The third season of Netflix of “Squid Game” shakes up to its dark cynical finish line | TV / Streaming

No one is registered for the Calmar game – the contents or the spectator – which turns out to have a good time. The Netflix Korean thriller series was a massive and massive success in its first season, partly because of its uncompromising exploration (but barely subtle) of the whims of capitalism at an advanced stage, literalizing the rats race that we all have to suffer through a series of games for fatal children. The walls can start pastel, but they run in red not too long after the start of the games. But at the rear of this success, the creator Hwang Dong-Hyuk returned for a continuation of two seasons of the series; Like his protagonist, Seong Gi -Hun (a Lee Jung -Jae winner of an Emmy), he felt the need to come back to the thing that almost destroyed him – in an interview, he described filming as if stressful that he lost several teeth – especially by economic necessity.

Thus, we have a bifurcated season, divided into two parts but which feels (and has been shot) as a continuous history; Last year, the “squid game 2” saw Gi-Hun engage in the games to put an end to it, going so far as to direct a rebellion which would almost go to the control room. (“One Way Out”, anyone?) But the revolt is quickly crushed, largely due to the machinations of the man from the front (Lee Byung-Hun), who spent the whole season in Cozer in Gi-Hun, pretending to be a competitive colleague. Season 3 follows this destructive setback of the soul and carries the rest of “Squid Game”, both the season and the series, at a culminating point in a mute which feels as dark as the show. And that said something.

In the wake of his failed mutiny, Gi-Hun is a broken man: he saw his near Jung-Bae friend being killed, and the group of remaining candidates is reduced by few people (many of whom are the blood and body of the winner who voted to stay in the game, regardless of the number of bodies). It looks like a repudiation of what has entered the arena to do: stop games, save everyone and restore their soul in the process a certain way. He is lost, hopeless; The remaining group is forever tilted in favor of the actors of money who will voted perpetually to stay in the game. There are only a few interesting candidates, including the Transgenre Capable Hyun-Ju (Park Sung-Hoon), Grandmother Geum-Ja (Kang Ae-Sim) and her grandson Yong-Sik (Yang Dong-Geun), Jun-Hee pregnant competition Yuri), and her former friend, Myung-Gi (Yim Si-Wan). The bad Ott of last season, Thanos, may be gone, but his mind (and his secret cross of speed pills) beats in the remaining competitors, including the promoter of the club Sleazy Nam-Gyu (Roh Jae-Won).

When season 2 felt a lively gap in season 1 formula, season 3 largely plays the same match as the previous season (naturally, because they serve two halves of a tournament), with an additional dose of tortured pathos. The stakes feel higher and the stockings feel below this season; With a single series of matches that have extended into 13 an hour episodes, “Squid Game” suffers powerfully in its pace during this second half. The nihilism of its remaining characters also has all the pressure: rest assured, Hyung is far from being made to kill your darlings, and it will make all kinds of agonizing dead and adapted to their poetics. And faster, these characters die, the more apparent it is to see who is left behind while the games are starting to close, including several characters put under the spotlight that we can develop strong feelings about them in one way or another.

It’s a bit normal for the course for “squid game”. However, there is something bad in attention here, a kind of anger not only like the rich who organize the game (which, like the last time, are personified here by a group of English -speaking actors carrying masks of golden animals and throw the dirtiest English dialogue), but the workers who hide each other as long as they can increase their sharing of life already with a few million people.

It is a very Nietzschean show in this regard; Gi-Hun, like the rest of the characters, learns again and again the value of never trusting anyone and accepting that your friend can become your ally (and vice versa) if the practical calculation of life force. Life does not make sense, except what we can do for each other. Admittedly, season 3 finds several ways to reintroduce hopes of hope to Gi-Hun, so discouraged during the opening of the season he barely moved from the bed to which he is now handcuffed between each match. “Good people are fighting on the smallest things,” said Geum-Ja in one of the most effective hearts at the hit of the season; It is the bad people who make mistakes without remorse. In addition, Jun-Hee’s pregnancy materializes in a way that arouses the mechanics of the game, not to mention the issues of life or death; It is a daring decision for the series to be taken, and at the same time complicated and simplifies the ethical exercises at stake. Suddenly, the personal calculation of each on whom to kill and which to save changes on a penny, and the thirst of blood of others takes on an even more unreasonable dimension.

The games, just like the last time, only increase the value of the show and the shock: a game of hide and seek among a labyrinth of brick wall where half of the group must kill at least one of the other half to survive; A “jump rope” game similar to the fight against the war of season 1, where a huge swing bar will slip you on a narrow bridge until your death if you are not coordinated enough; And in the end, the kind of death lottery to choose – who would make a smile of Shirley Jackson with gratitude. The production values ​​of the show remain firm from season 2, just like elegant work, although occasionally overworked. (The hide-and-seek game is definitely benefiting from the camera race and weaving the corridors with the competitors; we expect Adam Scott to go to one of the corridors right in front of them.)

That said, season 3 par requires double on all the hijinks without play, while the detective jun-ho (Wi ha-jun) continues to rush on this fucking boat in search of Squid Game Island. At the same time, the North Korean defector No-Eul (Park Gyu-Young), having infiltrated the games as a guard, tries to save a single alleged participant shot in the massacre and engineering its escape. There are a few interesting sons in these two stories, but for the most part, these elements feel like a filling, especially since Jun-Ho does not quite confront with his brother to Ho, alias the front man, that we could want or wait. Again, “Squid Game” consists in disturbing these expectations and ensuring that the public counts with the most bitter of all purposes.

In the end, “Squid Game” testifies to the best and worse than the Netflix streaming model has to offer. The first season was a huge swing, and he struck, offering a brutally captivating action thriller that has made household names from its tracks and creators and launched a new international popularity for Korean manufacturing stories. But Netflix, in his zeal for more content for the hollow, returned to the well for a complete rehearsal and too overflows from the beats of the first show, just more And more difficult And evil. It is difficult to say what new lessons we learned from squid games 2 and 3 that I have not already hammered with a frank force. But the ride was quite unforgettable, even if it was through the noise of thematic repetition.

Complete season projected for examination.