The <i>Squid Game</i> Season 3 Ending Has Us Reeling With Questions

Spoilers below.

The Squid Game series finale is both an ending and a beginning. While this last batch of episodes marks the conclusion of Gi-hun’s (Lee Jung-jae) saga, it also not-so-neatly leaves the door open for more storylines to branch out.

The Korean drama has come a long way since it premiered in 2021, when it first gave rise to stars like Lee Jung-jae, Hoyeon, and Lee Byung-hun, and later won a Golden Globe, three SAG Awards, and six Emmys. In the four years and two seasons since, we’ve seen what started as an original limited series from director Hwang Dong-hyuk transform into a global franchise, complete with a reality series, video game, and merchandise. An American spinoff is even suspected to be in the works (but more on that later). While the series surely boasts huge streaming numbers and a worldwide fan base, it’s clear that the efforts to turn it into a massive business have muddled the story. Sure, the show still delivers drama and edge-of-your-seat tension, but these past two seasons could’ve been trimmed into just one, to avoid dragging.

Outside of the pacing, certain twists didn’t feel earned or felt confusing. Gi-hun is so removed from his mission that his ending doesn’t feel terribly satisfying. Pink guard No-eul destroys the players’ archives when they could’ve been used as evidence for a police investigation. And don’t get me started on this season’s obsession with suicidal mothers, that CGI baby, and the bizarre dialogue between the billionaire VIPs.

At the end of season 2, Gi-hun leads a bloody uprising in an attempt to crush the Front Man and the entire Squid Game operation. Severely outnumbered and under-equipped, he fails and loses many fellow players—including his good friend Jung-bae—in the process. By the start of season 3, which picks up in the immediate aftermath, he’s so defeated by the loss that he’s nearly rendered speechless. He has returned to the games to take them down once and for all, but ends up ditching his mission to care for player 222’s baby, who was born in the middle of the competition. Gi-hun promises that he’ll take care of the child, as is player 222’s dying wish. The infant’s introduction to the games only brings out the worst in the competitors. When the guards announce that the child will be counted as an official player and will inherit its mother’s cut of the total prize, the rest of the players insist on killing it. Even player 333, Myung-gi, the baby’s biological father, agrees (as a bluff, at first). Gi-hun guards the baby at all costs.

Fast-forward to the last game in the season 3 finale: Squid Game...in the sky. The final group of players must knock each other off a series of stories-high platforms until there is only one left. It just so happens that the final trio left are Gi-hun, the baby, and Myung-gi. Gi-hun is set to protect the baby, while Myung-gi says he will kill it, his own child, to take the cash prize himself. (But can he bring himself to do it?) The two men brawl. Myung-gi falls to his death. Gi-hun and the baby are left standing. Will he let his greed take over and kill the baby, or will he sacrifice himself so the baby can make it out of the games alive? (Assuming the Front Man, guards, and VIPs actually take care of it.) Staying true to his word, he chooses the latter. In a dramatic farewell, Gi-hun leaves the Front Man and audiences watching with a message: “We are not horses, we are humans. And humans are…” Before he gets to finish, he falls to his demise.

The Front Man retrieves the child just as his brother, Detective Jun-ho, sneaks into the secret arena to find him. By this time, No-eul has found player 246’s files and burned them along with the rest of the books in the Squid Game archives. The coast guard is also on the way to the island, after finding Jun-ho’s boat at sea. But the games have a plan for this. All guards evacuate and the Front Man sets a self-destructive timer for 30 minutes. Most parties (himself; the guards, including No-eul; and Jun-ho) make it out just in time before the island bursts into explosions.

A time jump in the epilogue shows where the rest of the characters end up, like Jun-ho leaving the police force and In-ho, a.k.a. the Front Man, running into a surprise figure. While most storylines seem to be tied up in a bow, a few questions remain. Let’s try to break them down below.

Hwang explained to Capital FM that he originally meant for Gi-hun to have a longer parting speech, but he ended up cutting it down.

“I wanted to continue with, ‘As humans, this is what we should do; as humans, this is how we should be, and starting now, this is how we can turn this world of ours into a better one,’” Hwang said.

“But as I wrote that all out, it became clear I couldn’t sum this up in a single line. People are far too complex to be defined categorically like that. …And if I sent the viewers a message that was so explicit, and so normative and didactic, it would actually only serves to limit the message itself. So I decided the rest of what I wanted to say would instead be expressed physically by Gi-hun through his actions, through his deeds, and the sacrifice he makes to save that child.”

I understand the reasoning; but it would’ve also been a sacrifice for the greater good if Gi-hun had a final standoff with the Front Man and hit the self-destruct button himself (or something like that) to bring his story full-circle. Even if the Korean Squid Game operation was shut down, that wouldn’t stop other international branches from continuing.

A scene in the finale shows a boy named Cheol at the airport reuniting with his mother. While the appearance might come as a surprise, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen him. Kang Cheol is the younger brother of Kang Sae-byeok, who was played by Hoyeon in Squid Game season 1. The siblings were refugees from North Korea and were separated from their family. Although Sae-byeok was killed in the games, Gi-hun found Cheol and, at the end of season 1, he put him in the care of Sang-woo’s mom. (She appears next to Cheol during the airport reunion.) But now he is finally back with his own mother.

That isn’t the only Hoyeon reference this season, either. She appears as a vision in season 3 when Gi-hun considers killing his competitors in the dorm.

Baby 222 does survive the games. The last we see of it is in the final few scenes, when Jun-ho comes home to find that baby in a bassinet in his apartment, along with a debit card and a note revealing it was the winner. At an ATM, Jun-ho confirms that the debit card leads to a checking account containing the prize: 45.6 billion won (around $33.7 million). It’s not clear why the baby ends up with Jun-ho—especially since he and his brother didn’t get to exchange any final words—but uh, congratulations to the new dad?

Gi-hun had kept his winnings from the past games, in cash, in a motel room as he organized a ragtag group of men to help him take down the Squid Game. But when Choi Woo-seok returns to the place with his associate at the end of the finale, the money is all gone. In fact, an earlier scene showed a faceless figure breaking the door open to presumably take the cash.

In the following scene, the Front Man, unmasked, visits Gi-hun’s daughter in the U.S. He reveals that her father has died and leaves her with a box marked with the Squid Game logo. Inside, she finds Gi-hun’s old track suit and a debit card with his name on it—the same kind that was left with baby 222. We can assume that the Front Man had arranged for the rest of Gi-hun’s winnings to be sent to his child.

“By sacrificing himself, Gi-hun’s actions have definitely touched something in In-ho’s heart, maybe a very small sliver of hope that he had hidden deep down in his heart. I also think it may have triggered some shame in him, because that [sacrifice] was something he wasn’t able to do for himself,” Hwang told The Wrap. “With the gaming arena in Korea being completely ruined and seeing this baby who made it out of the game, there was a huge change within the Front Man, and I think that was triggered and brought about by Gi-hun’s actions. I wanted that to be what the audience feels as well.”

This one’s a real kicker. As In-ho is driving through town in his car, he sees a recruiter playing the slap game with a potential player. A close-up reveals that the recruiter is none other than Cate Blanchett. She and In-ho acknowledge each other with a look—is she supposed to know who he is?—but her target wants to continue playing the game. “As you wish,” she tells him, followed by a vicious slap.

There’s been much speculation that an English-language spinoff, set in the U.S., is in the works, possibly helmed by Fight Club director David Fincher. Netflix has yet to address the news, or whether Blanchett is officially part of the cast, but this is the closest we’ve gotten to a confirmation so far. The games, much like the Netflix franchise itself, are not dead yet.