House of R - 'Squid Game' Season 3, Episodes 4-6 Reactions

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Mal and Jo are back to wrap up ‘Squid Game’ Season 3! They break down the final three episodes by discussing the final game, a CGI baby, a surprising cameo, and more! Later, they discuss what games should be in the American version. (00:00) Intro(09:07) ‘Fourth Wing’ and ‘The Last of Us’ News(22:04) Opening Snapshot(36:04) Was the Final Game Captivating Enough?(51:55) Which Death Hit You the Hardest?(01:12:54) Too Much Baby-in-Peril Action?(01:16:43) Thoughts on Myung-gi(01:26:24) No-eul and 246(01:30:28) Jun-ho(01:32:29) Favorite or Least Favorite Payoff(01:36:18) Cate Blanchett Cameo(01:39:39) What Games Should Be in the American Season? Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna RobinsonProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and John RichterSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Greetings. And welcome to House of Art, a ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today to let me know that she'd rather drink with her footstool than with me,

It's my favorite VIP, Joanna Robinson. Mallory Rubin, what a joy. What a delight to be with you here at the end of this week. We have some Squid Game to talk about. We've got some nerd news to talk about. There's a lot going on. Joanna. Mallory.

Before we hit that, before we hit our exciting slate today of discussion topics, some quick programming reminders for everybody, because we've got a lot coming when we return from the holiday weekend. Hot House of our summer continues. And so does Hot Nolan summer, because next Thursday, we will be continuing hot Nolan's summer with our Inception Turns 15 Pod. But we have another anniversary to hit before that. On Tuesday.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. Back to the future. Back to the future. Perfect film. Timey-Wimey. I can't wait.

Yeah, so we're going to talk about Back to the Future, once again, a perfect film of just a young mother wanting avidly to fuck her son. Like, what a great story. A story for all ages and a story for all time. It wouldn't be House of R if every few months we didn't hit an overt incest plot or something incest adjacent. That's just canon. Lorraine McFly walked so that Circey Landisdur. could run. You know what I mean? So, okay. So we've got that coming. And then also as part of it, we are going to do a little sort of mini best of the quarter century smuggle. We love a smuggle.

We're going to do our sort of timey-wimey, our top timey-wimey moments of the quarter century. And if you're like, what the hell does time-y-wimmy mean? That means you did not listen to our Doctor Who you watch, which is fine. But that is just like a Doctor Whoism about time travel. So we can pick from any house of our friendly property of the last. 25 years, a lot of people have been doing some time traveling. The Avengers did some time traveling, you know, Dr. Who's doing a lot of time traveling. Some Germans were doing some time traveling. So we're going to talk about, we're each going to pick five moments. If you have a time travel moment from the quarter century that you think is worth highlighting,

Hobbes and Dragons at gmail.com, we would love to hear from you. So yeah, that's the Tuesday plan. I'm excited. Next week's going to be really fun. It's going to be a blast. More fun than watching the back half of this quick game. People would be wondering, is the back to the future anniversary that is the impetus for that pot in the quarter century? It's not. It doesn't matter. We're using it as time travel of our own. And that is a little meta aspect that we have decided to lean into and join us and have fun. Why don't you? Joanna, listen, that's not it for us next week. Oh, I know. Little movie, small flickeroo. Independent film. Yeah.

called Superman comes out next week. And obviously it's the full court press here at the ringer. So we will have our Superman, a deep dive coming probably a touch earlier than usual, because we're going to record a little earlier than we usually do and get that out hopefully over the weekend ahead of a off week for us, which we are all looking forward to. The midnight boys. Beow, be, boom, we'll of course have their instant reaction. Big Pick is covering Superman. Everybody's cover in Superman. The Midnight Boys have some other special stuff coming as well. It is time at long last for the fabled, rumored, hotly anticipated, delayed but not denied. Midnight Court, Superman versus Fantastic Four.

The guys will also be having a funeral for the Snyderverse. So it's just like a Superman bonanza with the Midnight Boys next week. Incredible stuff. Who would have guessed that... Van Lathen, the person that I know who talks about Superman the most in this world. And that's a lot because you also talk about Superman a lot, Mallory Rubin. But Van slightly outpaces you on the, I am obsessed with Superman front. So this does not surprise me, and I'm excited to hear what they have to say.

Likewise. And if anyone is wondering, the guys already have waiting for you right now in your podcast feeds over on the Ringerverse and on the Ringervor's YouTube channel, their reaction to the Ironheart. finale. We will not spoil here on this podcast for people who would not be expecting Ironheart spoilers on a Squid Game podcast. What happened in the finale? But there's some fun Marvel stuff cooking on the interwebs. So check out that pod. The guys also talked about Jurassic World Rebirth. A film that they seem to have liked and most other people did not like? I have not seen it yet. I can't comment. I can't comment. Interesting to me. Will you be spending your holiday weekend with the dinosaurs? I'm going to check it out. Yeah. Van swears to me, it's great.

And then everyone else I know and respect things is bad. So I'm really intrigued to see what that means at the cinema. But yeah, like, Jurassic Park is a top tier feel. I put this on my hype meter because Hope Springs Eternal. Yeah, I was like, this is my time to return. I really hated the last three movies. And the Hope Springs Eternal that maybe they figured it out again. And, you know, rehearsal is here.

Johnny Bailey's here. What's Not to Love. So, yeah. I've consumed an incredible amount of Instagram Reels content around the press tour. Johnny Bailey and his slutty little glasses. The slutty little glasses are just crushing it, taking the world by storm. So no matter what, I feel like I've engaged with Jurassic World Rebirth, even though I have not yet seen this movie. How many times have you seen the clip of Johnny Bailey playing the clarinet on the score for Jurassic World Rebirth?

A lot of that, a lot of Instagram content about Scarlett and Johnny Bailey. loving each other and running into each other's arms to passionately embrace as co-stars friends and creative soulmates on the red carpet. It's been a lot of that. There's a lot of this intensive Scarjo Johnny Bailey, we're in love platonically, energy, and then also two-time Oscar winner, Marhershala Lee is sat right next to them. And a lot of these interviews is just sort of like, and also Marhershala Lee is here. And I'm like, Marhershila, I would like to talk to your agent. And I just wish you have two Oscars. The world should be your oyster.

That's what I think. So, yeah. I'll share my thoughts with you via text message if I see this film this weekend. No promises, though. Please do. No promises, though. Joanna. I mean, I think those chicken tenders aren't going to eat themselves.

