SPOILER ALERT

“As kids, we would play the squid game.”

This quote sets the theme of this whole show, that each ‘game’ that they play was a popular children’s game in Korea when the players were younger.

This show is a must watch for anyone who loves abstract violence. It feels like every kill in the show is not important in the way that none of the workers even react to the player they killed or the other players around them. The workers only focus on their task and nothing else. The brutal yet simple way that players are dealt with when they lose the game is so poetic as it symbolizes the horrible reality that happens outside of our windows that we choose to ignore.

Every player is in incredible debt which drives them to keep playing and hopefully earn the big cash prize at the end to pay back their debt and improve their lives. This really gets tested in the marble game, where players are instructed to pick a partner and play any game with marbles with their partner. The catch is that only one partner may leave as whoever loses dies. This leads to a lot of heartbreaks as players are forced to choose life or death with people they thought would be with them to the end.

Ultimately, most of the players choose to trick or steal the marbles from their partners sealing their fates. While all of the games are happening there’s a secret exciting subplot of a detective sneaking himself into the guards and having to try and discreetly collect information. This eventually devolves into the detective kidnapping one of the executives who sponsors the squid games and then escaping to a remote island where he is then shot and supposedly killed by the game master, Front Man, who we find out to be the detective’s brother who the detective was really there for.

While this show may not appeal to all audience’s, this show has a really great story arc on the true essence of humanity and the lengths we would go to survive. I would recommend this show to all those who need something to binge and not be bored by and who like sudden twists that you do not expect.