Spoiler Alert: This list contains spoilers for the entire series of ‘Squid Game.’Squid Game is over, but its impact will live on. At the beginning, protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is in such crippling debt that he finds himself signing up for a big contest with a huge cash prize. When it’s time to play, he’s knocked out and brought to an undisclosed location. Otherwise known as Player 456, Gi-hun meets others whose financial difficulties rival and even surpass his own. Everyone is desperate, and that’s fully taken advantage of by the people in charge of this contest. They didn’t say so at first, but the first challenge makes it extremely and aggressively clear that getting eliminated means death. Suddenly, more than just money is at stake. Sort-of-but-not-really luckily for the people who live through that first challenge, there can be more than one winner with whom you can share the prize. Also, the contestants can hold a vote to leave. Of course, the majority voted to stay.
Series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk also wrote and directed Squid Game, an impressive effort to be sure. It took the world by storm and brought greater attention to South Korean media. This show functioned not just as a thriller with lots of graphic violence, suspense, and compelling characters from relatable backgrounds; it also works as a pretty straight-forward message about socio-economic class. The first season came out during the pandemic, if you can believe it. Then a few years went by, and season two finally came during the holiday season of 2024. Half a year later, the third and final season was released to massive viewership. All three seasons share many traits, of course. For instance, they all have some plot points that don’t make a lot of sense, they all have children’s games that turn deadly, and they all have Gi-hun at the helm of the narrative. There are more comparisons to be made, and there are definitely some important distinctions as well. Ranked by their humor, suspense, character development, games, and overall storytelling, here is every season of Squid Game.
3
Season 3
2025
Season 3’s six episodes are strong enough to provide a relatively satisfying end to the show, but they’re definitely bookended by a few structural problems. Since the previous season ended on a cliffhanger, this one doesn’t feel like its own narrative; it’s just the second half of what should be a single season. For that reason alone, it feels a bit cheaper than the premieres of the previous seasons from the start. Also, the ending teases further seasons (more likely a spin-off), which undermines the viewer’s sense of closure. Furthermore, the strong suggestion that the games are still going makes Gi-hun’s plan feel like it totally failed. In a way, that feels realistic (given the scrappiness of his plan); but this isn’t really a show that’s been devoted to realism. It feels like a happy ending would have been more satisfying in this genre. There’s also the rogue masked employee’s (Park Gyu-young) storyline, which never really makes sense. She should have been killed at several points in the narrative, weakening what would otherwise have been an interesting redemption arc.
The bulk of the season is still pretty good—or at least the stuff that happens on the island. There are only three games, but they’re still very interesting ones. Hide-and-Seek makes for an action-packed, sad, thrilling, and shocking game. Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon) movingly goes to great lengths in order to save the helpless Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) as she goes into labor and gives birth; a mother-and-son relationship is put to the ultimate test; and so much more. Then there’s the tragic jump-rope game, and Sky Squid Game makes for an emotionally powerful conclusion to the competition. His failed plans notwithstanding, Gi-hun is still able to remain a compelling and noble character who sticks by his ethics to the end. It’s interesting to see how In-ho (Lee Byun-hun) disperses the winnings, which feels fair in a way that helps us see that his moral compass is a bit more nuanced than just being a typical villain who likes to watch people die. There should have been more of his backstory, but oh well. The final verdict is that this was flawed but still worth watching for Squid Game fans.
2
Season 2
2024
Season 2 starts off very promising. Gi-hun has paid off his debts and dedicated his life to stopping the games. Putting a cool role-reversal on how the previous season began, he’s now the boss of the man he used to be in debt to. Specifically, Gi-hun’s paying him and his cronies to search all the subway stations for the recruiter, and they’ve been at it for a couple of years. In classic Squid Game fashion, there’s a compelling blend of thrills and humor. Things get serious when they finally track down the recruiter, which leads to a few very intense games with only a couple of players involved. The recruiter’s fate doesn’t make sense, but no big deal. Gi-hun and the police officer (Wi Ha-Joon) want to go to the island for different reasons, and it’s intriguing to watch these men form a team to take down this secret organization. Gi-hun’s plan wasn’t good enough, though; he winds up being a player, but his team can’t track him as they planned.
One of the season’s most fundamental problems is the pacing.
This makes for a nice race against the clock, as the others try to find the island as quickly as possible—before Gi-hun is killed in the games (not to mention everyone else). There’s a decent set of characters focused on here, as in Season 1. Getting to know their personal lives, seeing how their backstories inform their conflicted relationships with each other, and watching them grow (or digress) is interesting. It’s noticeably odd that another one of Gi-hun’s old friends just happens to be here, but whatever. There’s a ton of contestants, so it’s not exactly ridiculous that a few of them might have known each other back in the day. Gi-hun’s attempts to help everyone survive put some added nuance to the games, especially Red Light, Green Light. Wisely, that’s the only game the show brings back for the second season. As for the new ones, they’re just as terrifying and thrilling as we’d hope. One of the season’s most fundamental problems is the pacing. The men on the boat are basically just that: there’s not much happening visually, emotionally, or narratively. The rogue Squid Game employee is also flawed; she shouldn’t be able to keep working there (or even live) after so flagrantly going against such important orders. Finally, and most importantly, the season ends on a cliffhanger—a storytelling device that almost always feels cheap for a finale. It’s no different here; the audience feels like it’s half a story, not a full one.
1
Season 1
2021
The first season of Squid Game was a hit for good reason. Seong Gi-hun starts off the series as a divorced father of a little girl he cares deeply about and wants to see more. Due to his gambling habit, though, he winds up accepting an invitation to be the final player in a clandestine series of games. The prize will be much more than enough for him to pay off his debt and see his daughter after she and her mother move to America. That prize isn’t so easy to get, though, and the alarming realization that getting eliminated from a game means instant death has the audience hooked. Since season one is the longest, it has the most number of games (definitely a good thing). Gi-hun barely makes it through the first challenge, and he does so with some help that immediately shows the crazy situations that will happen throughout (for selfless and selfish reasons both). The friends and enemies Gi-hun makes along the way help keep us engaged, including and especially his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) and the old man Oh Il-nam (Oh Yeong-su). Meanwhile, the police officer infiltrating the games and searching for his brother is much more interesting than him sailing around (as he does in the later seasons). What he finds also makes for an interesting twist.
…The alarming realization that getting eliminated from a game means instant death has the audience hooked.
Cho Sang-woo proves to be a coldly calculating man, which produces consistent tension between him and Gi-hun. Meanwhile, the old man’s story has a truly wild plot twist in the end. What really makes this season better than the others, though, is Gi-hun’s character arc. In no other season does he change so much, his behavior being practically unrecognizable by the end. Lee Jung-jae totally sells this transformation, too, maturing his character into someone who is devoted to putting others before himself and will stop at nothing to try and eliminate a competition he just barely survived. Although we feel bad for Gi-hun’s daughter, we can see how his character has come to resent his blood money and find that immense wealth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (especially in this context). As a whole, the humor, action, suspense, and heart of this season overcome its flaws and surpass the quality of the later seasons.