So, you know, who's going to keep the chicken tender economy afloat if not you? Well, here's what I can promise you. Whether or not I secure chicken tenders at an AMC in Los Angeles, I'll probably have chicken tenders this weekend at some point. That feels like a safe bet. What's your non-movie theater source for a chicken tendi? Too many, too many less. I have all sorts of chicken tenders in my life.

Well, it depends on the mood. Depends on the level of crunch, the type of seasoning. I'm in the mood for what other items that have given establishment I might be craving as well. I'm going to need your definitive chicken tender ranking because this is like via the DoorDash offerings of Los Angeles. Every now and then I'll go to a restaurant in person. But, you know, certainly, as you know, the on-demand food economy is a big part of how I secure my sustenance. So, yeah, I can't think to be a chicken tender expert, I don't think, but I am an enthusiast. I think you can.

I think you just rattling off several metrics for perfect, for achieving perfect chicken tenderness is, yeah, all right, exactly. I love a tender. We'll look forward to our future chicken podcast. I'm always happy to talk about foodstuffs with you. We were recently talking about peaches, and I thought to myself and then said to you, if only you would use those peaches, which looked delicious, to make a wonderful warm fruit cobbler. And as always, we are like 93% bonded in mind, heart, and soul. And then there's a fork in the road, and it's hot fruit.

It's fruit. It's fruit in general, it seems to me. I ate those peaches. Were they wonderful? Raw and wriggling. Raw. And wriggling. I ate those beaches fresh from the farmer's

market stand and they were absolutely smash-roo delicious. So no need to cook them into sweet syrupy goo when you can just like take them fresh. That's what I'm saying. Why not both? Joanna, speaking of raw and wriggling,

fresh and delicious, like you noted, we have some news to hit, some news to hit. We got a couple interesting headlines. Highs and lows. Highs and lows for us. Tell the bad babies what's cooking. For creators that we've, love here on House of Ar, right? So High Point would be

Deadline is reporting that our beloved Jack Schaefer, you know, showrunner of Agatha Long and One Division, dare I say friend of the pod, Jack Schaefer, not really, but let's say it, is in talks to helm the fourth wing adaptation that's going to go forward at Amazon. She has an overall deal with Amazon. And so, like, she's, she's going to be doing something for Amazon. And why not Fourth Wing? Fourth Wing had a previous showrunner. She has since departed, so they are in the market for a showrunner. You and I, like, this happened while we were recording on Tuesday,

this news broke. And when we stopped recording, I wish we had been, like, still recording when I broke the news to you because you lost your mind. I lost my mind. I lost my mind. Here's it. We've talked about Fourth Wing on this podcast. You can listen to our Romance to the episode. You should watch our romance show because it involves some excellent artwork for my mind. Mallory Ribbon. Truly all-time pod content from Mallory Rubin. So we have spent time in the Fourth Wing universe. I expressed, as is my want, extreme skepticism about adapting this for television. Because this is a, we are aligned on our enjoyment of this book series, which is like compulsively readable, pretty poorly written a lot of the times. And what did you say on Tuesday?

You were like... Oh, I mean, first of all, anything that Jack Schaefer is attached to, we're going to be excited about. But this feels to me like the skeleton key for how to adapt fourth wing in the Imperion Series overall. Obviously, like, all of the other questions about how expensive is it going to be to make a show that has this many dragons and all the time. Like, how long is it going to take between seasons, et cetera? They've obviously have like a, I think, fairly Herculian casting task ahead of them to capture the chemistry between these characters. There's their history with, you know, rings of power and wheel of time, both sort of having truncated runs.

Right. Right. All of that. Yeah. But the real-time reaction, it was like, I would say seven and a half minutes of just gasps and screams. Yeah. Fitting, because that's actually what happens while reading fourth wing.

I think you're under-examining the percentage of gasping and screaming that happens while reading. It's true. You're right. Fourth wing. Definitely. the Jack Schaefer fourth-wing pairing is like I can hear

angels singing when I think about this because first of all, a brilliant creator an incredible showrunner who has made two shows that we have loved and loved covering Jack Shaver is a very gifted writer. The prose is excellent. A gifted writer who surrounds herself also with incredibly gifted.

brilliant writers. Yes. And the spirit of collaboration, very clearly so alive in those writer rooms and show teams. And so all of the, you know, the thinking of what Jack will do with a character like Violet, how to kind of like channel and present to us this mythology and like calibrated in a TV season. But then I just had to elevate the sentence to sentence. It's pros. And the dialogue, I think, is, like, really a great thing for people who love this series and are wondering how it's going to fit on the screen.

So this would be amazing. You know, we did get an email from someone saying, like, what do you think this means for Marvel? And, like, if I were Marvel, I personally would have, like, dropped a, you know, helicopter full of money on Jack Schaefer's lawn. Yeah. Probably not that way. That sounds like a fire hazard. But, like, you know, I would have given her so much money to stay and do more work for me if I were

Marvel. That is not seemingly what happens. or Bezos outbid them or whatever, the case may be. But to get to see Jack Schaefer, who did a really good job, I think, pushing the needle on the darkness factor inside of Wanda Vision and Agatha all along, to see her in, even though Fourth Wing plays in a YAA space, it is a more adult, obviously, story than what Disney can offer on Disney Plus. And so to watch Shaq Shafer sort of expand into a darker, you know, more violent or more emotionally turbulent or, you know, more sexually explicit, like all of those spaces. I'm really excited to see her get to, you know, step out of the Disney world into that. I, like, I'm just hopefully thrilled for her. Like, I just want all good things for her.

And if that also results in us getting the best version of. the Imperial Saga, like, for Amazon. Yeah. Please do sign me up for that. On the flip side of this, I will say, speaking of, like, creators who maybe have not had a great time with their high-profile adaptations, Neil Druckman has announced that he will not be

participating in the last episode season three. Halle Gross is also departing the Last of Us season three. my immediate reaction to this we don't know a ton of the behind the scenes Neil put out a statement where he's basically like I would like to focus on this new game we have coming out and what's going on at Nottie Dogg it was sort of a statement as put out by Nottie Dog

more than like Neil himself, O'Neill did author and own that statement. I my first thought was like he has dealt with so much shit as a creator, both off of part two of the game, which had people just sort of like haranguing him for years and then all of the drama that we talked discussed around the second season of the show, that I'm like, if this is for peace of mind, if this is just like to chase his own peace,

I really support him in that personally. I thought, we agreed that his episode last season was just like an absolute knockout masterpiece of the show. We've loved listening to him on the official podcast and his insights, Hallie, too, to hear these people who created the game together, talk about the adaptation process, all of that. We love listening to Craig Mason talk about the show, too, so it's not like, you know, it's often brand new hands that we are unfamiliar with, but I'm quite bummed personally

that Neil is leaving The Last of Us, though, again, if it means, like, his life is healthier, happier. I wish that for him as well. So, yeah. Yeah, I feel very similarly. I was quite sad to see this. I, like you, am a huge admirer of Neil and his work and have been, you know, so, like, intellectually and creatively and creatively captivated by the Druckman-Mazen partnership and have just really loved not only what they've made, but hearing them talk about the process of making it. Like, that's been such a really rare treat and level of insight for, for all of us to be able to observe. So, yeah, I mean, you know, what it must take to make a show like this and also be operating in his capacity at Naughty Dog and making these new games.

