SPOILER DISCUSSION - Squid Game (Netflix Korean Series)

[BakeOffRewatch]

Thread to discuss plot with spoilers.

Don’t read on if you haven’t watched!

@boatyardblues Lovely to see you too! I’ve just started popping back onto the kdrama thread, my viewing actually went down in lockdown because my son (who’s autistic) started staying awake until midnight so we haven’t had a chance to watch much recent as we tend to sink out straight after, but he’s started getting to sleep a bit earlier, bless his heart, so we’re watching a bit more now xxx

*zonk out

I loved this!

I felt so sorry for Ali, it was so obvious he was going to get screwed over and he was so gullible but he was so sweet!
The marble episode was my favourite , how everyone paired up with their buddies to then realise only one would survive and the various dynamics in each couple that presented.

I don't know why the husband and wife went back in to play the games knowing only one winner.

Loved Mi-Neyeo! I know she was crazy but I couldn't help but root for her, I thought she was quite funny too!

Is there only one winner though? Did they say at the beginning prize money to be shared by winners (plural)? Squid Game was shown to be played in teams at the start too. The married couple’s back story might have been particularly tragic.

Just finished watchinig the last episode...got a bit lost...so the old guy is the creator of it all and the masked man in black is a previous winner...Gi-Hun is going back? Yeah i think i need to rewatch the last episode...My first time watching a Korean drama though and I did enjoy it.

@househuntinginthesouth

I just came on here to search if anyone knew what the policeman's brother meant about "you know why?"...so confused .

@househuntinginthesouth I know this is too late now, but for anyone else reading. He didn't say "you know why" he said "In-ho, why?" The brothers name is In-ho

I'd also like to know how the pink guys were recruited. Also, it's been a while since I watched it but some of the costumes made me think of the 1980 Flash Gordon film 😁

So glad I found this thread! I've just finished it today. The first couple of episodes were a bit slow for me but once they were back in it was so tense and thrilling. I watched it with subtitles and it was much more engaging I thought.

My thoughts are similar to everyone's re back story for the Red suit guys and how In-Ho became the front man.

The marbles episode was incredibly sad, especially the women. I was so sad for Ali and the last woman (forgot her name). Sang-woo was such a bastard! Although it was sad for main guy, I'm glad he died!

It feels like the end could lead into main guy trying to take down the people still behind it. Maybe team up with policeman, if he's alive. Maybe in another country.

I think the director is reluctant about doing another series because he was rejected for 10 years with this until he finally got it made. So I imagine it would be very hard to follow it up in a much shorter time frame.

I commented to a friend that I was only after some senseless violence and didn't expect to get all emotional with it. Pleasantly surprised by how invested I got in the characters

Also I've just read that they had to delete a scene because the phone number on the card was a real number in Korea and a man got thousands of calls!

@HungryHippo11 I watched it again and realised I'd been going on and on to a friend who I made watch it, asking "what did he mean by you know why?" 😂. I knew what the brothers name was so no idea how I got that wrong, I must've been half asleep when I watched it or something. Haha.

Found you! Took a while to find spoiler thread but glad yo read your comments and the Kdrama link. Loved the series but ending annoyed me.
Poor child stuck in orphanage feeling abandoned by his missing sister because 456 has PTSD for 12 months.
Sang Woo's Mum has neither closure nor info on where cash comes from so no idea whether she can spend it really, given she was told her son was a criminal.
Cop's brother could have saved a lot of aggro had he just told his mam he'd be gone a while (I guessed that twist way early on). He'd been missing 'again' for only a couple of days??
Nice old man was a baddie after all. Isn't this twist nicked from Saw, Glass etc the whole terminal illness so let's go psycho shtick. If whole thing was meant to be equal/just, why would he let 456 win, given he was exploiting dementia and what about justice for Ali?
Also, we didn't have hopscotch, Korean British bulldog equivalent, hide and seek, elastic/jump rope etc there was scope for more, #1 only got to "play" 3 games.
Most annoying though was Hero goes for red hair and decides to be wannabe renegade bringing down da man instead of sorting out his daughter. Still a deadbeat Dad making false promises and letting her down.

#1 reminded me of Christopher Walken.
Hope if Netflix do go for a sequel, they don't keep going until it runs out of steam.

If you watch the tug of war bit back, when they are all laid down after defeating the other team, 001 isn’t locked onto the rope like the others. He has a wrist band on but no lock on it.

001 wasn't padlocked to the rope in the tug of war game.

He could have escaped if they'd lost

And 001 had to lose at marbles. He tried to not get picked, knowing that he wouldn't be killed. And then he let himself lose when he did get a partner.
Because he could not have guaranteed to survive the glass bridge game, it was too dangerous.

Great thread! In red light green light at least they had a chance, it was never clear that some games would be impossible for all to survive, and there would only be one overall winner. Although yes it did seem obvious who it would end up being between in the final. I am still a dreamer and was hoping for more people to escape.

Don't even know what to say about Ali. I am pissed off at all of them for going back in at all, and annoyed he was so gullible! I guess he never saw Sang Woo's sly side yet.

I thought the gangster guy should have had a worse death where that woman survived one more round after killing him.

Ah but the deaths are all foreshadowed. Think it has been mentioned on one of the threads. It's on one of the Easter Egg vids. So shriek woman feels most empowered laid back in tug of war, same position as shown holding on to thug and thug fell off bridge early on in series.
Whole thing so clever. 456 won 4.56 mill on horses etc Love all those small details.

There was a big tell about the old man in the first episode

the doll sensor didnt pick him up

im almost a bit annoyed I noticed that, cuz then it became quite obvious

I really want to know how the pink men are recruited.

yeah me too, hopefully that could be answered

My son guessed 001 because he wasn't scanned and it never showed him actually die, both things I never noticed.
I also think that maybe he didnt care if he died during the games, he knew he was going to die soon due to the tumour and just wanted to feel the joy of playing games with friends as he said on his death bed.

I actually think it was meant to be 8 hour long episodes, but to make the possibility of a second series and make it appealing to Netflix (apparently he spent 10 years trying to get it picked up), he agreed to 9 and added a half hour of “what ifs”. All to say I can’t get too worked up about him dying his hair red and going on the plane, because it feels like it’s not part of the work.

It’s just weird how episode 8 is only half an hour long, and then episode 9 first half is hard hitting and then it changes completely.

Interested in hearing others thoughts. Though I’ve moved onto Downton Abbey now! Squid Game was way too much of a head twist for me to rewatch, as shown in this thread!

@BakeOffRewatch
Interesting theory. It definitely was weird that the penultimate episode was so short, and the next episode had almost no lead-in so they easily could have gone together as one episode.

Although the "big reveal" in the 1 year later section had been heavily foreshadowed so surely that would have been included in the original storyline.

Yeah I don’t know what time stamp it was, if it was half way through ep9, but it felt to me it should have finished with the scene where 001 was betting if the man on the street on the snow should be arrested. A big reveal of who’s behind it, Humanity prevails when the woman comes back for the man, 001 passes away. The end.

The additional stuff felt tacked on and over detailed, like him giving the money and getting the kid out of the orphanage, all very wrapped up which to me is unusual for tv/film from there and felt like it was added to make it suitable for western audiences who like hard conclusions.

I’ve only watched it once and I’m not going to rewatch (despite my name!) though, so hands up if everyone disagrees with me