Netflix has wrapped its tentacles around Squid Game and is refusing to let go. Following the conclusion of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s brutal story of a sadistic survival contest on a mysterious island off the coast of Korea, there is speculation Social Network/Fight Club director David Fincher is to oversee a US adaptation of the franchise.
That Squid Game is about to go international seems to be hinted at in the final episode of the show’s third and concluding season (Netflix) when a Hollywood star turns up playing a western version of “The Recruiter”, who tempts the financially desperate to risk life, limb and sanity in the games. But Hwang has denied his series explicitly sets up a US spin-off. The Recruiter cameo (more about anon) is there to make the more serious point about how power structures can be pulled apart but always rise up again.
“I wanted to leave it on a note highlighting the fact that these systems, even if one comes down, it’s not easy to dismantle the whole system – it will always repeat itself,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “That’s why I wanted to end it with an American recruiter. And I wrote that scene wanting an impactful ending for the show, not in order to open rooms for anything else.”
Impactful the end of Squid Game certainly is. It is also a marked improvement on the underwhelming second series. As the action resumes, Player 456 (Lee Jung-jae) has been forced to continue in the games despite leading a failed rebellion against the all-powerful Frontman (Lee Byung-hun). This year’s challenges are every bit as dastardly as in earlier seasons – including a devious challenge where the remaining contestants are divided into two teams, and one is instructed to kill the other.
READ MORE
[ What is Squid Game, Netflix’s ultraviolent breakout hit show?Opens in new window ]
Out in the real world, meanwhile, Frontman’s brother Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) proceeds in his search for the mysterious island where the games are taking place. Then there is North Korean defector Kang No-eul (aka 011). She is trying to take down the games from the inside and rescue the newborn child of Jun-hee (her way of dealing with her trauma over her daughter’s disappearance).
It’s grippingly dark stuff. Hwang, to his credit, pulls off a rewardingly paradoxical finale by killing off a major character and giving several other protagonists redemptive endings. And then, at the end, there is that cameo, with Lady Galadriel herself, Cate Blanchett, playing the American Recruiter. It is a final twist at the end of a show packed tight with thrills, spills and gory demises. But of course, the one death that is not permitted is of Squid Game itself, which Netflix, via Fincher, is determined to keep alive at any cost.
