Review: Squid Game

*Squid Game is available to stream on Netflix.*

Squid Game is a South Korean show that you've probably heard of by now, because it is rapidly approaching the title of the "Most-Watched Show in Netflix History." Is it the greatest show Netflix has ever released? Not even close. Did I watch it all in a 48-hour timespan because of it's highly entertaining and addicting plot? Hell yeah, brother. Before I go into detail about the show, I feel the need to state the obvious: this show is in Korean with English subtitles. Please, for the love of god, avoid watching it in it's English dub, the acting by the English voice actors sound like they hired the guy from the Fitness Gram Pacer Test to voice every single character. I get that a lot of people simply won't go for subtitles, so if you really don't mind the off-putting voice acting then go with whatever you prefer, but this is just a warning. Also, have your phone ready so you can google the Korean Won to US Dollar conversion rates.

The Plot (Spoiler-Free)

The plot of Squid Game begins with our main character, Seong Gi-hun, a man who has hit rock bottom in life and is being pursued by loan sharks on top of potentially never seeing his daughter again. After a mysterious run-in with a odd man in a suit, he is offered a chance to make money by simply playing games. After thinking it over, he agrees. He is then abducted and taken to an undisclosed location with nothing on him but a numbered jumpsuit, along with 455 other people who are all in some kind of debt and are each chilling in rock bottom in their own way. The mysterious frontman and staff are all masked and armed. The frontman tells the group that they are going to participate in a series of 6 games over 6 days and the last person standing will win an unprecedented amount of money being held in cartoonishly-large piggy bank. If you break the rules of the games, or simply lose a game, then you are eliminated. And by eliminated, I mean shot in the head with a gun.

What I Liked:

• The Premise. The games they have to play are based off of children's games played in South Korea. Most are not games you've heard of, but they are all probably variations of games you have played when you were a kid. I could not stop watching because of how intense each game was. Imagine playing Simon Says but if you mess up, you get your head blown off by a sniper rifle. What's super interesting is that this is one of South Korea's first Death Game dramas. Turns out, Japan has been cranking these babies out for years and is one of their oldest and most popular genres. The Japanese dystopian novel, Battle Royale, was pretty much what popularized the genre and lead to stuff like The Hunger Games and Fortnite. Everybody say thank you to the Japanese.

• The Main Group of Players. Gi-han is the classic everyman protagonist who doesn't exactly have a lot of skills but has a heart of gold. Sang-woo is the deuteragonist to Gi-han, and was a great contrast to Gi-han's optimistic POV. Ali is my boy and favorite character because...I mean...how could you not root for this guy he's just so nice. The only girl of the main group is a North Korean defector who needs the money to smuggle her mom over the border and she's also kinda badass so she made every scene better.

• The Games. The ways they played the games were very interesting and I loved how the underdogs had to adapt new ways to win a game that seemingly only requires either strength, skill, or pure luck. It really makes you think about what you would do in that situation and how easily you'd probably die.

• The 6th Episode. That episode was incredible. It showed a morally-strenuous situation that nobody would ever want to be in and the dialogue they wrote for the many different conversations that were happening during the game were *chef's kiss*.

What I Didn't Like:

• The Cop Side-plot. Although entertaining at times, the cop's storyline was simply not handled well at all. He's also the worst cop ever. You tail an abduction all the way to a giant ship that is currently in the process of human trafficking and you...board the ship? Why not call for the military? You would've ended the plot right there with a simple 911 call. My guy also brought one gun with no extra ammo. His whole motivation for going falls absolutely flat in the end.

• The "Bad" Players. I have mixed opinions about Deok-su, the brute thug who was just an easy face to hate. He played his role well, and I liked how they leaned into his desperation a little bit but I was hoping for some humanizing backstory or something. Mi-Nyeo was so incredibly annoying that anytime she had to speak her obnoxiously bad dialogue, it almost ruined the scene. Again, with so many characters, it's pretty hard to give most of them more than one personality trait.

• The VIPs. Look, you're going to be invested enough in the story by the time you meet the VIPs, so it won't ruin the show, but they are played by white actors with a range of American accents and I am 100% certain they just pulled annoying American tourists off the streets of South Korea and put them in this show because they were awful. They're screentime is relatively minimal though, so don't worry.

• The Last 10 Minutes. The last 10 minutes of the season finale didn't do it for me, and I think most people who watched the show would agree with me to some degree. However, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since they are clearly setting up for a season 2.

Overall Thoughts

I really enjoyed this show, a hell of a lot more then I thought I would. It's super easy to watch and the plot manages to stay fresh and exciting without overcomplicating itself. It's not perfect and it might even be a tad predictable at times, but either way it's an very enjoyable watch and...I mean c'mon...you don't want to be the only person on your timeline who doesn't get the Squid Game memes that are taking over the internet right now. Don't get left behind, because I predict this show will follow Bird Box as the most-watched meme-generator that nobody will ever refer to again in about a year or so.