Squid Game 3 Review: Most Devastating Season, Also The Best, Of Netflix's Most Ruthless Show

NDTV

11 hours ago

New Delhi:
There's a twisted sort of poetry to how Squid Game ends, the kind that doesn't wait for a mic drop or a grand spectacle, but quietly tightens its grip around your throat, letting the silence speak louder than the scream.
Watching the third and final season of Netflix's dystopian juggernaut feels like being dropped into a familiar nightmare, only to find that the walls have shifted and the rules are crueler.
The pastel hues still line the corridors, the masked guards march in chilling synchronicity and the childhood games are back but this time, every hop, every breath and every choice feels like it's scraping against raw nerve.
And maybe that's the show's most disarming trick yet: it dares you to keep watching the carnage, then turns the camera back at you.
Season 3 begins in the immediate aftermath of a failed rebellion. Seong Gi-hun, once an aimless gambler and then a reluctant victor, is now a man hollowed out by trauma.
The uprising he led in Season 2 ended in tragedy, and its cost - the death of his friend Park Jung-bae among others - has left him steeped in survivor's guilt.
He's a shadow of the man we once knew, too broken to speak, too angry to quit. Yet the show's brutal machinery shows no signs of stopping.
The games resume with mechanical indifference, this time deadlier, grander and more psychologically perverse. With only 60 contestants left, the stakes feel sharper. There's no illusion of redemption, only the grinding logic of spectacle.
What unfolds over six episodes is a ruthless descent into moral abyss. The contestants are divided and remade into archetypes, not by lazy writing, but by the sheer pressure of survival.
There's Jun-hee, heavily pregnant and increasingly vulnerable, played with aching vulnerability by Jo Yuri. Her ex-boyfriend Myung-gi (Yim Si-wan), all charm and calculation, remains maddeningly unpredictable till the end.
Park Sung-hoon once again emerges as the emotional anchor of the ensemble as Hyun-joo, a trans contestant navigating impossible odds, while Kang Ae-sim's Geum-ja, the elderly matriarch, offers quiet wisdom amid chaos. The performances are uniformly exceptional, restrained, raw and often heartbreaking.
Lee Jung-jae, however, is the beating heart of the season. His portrayal of Gi-hun in Season 3 is a masterclass in restraint, a man caught between vengeance and empathy, navigating impossible moral terrain.
His face carries the weight of three seasons and his silence is often louder than the scripted lines. He spends much of the season questioning whether he still believes in people, and it's that very question - posed by the Front Man himself - that drives the philosophical engine of the story.
The Front Man, played with chilling elegance by Lee Byung-hun, is more than just a nemesis now. His arc is given substantial space, and his eventual reckoning with his brother Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), who continues his labyrinthine search for the island simmers quietly in the background.
Yet for all the elaborate setup, Jun-ho's plotline ends without the confrontation viewers may have anticipated. It's a narrative bait-and-switch that feels intentional, aligning with the show's overarching rejection of cinematic catharsis.
Two new games define this season: a sadistic version of hide-and-seek played in a maze-like chamber painted like Van Gogh's Starry Night and a terrifying jump rope challenge over a narrow bridge.
Both are visceral in design, but what elevates them is the way they force characters into unspeakable choices. The hide-and-seek episode is a particular standout: gorgeously shot, immaculately choreographed and emotionally devastating.
Players are divided into hunters and hunted; each has to kill or be killed. The psychological weight of this scenario lingers long after the blood is mopped away. It's the kind of television that invites moral reflection until the detested VIPs return to echo our very thoughts with cringe-inducing glee.
Yes, the VIPs are back, unfortunately, with their animal masks and wooden English. They remain the weakest link in Squid Game 's otherwise incisive commentary, though their presence is perhaps more self-aware this time.
They mock the players, place bets and spout pseudo-philosophical gibberish but what they really do is reflect the audience's own complicity. In watching and dissecting this horror, are we any different?
Season 3 is, by far, the darkest installment of the series. The satire is sharper, the violence more numbing, and the hope scarcer. If Season 1 critiqued capitalism and Season 2 explored ideology and rebellion, Season 3 stares directly into the black hole of moral collapse. It is not about victory. It's about endurance. Even the act of surviving feels like a loss.
And yet, the show isn't entirely without heart. Tender moments like a shared look, a whispered apology or a newborn's cry, pierce through the bleakness.
Gi-hun's stubborn belief in goodness may be chipped away, but it's never quite extinguished. There's a particularly haunting moment when a fellow contestant tells him: "Good people beat themselves up over the smallest things. Bad people blame others and go on to live in peace." It's a line that haunts not just the character but the viewer as well.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator, tightens his grip on the narrative this time. There's a sense of creative reclamation, a refusal to let the legacy of Squid Game be dictated by memes, merch and spin-offs.
The direction is taut, the visuals unsettlingly surreal and the pacing for the most part is unrelenting. There are moments where the subplots (especially Jun-ho's investigation and No-eul's infiltration) feel like filler, but they ultimately serve as scaffolding for the final collapse.
And that collapse comes not with a bang, but with the slow, inevitable realisation that the system cannot be undone by one man alone. The series closes with Gi-hun standing alone again not triumphant, but changed, exhausted and still quietly defiant. The circle hasn't closed neatly. That's the point.
In the end, Squid Game Season 3 is not a finale that offers answers. It is an indictment, a lament and a mirror. It's a brutal, brilliantly crafted exploration of how human desperation intersects with systemic cruelty and how even the smallest sliver of kindness becomes an act of rebellion. It hurts. And it should.