you read the title you already know my overall thoughts on Squid Game season 3 I found it to be very disappointing But now let's dive into the spaghetti and meatballs of that thought process Let me go ahead and take you on a journey through my neurons here Get you with the mind freak of why I thought this was such a letdown of the season Getting into spoilers Big spoiler warning Brace for impact Here she comes You've been warned Season 3 doesn't really give you answers for a lot of the things that it was gearing up towards Like it felt like season 2 was setting a lot of building blocks for things that would be answered in season 3 only for season 3 to roll around in here with whiskey dick and provide absolutely none of those answers or any closure to a lot of the things that it felt like it was building towards best example Let's just get one right away Rip a band-aid off The detective The detective hang from season 1 It felt like he was going to have a crucial role in season 2 and three which I remember season two and three the idea was they're supposed to be watched together It's like one season but they split it in half But even if you watch them together it doesn't change anything The detective he basically becomes like this naval explorer He's looking for this island He's just constantly out on a journey trying to find this island with Captain Park who they never make any progress They keep trying to chip away at it but they never get anywhere It's not until the actual last episode that he finds the island And by that point it's too late to do anything Now of course some things happen with the detective and learning that the captain maybe is a little shadier than he thought Maybe the captain's in on it I don't know why I'm like beating around the bush I already said this is spoiler I'm not going to [ __ ] tiptoe around here with foreplay He learns that the captain is part of the Squid Game He works with the the upper upper echelon the the top brass So like that kind of stuff happens and that's that's okay I guess but it doesn't lead to anything So the detective eventually finds the island in the last episode He goes to the island for no no [ __ ] less than 30 minutes I'm not exaggerating There is literally a 30-second countdown because it's about to self-destruct cuz the game is over by the time he gets there So he spends less than 30 minutes in there and we only have three scenes of his presence in the actual Squid Game trying to find his brother because his brother is now the the leader of it He's the He's the puppet master and he's trying to get answers from his brother and he knows this is the last time he's going to be able to see him cuz he's not going to be able to find him again So he gets there doesn't find his brother until he breaks some glass and then he watches his brother leave and he says "Why Why?" His brother says nothing and he leaves and then so does the detective That's the end That is the end of the detective's whole character arc He spends two seasons He's he dedicates like his life to trying to find this island trying to find his brother only to find the island do nothing And then like the final you know montage here it's like a happily ever after for him where they're talking about like man what are we going to do now that we succeeded in you know finding all this It's like what the [ __ ] You didn't succeed You you actually did nothing If you took the detective out of season 2 and three and everyone associated with like the uh trying to find the island nothing changes Actually nothing So they're patting themselves on the back you know [ __ ] fingering each other's buttholes about how great of a job they did to get get to the bottom of it when they didn't do anything All they did was arrive to the island as it was basically blowing up going nuclear Like it's such a waste Like what is even the point in even bringing them back for that when they have nothing to do There was no payoff We didn't even learn anything from their investigation other than his brother is the top brass and Captain Park well he got involved with them and took the bad guys fishing then became like a close pal of theirs And then we learn like he was also in like gambling debt which is how he even got there in the first place But like none of it matters None of that matters Now there's a lot I want to get into the weeds of but I want to give you some of my like positives about it because I don't think the season was like horrible or like unwatchable or like ruins Squid Game or anything Like there are things that I do think were done well Best example of that in this season was the hideand-seek tag game where one team had a knife the other team was trying to avoid them and trying to find the exit And the objective was you have to kill at least one person in order to pass That was extremely tense It was done extraordinarily well and it had some really powerful very powerful character moments I just yapped about like the entire plot summary of this episode but I'm going to just remove that here because I don't know why I'm just regurgitating all of that This is like spoiler talk I'm assuming you've already seen it but I think what they did with uh the mother and her son that dynamic that they built up through season 1 I love the way they handle it here in this game where the son still just he lets people walk all over him He cannot bring himself to kill someone in this game The mother tries to sacrifice herself letting her son stab her so her son can live but he can't bring himself to do it So instead he targets the newborn baby And the mother instinctively reacts by killing her son And he still apologizes as he's passing away in her arms I thought that was handled really really well And I think it makes perfect sense for everything that they were building towards there I also think Hyonju's death was extremely powerful The superstar of the rebellion she was doing incredible work in protecting the people she cares about in this game She was protecting the mother the baby and the older woman She eventually defeats and kills someone that was trying to harm them and finds the exit And as she's going to get her friends to the exit she gets stabbed in the back and killed by Mong Ji which is the father of the baby murders her right in front of them I thought that was excellent Like it was extremely sad It was very emotional and it was something that made a lot of sense We had seen that he had teamed up with Namu and they're going around just like slaughtering people trying to like get more prize money added to the pot but also he's killing people to try and reduce the amount of people that could be a threat to his girl and the baby and ends up killing the person that is protecting them And while I do really like this game and the episodes around it like I think the first two and a half episodes are very strong there is some stinkiness present And this is going to get into my big complaints because this is