Episode 1: The first episode takes time to build up, establishing the character of Gi-hun, and his introduction into the games. His money problems, his collapsing family life and relationship with his daughter. However, it concludes in spectacular fashion, with the bloody nature of the first game. Red Light Green Light is a game that, while I don't think I played it exactly as a child, is something that instantly feels familiar, and when a sizeable chunk of the participants die in the first few moments, you know this show is going to be wild. Gi-hun's multiple near-death experiences in the first game alone demonstrate just how high the odds are stacked against him, along with being helped by the other characters like Ali and Sang-Woo, making them stick in the mind of the viewer. Even the enjoyment the old man has while playing it, which initially seems oddly hilarious, foreshadows later revelations, making the opening jam-packed with hooks to draw the audience in.
Episode 2: This episode feels a little odd to begin with, putting all the characters back to their homes and away from the danger of the games. However, by doing this it shows us all of the characters at their most desperate - the reasons behind their going to the game in the first place, and the reasons they would choose to go back. There isn't too much to talk about this one, aside from making you understand a lot more of the other characters. The ending where they all chose to go back is very moving and beautifully shot.
Episode 3: The alliances between the characters of Gi-hun, Sang-Woo, Ali and the old man were surprisingly heart-warming, four desperate people befriending each other in moments of friendship and levity that no Hollywood film in years has been able to pull off. The game was also something totally unique to me - cutting out honeycomb shapes is not something that is really played in England, nor would you think it would make engaging television, but the ways in which different characters come up with methods to do it before the time ends made it really tense, especially with those who failed being immediately shot around them.
The lighter, licking the back of the circles and gradually chipping away at them all made what should really have been mundane tense and exciting. The side plot about the detective infiltrating the game to look for his brother starts strong here, making the workers seem just as trapped in the system as the players, even if this story thread loses a lot of its direction by the conclusion. I also really liked how, when they leave the game, Gi-hun and the old man comforted each other, showing Gi-hun as a kind-hearted man in spite of all his flaws. It's a thousand little things about each character and the way they interact that makes their time in the games so compelling.
Since then, I've actually played this with a friend (it is a lot of fun), and although I won, I wouldn't want to do it with gunshots going off around me under the threat of death.
Episode 4: Breaking from a lot of the action, episode 4 establishes something I have mixed feelings on - the ability for players to kill each other between games. Not only did this completely change the dynamic as there doesn't seem to be any safe times for the characters, but it seems to contradict the rule later laid out that the games, no matter how brutal the punishment for losing, are fair. This new feature makes it also about physical strength and battle prowess, which while engaging to watch, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Still, the characters remain as consistently likeable and fun to watch, so I can't fault it too badly. The conclusion being tug of war was also unexpected, as the main cast don't seem particularly strong, so their risk of death was greater here than in any of the previous ones, ending with the quite literal cliff-hanger on which side would prevail (although the one with all the characters you know is probably not going to be killed off so suddenly).
Episode 5: Following from the conclusion to episode 4, the show acknowledges that the characters have all now got their hands dirty by directly causing their opponents to die, and while they are all still together, this marks the escalation for them, making even tougher sacrifices to themselves and their morals from here on. The plot that ties the detective to the organ-harvesting conspiracy takes up a good portion of the episode, and, like before, it isn't quite as compelling as the games themselves, but it does serve to further our knowledge of the organisers of the game, their ideologies and the harsh penalty for trying to cheat.
Episode 6: I think this is definitely the best of them all, centred entirely in a devastating game that pits the closest allies against each other. Everything about this episode (with the exception of the hardened criminal with his henchman) is designed to emotionally break you - from the pairs themselves and the realisation that one in each of them will die, Gi-hun's desperation to live making him manipulate an old man with dementia, Sang Woo's ruthless plan to save himself and take advantage of Ali's naivety, and the two girls having a truthful conversation, one deciding that the other, Kang Sae-Byeok, has a reason to win, and she doesn't.
The problem is, you can empathise with everyone here - none of them want to die, and so you can understand them doing whatever they can to survive, but way the old man said "I lost again" when he was tricked into thinking he was losing, and the guilt you can see on Gi-hun's face as he was doing it, it really broke me, and that was before you find out that the old man knew the whole time. However, his offscreen 'death' was the first thing to clue me in on the fact that he might not have really died, and might instead be running the whole thing. My brother, who had already finished the show, was really annoyed that I figured it out this early, but he was the only character who could feasibly have survived, since we never see him die directly. Anyway, the show turns deadly serious from this point, amping up the drama in what could be the best television I've seen in years.
Episode 7: This one is a hell of a lot of fun to watch, but is rife with little inconsistencies. For one, the ideology of the organisers was established to be fair and indiscriminate, yet this episode introduces the VIPs, wealthy elite who watch the games for entertainment and bet on who they want to win. While this works as a self aware reflection for the audience to ponder on, turning the game into this sort of sick entertainment taints that philosophy that it intended to build, making for a confusing and muddled ideology. The game itself is also particularly cruel - the sixteen players must travel across a chasm with eighteen sets of platforms, one made of strong glass, the other tainted glass that will shatter. The players must also travel across it in the order of the vests that they chose, making it far more about luck than skill or strategy, with Gi-hun, Sang-Woo and Sae-Byeok getting the last spots.
However, when the lights are turned off to stop the glass-repairer telling the difference between the two, that is when it fell to this entertainment factor than the fairness of each player using their own abilities. Still, it was satisfying to watch the three main characters make it through this suspenseful challenge where all those before them didn't, even if the glass explosion and Sae-Byeok's fatal injury caused more problems on this line of reasoning.
Episode 8: Once again, this episode was a slower one, allowing the audience to reflect on Sang-Woo's actions and Gi-hun's growth. What makes this episode all the more shocking are the two twists - one, that the administrator was the detective's brother, and the absolute shocker that Sang Woo kills Sae Byeok, arguably the character who deserved to win more than both of them, at her most vulnerable, even if it was unlikely she would have been helped. It was nice to see her and Gi-hun open up to each other, since they were both fairly distant from one another in the short times they did interact, and motivated Gi-hun in his battle with Sang-Woo. The detective, however, had his story completely jettisoned, making his whole journey essentially pointless aside from the twist about the administrator, but even that seemed unnecessary or setting up a second season rather than telling a story that needed to be told for the benefit of the show.
Episode 9: The finale of the show pits Gi-hun and Sang-Woo in the titular Squid Game, of which Gi-hun manages to cathartically beat him, but also chooses not to abandon his humanity, declaring that they could choose a majority vote to opt out of the game. Sang-Woo, in what might be his first and only directly heroic act, kills himself so that Gi-hun would receive the prize. However, when returning to the world, we once again see the despair that drove him to the games in the first place, his mother dead. I like how the resolution is very bittersweet, showing him at first falling back to his old life and refusing to use the money, racked with guilt. But, in confronting Il-Nam in one final game, and winning as the last survivor, he symbolically beats both him and the games themselves. The homeless man was eventually rescued, and the depraved pleasure Il-Nam and the VIPs got from the games was overcome, offering some hope as he moves on, giving Sae-Byeok's brother a home, Sang-Woo's mother money and another son, and starting to reconnect with his family - until he finds the Salesman who initiated him into the games, and turns back to face them once more, a new, wiser man who will try to ensure that others won't have to suffer like he and the others did. The ending isn't perfect, but damn if it isn't satisfying, and if a season 2 can recapture the same magic that this one did, I'm all for it.
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