The third and final season of 'Squid Game' is coming to Netflix. Here's a recap of the first two installments.

Business Insider

3 days ago

The final season of "Squid Game" is coming to Netflix on Friday.
Season three begins directly after the shock ending of season two.
Here's a recap of what you need to remember from the first two seasons.
It's been four years since "Squid Game" hit Netflix and became a global sensation. On Friday, its ends with its third season.
The first and second seasons of "Squid Game" follow Seong Gi-hun, who stumbles upon a competition where debtors play children's games with deadly twists for the chance to win billions of South Korean won.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of "Squid Game," told Entertainment Weekly that the final season, which was filmed at the same time as season two, will wrap up Gi-hun's story, including his battle against the organization that runs the competition.
Here's what to remember from seasons one and two before watching season three.
Seong Gi-hun wins the games in season one, but decides to stop them
In season one, Seong Gi-hun, a divorced father in a lot of debt who lives with his mother, is approached by a mysterious man in a suit who recruits him to participate in a game with a huge financial reward.
He and 455 other contestants are taken to a secret location, where they first compete in a Korean children's game called "Red Light, Green Light" with a twist: if they lose, they're shot dead.
After the game ends, the guard tells the surviving contestants that they have a choice: either compete in five more games to win a share of the prize pot, which increases each time a player dies, or vote to leave the game.
They decide to leave, but many return because they are desperate for money, including Gi-hun, who needs to pay for his mother's diabetes treatment.
In the following episodes, Gi-hun competes in increasingly difficult challenges. He makes strong bonds with some players but is forced to turn on them, and survives a riot triggered by the players realizing the prize fund increases even if they kill each other outside the games.
In the final challenge, Gi-hun faces a childhood friend, Cho Sang-woo, in a Korean playground game called Squid Game. The friends became enemies after Sang-woo killed their ally, Sae-byeok, the night before the final, to get more money for the prize fund.
After a vicious fight, Sang-woo stabs himself and dies so Gi-hun can win the prize. Instead, a dejected Gi-hun returns home to find that his mother has died, and he becomes a vagrant.
At the end of season one, Gi-hun's attitude changes. He buys a ticket to visit his daughter, but on the way, sees the recruiter for the games still preying on people in debt.
Gi-hun decides to turn back to stop the games for good.
Gi-hun gets stuck in the games in season two
In season two, Gi-hun uses his money to pay people to track down the organization running the death games and to help find Sae-byeok's mother, whom he believes is in North Korea.
After two years of searching, Gi-hun's former creditor, Mr Kim, and his employee, Choi Woo-seok, find the recruiter of the games and follow him. They are captured, the recruiter kills Mr Kim and confronts Gi-hun in his home.
The recruiter and Gi-hun play Russian roulette to prove who has better luck. Gi-hun wins and uses a card from the recruiter's pocket to call the organization and set up a meeting.
Gi-hun hopes to meet and capture the leader of the games, but the plan fails, and the organization captures him instead.
Refusing to accept defeat, Gi-hun asks to be put back into the games, hoping his allies will be able to follow him using a tracker in his teeth. The organization intercepts the tracker, so Gi-hun is forced to compete again without help.
Season two only covered the first half of the games, so the third season will cover the second half.
In season two, contestants can vote to leave with the prize money, but this causes friction
In season one, contestants were allowed to leave the games after the first challenge without collecting any money.
In season two, however, players can vote after every game. If the majority votes to leave, the prize will be evenly split.
Gi-hun admits he has won the games before and tries to persuade people to leave, but they doubt him and see him as a threat. Over time, tensions develop between those who want to leave and those who want to stay to earn more money.
In the season two finale, a vote ending in a tie leads to a brawl in the men's bathroom. Some players die, which is an advantage for the group that wants to leave, so the group that wants to stay launches an assault in the night, killing many opposing players.
