Squid Game on Netflix: That ending explained and your burning questions answered

Squid Game, the grim however intriguing Korean sequence a few murderous event of youngsters’s video games, might quickly top Bridgerton as Netflix’s biggest show ever. The event itself does wind its strategy to a bloody decision. However that does not imply all our Squid Recreation questions obtained answered. This is a have a look at eight burning questions viewers could have in regards to the present. 

Warning: The next story consists of enormous spoilers for Squid Recreation, so if you have not watched all of the episodes, come again and skim this after you are carried out. You actually do not need to be spoiled for a few of the plot twists.

1. When did Squid Recreation come out?

The nine-episode sequence launched on Netflix on Sept. 17. 

2. Will there be a season 2 of Squid Recreation?

In case you’ve watched the entire present (keep in mind that spoiler warning above), you recognize the sport does not actually finish with the ninth episode. It continues, and the way forward for “winner” Seong Gi-hun (performed by Lee Jung-jae) is left unsure. Will we ever know what occurs after he will get off that aircraft? The reply is a convincing … possibly. Author/director Hwang Dong-hyuk told Variety he could return to big-screen films earlier than excited about a Squid Recreation sequel.

“I haven’t got well-developed plans for Squid Recreation 2,” he advised Selection. “It’s fairly tiring simply excited about it. But when I had been to do it, I would definitely not do it alone. I would think about using a writers’ room and would need a number of skilled administrators.”

Squid Recreation’s success is bound to have Netflix execs wanting extra, however we simply do not know if they’re going to coax the director again for extra. Get out the dangling piggy financial institution stuffed with Korean received, Netflix, and pay the person.

3. Was Squid Recreation primarily based on a e book?

It actually looks like Squid Recreation would make an important novel or graphic novel. However proper now, you’ll be able to’t go to your bookstore and scoop up a Squid Recreation e book to learn.

According to Korean pop-culture site Soompi, Squid Recreation director Hwang Dong Hyuk stated that he obtained the thought for the present again in 2008 from a comic book e book about individuals who had been taking part in an excessive recreation. However he did not identify the comedian.

And it may not even be a single comedian, as a result of the director told the Korea Herald that he “learn a whole lot of comics, and was mesmerized by survival video games.” So till Hwang comes out and names a few of his studying materials, guesses are all we’ve got. It appears doubtless that Squid Recreation will now be was e book kind, because it’s such a success. Regulate these bookstore cabinets.

Some are claiming that Squid Recreation is suspiciously much like a 2014 Japanese movie, As The Gods Will, directed by Takashi Miike. That movie itself relies on Japanese manga. It is also a few dying event utilizing childhood video games, and appears to have some very related scenes, together with a doll that spins round and tries to catch gamers transferring.

Squid Game’s director said at a press conference that solely the primary recreation within the movie is much like his present, and that he had been engaged on his idea for years earlier than As The Gods Will got here out in 2014.

4. Is Squid Recreation an actual recreation?

Clearly there is not any lethal Squid Recreation event, the place individuals are killed taking part in harmless kids’s video games. We hope. However the title refers to at least one particular recreation that will get its identify from a court docket formed vaguely like a squid. 

Major character Seong Gi-hun makes it sound as if Squid Recreation is exclusive to his city, describing a recreation that is form of like Crimson Rover and form of like Seize the Flag and is performed in a playground court docket formed like a squid. With a view to win, the attacking group, who’re solely allowed to hop till they cross the squid’s waist, should faucet the squid’s head with their foot. Director Hwang told the Korea Herald that it was his favourite childhood recreation, so sure, it does appear to be actual.

Different video games performed are pretty clearly actual, together with marbles, tug-of-war, and Crimson Gentle Inexperienced Gentle. There’s one recreation that is clearly not actual — one through which gamers should cross a glass bridge and do not know which panel will shatter underfoot — although video games like hopscotch do require you to position your toes solely in sure squares.

One recreation offers every participant a tin of sweet with a form embossed into it, and so they should use a pointy object to chop out the form with out breaking it. That is straightforward when you’ve got a triangle form, not really easy when you picked the umbrella. Contestants finally be taught that licking the again of the sweet helps launch the form.

That sweet is real–here’s a YouTube video from PinoyChefKorea that exhibits you find out how to make it. (Recipe directions are proven in English captions.) Did you get into making Dalgona coffee in the course of the pandemic? This sweet is Dalgona sweet.