Like, it's obviously this is a number of immense undertakings. And so, yeah, if this is like what feels right or good, wonderful, but he will be missed. I certainly, you know, obviously have like nothing but faith in Mason's ability to make an excellent third season. But I will miss I will miss, you know, Neil's presence in their active. I'm sure the partnership, you know, remains, obviously, a kind of core strand of DNA in the series overall. But just the heartbeat of that, like, as a very active part of the text. I will miss it, truly. I don't have any information.

I'm not breaking any news. So Reddit.com, you can calm down from describing anything I'm about to say. I have no news on this. I will say that, like, every entertainment reporter I know is, like, sniffing around this story to try to figure out, like, sort of what happen because like Neil's statement is is pretty boilerplate and so I think there's probably another story here. I hope that we don't uncover anything like that will disappoint us in anyone who's involved in the show. But I suspect we will learn more about this story as the as the TV investigative reporters try to uncover the full story. But I wish Neil and Hallie and I think

with the best, and I thank them for their work on the show. And I'm still really excited about The Last of Us season three. We are big Caitlin Deaver fans, so we should say what happens. D-Bive. Rise up. Okay, Joanna, future conversations about The Last of Us, about Fourth Wing, about Superman, about anything and everything that we cover. Of course, y'all know the drill. Follow along. Follow the pods on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You can watch full video episodes of HouseFour and Midnight Boys PewPew on Spotify and the Ringiverse YouTube channel. You can, of course, follow the Ringervverse on the social media platform if you're choosing. And you can email us always at hobbits and dragons at gmail.com.

The inbox is open. Our spoiler warning, friendly neighborhood, spoiler warning, is for the three episodes of Squid Game that we are focusing on today, season three episodes, four, five, and six. but it is about all of season three, all of season two, all of season one, all of squid game to this point. If it's ever happened in the series, it could come up. I mean, kudos to you if you've navigated the internet the past few days and avoided this, but there is like a big splashy thing that happens at the end of this season that if you have yet to be spoiled, you might want to see for yourself. We will talk about it, obviously. We will be talking about it.

Yeah, we'll be talking about it. I look forward to discussing it shortly. I'm excited. All right, Joe. Anything else on the nerd. news front programming reminders front time travel front peaches chicken tenders anything else at all before we put on our tuxes and and get to the squid game talk yeah actually yes last night in my house we made our second round i i was really a personality hire i was there to play music

and and name the final product because i i disappointed everyone last time uh we made our second round of meat in the house. Okay. As I mentioned to you, the last batch we did were, it was named Luke and Leia because we had like a sort of a plain one and then like a sparkling passion fruit one, Luke and Leia. This time we have like a berry, a berry concentrate one and then like an apple spiced one. And we have named them. I have named them.

Berrymear and Faramere are the two meat names. of this most recent batch that I had no hand in making, but I did sit there for many hours and watch it get made and contribute love and laughter. So there you go. What a thing to contribute. How delightful. Flavor profiles sound fantastic.

Why is this only the second batch? Why is this not a regular thing? Oh, it takes a while. You have to let me for how long? Like a couple months. So is there already like that is the batches, three already in the early nascent stages? Oh, no.

Like, are we parallel pathing? We just, you're right. We should ramp up production, but we're not here to turn a profit. We're here to have fun. We started our first back in batch in January, and then we didn't bottle it until I came back from L.A. Okay. You know, so a couple months.

And then, you know, we just started batch two last night by we. I mean they and I watched. And they're actually like in that closet right now, just, of burbling away and they'll be there for a couple months and then we will, you know, there's like a second fermenting and there's all this sort of stuff. So yeah. Anyway, Barrymere and Faramere, I was quite pleased with. Very good. And that's great. That's the latest mean news. Shall we talk about it's a good game? Let's do it. Season three, episodes four, five, and six, two, two, two.

Circle, triangle, square, aka the signature shapes and the shape of the squid game. Deeply impressed with you putting this in our note stuff. Thank you. You really explored that widget menu, like, to the best of your ability. When humans are. You know, this was just an old copy paste job. An old copy paste. Less impressive.

Formatted to match the font size of the rest of the document, of course. Because my OCD won't allow anything else. But that one goes. It's actually driving me crazy that the triangle is not turned sideways to match the actual shape of the game. It's like giving me palpitations. And the triangle is slightly larger than the circle in the square? It's very tough. It's very tough.

I'm going to scroll down and look elsewhere. I can just soothe myself by thinking about the meat again. Okay. we have as we did for our season three part one pod a number of squid suppositions that we're going to hit today to just talk about these three episodes, season three and the show overall. Before we get to our squid supposition prompts for the day, let's briefly return to a couple of our opening snapshot talking points from the first pod. We're going to keep this quick because a lot of the things that we would mention here are

going to be the things we then immediately talk about again. but now that we are able to freely speak about everything that happens in the third season up to the end of the show, anything else that you would like to circle back to from the Tuesday pod, from the Season 3 Part 1 pod, in terms of, we couldn't have talked about this at the first pot, how you felt about the back half of season 3 as a little table setter here. And then anything else you want to say more broadly about how you felt about seasons 2 and 3 as a stealth split season, how you feel about and are feeling about Squid Game is a show and franchise overall now that we have completed this, at least this phase of the journey. And then anything that you wanted to circle back to about the discussion we were having about like the fan response, the audience reception, which I think we both felt like had a lot to do with some back half of the season aspects that we were not able to get into quite as freely a couple days ago.

So we're on this. I did check right before we hit record that the percentage on the old popcorn meter is still 66. So the needle is not moving very much over there. Okay. I'm just going to be really very quite honest and say, I think this is a complete failure of the IP in this season. I thought two had some bumps to it, but I was hopeful that we would come to a satisfying conclusion. And my biggest frustration with two was because it felt like they split the season in a cynical way that frustrated me with the pacing. And the pacing problems continued in this chapter.

