Netflix’s SQUID GAME 3 ending explained

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for Squid Game 3, now streaming on Netflix.

After the cliffhanger ending of Squid Game 2, all eyes were on the third and final season. People had so many questions that they wanted answered. While the finale of Squid Game will surely generate some mixed reactions, here’s our analysis of what happened.

Quick recap of the two games of Season 3

The first game introduced in Season 3 is called “Hide and Seek” where players are divided into those who have keys–the hiders–and those who have knives–the taggers. The taggers have 30 minutes to kill one hider to pass, and the hiders have to either hide until the game ends or if they can find an exit which requires three keys of three different shapes to open.

It’s a devastating game as we see brutal deaths including Hyun-ju (Park Sunghoon) getting killed by Myung-gi (Im Siwan), Dae-ho (Kang Haneul) being strangled to death by a grief-stricken and enraged Gi-hun (Lee Jungjae), and Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim) being forced to kill her son Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun) after he tries to kill Jun-hee (Jo Yuri) and her newborn baby that she literally had a few minutes ago.

Geum-ja is unable to live with the fact that she killed her son with her own two hands and commits suicide. The next game is jump rope where players have to move across a long bridge while jumping to avoid getting tripped and flung to their deaths. Gi-hun offers to go first, taking Jun-hee’s daughter with him, knowing that with her fractured ankle, she won’t be able to make it across with her baby. He promises to come back and bring her over to the other side but there’s little time left and Jun-hee sacrifices herself. The VIPs decide that Jun-hee’s baby will replace her mother, making her the new Player 222.

Squid Game has two other side plots happening simultaneously. The first is Jun-ho trying to locate the island where the games are being held and finding his brother. He soon realizes that the kindly boat captain who saved him in Season 2 and who has been helping him locate the island is a double agent. The second is the Pink Soldier, No-eul saving Gyeong-seok so he can be with his daughter.

Who wins Squid Game?

The last game sees the remaining players on huge rock columns in the three shapes of Squid Game. The game is simple: all the players will start on the square column and will have to pick at least one player to eliminate before the time runs out. Once one person is eliminated can the rest of the players move to the next shape, the triangle, and the same thing happens. Those who survive until the circle will win Squid Game.

Player 100 and his cronies have already decided Min-su, Gi-hun, and the baby should die–now it’s just a matter of who should die first. Alliances are made and quickly broken with Myung-gi switching sides to protect his baby. Then it comes down to Myung-gi and Gi-hun where the two fight, the former dying when he falls. That leaves only Gi-hun and the baby. Because the button wasn’t pressed to initiate the game, Myung-gi’s death doesn’t count, and now either Gi-hun or the baby has to die.

When it comes down to who he’ll save, it’s a no-brainer for Gi-hun who chooses to sacrifice himself so Jun-hee’s baby, Player 222, can live. With the Coast Guard closing in, In-ho rescues the baby and orders the entire island to detonate, burning any evidence and the dead players’ bodies to ashes.

The show does a six-month time skip where we see where all the characters wind up, including No-eul who flies to China to hopefully reunite with her daughter, Saebyeok’s brother Cheol reuniting with his mother, and Jun-ho finding Jun-hee’s baby in his home along with the money she won.

Does Squid Game end?

The short answer is no. In-ho travels to LA and finds Gi-hun’s daughter Ga-yeong who is, understandably, angry at her father for not ever reaching out to her and for breaking his promise of coming to visit her. In Season 2, Gi-hun was focused on ending the games and did not want to endanger his daughter which is why he cut ties off with her.

In-ho arrives with a Squid Game parcel and informs Ga-yeong that her father had passed away and left her his belongings. She’s stunned and numbly opens the package to find Gi-hun’s blood-stained 456 tracksuit and an elegant black envelope that contains all of his winnings from Season 1.

As In-ho’s car drives down the road, he catches sight of someone playing ddakji with someone in a suit, and lo and behold, it’s Cate Blanchett who is mercilessly slapping a unhoused man every time he fails to flip the envelope over. The two exchange looks before she returns to the game and In-ho turns away, wearing an indiscernible look. Although the Squid Game in Korea has been blown up, it’s clear that the system is still alive and well and the games will continue.

Should we still have faith in people?

It’s not a happy ending by any means and Director Hwang Donghyuk said as much that we shouldn’t expect one. Gi-hun is dead. In-ho is alive and likely still running Squid Game. The games haven’t ended despite all the people who have died, everything Gi-hun has done and sacrificed.

“Do you still have faith in people?”

This question was a prevailing theme in Season 2 and arguably less so in Season 3 up until the last episode. Turning to the curtained window where he knows the Front Man is, Gi-hun says, “We are not horses. We are humans. Humans are…” He purposefully doesn’t finish his sentence before he falls to his death. What was Gi-hun trying to say? Why didn’t he finish?

I don’t think he knew how to continue. He was conflicted. Humans aren’t black-and-white; we’re not all good, but we’re also not all bad. We see that play out very clearly throughout the games with players like Hyunju choosing to turn back and help Jun-hee and Geum-ja; Geum-ja making the painful choice of killing her son to save Jun-hee and her baby; we saw it most particularly with Myunggi who has broken his promises to Jun-hee multiple times, who has continuously chosen money over everything else including his baby.

Gi-hun’s final choice to sacrifice himself is a direct rejection of In-ho’s mocking in the finale of Season 1. Back then, In-ho claimed that all the players in Squid Game were horses that the higher-ups bet on. Gi-hun choosing to save Jun-hee’s daughter over his own life is to prove to In-ho that he wasn’t an animal; he was a human being and he could not be controlled. In sacrificing himself, Gi-hun rejects In-ho’s cynicism that human beings are inherently selfish, and holds onto his own humanity, despite everything that he has endured, until the very end. In a way…Gi-hun did win against In-ho.

Gi-hun wasn’t able to overthrow the system. How could he, when players still chose to ? Realistically, a happy ending–where we see Gi-hun save the remaining players and tearing down Squid Game–just wasn’t possible because one person isn’t enough to destroy the games, so although this ending is heartbreaking, it makes sense.

“Humans are…” Humans are what?

Humans are flawed; humans can do good and bad things; humans can be so much more. By trailing off and leaving the audience in the dark as to what he meant, Gi-hun is giving viewers a choice and the power to interpret what he meant–an actual choice rather than the illusion of one that was seen in that “voting” system. Human beings are human because they can choose. While none of the players chose to end the games, it doesn’t mean everyone else will make the same choice. And despite the somber ending of Squid Game, we can still choose to have faith and hope that, one day, humanity will make the right choice and finally, put an end to the games.

Squid Games is currently available for streaming on Netflix.