The sweet is well-liked with Korean kids, the chef notes. And sure, eaters in Korea try to eat around the embossed shape with out breaking it, although the stakes for them aren’t life and dying.

5. Is the Crimson Gentle, Inexperienced Gentle doll actual?

The primary recreation the contestant play is Crimson Gentle, Inexperienced Gentle, however as a substitute of a human turning round and making an attempt to catch somebody transferring throughout “Crimson Gentle,” it is a super-creepy big schoolgirl robotic doll factor.

On-line publication Koreaboo reports that the doll wasn’t made for Squid Recreation, however that it already was on show on the Jincheon Carriage Museum Journey Village, also called Macha Land, a museum in Chungcheongbok-do, South Korea, a number of hours from Seoul. Koreaboo says the doll has now been returned to the museum, however by some means is lacking one hand. Hey, these video games had been tough on everybody.

Den of Geek pointed us to tweets from residents of the Philippines noting {that a} model of the doll was a part of a Netflix show in a mall there, and its head really spun round.

6. That Squid Recreation enterprise card

Squid Recreation recruiters handed out light-brown enterprise playing cards with the sport’s image — a circle, triangle and a sq. — on one aspect, and a cellphone quantity on the opposite. (Enterprising online artists are selling them in case your Halloween costume wants a prop, or make them your self.)

Author Jasmine Leung explains for The Focus that the shapes are literally Korean letters.

“The circle is the letter ‘o’, the triangle is a part of the letter ‘j’, and the sq. is ‘m’,” she writes. “So aspect by aspect, it reads ‘O J M’, that are the initials (of) squid recreation in Korean, which is learn as Ojingeo Geim (오징어게임).”

That aspect of the cardboard is ok, however the different aspect, with a cellphone quantity proven, precipitated some issues. Mashable Southeast Asia studies that an individual with that quantity has complained of receiving “endless” calls and text messages. (C’mon Netflix, it is best to’ve purchased a selected quantity and arrange some promo message for many who known as it.)

7. Concept about Squid Recreation guards

The guards in Squid Recreation put on pink, and when one’s uncovered, he looks like a younger naive soldier. One on-line concept tries to clarify how the guards had been employed. Lead character Seong Gi-hun performs a recreation known as ddakji with a recruiter for the sport. (Ddakji is a traditional Korean game of flipping paper tiles–kind of like POGs.) Gi-hun picks blue paper over pink. It appears random, however one concept claims it is not.

“So there is a concept in Squid Recreation the place Gi-Hun picked the blue card from the salesperson (Gong Yoo) after which awoke in blue swimsuit as a participant,” one tweet notes. “Had he or the opposite gamers picked the pink card, they’d be the employees/guards.”

There is not any proof that that is true, however hey, good fodder for a potential sequel.

8. The Squid Recreation ending defined

Tremendous-spoiler time, as a result of we’ll discuss in regards to the sequence’ ending. Seong Gi-hun wins, and he learns who’s actually working the sport (you’ll have figured it out since we do not see this character die within the recreation, but it surely’s such a juicy plot twist that I will not reveal it right here). 

After coping with the sport mastermind, Gi-hun dyes his hair vibrant pink (just like the guards’ outfits, although that is most likely not related). Then he begins to get on a aircraft for LA to reunite along with his younger daughter. However he spots the sport recruiter who concerned him within the recreation making an attempt to persuade one other down-on-his-luck man to play. Gi-hun grabs the cardboard, and simply earlier than he will get on the aircraft, calls the quantity and tells the one who solutions he will monitor them down. SEQUEL? Even when the director does not appear in a rush, the setup is ideal for one.

And let’s discuss in regards to the brothers. Police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) infiltrates the sport, attempting to find his lacking brother In-ho. Jun-ho escapes the sport compound however is seemingly killed by The Entrance Man, who’s form of the supervisor of the sport. And The Entrance Man is revealed to be … Jun-ho’s lacking brother, who we already realized received the sport in 2015.

The brothers might return in a sequel, too. Jun-ho was shot within the shoulder (earlier than falling off a cliff into water). So he may not be useless, although he does not appear to have ratted out the sport masterminds to his fellow cops, for the reason that recreation is continuous. It would not be the one dying fake-out on this present.