. So I think it just rotted them.
That's why they speak with a certainty.
Like yeah, I knew people were just trash.

(02:06:23):
Like I knew it, like I knew it was that because that's wave
after wave after wave of seeing all these people kill each
other, the same predictable situations, but they never think
of like the flaw in their game. Like you're setting them up to
do that. That's not something people are
just going to do. Like also frontman, he could

(02:06:48):
have just done it for the same reason the old man did it, to
have fun, to feel. Something.
To go back to a simpler. Time playing jacks.
Yeah. Marbles.
Marbles. So we get a six month time jump.
Also, man, I could sit here and talk about front man versus 456
all day, but there was some people who were saying there was

(02:07:11):
no character development. There was nothing there.
It was all wasted potential. And you know, they got hosed
basically on the front man. And I don't believe that for a
second. They were like, why didn't he
react when Guin made this decision not to kill those

(02:07:31):
people in the room with the knife that he just gave him?
And I was like, what do you mean?
He did react. Yeah, it's.
I saw something on his facial expression.
I did too, and I don't. It's comments like that that
like convinced me that the like the people not to be mean, but
it's like I can see like the phone in the hand, the laptop

(02:07:56):
and the lap and then the TV playing Squid Game in the
background because I'm like, arewe watching the same show?
Like you can see? Oh my God, yeah.
He's. I don't agree with that one bit.
Definitely upset at the very. Least obvious.
It's so obvious because he's like.
That he made a different decision.

(02:08:19):
He. He.
Wants to prove himself right so bad.
It's like the Joker moment. He wants.
To cope with the two boats. Yeah, he wants to.
Because if he doesn't, that flies in the face of his
worldview even more because his whole view is like, why I didn't
have a choice. So I do this because, and it's
fine that I do this because humans are trash.

(02:08:39):
And at every turn he's proven wrong and he gets more and more
pissed. That's why he killed 456's best
friend. That's why he did it.
That's why he let like strung everyone along.
He was trying so hard to corrupthim.
Testing him. And it didn't work.
Yeah, yeah. So.
But he respected 456. Yes.

(02:09:01):
Immensely like a like you might respect a very good opponent in
a game. And I love that, I really do.
Six months time jump. Someone stole 456's winnings
from the Pink Hotel. I wonder who it is.
Obviously it's front man. Front man drops off the winnings
and his belongings to his daughter in LA and people were

(02:09:25):
like he wasn't very respectful. He was, I thought, very
respectful and the fact that he showed his face.
Yeah. Huge deal that the daughter got
to see the front man's face. He wasn't respectful like the
sociopathic. Like what?
Like, yeah, like he was respectful.
He was like delivering the news.Like to a fall.

(02:09:46):
It was like a fallen soldier. This is kind of person who
engages with the public anyway, but I that's the exact parallel
I thought. Like the fallen soldier
treatment where they bring the flag and they do the rights and
they do all that. Like that's exactly how I saw
it. I brought a box with a bow and
kind of gross to give him his outfit outside blood.
Yeah. And I wonder if that girl like

(02:10:08):
is going to pick up on the fact of what the pin number.
Is yeah, I don't know, she didn't seem too sharp, but maybe
she will. She seemed I think the pizza is
here. The fuck bro?
You've been in California for like 9 years girl right?
No. No, I think it was maybe 5.
That's long enough. Oh whatever, that's fine.

(02:10:30):
Front Man also drops off player 222, the baby with his brother
Wiha June, and the debit card isloaded up with her winnings.
45.6 billion won. Let's talk about Wiha June
really fast because I hated the C plot.
Really. Yeah.
With the cop and the boats and him uselessly driving around the

(02:10:57):
waters and the islands and trying to investigate and I'm
like, yeah, we're not getting anywhere.
He ignored the bad juju that that guy was feeling.
The guy cracks me up. Yeah, Tay Wusok, as you said, he
was like, yeah, man, I think that captain's in on it.