Gi-hun and his allies decide not to fight during this assault and use the chaos to surprise the guards, steal weapons, and start a rebellion.
The rebellion is unsuccessful, and Gi-hun's close friend Jung-bae is killed after the rebels are captured.
In the trailer for season three, the game-makers appear to have kept Gi-hun alive to force him to continue the games, but he seems to have lost hope after Jung-bae's death and the failed rebellion.
Player 001 is an infiltrator working for the organization
In "Squid Game," players are often referred to by the numbers on their jerseys.
In season one, an elderly man named Oh Il-nam is given the player 001 jersey. He becomes a close friend of Gi-hun during the games, but sacrifices himself so Gi-hun could advance in the competition during the marbles game.
In the season finale, Il-nam invites Gi-hun to meet him and reveals he faked his death, that he created the games, and decided to compete because he was dying from a tumor and wanted to feel alive again.
Il-nam tries to persuade Gi-hun that the game is just and to lose faith in humanity's goodness. Instead, the conversation energizes Gi-hun to believe in people again, leading him to help Sae-byeok and Sang-woo's relatives.
In season two, the Front man, who led the games in season one, enters the competition as player 001. He befriends Gi-hun to learn his plan and persuade him that the games are a necessary.
In the finale, he joins the rebellion to overthrow the game makers but sabotages the attack by dividing the rebels, killing two players, and faking his death.
In season three, the Front man retakes his position as the masked leader of the games and we'll discover if Gi-hun learns of his betrayal.
There were 95 players in the final episode of season two, before the riots and rebellion
While several named players died in the rebellion and riots in the season two finale, a few remain who could be important for season three.
Dae-ho, a marine, and Hyun-ju, a former special forces soldier, returned to the sleeping area to collect more bullets during the rebellion, so they are the only rebels to survive alongside Gi-hun.
Jang Geum-ja and Park Yon-Sik, a mother and son duo, and Kim Jun-hee, a heavily pregnant player, are also allies of Gi-hun, who did not participate in the rebellion.
Season three will also feature morally gray characters from season two, including the shaman Seon-nyeo; the bully Nam-gyu; Min-su, a shy young man; and Myung-gi, the father of Jun-hee's baby, who will do almost anything to get more money.
Detective Hwang Jun-ho is trying to find the games' island to shut it down
Hwang Jun-ho is a detective looking for his missing brother. In season one, he follows Gi-hun to the island where the games take place and infiltrates the organization as a guard.
During his investigation, Jun-ho learns that his brother, In-ho, competed in the games. Before Jun-ho can escape, he is cornered by the Front man and his guards. The Front man removes his mask to reveal he is Jun-ho's brother, In-ho.
In-ho offers Jun-ho to join him in the organization. Jun-ho declines, and In-ho shoots Jun-ho off a cliff.
A fisherman called Captain Park saves Jun-ho and assists him in trying to re-find the island. In season two, Jun-ho teams up with Gi-hun, a team of mercenaries, and Woo-seok to search for the island, while Gi-hun is stuck in the games.
In the season two finale, Captain Park secretly kills one of the mercenaries, revealing that he also works for the organization.
Therefore, in season three, Jun-ho, Woo-seok, and the mercenaries will somehow have to outmaneuver the mole in their team to find the island.
There's a secret organ-harvesting group within the organization
In season one, some of the guards secretly sold organs they took from dying contestants.
This backfires because they use a player within the games to be the doctor who takes out the organs. They offer him hints for the next game as a reward, but he eventually gets scared and tries to escape. All the guards and the doctor are killed.
A new organ-harvesting group emerges in season two, using a doctor working as a guard. However, No-eul, a woman from North Korea searching for her daughter, keeps getting in the way of the operation. The operation's leaders attack and threaten her, causing her to stand down.
No-eul also knows player 256, because they work at the same theme park and she has interacted with his sick daughter. This plot line was not relevant to the main story in season two, but may pay off in season three.