We talked about that earlier in the week when we talked about episodes one through three really felt it in these final three where, you know, as I mentioned in the earlier pod this week, we killed off a bunch of characters that I care about. And then we have four essentially three plus more episodes to go of a conflict that, you know, we're going to get into the specifics of it. But like a conflict that doesn't actually feel very conflicted at the end of the day. And really let us down, I think, in two key encounters, which is like, Gihun finding out that the frontman is Inho and their conversation. Yeah. Which I rewatched right before we recorded just to make sure that, like, my disappointment with that was justified, and I still stand by that.

And then the brothers sort of really inertly see each other from across a chasm and not really having, like, any kind of real resolution. I don't, I've been trying to gauge why people, other people are so down on this season. And again, from the limited, my limited ability to gauge that, what I've seen people say is more they were frustrated that Gihun sacrificed himself and died. They're frustrated that the front man lived. They're frustrated that the VIPs lived. None of that stuff actually really bothers me. I don't mind a sort of more cynical ending to this show. I don't mind.

And in fact, I felt very certain that Gihon was going to sacrifice himself. So that didn't bother me. It doesn't bother me that evil rich people will continue to do evil rich people things. So none of that really bothers me. But I just think this drawn-out section full of characters I did not care too much about it all.

A real failure of the side plots to bolster up the main confrontation happening inside of the game. Just really let me down. inside of an IP that has so much promise, inside of a creator that I think is very thoughtful. Definitely. And inside of a lot of dynamics that were set up that were very juicy that you and I were really interested

to see how they would play out. And then it just really just kind of all really let me down. So that's where I mean like, and I touched upon this in the previous batch, but for one female character to hang herself and then another female character to jump off the side of a cliff like, you know, within minutes basically of a binge. Like, I continue to have a lot of questions about the way in which, you know, women are using the show.

We'll get to, like, some of the things that the creator said about why he introduced the baby. Really does feel to me that, like, Jinhee just exists as a way to get a baby in the game. And that is irritating to me. And then we get, like, various ghost girls here at the end in these final three episodes to sort of, like, motivate an enervate the men that are left battling over this baby. I just like that also really disappointed me. So I can't wait. I'm excited to talk to you about it,

but I cannot say I would recommend this as a viewing experience for people. How are you feeling? Yeah, I'm also, I'm looking forward to the discussion. I think there are a lot of interesting aspects of the conclusion here to parse and assess a little bit more. I'm, without question the final three episodes of the third season, my least favorite part of the series, by like a considerable margin. I think, you know, the beginning of season three, like we talked about a couple days ago, had some stuff in it that I really liked. You know, I thought that the second episode, the Hyde Seek episode was really gripping. But I think like in season two, which I, you know, had notes all but.

broadly enjoyed. The dip, when it starts to dip, is in that final third, like quarter, really. Yeah. You know, where we're devoting, like, an entire episode to the hallway shootout, etc. Right? And so, like, then if you kind of think about it as a, the stealth split season, a really one joint story, then, yeah, overall, like, the, it's,

It's largely a dissent after kind of the high of like everything that happens with the recruiter at the beginning of season two, et cetera. So in some ways, it's actually like heightened my appreciation for season one, which I, you know, already thought was really extraordinary, but revisiting and revisiting so close to rewatching season two. And then watching season three, it's like, man, this was, this was good. Like, this was dynamite. And, you know, I think I'm finding myself in an interesting spot with, like, my desire for the franchise to continue in different ways. Because on the one hand, I think that, you know, again, we already showed our spoiler warning. So we'll talk about this more later. But like, when we get to the Cape Lanchette cameo at the end and, you know, we'll share some of the creators' quotes about the prospect of a U.S. set,

spinoff, etc. I'm like, I'm in. I want it. I'm in. I'm so intrigued by that. I've since the beginning of the series wondered about the global footprint of the game and the VIPs and the organization and how many places is something like this happening and what's a shared aspect of that horror, what is really distinct, like regionally to a given culture or society, etc. So I would like to like keep exploring stories set in the Squid Game universe. I think there is an undeniable, and this obviously, like, part of this is about the continuation of this particular story with these particular characters over subsequent two seasons.

And then some of it is, like, thinking, panning back even further and thinking about the, like, you know, we've talked about this before and plenty of other people have this well, they kind of like, wait, did we all miss the lesson of Squid Game, you know, commodification of like the reality game competition aspect of all that. where it's sort of just like, at a certain point, you're not just diluting the impact of the original thing by returning in subsequent seasons. It's like, I don't want to lose what made Squid Game special in the first place. And I think like, there obviously, it's like not to be too dramatic about it, but there is kind of, I think, an undeniable like meta aspect to that with like the,

you know, studio greed and desire to keep cashing in on like profitable. IP that is not specific at all to SquidGamer Netflix. That's just like where we are in the streaming wars IP era where we've talked about that, you know, talked about this with a million of the things we cover. It's like at a certain point, if you keep, I'm a glutton and like I love to spend time in the worlds I love. And I think often my disposition is like more of the character, more time with the characters I'm interested in, more time in the world I like to play in.

But like, you know, we've seen time and again that when you go back too soon or too often or most importantly, as we always say, it's more about execution than just kind of core. Without a reason to or a good idea, too. Other than just doing it, yeah. Then, like, you know, the quality is going to dip. And then when the quality dips and we're in this, like, satura era of saturation, people are like,

I have other choices and I have other things to watch. And then the thing that felt special about it in the first place isn't just the vibrancy of that idea and the specificity of the examination of those ideas, which was undeniable in season one, but also, like, something, exceedingly rare in modern media, which is just like animated as like,

it felt like a shared experience. You start to lose that too. So yeah, I'll be fascinated to track this moving forward and like see what they do. It is really kind of like an interesting thing to observe. The moment I remember quite clearly, you and I weren't talking a lot about, like the end of last year was absolutely bananas.

And you and I weren't talking that much about Squid Game, but I remember when I told Rah Mahoney that there was a Squid Game Yule law, option on Netflix? I was like, we have lost the plot. Like, what do you mean cozy up around the squid game branded fire? What are you talking about?

That being said, so, I mean, Cape Blanchett in a suit is undeniable. That's its own thing. I'm actually even more interested in this idea of David Fincher being interested in doing Squid Game because American Squid Game just in and of itself, American remake of an international thing that I loved I'm largely uninterested in.

