What to watch: ‘Squid Game 3’

Ok, so the final season of Squid Game should have been one of television’s most anticipated series.

The second season had momentum, at least. Come the third instalment and the show’s end of days landed up being somewhat droll.

There’s some glitter, but there’s no peat. No bite. Just a feeling that the story ran out of depth.

At least there are some great and hold-your-breath kind of games introduced in the season.

But almost like the first game, with which the season kicks off, where the ordeal is unusually long and extended, the third and final instalment doesn’t quite know where it’s going after the first third and before the final episode.

It just feels as if the story was cobbled together too quickly.

After the second season’s violent messiness, the show takes a giant leap forward into bizarre land.

A new player enters the game. It’s a player who doesn’t speak, never okayed their participation and at the end of the day, challenged in the most unusual way when joining in the hard task of survival across the games.

This new player becomes the centre of the plot, the Achilles heel for some, and the death sentence for others.

It’s a Khloe Kardashian what the freaking f**k moment that’s rinsed and repeated a few times too many. It’s simply because it’s so out-there.

New player, central to the plot

And while the out-there moments are aplenty, back to the games.

There’s a hide-and-seek game with knives, escape doors that lead to death plummets.

There’s a push game, where skyscraper-high pillars provide the stage for another set of death falls. And then there’s the giant skipping rope game.

The moments of terror feel substantially milder compared to the first season’s hardcore.

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The weakest moments of the show comprise the gazillionaire members of the audience that are slowly revealed in the season.

Their comments and glitzy masks, participation and decadence were probably meant to enhance a layer of tension, but instead just denigrate some of the moments in Squid Game that could have saved it from Bruce Willis-ing itself into a game show edition of Die Hard one hundred and something.

It’s meant to feel operatic, that’s certainly what the visuals hint at, but it never quite gets to its aria.

The guard who paused her fun fair day job as a bunny gets a lot of screen time in the final six episodes.

Her North Korean origins are never quite explained. This, despite the search for her missing daughter, the shoelaces of this sub-plot never quite tied up.

Her saviour burden plays out well, though.

The guard, alongside Front Man. The latter also discovers a soupçon of his own humanity in the show. It’s layers that are peeled back to reveal a bit of intrigue and a guessing game. A guessing game that Squid Game always played with its viewers, until it doesn’t.

Short end of narrative stick

Gi-hun, our hero throughout, keeps the plot and narrative together with yet another sterling performance.

As the relationship develops between him, Front Man, and the new player, he’s constantly caught between a rock and a hard place, the deadly games and cannon fodder contestants that are killed off at a rate of knots.

What’s really nice about the third season is that it concludes some of the narrative and provides a few answers to niggling questions.

Many shows don’t do that and keep audiences wondering for eternity. It also sets itself up for a spin-off or a fourth season with a potentially brand-new cast and location.

See if you can spot the cameo in the final moments of the final episode.

All things being equal, Squid Game 3 is entertaining and worth a binge, but not as gripping as its debut or the second instalment.

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