(02:11:19):
There's some bad vibes here. Bad vibes.
Yeah, I'm not getting on that boat.
I'll call you later. Like that would be enough.
And I think that did piss me offbecause it's like you're a
detective. Like what do you mean?
Detect. Yeah, like I it was frustrating.
It was really frustrating. I thought that that absolutely
went nowhere. The fact that we Ojuna actually

(02:11:41):
gets on the island as it's aboutto self destruct.
He has very little time and faces off against the brother
only to yell at the front man who's the brother mind you and
say why? Just yell at him and ask why and
never. It was a huge disappointment.
Never get the answer, never reveal that his brother is the

(02:12:03):
front man. Only too late.
It was like, dude, what is this?I found it.
I found that to fall really, really flat.
Like, really, really flat. That was one of the more
disappointing because in the first season, I love the
detective subplot. Yeah.
Or in the second it was. The first season.
First season I love the detective sublot, a cool like

(02:12:26):
criminal investigation going on love that.
But it really fell flat. Like I think it really peaked
with the very obvious twist thatthe fisherman was corrupt even
though it's one of it was. So it's one of the oldest tropes
too. It's like, oh, the sea chanting
mysterious, like fisherman, likewhatever, pull the other one.

(02:12:48):
I don't. OK, let's talk about Cate
Blanchett. Please, I, I need, we need to
talk the way I I fucking cackled.
I cackled. I laughed so hard I had to pause
and regain my composure because Cate Blanchett, just for

(02:13:08):
context, is a really really big running gag slash respected
actress in our house. Oh, really?
Like, big. It's a big running gag to the
point my siblings don't watch Squid Game.
And I asked them if they ever would.
They said no, that it's too muchgore, too much whatever.
So I was like, OK, so I was like, I want you to see this bit
of Squid Game. And they?

(02:13:30):
Were they busted out? Oh my God, My sister was like,
of course she's like, I don't know anything about this show,
but of course, of course it's going to be her.
Why wouldn't it be the only? Person I would have busted out
laughing more for would have been Tilda Swinton.

(02:13:52):
That would have rocked my shit. That would have rocked my shit
too if Tilda Swinton was out there in her best metrosexual
suit playing taxi in an alley inLA.
Oh my God. This is so it was so like I and

(02:14:16):
I caught it pretty quickly because I had I rewatched tar a
couple of weeks ago. Oh really?
So I guess her like silhouette is top of mind.
No, you did not recognize her from the back.
From the ponytail because it's they show her from the side from
a distance. I'm like.
Shut up. Bitch is that Kate where I'm
shut and they zoom in and there she is with her hyper masculine

(02:14:38):
imposing figure glaring down andthen bitch slapping someone.
I'm like, this is so this is so her, this is so her.
And I loved that detail. I loved it.
The only thing I didn't like about it was they were playing
this Korean game. Yes.
I was like, OK, yeah, sure. So the director specifically

(02:14:59):
said, look, this was not to introduce AUS Squid Game, this
was not to introduce a spin off.This was not for anything in
particular. This was literally for my own
purposes, to end my show, to show.
Basically the Cyclo is repeatingthe the front man.
Evan's character had always suspected that this thing was
larger and that it was global, maybe.

(02:15:21):
And then, sure enough, he runs into Kate Blanchett's recruiter.
It's like they didn't trust it is.
Not if they were playing. Jax.
Jax Paper, Scissor, rock. Something else?
Hopscotch. Hopscotch.
Literally anything. Literally anything else I would
have been way better with it. But they're playing the Korean

(02:15:44):
taxi game, no? Like that take that breaks the
immersion I think. Let me explain to this drunk,
ostensibly homeless, mentally ill man what this Korean game is
like. I, and I didn't.
It also really I saw it as a huge missed opportunity because

(02:16:04):
if they were playing Jax, like, and I'm going to take it a step
further, if they had trusted theKorean audience enough to know
that whatever they were playing wasn't because that felt like a
very safe play to me, like, oh, showing this Korean game,
whatever, so that the audience can understand that they play.
I think that if you would have trusted the audience enough to

(02:16:26):
know, oh, they're playing a gamethat must be popular in America
or must be well known in America, that point would have
been so eerie and so terrifying to end on.
And the impact would have been better instead of like, oh,
that's interesting, The game's widespread.
But why were they playing this Korean folding paper?
Game. Yeah, it shouldn't be called
play. Game even.