But Fincher is not a creator who goes into something without having his own big ideas about it. I feel that way about even like his alien movie, which people think is unsuccessful, but I quite like. And so I think that especially since I really love Fincher's movie The Game with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, a great. San Francisco set movie. But there's so much Squid Game in the game. And so, like, if he can take that and, like, he has had a successful, relatively successful partnership with Netflix. I love Mind Hunter. Same.

And so. Still waiting. Yeah. For more. For more. For more. But, like, I know. I know we're like, Amazon is canceling shows, but the fourth one will be fine.

Amazon canceled Finchers Mind Hunter, but his squid game will be fine. like, Hope Springs Eternal. But, like, I do think that, like, Fincher, who takes something like gone girl and turn, you know, like, he's just really good with taking pop ideas and really sinking them down into something almost like primal and visceral and really, and cerebral at the same time. And so, like, that actually is quite animating and interesting to me. It would be great. You know, and so, yeah, I feel dumb anytime I get on this podcast. I'm like, didn't like this. Can't wait for the next season.

But that does happen to me a lot. It's an experience. I'm just like, maybe they'll figure it out. Yeah. Hope springs eternal, Joanna. Truly, it does. Let's get to some of our squid suppositions for the final three episodes of the final for now season of Squid game.

Squid game. Let's start at the end. Not the very end. We'll come back to that. Let's start with the final game. Was Sky Squid Game, which is Squid Game set in the sky, a captivating enough sixth and final game for you? Or was this a letdown after OG Squid Game from the first season? Um, OG Squid Game is really hard to beat because you've got this like childhood history between these two characters.

You've got like so much history and you're able to sort of like visually cut, you know, to a different time in their lives and stuff like that. I think the trouble here is that anyone who has ever seen any of Squid Game or any other show before knows who the final three are going to be at the end of this journey, right? it has to be the baby, the baby's father, and Gihun. And we have to be in a place. Once again, with this tragedy math that's good game is so good at, be in a place where we're like, oh, no, someone we care about is going to have to go over in order for the people who win this game. Surrounded by so much chaff here.

And I really love these evil dudes, actually. We've already talked about Player 100, but I will say that, like, Hold on, I wrote down, it's 203, right? 2.03 is a... He's a maniac. Gehman, like, had a late, late emergence as, like, a real favor for me. Like, I really, really liked him. So, like, I liked the evil dudes, but I'm just, like, I'm just impatiently waiting for all of these evil dudes to go off the sides because they have to.

So we can get to this, like, you know, final three showdown. Yeah. And then, I want to read an interesting email we got from our listener, Jenny, about the final... what happens to our guy, Myeonggi, here at the end. She says, Mungi gave off huge anacid at the end of Revenge of the Sith vibes, going full evil, roiling with self-hatred and paranoia, convinced the guy who's trying to help him, got with his ex. But by evil, I don't mean cartoonishly evil. It was heartbreaking in Revenge of SIF, and then it's heartbreaking here.

He finally lost his battle with himself. And then she says, unrelated to Star Wars, people are mad that nobody stepped on the last button. think then it would have made the climax be Gihun struggle with Young Ghi, rather than Gihun's struggle with himself. We already got Gihun battling a similar more important character and saying, woo, at the end of season one, Gihon wrestling with himself, and ultimately doing the right thing. It's really the hard of the show, and I'm glad it culminated with that. So I love the Anakin Comp.

I rewatched that last section with the Anakin. I don't know why I didn't think of it when I saw it the first time, but like it's right there. And I think that performance is very, very good. There's just a series of baffling decisions and, like, weird, calculate. I mean, not to say you would be the most rational person. Yeah, quite in circumstance. So sure. But I was just like, we could have figured this out, guys.

Like, we could have figured, like, you know, and, like, yeah. Gehun offers to, like, be the sacrifice so early, you know, Nghee's, like, tragedy of, like, not being able to trust him. Mm-hmm. But then also going from, like, defending his baby to dangling. his baby over the, like, it's just like, we were just like zinging around inside of motivations so quickly that I, and then, and then I found it deeply unsatisfying that the end of all of this, it's a ripped jacket and not like an active decision that someone makes that ended that

character's life, that he didn't sacrifice himself by going over, fine, but that he didn't, like, lunge and miss and fall over. It was just this weird protracted, maybe if the cloth had held, he wouldn't have fallen moment, that felt like not as active a result in his death as I would have liked. So I might have veered off of your question here, but, like, really mixed. I thought the performance for the actor who's playing Mungi was, like, really phenomenal. Yeah, he was incredible. Yeah, he was really, really good. MC1, I think is his name.

And so, like, I thought he was incredible, but, like, there was just a lot not functioning for me here in this final game. How about you? Yeah, I'm excited to talk more about Myeonggi, who I also love and thought the performance was incredible and have a lot of questions and notes about the seesawing inside of a short span of time here. I great email, Bad Baby's rule, as always. I don't agree on the button, though. We'll come back to the button. That was really, really bugged by that. I think in terms of Sky Squid game just more broadly as like the choice for the end,

I was underwhelmed by this both compared to the use of Squid Game in the first season as the final game. But honestly, also just like compared to some of the other games in seasons two and three, like it wasn't as exciting and shocking and horrifying as Mingle or Hyden's. seek, I don't think. And like, it feels like a version of what we've talked about a decent amount already over these two pods. Like, conceptually, I get it and actually I'm intrigued. I think that the idea of this taking the season one template, but like amplifying the stakes, the horror, the interpersonal math, the fact that there are more players overall, more elimination, strategy comes into play, decisions, mistakes, et cetera, is all, it's a potentially, like, a potentially

like really potent brew. But then I think when some of the stuff you've already highlighted, it happens inside of that brew, when some of the mistakes are rooted in like the human experience and then some of them are like, am I supposed to believe that like, I don't know, it's just, it's Chekhov's button coming into play that heavily was first of all so inevitable from the second that we see it. But also it's just like, I think there's a difference between high stakes stress and everybody be very focused on an urgent matter. And like that making that final conflict so inert because you know where it's going. You know no one press the button and so whatever happens, it doesn't, it's not that it doesn't matter, but it kind of doesn't matter because whoever's left

is going to have to make another decision anyway. It reminded me like a little bit of, it reminded me a little bit of the conversation around Gladiator 2, like the Gladiator 2 effect of, like, you're building and you're exploring and that's what expanded universe storytelling is, but also when do you when do you maybe tip into something starting to feel a little bit like it's a Xerox but on shinier paper and with brighter colors you know this is like the 3d version thing yeah 3d version it's good game with more bad dudes involved and yet still not yeah the button thing yeah i was rewatching and i was like there's two options here one is um have someone trying to start the button and And, like, the fight, you know, like, if Gihon is trying to hit the button to start and

totally. He is just, like, attacking him and no one's getting to it. Then it's very sad. Yeah. Or if there's a way that they could do it calibrate it a little differently where you're like, oh, it's over. And then there's a realization, oh, nobody press the button. Yeah. You know, you hear the announcer be like, you know, the game hasn't started or whatever.

