Squid Game: Join the Global Binge

Like everyone else on the planet, I bingewatched Squid Game last week. And when I say "everyone else on the planet," this is no exaggeration. In the middle of this binge, I was having my weekly game night with friends and one of them mentioned that she had started watching it. The next game night, she and another friend were halfway through, while I had finished. And then during my weekly therapy session, my therapist went, "have you seen Squid Game" and he started telling me his theory and I had to casually go "oh ok" without excitedly declaring "OMG yes, that is correct, how did you guess that" and spoiling the whole show for him. So yeah, maybe writing this blog post is a bit pointless if every reader has seen it already. But in case you're one of the few people who have yet to be persuaded, here you go.

First off, this is a Korean show, and I am a purist who prefers subtitles over dubbing, so that is how I recommend watching. Yes, you may not understand the words, but the tone is just as important a part of the acting and you need to hear how the original words were spoken, even if you need the subtitles to then translate them. This was particularly important for me because one of the characters is a Pakistani immigrant living in Korea, Abdul Ali. Played by Indian actor, Anupam Tripathi, this was the first time I had seen a South Asian person speaking in Korean, but at the same time, I could tell he was speaking it with a desi accent. It was kind of mindblowing and is definitely the aspect of the show that resonated the most with me. But in the grand scheme of things, this is not why the whole world is bingeing the show, so let's get to the actual plot.

The show is mainly focused on Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a chauffeur with a gambling addiction who is in massive amounts of debt and of no use to his poor mother who is just trying to keep them all afloat. When he is approached by a stranger and given the opportunity to participate in a game for a big cash prize, he takes the bait. He and 455 other players are all transported to an undisclosed location where they are corralled together by mysterious masked men being led by a mysterious masked Front Man. The players are told the rules: they will play six games, and any players who win all six games get to share the prize money. Everyone else is eliminated when they lose a game. Seems straightforward enough. Except when they start to play the first game and discover that getting "eliminated" means that you quite literally are killed.

I mean, come on. How can you not be hooked by that premise and immediately decide to invest your time in the next nine episodes? The first half of this show is exquisitely scripted, giving you just enough backstory about Gi-hun and then the key players he starts to ally himself with in the game, but then throwing you into the insane mechanics of this deadly tournament. It has impeccable and inventive costume and production design, creating this eerie and dystopian world that all these players are trapped in that is colored so cheerfully to resemble a child's playground but ultimately is the site of such dark and terrible trauma. The episodes are propulsive and end with these nailbiting cliffhangers that meant I had absolutely no choice but to insist on watching the next one. And the actors are absolutely fantastic, each one portraying their character with a slightly different level of world weariness, cynicism, or painful hope that keeps diminishing as they play each game and start to realize just how low their fellow playmates will go to win all this cash. 

The second half, however, felt like the gimmick had worn itself out. There were some massive twists towards the end, but they were somewhat predictable, so you either already saw them coming, or if you didn't, they still weren't fully fleshed out and were mildly unsatisfying. The finale left me feeling like I had more questions than answers, which honestly, might be fine, since we'll likely all just be bingeing Squid Game 2 next year. I don't know how Netflix does it, but every once in while, they manage to get this collective momentum going around some random show and for a brief shining moment, the globe feels united in our single-minded obsession with this one piece of pop culture. So watch Squid Game to revel in the collective glow of humanity, even as the show ironically is based on a concept that demonstrates humans are absolutely vicious. You'll quickly find out if you're an optimist or a pessimist based on how you react to this show, but overall, if you just want to be entertained and thrilled, this is an excellent way to spend your weekend.