(02:16:46):
If they like look oh like when Cate Blanchett looks over, it
would have been more interestingfor the front man to look at her
and slowly deduce what was goingon.
Oh, instead of and then being like oh.
Exactly, I would have found thatmore interesting because it was
by happenstance that he saw her.So it would have been
interesting to see them playing Jacks and then just her bitch

(02:17:09):
slapping the dude again and thenlike turning to the camera and
then Cate Blanchett and giving him that really eerie knowing
look. Like that whole thing would have
played out so much better. But apparently now David Fincher
is doing Squid Games. It's rumored.
It's rumored that David Fincher is heading up the USA Squid Game

(02:17:31):
spinoff. There is no confirmation that
this is happening, but we'll see.
I'd watch that. If Cate Blanchett is the
recruiter, I'd watch that. I don't have high hopes for it,
but I'd watch. It I'm upset because even though
he's like, oh, this isn't setting up a spinoff, you have
set up lore. Right.

(02:17:52):
And you know how you can prove that you didn't get another bomb
ass actor? Like with ADR vocals you got,
Cape you got. Cape fucking Blanchette.
Like, that was such bullshit. So somebody actually fought me
on this yesterday. Like I just commented online,
like it was in a discussion postabout Squid Game.
I was like, this is such great casting.

(02:18:12):
Like, I know nobody here is thrilled about a potential
American Squid Game, but I mean,come on.
And they're like, Oh yeah. Well, they weren't even setting
up an American one. And they go on this long, like
litany of reasons why an American 1 won't work.
And I'm like, OK, so first of all, like, oh, let's let's take
a seat. But second, you don't hire Cate

(02:18:34):
Blanchett for literally nothing.Like something's coming.
Like you don't put it would havebeen a throwaway casting.
They would have gotten any blonde right off the street, You
know what I mean? It's stunt casting and the
director was like, I always wanted someone with presents,
someone who was of her caliber to play the recruiter because

(02:18:55):
Kong you is of Cate Blanchett caliber.
He was so good. He was so amazing.
He was so good, like he should have gotten an Emmy.
Oh, he was never I made a face, but.
The crash out with the bread andthe the.
Hollywood Reporter did ask him, the director about came

(02:19:15):
Blanchett's casting and how it came about.
Did you write the cameo with herin mind?
He says. In the beginning, I was tossing
around different ideas. I thought, should it be a man
that we see as a recruiter? But I thought that unlike in the
Korean version, having a woman who's a recruiter for the
American system would be a nice contrast and also quite a
powerful, impactful statement. So we were set on having a

(02:19:35):
woman. Then I thought, who would be the
right fit for that? It's a very short scene, there's
only one line, so we needed someone who had that level of
presence and charisma to completely dominate the screen
in that instant. And that naturally led me to
Cate Blanchett. I've always been a fan of her.
She's someone who can instantly grab your attention with a
single stare. So that's how we set on her.

(02:19:56):
I honestly couldn't have casted that any better.
I couldn't have casted that any better because it really is
perfect casting. She's such an imposing woman.
Yes, Like, very. Like, they're right about that.
The presence is. I just thought that she just
sleeps in a closet and shows up to intimidate people.

(02:20:16):
You know, I mean, like, she's kind of like, you remember how
you would think of your teachersas a kid, right?
Like, oh, they sleep at the school.
That's how I feel about Cate Blanchett.
She's a terrifying professional figure who we don't know where
she goes, but now we know she's a recruiter.
Shit, right, Right. Actually, Kate Blanchett, they,

(02:20:37):
they just went to Squid Game headquarters and said we need
Kate. I know she's out recruiting
right now, but we need her in. Bring her, call her up, call her
in. Call her up.
Yeah. Oh yeah, We saw her on La Brea.
Let's go pick her. Up.
OK, OK. So I think we're at the end of
this. We've been here for a while,

(02:20:59):
Miguel. Any last thoughts about Squid
Game? This is it.
No more Squid Game. That is, no more squid, more
Korean. Squid Game.
I would urge anybody who didn't like the ending to rewatch, let
some like sit with it for a bit and watch it slowly.
I think that this is probably one of the greatest shows I've

(02:21:19):
ever seen in my life. Even with its flaws, I think
it's a like phenomenal show. I think it will stand the test
of time. And I like that the fisherman
got killed with a harpoon. That was cool.
Like I I love that. With that, we're gonna wrap it

(02:21:44):
up. Thank you for coming on the
show, Miguel, and watching SquidGame Three and talking at length
about it. That's it.
That's it. Thanks, Miguel.
That's been our show. I'm Jessica and this has been
the Tebaki Rambles podcast.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2

Dateline NBC

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Squid Game (S3) / Ep. 96

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2

Dateline NBC

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

All Episodes

Squid Game (S3) / Ep. 96

Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2