When greed takes over art.
I did not review original series (was not doing that at the time), and intentionally did not review season 2 since season 3 is actually season 2 part 2, so this is, in a sense, review of the series as a whole. I'll try to limit spoilers, but there will be some, that's unavoidable.
First season was quite good. Probably can be picked up into pieces to find flaws in the story, especially the ending, that felt... "Off", but it seemed to do what it aimed to do: deliver social commentary on greed and money, and how humans are corrupt. And games that were both simple and smart at the same time. It also had good pacing and juggled tension and character's backstories nicely. Essentially, it seemed to do everything that a good survival game should do. It was kind of like "Alice in Borderland" (as example of similar media format), but without certain awkwardness that Japanese live-action shows have. Although, possibly with some Korean awkwardness, but it shines through less often.
The season ended with kind of cliffhanger and weird pink hair, and personally, I was fine with that. I do not think there was a need for 2nd season, but... Corporate greed thought otherwise, and we got 2 more seasons. Which are actually 1 season padded to 1.5-2 seasons and split just to help with amping up the hype in-between. First episode of the 2nd season felt good. It looked like the rules re being changed, Seong will be on the offensive now, but then...
He degraded. I saw some people argue, that this was because things did not go as planned, and he was still suffering from PTSD caused by the place, but I do not buy that. Because that defeats the whole point of the 1st episode, and him spending 2 years on thinking things through and finding a way back in, and all that. He knew from the start, that things may not go as planned. Although... What exactly was the plan? It was stupid to expect that people will believe him in the first place, let alone expect that the games will be the same, especially since it was mentioned in the first season, that people sometimes return (although maybe it was not mentioned near him, in which case, this is fine).
But okay, let's say he just was shaken still, and he has not worked through his trauma, and all that. Let's assume that's fine. You know what would be a good plot twist here? Him dying quite early, to support the idea of cruelty and futility that the 1st season had. And then you could have switched to another character, for example player 222. I mean, we learn about her being pregnant quite quickly, after all, so it was quite predictable, and when the child was born, it was even more predictable, that the child will survive (because modern media is completely toothless and would not tell a story, where a baby can die).
Focus the narrative on her survival, and maybe her getting rescued by police, and then show that the game happens outside of Korea as well and... You continue the ideas of the previous season, but also add a new theme of motherhood in a strong, relatable way, and re-enforce the idea that there are still people struggling against the evil and whatnot. You know, hope. Possibly not a perfect "what if", I do not want to spend too much time on it, but I think it would have been better than what we got.
And what we got was boring. One of the reasons is the pacing. Aside strong 1st and last episodes of the 2nd season, and a bunch of moments through-out both 2nd and 3rd, everything felt... Empty, padded, pointless, boring. New characters were completely flat, and they did not really affect Seong, too, unlike with the 1st season, when a lot of communications or observations of other characters were slowly changing him. Yes, technically, 001 affected him in the second try, but... Not really. Direction of the story stayed mostly same, and Seong character just became a mostly silent one. Really, most of season 3 he is just staring at people intensely like "I want to do something, but I am prohibited by the plot, because I still need to somehow survive till the very end (almost)".
I get it, a lot of other survival games also pad things out, they kind of have to, in order to explore characters, but they seem to mostly do that through flashbacks rather than just constant yapping in present. In that sense continuation of Squid Game reminded me of Tomodachi Game. Interestingly, it also forced characters to return to the game again, and after they did, the story degraded in similar way, with more yapping. It was worse in a sense that characters were obnoxious and not just flat, but at the same time there was more focus on the games, at least for some time.
The problem was the same though: the author(s) chickened out. Narrative dictates, that something needed to change in the rules, since now it's the player trying to play the gamemaster(s). But then nothing really changed, because "consumers liked the original concept, so to earn more money, we need to stick to it as close as possible". Maybe for modern viewers that's enough, but for people who want a good and compelling story - it's not. In fact, there were some earlier interviews, that specifically said that there will be no repetition of the concepts, that they will try to evolve the idea. Did they lie then? Or spreading the game outside of Korea was the evolution?
And I get it, changing the rules is scary. "Sweet Home" did this with its 2nd season, and it lost the original appeal. It lost the kind of "personal tension" that the original had. One could argue that was because they left the enclosed space, but it was because of focusing on too many items at the same time. Ragnarök tried changing the rules for both 2nd and 3rd season, but it seemed to be doing that without clear idea how to handle the story after the changes. But it's not like that's impossible to do.
Original "Charmed" series changed rules multiple times. "Eureka", "Warehouse 13"... I don't know... "Sliders" did that every episode, essentially. I know these are probably not the best examples, since these shows were designed in a more "each episode is standalone" kind of way, but still. Besides, they did have overarching stories, too. Oh, and there was "Lost", which was not a survival game but it was still survival, and they changed rules multiple times, as well. One can argue that some changes and the way the story concluded in last season are probably are... "Polarizing", but it was still interesting to watch.
With Squid Game 2nd and 3rd season... It was just poor story. I don't even remember much from season 3. Seriously. Because there was practically nothing happening there. I mean, yes, stuff was happening, but there was not much of important staff, besides stuff around the baby. And as I said earlier, it could have been done so much better and more dramatic than "I will sacrifice myself for this baby, that I have no relation to". Mother doing that would have much more impact. I mean, she technically did, but even that was dragged out to like 1.5 episode or something. And I did not even touch on the quality of (some) games...
So overall, 1st season - worth trying out. The rest - don't waste your time.