I don't know exactly how you do that. Just make the button set up more subtle. I don't know what. I don't have the answer to that. But surely we've experienced that inside of storytelling. We're just sort of like, we did it. We did it. And then it's like, oh, no, they didn't do this one thing that means it's not over.

But they, I was rewatching the button reveal, which like, to your point, you and I both were like, well, no one's press the button. So we know, we know whatever. Yeah. But he, Gihon is sitting there and he, and the babies across the platform. And he looks at the button. And he realizes that the button hasn't been. But we don't even see his reaction. We just see him look at blankly at the button.

We see the button. Then we cut to the boat or something else. We're cut away to a different plot line. And I'm like, I don't even have his devastation of like, now, you know, it's just, it was just bizarre to me. And it just sapped all the tension out of something. This is the death of a major, you know, franchise character. This should be so huge. And here we are.

I also, I do really agree with what you were saying about the overall mix of characters that we're left with. And I think especially because SkySquod game stretches across huge swaths of two episodes. It's so much time with, you know, the Blue Circle 6. Great. Great. I really like the way that Myeong moves in and out of that and watching. Yes. before the like, okay, I'm making this really passionate. And again, we'll talk about him more in some of the triggers for the switch in his decision,

which I think were interesting. But like that earlier phase of watching his eyes, like knowing, feeling confident that he's going to wait to try to outsmart these greedy dipshits. And then he does. Like that was interesting. But, you know, and Player 100, we've been invested. But like two or three, while I agree he's a strong runner at the end, my response to that is kind of like, then make him more present earlier in the show if he's going to be such a big deal at the end. And 336, 353, and 39, these are not people that we have opinions on or have spent more than a couple seconds with.

And so for the game, like the lunchbox thing, like this is like a crucial moment in the end of the series and the fate of our protagonist. I don't know who that dude is. Like that's weird. And when he's like, I'm not going to be your lunchbox. I'm just like, okay. Also, when we start that game, in theory, we're invested in a bit in Minsu. But like, once again, the drug is. Tom Ben for our guy, Min-Sin.

It's just like, I don't. Were you happy to see your beloved Thanos again, though? Yes. When you saw the Infinity Stunails and the end, you're like, he's back. He's back. Yeah, your question about do drugs work? this way is more applicable here than ever before. Like that, I don't, I can't, I don't, we had the setup from Thanos in season two of,

like, you guys wouldn't be able to handle this. Like, this is like the shit. But like, Minsu took two, I believe two pills, right? Because that's all that was left at the cross when he, when he scooped it up. Does, I don't know. Me, I don't, I don't want to speak recklessly, but like, would that level of withdrawal set in after two pills? Exactly.

I don't, I don't understand it at all. And then, like, also. So, Gihun, what was our plan? He's just constantly cowering with the baby at the edge of a platform, not with any. He's not trying to outsmart anyone. He's not trying to like, it's, we're watching Mung Yi, like, do all the work. Yeah. To protect the baby, which is interesting to me.

I was like, he's ruthless and he's killing people. He's like a tactician. But he's, like, trying. Yeah. And Gihun is just sort of like, this is wrong. And not this way. will draw lots. This is wrong. And I'm like, just be fucking smart. If your promises to protect that baby, be smarter than any decision you make across this entire three platform journey. I just, I was so frustrated by it. Especially just like there are some moments, like when he tries to effectively ultimately, like prey upon the self-interest, when they've made the bridge, the rope from the jackets and like are kind of doing the we've,

we'll draw lots fake out. And he's like, they're like plotting behind your back. And if you lose your patience here and you knock us both over, like, you're next. I'm like, yeah, more of that. Yeah. Right? Like, just it doesn't even, it doesn't even have to be the same level necessarily of like active. I'm running a con here.

I'm a mastermind that we got out of Mionghi. But yeah, I think what I definitely felt what you're identifying, the level of like, I'm going to hang out and wait here. Yeah, it's, and in some ways, you know, that's, I guess to be fair, in some ways that's like that's where we find him in different respects across the entire season, right? And it's like a much more passive, you know, post everything that happens at the end of season two. He's like in these various like repressed states and then kind of has to work his way back out of them. So, you know, maybe in some ways like a hyperactive aggressive surge at the end would have felt. slightly like the calibration might have felt slightly off from where we found him.

But yeah, I was like, my guy, let's, what's the plan? What is the plan? What's the plan? We can't just hang out right at the edge for no reason. There was like so much room to not be literally standing right at the edge of every platform before we did this. And then like, I just, once again, he offers to sacrifice himself. He's like, I will drop, I will jump off. So you and your baby can make it out of here. Yes.

Talk about Myeongi not believing him. That's fine. But, like, that lets us know he's ready to die for this baby. Yep. Well before we watch him make that decision. So I'm just sort of like, okay, that's what's going to happen. I don't, you know. Yeah.

Like, I don't know. I just, it's so much wasted potential. And, like, and it's almost frustrating because there are such good elements to it. Again, Myeonggi, like, I actually have other than some, like, tracking where his moral compasses at any given moment, some questions, but like performance wise and just sort of like actively engaged wise, fascinating to watch. Maybe that's our spinoff. The MG coin.

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Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar.

Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Before we talk a little bit more about Gihun and Frontman and the conclusion of that relationship, and I am curious to ask you, do you think that C-C-Squid game and Flame Squid Game are also things? Like, how many other versions of Squid Game are there? Do you think the frontman was like, I really, okay, Gheun's back, player four or five, six is back, so I got to figure out another version of Squid Game and this is the one? Or do you think there are all sorts of Squid games in the mix?

For every one of the ones. the four nations, there is a squid game, and season one was Earth, and season two is air, and then we're going to get water and fire. You know, we've never had, as the VIPs, hopefully remind us,

we've never had a due time winner, and folks, we're not going to. Listen, 20 years from now, when Netflix is just, like, really desperate. To get that baby back in there. Player 2, 2, 2.2.

