Squid Game finale sparks outrage online — viewers divided over shocking ending (Spoilers)

This article includes major spoilers for the “Squid Game” season finale, which is currently available on Netflix.

The third and final season finale of “Squid Game,” which lasts less than an hour, dazzles viewers with several unexpected events before the highly anticipated South Korean Netflix drama comes to an end. The most significant of these occurs a little more than 20 minutes in, when our main character Gi-hun/Player 456 (Lee Jung-jae) passes away.

The finale begins with Gi-hun, Myung-gi/Player 333 (Yim Si-wan), and the infant strapped to Gi-hun’s chest as the only three players remaining in the game after the first two rounds of the Sky Squid Game that were played in Episode 5. Despite Myung-gi being her father, the infant is the child of Jun-hee/Player 222 (Jo Yu-ri), who gave her life earlier in the season and left her daughter in Gi-hun’s care.

Myung-gi crosses to the last of the three pillars, holds Gi-hun at arm’s length, and threatens to give up the baby so that Myung-gi can abandon Gi-hun to his death on the second pillar, all the while Gi-hun is still determined to protect the child until the end of the deadly game atop the three sky-high pillar structures. To win the game, Myung-gi can then toss his own daughter off the last pillar.

Reluctantly, Gi-hun puts the child down and allows Myung-gi to pick her up and carry her to the third pillar. However, just as the route between the two structures is about to retract, Gi-hun leaps over and uses the knife he’s been carrying to battle Myung-gi until death, while the infant lies off to the side. The infant is eventually picked up again by Myung-gi, who holds her over the edge and threatens to dump her if Gi-hun does not give up. After putting the infant down, Myung-gi and Gi-hun keep fighting with the knife until they both fall over the edge. Gi-hun is able to seize hold of an exposed bar in time, and he keeps Myung-gi by his clothes for as long as he can before the fabric tears and Myung-gi dies.

Seemingly triumphant, Gi-hun ascends again until he discovers that neither he nor Myung-gi ever touched the button to begin the last round. Gi-hun must now kill himself or the child for the game to conclude because Myung-gi’s death didn’t count toward it. As the child approaches the edge, Gi-hun holds him, and he stays there for a while, looking into the two-way glass that he knows In-ho/The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) is watching with the affluent gamegoers. When Gi-hun finally decides to fall backwards to his death, he sets the infant down and does so while crying. “We are not horses,” he said in closing before the jump. Humans are what we are. And people are, and he doesn’t complete the idea.

The baby is proclaimed the winner of the games thanks to Gi-hun’s sacrifice, and In-ho, who is obviously moved by Gi-hun’s noble decision and what he has shown about the goodness of people, goes to pick up the baby and take her to safety. While he is doing this, In-ho and the team have learned that the authorities are approaching, and the other members of the Squid Game facility are quickly packing up to depart. His brother Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), who has been responsible for the search for the island and has been looking for his brother for years after learning that In-ho had been brought into the games, spots him from the control room when In-ho arrives at the infant. When Jun-ho yells at In-ho, asking why he has taken on the role of Front Man, In-ho simply turns and leaves with the infant.

Six months later, we see No-eul (Park Gyu-young) returning to the amusement park where she had been employed before being recruited to serve as a game guard. Gyung-seok/Player 246 (Lee Jin-uk), who is getting her caricature done, is unaware that this woman is the masked guard that forced him to leave the games to be with his cancer-stricken daughter. He thinks she seems familiar, but she dismisses it, saying she has worked here before. She then gives his little daughter, who is now well, a lollipop and wishes them well.

After learning that her daughter, whom she believed to be dead back in North Korea, had apparently been spotted in China, No-eul makes a hasty departure in the hopes of locating her. We witness Kang Cheol, the younger brother of Gi-hun’s best buddy and Season 1 co-player Kang Sae-byeok (HoYeon Jung), reuniting with his mother, who had been trapped in North Korea, while No-eul is checking in at the airport.

After Jun-ho bails out Woo-seok (Jun Suk-ho) from jail, the two question what happened to all the prize money Gi-hun had saved after his first games, because it had vanished by the time Jun-ho went to check for it in the previous few months. Later, when Jun-ho gets home, he discovers that In-ho has given him the baby she was cradling and a bank card filled with Player 222’s winnings, which total 45.6 billion won.

In-ho travels to Los Angeles in the finale’s last scenes to deliver a package to Seong Ga-yeong, Gi-hun’s daughter. He informs her that her father has passed away and given her these possessions. Despite being upset with her father for not visiting her in the United States, she takes the package. When she opens the package, she discovers that it includes his 456 costume and a bank card that appears to be loaded with Gi-hun’s winnings from the first game; the item suggests that In-ho took the money from Gi-hun’s room after he passed away. After departing, In-ho is in a car with a driver in downtown Los Angeles, the window down, when he sees two people playing a well-known game of ddakji in an alley with a slapping twist.

One is a destitute man, while the other is a woman (Cate Blanchett) who resembles the Recruiter from In-ho’s Squid Games and is clothed in a nice suit. The woman goes for another round with the eager man after they exchange glances and recognize each other before In-ho pulls up the window and the car moves on.