🍿Squid Game: Season 3 - First impressions after watching "the final season"... or not?! [Movie/Series review #17]

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Hello movie lovers! How have you been? What you've been watching lately? 🎥

Introduction

As some of you might know, on Friday 27th the "final season" of Squid Game has been released, which to be honest I've been looking forward to.

I started watching Squid Game in 2021 not too much after the first season has been released just because it was in trending and all I could hear about whether I was speaking with friends or family members, was speaking about this series.

I would like to make the mention from the beginning that I am not a fan of gore/bloody/horror movies/series/games in general, nor of series in general as I don't have the patience to watch them in episodes, often ending up wanting to see the full season in one day, or of content that has the actors speaking a different language than English. It's not like I have a problem with actors from other countries as Romania has plenty of actors too, but for some reason my ADHD brain finds it very hard to focus watching a movie/series hearing a different language than English.

However, even with all these impediments that would make me reconsider my thoughts of watching Squid Game or not, the thing that everyone was speaking about this series, made me press the play button and watch the first season.

I won't share too many thoughts about this one as I am sure everyone is already used with what the series is about, even those who didn't watch more than one episode of it, but hearing that there will be a 2nd and 3rd season both released in less than half a year in between, did stir my curiosity wondering what new elements could be brought into the show without making it feel like one of those series that get dragged out with too many seasons.

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Description and Opinions

Either way, a thing that remained the same in all three seasons, were the games, the leader of the games, as well as.. the protagonist, Lee Jung-jae playing Seong Gi-hun who was the last player alive and also the winner of the games in the first season, but which for some reason decided to get into the 2nd game as well, which was split in the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the series.

At first, I didn't like this, although I think that having a different main player would affect the overall interest into watching the series, but it felt a bit repetitive. However, after watching a couple of episodes, it made sense to see him in the spotlight again, which also made sense to have a 3rd season based on how much information was suddenly presented.

While the 1st season of Squid Game focused on games basically, each of the 9 episodes coming with a new game more or less, the 2nd and 3rd season didn't involve too many games, but showed a lot of the world from behind, with a lot of action going on even outside the arena which used to gather the whole attention.

However, a thing that came as a surprise was seeing Leonardo DiCaprio be featured in the official trailer of the Squid Game Season 3 which was presented also as "The Final Season", making me want to keep watching this series. I'd lie by saying that when you see such a big actor being featured you would step back from keep watching the series because it obviously catches lots of attention making even more people watch the series, even these that didn't watch the previous seasons.

Spoiler Alert – Click to reveal on your own risk
What I did not like, though, is that, the image of Leonardo DiCaprio was basically just used, because this is not part of the season 3, nor have the "final season" of Squid Game as it was promoted.
You heard that right - Squid Game did it again. After releasing a full season with amateurs and fans playing the game but being promoted as a new season of the game, the movie did it again, using Leonardo DiCaprio as the start of the "Final Season/Season 3" which is most likely to be featured in the next season, which will be played in USA.

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A thing that you might already be used to, is that, despite having 456 players in game, each determined to take part in the game from various financial reasons, there will always be a couple of them with a unique personality, making them easy to be remembered and consider as possible winners. The thing stays the same for the Season 2 as well, but with a more modern look and easy to remember figures.

A thing that I presumed wrong is that the games might be the same as these played in the first season which would make it quickly a turn off and lost of time watching, but happily that's not the case because the games are taken to the next level as well, bringing a lot of twists and mixed emotions along the episodes that involve these.

Emotions are also the main word I'd use for the Season 3 especially, because having the action mixed between the games and what happens outside the arena, made the series a lot better in my opinion. However, I'd lie saying that Season 3 was the best, because moments of disappointment or these leaving me with lots of question marks were not missing, some of the answers not being received even now, after finishing watching Squid Game.

Spoiler Alert – Click to reveal on your own risk
One of them would be with the importance given on Jun-hee/Player 222's newborn which made me get a bit more emotional than expected, but then seeing Geum-ja's kill her son, Yong-sik, to save the baby, or even Seong Gi-hun/player 456 commit a suicide making the baby become the game's winner, seemed way too much for me.
I could understand and see coming lots of twists from the official mother and father of the kid which were both players, but then seeing other players take this case so seriously, make me quickly become distracted from the series because as much as I tried to find an answer to why this truly happened, I could not find any.

Conclusions

Speaking about a series, it makes sense to remind about the previous seasons, which brings in the first conclusion. If you never watched Squid Game, then the first season is surely worth it. It's a one of a kind series with nothing seen before that quickly made it become so popular back in 2021 when it's been released and I can fully agree with the success is enjoyed. However, if you want to keep watching the series then you have to watch both Season 2 and Season 3 because they are linked to each other and if you stop after the 2nd Season then you lose the whole fun and basically stop at the middle of the story. But what I believe is that they both could create a single season of 9 episodes as the first one because many moments from the last two seasons could be taken out instead of having 6 episodes for each of the two.

The series is quite brutal and bloody which makes me think that it's not for everyone and the audience should think twice before watching the series. I am aware that there are a lot of gore/bloody movies and series, but as an adult that is close to 30s, I would lie by saying that I didn't get quite a few moments of discomfort while watching this, because there were plenty of moments when I looked in a different direction or covered my eyes.

Secondly, the 3rd Season comes with some easy to be predicted moments, which makes me think twice if it really was a good season or not because we all know that good movies/series, are these that no matter how many times you try, you should never anticipate what happens next. However, for me this came handy, already getting myself ready for the scenes that were about to pop up un the screen, especially these detailed and brutal ones.

Have you watched any season of "Squid Game" already?

Let me know in the comments section!
And if so, which season you enjoyed the most and which the least? Do you think is the overall series worth watching?

Details
Release Date	June 27, 2025
Duration	1h (for each of the 6 episodes)
Director	Hwang Dong-hyuk
Main Actors	Lee Jung-jae, Tom Choi, Greg Chun
Genre	dystopian horror survival thriller TV series
IMDb Rating	8.0/10

^{Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences.
At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe.
Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (300+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 750+ blog posts.
Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.}

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