We can do, like, 18, 18-year-old 2-2 enters the game. to avenge his mother. I'd watch, honestly. Let's chat a little bit more about Gihun and Ho, the front man. Was there a death that hit you harder, actually, than Giuens, given some of the notes on how this all unfolded, or is that still the most impactful of this stretch? I'm sorry. It's just like, it sucks that I was watching the show, and I really love Lijon J as we've talked about, all the same.

Acolyte, et cetera, et cetera. Like, I'm a big fan of this performer, and I was very invested in this character as the sort of Myeonggi of season one of like, will he do the right thing or not watching his moral growth? Other than the dip we get in episode two in the hide-and-seek game, this is an arc that isn't really arcing, you know? And so I wasn't that invested in him this season in that way. And then the only other option really is Junkeye, but I was just like actually mad at that point. You can pick Min Su if you want. I can't pick Min Su because of Player 100. No, okay.

Maybe it's 203. I was like 203, you had so much more to give me this season than just this one episode. He went out fighting. He's like, let's have a knife brawl. He's great. I'm not waiting around. Great. You hinted at this.

question among viewers of like, is the ending too cynical? Is there actually a lot of like affirmation and hope inside of what might be perceived as cynicism? Does this broadly this aspect of just inside of this core relationship, Giehoun and the frontman, Gihon sacrificing himself, not making it out, not living? And frontman like, I'm cruising in a fancy car and my suit in L.A., I've made it out of this feel right to you? Is that what you anticipated that Gihun would not make it out and frontman would? Where are you sitting just with that aspect in terms of their shared history?

And like, you know, as a related part of that, how did you, you mentioned already your feeling about the long awaited reveal of frontman's face and Giehoun seeing that. How did you feel about the test, the test that the frontman presented to Gihun, giving him the knife? The mini games have been a part of the series the whole time. But this like, I'm giving you a path to save yourself, to save the baby, and it's to kill everybody else.

Yeah. Full of food and drink. While they sleep, they'll never know. And we get this edited sequence where we flash back finally to something people were anticipating in Ho's time as a player.

And we see that he made that choice. When the knife goes into a neck, it's him. He has slaughtered everybody around him. Yeah, that pan out to like everyone done there. That was intense. We were watching the first one.

We were watching the last one. No. And you know that when he says to Gihou and like, they won't even know, he's speaking from experience, right? And so, you know, not only is this a key bit of fleshing out of his history, like we knew he won, but understanding more about how, how it took, what it looked like, how ugly it was. And then this aspect of like, you know, from the limeride at the end to the infiltration as player won, the small sacrifices kind of. the trash, the horses, all of these exchanges, do you still have faith in people as this kind of like final note here? This, I'm going to give you a path out, but in order to take it, you're going to have to prove that you're, you've sunk to the same depth that I have and you're

just, you're not better than me actually. And then of course, Guy who am proving that in multiple ways he is. How did that part work for you? So I think, uh, Leibnchun, who plays in Ho, is, as we already discussed, one of the most compelling, maybe the most compelling performer on the show. He's so good. Never pass up an opportunity to see him in a informal wear, so thank you so much for that. Even spattered in blood, thank you so much for that opportunity. I quite agree.

I simply do not understand giving the pace of the season, given that we were spreading this out why we didn't get an entire Inho flashback episode. Like an entire, like Luthan-esque, here we are at the end of all things. Let's just spend the whole hour with Inho in the game. I would have loved that. Watch him, because watch him at that crucial decision is interesting, though we already knew. We already knew that he had not only sold out part of his soul, but sold it out to the extent

that he is now willing to run the game. Like, that's how hard he sold out his soul in order to win the game. Okay. But, like, how do we get? I would have almost, like, taken an entire season of peril because, like, it's not enough to watch him do it, which was dynamic because of that reveal of the whole room and his, and his, like, hysteria as he just succumbs to this choice. But what do we lose?

Can we see who he got, you know, we know a little bit from his mom and his brother and so like that. But like, can we see him in the game? Was he trying to be a better person? Was he the protector? And he fell, like, who was he before he made this choice? Yeah. I would have loved to have seen that. And so I liked this taste, but it almost, because it wasn't the full meal, I was almost more disappointed. And I thought that the showdown between them, Should have been the best scene in this entire series. No question. Should have been the pinnacle. But his reveal, the reaction to the reveal, that is the best choice you can make right now. I just needed the writing to be better. The performances were finding needed the writing to be better.

I wanted to linger there longer. This should have been a long conversation. Like, I understand that Gihun is, like, so overwhelmed by the betrayal and the frustration. But, like, don't we want people having conversations in rooms? Like, have a moral conversation. Have a philosophical conversation. Like, what does it mean to survive? What does it mean to be a person in this world?

Rather than just, like, giving us buzz phrases, like, humans aren't horses or whatever it is, which is just, like, something we heard since the end of season one, you know, repeated throughout. It's just, I wanted so much more from that. And so the potential, because those performers are so good, because this dynamic so juicy, because they did a great job with Inho undercover and all of those interactions, this just felt like such a swing and a miss for me. I don't mind that Gihun survived. And it also feels like the message is he survived and is like, has had his mind change. about humanity having seen

Gihun sacrificed self that Inho is like in delivering the baby to his brother and in delivering the money to Gihun's daughter that he has is and the island is burned so like at least on that island

they're not going to squid game again that he has been changed by this that's not uninteresting to me at the end of the day you know yeah I think that the level of, like, dissonance that he is, has been experiencing? Because we talked about that, that one of the, you know, gripping parts of season two was, like, wondering, wait, how tempted is he

by a different path or how real is this connection with the person that he is, like, nominally opposed to? And then ultimately actively challenging, et cetera. I think that the, it's another, it is another example, I think, of where the season struggled a little bit to clearly, clearly unmistakably delineate between a conflict in the human heart. Not sure if you've heard it's the only thing worth writing about, which, like, you know, we love. A conflicted character is super interesting to watch. And that conflict's not always, and the resolution of that conflict is not always linear. So moving in and out of different states of existence or relationships to your own morality, I'm fine with. But, like, tell.

Telling, in-hotelling Captain Park to kill everyone, including the detective, outright saying that. His brother. His brother. When he had shot him in the shoulder so that he didn't die, and then as we learned explicitly here, like, said to Captain Park no matter what, keep him alive. And then you're like, oh, fuck. Okay. Kill him too. That is how far he has sunk.

