Squid Game

Squid Game is a 2021 Netflix-exclusive Korean science-fiction drama that premiered, also referred to as survival drama on Wikipedia, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk. It premiered on September 17, 2021, worldwide on the channel.

Seong Gi-hun is a loser divorcee, deadbeat father, and compulsive gambler. He also knows that he's all of these things when his debts to loan sharks and a chance encounter with a pickpocket cause him to botch a get-together for his daughter Ga-yeong's birthday. To top it all off, his ex is moving with her husband and family to the United States, ensuring he won't see Ga-yeong again. He desperately accepts an offer from a sharply dressed Salesman to go play some games and earn enough money to at least try to fight for custody of his daughter. There's just a catch: you may win a lot of won, but the games in question are deadly.

While a release date for season 2 is unknown, it has received the green light. Hwang Dong-hyuk says that it's in-progress.


 * Adult Fear:
 * Gi-hun's situation when we hear his full story. He fully admits that he's a loser, especially compared to his childhood friend Sang-woo. 10 years ago, he was a laborer in a car factory, only to be downsized just as his wife was about to give birth. He joined a strike to save his job where he saw a friend die in front of him and unable to go to a hospital. His wife went into labor and nearly died from complications, and they broke up partly because she couldn't forgive that he wasn't there for her. Gi-hun did have a point that he was trying to make sure he had enough money for her and a newborn Ga-yeong, but he doesn't have one for his descent into gambling addictions. In the present, he owns debts to loan sharks that make him sign a blood contract to take his eyes and kidneys if he doesn't produce the money for them, and they beat him up badly at the horse races just as he's about to treat Ga-yeong with the winnings. Then he finds out his mother's diabetes has become terminal, and because he gambled away her insurance money, she doesn't have the funds for the operation. Yeah, Gi-hun's life sucks.
 * Sae-byeok is revealed to be a North Korean refugee, along with her little brother. Her father and grandmother were killed, but there is a chance to somehow locate her mother either in North Korea or China. The problem is that her broker claims the smugglers ran off with the sums that she stole, and he says that if her mother got deported from China to North Korea, she's as good as dead for being marked as a "defector". Her brother also resents being in an orphanage, fearing that the kids are right and Sae-byeok has abandoned him..
 * Detective Jun-ho Hwang's older brother In-ho has gone missing for a few days. He assumes that In-ho is just being In-ho since he makes trips like this all the time and his mother is worrying. Then he finds out that his brother hasn't paid his rent in a while and has been gone long enough for his goldfish to go belly-up and for papers to accumulate. Jun-ho also finds a business card, which looks identical to the one that a supposed drunk brought in claiming that he and 455 other people were kidnapped and forced to play games. He sincerely begs Gi-hun for help, saying that his brother may have been one of the kidnapped victims; when Gi-hun is too despondent and desperate, saying he can't help anyone, Jun-ho elects to follow him, and finds out that his story wasn't that of a bored drunk. Cue Jun-ho going undercover by posing as one of the guards, and facing the real possibility that In-ho might have already been killed and cremated, or worse dissected for his organs..
 * Bittersweet Ending: Season one ends this way..
 * Gut Punch: Given the genre and the nature of the episode, these are bound to happen.
 * Episode 1, "Red Light Green Light" has players 324 and 250 form a fast friendship, despite having just met in the barracks. Both are excited when they learn the title game is their first challenge, claiming it will be a cinch. They rib each other affectionately that they're going to win and bet a million won and who crosses the finish line first. Then 324 gets ahead of himself literally, and doesn't stop in time during Red Light, Green Light. Cue a gunshot, and 324 collapses. 250's first reaction, once he hears green light, is to run and check on 324. The poor guy is bleeding and coughing up blood, making the players realize this is a death game. Cue the Mass "Oh Crap" where hundreds of players panic and try to run for the locked doors, banging on them. They end up getting shot in succession, until corpses line the field. Gi-hun survives only due to sheer luck, while Sang-woo has the sense to stay still and analyze the situation.
 * Episode 6, "Gganbu", may as well be titled this trope. Players are ordered to pair up for the challenge while each is given a bag of ten marbles. . Sang-woo technically . Gi-hun panics and tries to . Then we have Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong, who have a long conversation about their lives before they play..
 * Let's Get Dangerous:
 * The old man has been a formidable player by staying calm during each death game, and oddly cheerful. Then tug-of-war happens, revealing that the players are chained to the rope and have to pull their opponents off an elevated platform, where a guillotine will slice the rope and make the losers fall. His team is full of underdogs, with himself, three women, and not-very athletic men excluding Ali. As they prepare to face their deaths, he stops smiling tells them it's not over yet. Il-nam explains that in tug-of-war, there are strategies you can use to ensure that you have the best team, even if it's not the strongest: have a strong leader in front, a dependable player in the back, alternate everyone else, put the rope under your armpits and lean back for the first ten seconds. It actually works until the opposing team gets a second wind and pulls back with sheer desperation and brute strength. Mi-nyeo later tells the old man that he was amazing and made her feel powerful with the leaning back strategy.
 * Credit to Mi-nyeo, she is a Drama Queen and a compulsive liar, but she knows how to pull her own weight, literally. She figured out how to discreetly use her cigarette lighter during the dalgona challenge and cut out the star easily. During the tug-of-war she follows Il-Nam's instructions without hesitation, and later listens to Sang-woo despite screaming that his advice sounds like suicide..
 * Pet The Dog
 * It's revealed that . Much later, when he learns that.
 * Deok-su is a murderous gangster with no regard for human life and will throw away anyone that he deems useless to his goals. He also returns Mi-nyeo's cigarette lighter after the dalgona game when she lends it to him discreetly, thanking her for saving his life. It's his only decent moment.
 * The Front Man is a monster. There is no doubt about that with how he runs the games, and especially when he engineers a riot to culll the "weak players", something that even alarms . Jun-ho is naturally wary of him and is prepared to fire on him if necessary while undercover. . In the season one finale, when.
 * One nameless guard respects