what happens a lot A character like Dieho you'll remember in season two they built him up as like a marine He's like a happy golucky guy but he's also you know rough tough He's not afraid to you know get down and dirty until [ __ ] hits the fan and he's tasked with getting the magazines and bringing them back while they're rebelling He panics freaks out gets too scared and he freezes melts down and he doesn't bring the magazines which inevitably leads to people dying Well in this season we see the repercussion of that which is Jihun hates him And now we're seeing Jihun wants to kill him So in this game he is looking for him actively to murder him And Diehaho doesn't get anything to do other than say "I lied about everything because I wanted to be cool I wanted you guys to think I was cool." And then he like fights back against Jihun and then gets killed And it's like well why even bother keeping him around Like the idea I think was to show that Jihun is kind of like falling apart here after everything that happened in season two like he spends the first episode kind of like in a trance like this fugue state and then he like snaps out of it here while like choking out and killing Dio and he's like it's your fault and then he comes to the realization like yeah it is kind of my fault but like it's still just you don't get a whole lot out of that character He just says like I wanted to be cool It's like okay well that's not a whole lot of payoff for this character that we built up I felt like there could have been more there but I don't think that's like the worst case of it Like there are characters that get done even dirtier Another great example Minsu He's like very cowardly but he's not like Courage's the cowardly dog who like rises up and like saves the day to protect the people he cares about you know overcoming his fears Mu in season 3 gets reduced to a drug addict And I'm not exaggerating He does All he does now is he finds the Thanos cross of pills and he starts popping pills and then gets addicted to drugs So he starts hallucinating and eventually he dies That's it Like what the [ __ ] is even the point in keeping him alive Why did we give any attention to this guy throughout season 2 and like a lot of season 3 as well Like he does get a lot of screen time and it seems like they're sprinkling little breadcrumbs here a little bit of seasoning on this character that you're expecting something to come from it but all that comes is a [ __ ] crippling pill popping addiction Like this guy's [ __ ] fening He's going through withdrawals Like he looks like a League of Legends player on a 10-ame losing streak by the end of it Like it and there's just nothing there There's no payoff There's nothing that comes from it What the [ __ ] is the point Another big example of why are we doing this Please you're embarrassing me Is the VIPs I didn't like them very much in season 1 It was just cartoonishly overthe-top And here it's even more cringe Holy Like I it was so bad I started to bring out the old notepad That's when you know it's getting [ __ ] rancid So like one of the lines was "I spent so much money on my helicopter but it was late." Or it was something like that Basically he was crying because he didn't get a chance to go in and start killing some of the people himself because the VIPs got to go in in uniform and kill some of the people that didn't complete the hideand-seek game objective And he's like "I was late on this helicopter I spend so much money and now I'm the only one that didn't get to go hunting." And then the others are like "Yes you missed it It was exquisite hunting I go hunting a lot but this was another level of hunting which is a [ __ ] stupid line considering they were defenseless like like you you didn't really it wasn't like very sportsmanlike at all which I guess was kind of the point but it was still like all of these lines are just so ass And they cut to them quite a bit where they're all just kind of hanging out in the in the lounge here but it's basically just like the anime club Like these are some dorks It's like one of them just keeps drinking They're like "Did you bet on 222 to win?" I did I was a little too drunk I was a I was sipping on the most expensive brandy and I I voted on the pregnant woman with a broken foot to win jump rope How silly But that also means I voted on her baby Assuming of course the baby's going to be a player and they're like "Yes of course the baby will be a player It'll make it far more entertaining with a baby on the line Evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil." Like that's all they do That's all they are And it leads to nothing You just get the worst dialogue and the worst scenes from the VIPs Holy [ __ ] it's trash I hate everything with the VIPs And it doesn't go anywhere Like there's no actual like payoff where they get their comeuppants or anything They just sit there they drink a little bit they have the worst conversations ever and then they leave on their helicopter at the end of the season and that's it That's it You don't learn anything else about them They don't nothing happens to them That's curtains It's just [ __ ] is terrible Even if they did get their comeuppants all of their scenes would still be terrible Really the show does fall apart on the jump rope game even though I don't hate the game itself It's not as good as the glass one obviously but I didn't hate the game It's very simple You cross a bridge while jumping rope It's literally a Mario Party miniame Then there was a twist where once one of them got across he started pushing the others back killing them basically trying to just leave it so there's only him and Jihun cuz they are the ones that passed at the time to win it And I I actually thought that was pretty good conceptually and it was clear what was going to happen Junhi was going to die here because we saw her break her ankle in the hideand-seek one So it was very clear she wasn't going to make it across So she sacrifices herself and then it is all up to Jihun to protect this baby Mongji is still alive here which is the father of the baby and the former lover of Jan Hi which of course now puts these two together going into the final game Big problem is though all of the characters we've cared about up until this point are dead It really seems like the tag game before the jump rope was like the finale game cuz that's where all of the characters we gave a [ __ ] about lost their life So then after the jump rope game the people that make it are people we just don't even know except for like the older guy That guy is still there and Mongji but other than those two it's just faceless nobodyies It's like it just NPCs around here that we have not learned about at all other than like a couple of glimpses here and there So it takes a lot of the oomph out of the final game because you don't care what happens to them And it unfortunately leads to Mong becoming just a psychopath Like they build up this