Squid Game Season 3 Ending Explained: Life's A Rigged Game With No True Winners

This post contains spoilers for Netflix’s “Squid Game.”

Sometime last year, season 2 of “Squid Game” ended on a baffling cliffhanger, adding fuel to the anticipation surrounding its third and final season. This anxious curiosity mostly revolved around Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), who led a failed rebellion against the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and his recruits — an act that inadvertently led to several deaths, including that of his friend, Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan). Season 3 picks things up right where they left off, mapping the aftermath of a botched rebellion that further exposes the cruelty of the game organizers. While a severely traumatized Gi-hun simmers in guilt, his dwindling allies struggle to hold on to their will to persist, as they’re surrounded by callous players driven solely by greed and bloodlust. As expected, no amount of bloodshed is severe enough for these players to vote against the deathmatch, and they do so without remorse. In their eyes, the games must go on.

Season 3 ups the ante to (often ridiculous) extremes, with its three final games being designed to underline the clash between morality and capitalism, and how they’re in a constant tussle in a game devoid of integrity. Season 1 of the show portrayed the helplessness of the participants with incredible nuance, making it clear that their aggressive cruelty mostly stems from the hellish nature of their lives outside the games. However, the latest season foregoes some of this complexity to paint the participants as cartoonishly evil, be it the needlessly brash Player 124/Nam-gyu (Roh Jae-won) or the embarrassingly opportunistic Player 100/Im Jeong-dae (Song Young-chang). On the flipside, players like Jun-hee (Jo Yuri) and Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim) meet undeservedly bloody ends despite choosing to remain kind and humane throughout the games.

This time, we do have a winner, but it is a pyrrhic victory through and through. Moreover, a shocking main character death cements the bleakness that the series has been gearing toward all season, while setting up the stage for a future where the Squid Games become a universal phenomenon. Without further ado, let’s sift through the unsettling ending of “Squid Game” and speculate what the future might hold.

“Squid Game” has always played out some variation of the trolley problem by incorporating life-and-death dilemmas into the vicious games that the participants take part in. The only difference is that the games are not thought experiments, but deliberate traps rigged in favor of the most arbitrary factors that keep changing from time to time. The moment Jun-hee’s baby becomes a part of the pool of surviving players, this dilemma is intensified. After all, who in their right mind would want to harm a newborn or the person protecting it? Well, it seems that everyone except Gi-hun and Myung-gi (Yim Si-wan) are ready to kill (!!) the child, going as far as ganging up against Gi-hun during the pillar version of Squid Game that constitutes the final challenge. With Myung-gi shrewdly helping out Gi-hun and the child (as Myung-gi is the father), he takes out every player, leaving him, Gi-hun, and the child on the final pillar.

Now, the rules of the final challenge dictate that at least one person must be thrown off (or fall off) the edge, and the surviving members will automatically be considered safe. This prompts Gi-hun to point out that Myung-gi has to either kill Gi-hun or the baby to live, but he also offers the alternate choice of killing himself so that the baby can survive. However, Myung-gi’s distrust leads to a massive fight on top of the pillar, which gets really messy at one point, as he threatens to drop his own child to provoke Gi-hun. One thing leads to another, and Myung-gi falls to his death after Gi-hun’s jacket (which he was holding on to) rips.

This brings us to the most unexpected moment in the series. Instead of negotiating for the baby’s life (along with his own), Gi-hun chooses to sacrifice himself to ensure that the baby is the uncontested victor. While the weight of this sacrifice is grave, is it warranted? The answers are complicated, as the mere idea of a helpless child being the victor of a deathmatch is an uncomfortable one.

Based on what little we know about past winners, there has always been one survivor by the end. However, the rules do not explicitly state this at all, which explains the rationale behind the finalists ganging up against Gi-hun on the pillars, as they believe that the prize money can be divided amongst themselves. If this is truly the case, then Gi-hun’s abrupt sacrifice feels a bit senseless, as both he and the child have technically won after Myung-gi falls off the edge. That said, closer inspection proves that the games have always been rigged to produce a singular winner, as the VIPs have always bet on one player out of hundreds. After all, the games aren’t fueled by social altruism, but a twisted form of entertainment for the affluent who gamble on the lives of the participants. It is also worth noting that the game creates the illusion of fairness, constantly providing false hope to help turn players against each other.

It is not far-fetched to assume that Gi-hun anticipated this hidden agenda, as he knows that the Front Man has been ruthless enough to gamble on a newborn’s life and even participate in the games to sabotage from within. Gi-hun’s final words about human lives not being equivalent to “horses” could refer to the fact that horses are bet on for sport (something he also does in season 1), but the same logic cannot be applied to human lives, as they come with fragile hopes and dreams. This final declaration comes from a place of utter resignation, but he knows that he must sacrifice himself to ensure that an innocent survives. He allows himself to fall into the pit below, as he had made a promise to Jun-hee that he would protect her child with everything he’s got. And he does.

But, the same uncertainty that leads Gi-hun to sacrifice himself also poses a pertinent question: How is Gi-hun sure that the Front Man will honor the baby’s win, or that the child will remain unharmed? We know that the Front Man eventually hands over the baby and its winnings to his brother, Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), but Gi-hun had no way of anticipating what would happen. This is a massive, careless risk, as he leaves the baby at the mercy of the cruelest people, while knowing there’s no one to take care of it in the outside world.

The show’s greatest misstep would undoubtedly be Jun-ho’s arc, as his meandering journey back to the island was ramped up for two seasons only to end in the most anticlimactic way imaginable. The hoops that are jumped through simply to locate the island don’t justify the nature of the confrontation Jun-ho has with his brother, as we are still unclear about a lot of things, including the latter’s complicated motivations with respect to the games. Jun-ho’s impassioned question to his brother remains unanswered, as the Front Man silently leaves with the baby, offering no emotional catharsis whatsoever at this critical juncture. Meanwhile, we see the entire structure on the island blow up, effectively putting an end to this chapter of the games, while eliminating all hopes of the authorities dismantling this horrid practice from a legal standpoint.

Direct survivors from the game (apart from the guards and VIPs) include Player 124/Park Gyeong-seok (Lee Jin-uk) and Guard 011/No-eul (Park Gyu-young), where the latter is inadvertently saved after she witnesses Gi-hun’s brave sacrifice. It is worth noting that she sets fire to the player records way before the structure blows up, deleting any evidence that the games ever existed (except for digital backups of the records, which are bound to exist for recordkeeping reasons). Six months later, she meets Gyeong-seok at the amusement park, and he feels an inexplicable connection to her, even though he didn’t see her face back at the island. This dual arc ends on a sweet note: Gyeong-seok’s ill daughter seems to have completely recovered, while No-eul receives tentative news that her estranged daughter has been found in China. 

As an aside, things also look hopeful for Kang Sae-byeok’s (HoYeon Jung) brother Kang Cheol (who was taken in by Sang-woo’s mother in Season 1), as he is reunited with his mother with the help of the broker towards the end. 

Meanwhile, Choi Woo-seok (Jeon Seok-ho) is no longer in prison, and he (alongside Jun-ho) realizes that Gi-hun’s remaining prize money is missing. Well, seems like it’s the Front Man’s doing, as he is seen handing over Gi-hun’s uniform and ATM card loaded up with money to his daughter in Los Angeles. This scene solidifies the tragedy of Gi-hun, as his daughter has no idea about the games or the kind of sacrifice her father has made to save an innocent life. This gesture by the Front Man might help her financially, but it does little to soothe the sting of grief and abandonment.

There are some stray threads that are tied up (somewhat) neatly before the end, such as Jun-ho being entrusted with the baby (who is dubbed Player 222) and its savings, as the Front Man believes his brother is the best person to help raise the child. This is not an unfounded belief, as Jun-ho is fairly gentle and empathetic, but the fact that he has to look after a child (or at least assume the role of guardian) feels rather sudden. Conversely, this could be interpreted as the Front Man’s final answer to Jun-ho, as it proves that he implicitly trusts his brother to do the right thing despite their wide gap in morality. This still comes off as an unsatisfying arc, as this act paints the Front Man as someone with contradictory impulses and an incoherent moral compass (that has little depth).

Now, back to the Front Man, who stops at a traffic light and hears the sound of two people playing Ddakji, hinting that a new Recruiter has been appointed after the death of the previous one. When the Recruiter exchanges a knowing glance with the Front Man, the former is revealed to be Cate Blanchett (!!!), who slaps the dude playing the game as we cut to black. This reveal has to tie in to David Fincher’s upcoming rendition of “Squid Game,” which is rumored to be set in the same universe as the parent show. While details are pretty scarce at this point, it makes narrative sense for the Front Man to acknowledge the next iteration of games, which is most likely to take place in America, as Fincher’s series is an English-language continuation of the popular South Korean IP.

Although the Blanchett reveal doesn’t give us any concrete hints about the future, it is safe to bet that Fincher is equipped to masterfully dissect the themes of capitalism and systemic exploitation, as he is no stranger to tackling thematically rich stories that are immersed in bleakness. It is unclear whether we will have a new Front Man for the upcoming series, but its direct connection to the current “Squid Game” sets up the possibility for a meaningful crossover. As Fincher is building on top of a universe that already exists, it will be interesting to see whether the established rules change and if some lingering questions get answered in the most intriguing manner. Either way, the games are far from over — in fact, they seem to have just begun.