character They have him be like kind of flip-flopping going in a lot of different directions Like for a little while he wants to protect the baby protection He he does a lot of things even like sides with Jihon against the other group in like the final game which is the Squid Game but in the sky So he's like pushing people off then betrays them in order to team with Gian he and protect that baby together and then he just becomes a psychopath like going into the final part after everything goes tits up He just becomes a raving lunatic and that's it But and like that's fine because they did kind of plant a couple of breadcrumbs throughout that kind of lead you to believe that could happen like he is just all about the money and all of it's been fake that like I don't have the biggest issue there but the big issue arises in that final game where again you don't care about the characters but also like he was so logical and like so like calculating and then all of a sudden Young G just starts killing people on the second to last platform knowing full well they need to kill someone on the last one in order to end the game Why is he killing them on that platform He could have just waited till the final one for that betrayal and gone from there Well not not for the betrayal but for like the you know [ __ ] piling up corpses The big twist on that one though was one of the guys who they had beat up in order to drag to the final platform to just be like a easy sacrificial lamb Well that guy says "Fuck you." Literally just dives off the platform killing himself giving the big middle fingers to Mong like "I will not be your lunchbox as they called them." So then that's when it becomes Jihun verse Mong and he just becomes just a full-blown psychopath which is very I don't know it feels like kind of a copout like it made you want to just root for Jihon Like oh now it makes sense why he's about to kill this guy But then another big problem arises where they don't hit the button actually start the game and he ends up killing him So then it doesn't count So then Jihon has to sacrifice himself So the baby wins I like the idea of it I like the theme of it How the baby is like hope in the you know the midst of despair and how Jihon by sacrificing himself So the baby wins beats the Squid Game like full stop He beats Inho like the puppet master He wins by doing that But it also was highly unnecessary if they had just at any moment across their scuffle decided to hit that button I don't know why they didn't And there was also a really silly scene like the way that young actually dies is they both fall off the platform and Jihun's like holding on to him with one hand The actual action movie cliche that big trope and then he falls Just underwhelming Like it's just underwhelming Again that whole thing was played without people we cared about in the first place Anyway it just I think it was a huge misstep The most important game was the hideand-seek tag one That was the season's peak and then from there it went into just [ __ ] messy very unsatisfying territory But I'll get a couple more positives out there I thought Nocule's storyline was good That was actually pretty satisfying where she squares off against one of the big bads there and she's trying to protect that guy player 246 that she knew because of his daughter who was sick and it really strikes a chord in her and reignites that feeling of hope that she used to have with her own family So then she betrays this way of life with the Squid Game and does everything she can to protect them And then after the Jihun sacrifice she was about to take her own life but then saw nope hope is still there That baby gets to live So then she decides she will also press on and live I thought that was handled very well But now let's go back to another negative because I forgot to mention this one What was supposed to be the big climax reveal where Jihun learns that the guy he used to call a friend in season 2 the guy he thought was dead is actually the game's master He is actually the showman He finally takes off his mask and reveals himself to Jihun And we get a little bit of Inho's backstory Not much It's all very like very shallow We don't get to actually learn a lot about him or a couple of other key people I thought that we'd learn more about But like with him we get Tidly Winks We get to learn that he was also a player in the game And this conversation between the two of them I thought was going to be big It wasn't It was actually maybe like five sentences total where Inho gives him a knife and says "The other players are conspiring to kill you in this next game You and the baby This is your best chance Take this knife go in there kill them now and you will win." So he gives him that knife and then we see a flashback to where the previous game's host gave Inho that same knife that same choice and Inho went in there and he slaughtered them He killed them Well Ji Hun doesn't do that obviously and goes through with the game But then getting into the final game I will say it's not like he really did anything He actually just sat on low power mode He actually just sat by idol like he was just [ __ ] glitching He just sat on the side and let people bicker amongst each other like just have all kinds of little arguments with each other He did nothing He got very lucky That's it And that was supposed to be like his big stand against Inho and like defying what he thought was the only right choice But he just got really lucky that the others kept arguing so much which again like it it does it did make sense I suppose but it was just still a little underwhelming It wasn't like a triumph like take this Inho my way is the correct way watch and then he didn't prove it until the very end where he squares off against Mongji and then sacrifices himself That was like the big I win you lose moment But that conversation I just thought was so lackluster I thought it was just so underwhelming Unfortunately I would have liked a lot more from that And and really everything around Inho ended up being very underwhelming Like we have spent so long with the detective trying to get to his brother and they don't even get to talk They don't even have a single conversation The best he can do is just ask why and just gets crickets Like that sucks Like that just sucks Why did we even build towards it I don't know I I could yap more about it but the point is I just felt season 3 was just so disappointing Oh yeah in the actual like last scene you get Inho driving around in America and he happens to see an American recruiter playing Dakchi with someone in an alleyway thus setting up the American Squid Game spin-off Woohoo Yeah cool I guess can't can't wait for that Like I said I don't think season 3 ruins Squid Game but man was it lackluster It was uh not not amazing Not not the conclusion I would have liked to see Some good moments Definitely some good moments A lot of bad moments though too That's really about it