And then, like, radios him to say, like, if you keep doing this, you're going to die. So, like, there's a desire to save him. And then he's back at the end to, like, I think there's something. nice about, I've left this baby with you. I've given you this, this golden debit card with the full player two to do's full winnings here to say to you a couple of things. One, I trust you. I trust you to care for this person and make the right decisions. Two, to the best extent that I'm capable of saying it, I'm sorry. And three, I'm alive. Like, I'm here. There's only one person this could have come from. That's interesting. But there were

a few too many moments from like, wait, where is he with? Is he willing to kill his brother or not for that to like land as powerfully. And then, you know, another version of that for me with Inho was, I'm curious if you agree with this, or if this feels like not totally valid, but I was, and this fits what you were just saying about, wouldn't it have been great to like really fully explore his history, made me think of this because I really bumped. And I, yes, I understand that we are talking about the primary antagonist of the show. I get that. He has done, he has overseen directly done, horrible things. I'm not like deluding myself that the frontman is a good guy.

However, him saying, let's put the baby in the game and here's why this will be the right decision, it's going to make the next vote and the rest of the game more interesting, I promise. And then, like, yes, granted, he, the gambit with Gihun, Gihun hinges on him saying in part, like, this is the path out. And so maybe that's the moral math he's done with himself. It's like, I'll do it, but I'll give him a test so that it can be okay. And bonus, in order for it to be okay, he has to engage in the same level of depravity that I have. Yeah. But his, what do we know, to your point about his kind of the formative things in his life, his origin, his history, his wife, his wife got sick and she was pregnant. And this question about what would happen

with the baby and the way that that was all tied with like the entwined. with their fates that sent him to the game in the first place, that took him away from the rest of his family and life back in society. Like, you could convince me that there's a version, you could easily convince me, I think, actually, that there's a version of that where he would, that you could say that has, um, warped his, like, a view then of the sanctity of life. And what that baby is meant to represent to Gihun and to us as viewers, this powerful symbol of, like innocence and what you need to fight to protect and preserve and a future that is still

worth like saving that he can no longer see that. And that I think is there in the text and it's powerful, but I don't totally understand how it connects to his core traumatic inciting events. It feels in his decisions feeling conflict in that way. Once again, it's probably not my job to tell the person who made one of the most successful TV shows of the last decade. how to do his job. However, like, isn't there a version of this story where Inho continues to battle with himself,

having met Gihun and having spent time back in the game with these other people, battles with himself, is trying to save the baby. The VIPs are, like, put the baby in the game, and he, like, feels like he has no choice. Yeah. Why isn't he registering more disgust with the VIPs?

Like, you know, the people who put him in the game in the first place? Like, shouldn't that be something that he is dealing with in some way, like make it an erosion, make it a process so that when we see him, you know, honor the end of the game and save the baby and give that baby all the money and give the baby to his brother, it's like the culmination of like a slow arc towards something rather than like, I guess this is how this ends. Totally. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that would further heighten the parallel too, is like when is it a diversion and when is it a parallel?

You see them both cradling this little bundle. And like, yeah, I just was like when the VIPs had to be the ones to say to him, explain what you mean. I was like, this feels a little off to me. Right. Have the depraved VIPs who we don't give a shit about and who are bad characters. You know, be like, put the baby in the game. And like, maybe I'm trying to turn.

Which I've already done. So they'll, like, just have them keep doing it. Maybe I'm trying to turn the front man into like Jamie Lanister and that's not who the front man is. We have the type. It's true. But that's who I wanted him to be. So we have a type. Yeah.

In terms of, we're talking a lot about how inside of these episodes, inside of the final game and the final stretch here, it felt clear that we were going to watch Giehoun sacrifice himself. It's been interesting to read some of the interviews and some of the press around the end because that was not always the plan. That was not always the intention. So here's a quote from an interview in Variety. Originally, when I was planning for seasons two and three, I had no intention of having Guyhoon die. The idea that I had in mind was that Guyhoon would make it out alive in one way or another. He may become the winner, and he would go back to see his daughter.

But in the writing process and looking around at what was happening in the world, I realized that's not how the story could end. That kind of unhappy ending and seeing what was happening around. around the world and seeing Gihun's journey and his destination, I think it just didn't line up for me. I thought that a better fitting story and a closure to the story of Gihun's journey would be for him to sacrifice himself for the future generations. So I had the baby in the story and created the ending with Gihun sacrificing himself. So two things. Number one, like, so I had the baby in the story and created the ending with Gihun sacrificing himself. Again, once again, it just felt like there were

so many machinations just to give Gihun a baby. That's like, without making it feel like actual character choices around all these things that got the baby into Gihun's hands. So, like, again, that's my critique of, like, Junhi as a non-character and all these other things. On this quote front, do you feel like maybe there might have been a slight translation issue? Because, like, when he says that kind of unhappy ending and seeing what was happening in the world and seeing Gihun's journey and his destination, I think it didn't lend up for me, this makes much more sense if he says that kind of happy ending and seeing what was happening on the world and seeing what was happening in the world and seeing what was happening. happening on the world and seeing Gihun's journey and his destination, I think it didn't line up for me. This makes much more sense if he says that kind of happy ending and seeing what was happening

around the world and seeing Gihun's journey his decision. Because if he's like, a happy ending is Gihun survives the game and gets to reunite with his daughter. The world feels kind of bleak to me. That didn't really seem like the ending that I wanted to do. So I made a sadder ending. That makes more sense to me, sort of. So I wonder if that was just like a slight transcription error or something like that.

But I don't, I don't. mind having an unhappy ending to this story. This is a bleak setup and I don't mind you know, Gihun for the moment that Gihun doesn't like stay away at the end of season one, like just when I thought I was out and my hair was magenta and my life was bright. I was bright hair. You know? They pulled me back in. Yeah. Like you're probably not going to survive that, you know? You take one one toe over the threshold of the hide-and-seek door and then you go back. You're you're not going to make it back through that door. So, like, I'm not surprised and I'm not upset by that.

I agree. I think it fits the world of Squid Game. I think deeply dismayingly, it fits the world. And I also think that, again, I do see a lot of, like, victory and affirmation inside of the Gihun died and the frontman lived because I think I don't want to spoil anything from another show and, you know, even invoking it in a context of heavily critiquing this might feel odd because it's a show that we loved. But I will just say, like, you know, we talked a lot in Andor about sometimes the death comes before the death, right?

A thing you say to a person at how you make them feel. Like, Giehoun sacrificed himself, but he won. There's no question that he won. The moral victory, yeah. And I think that it's also more complicated than that. And it's true that nobody wins. And that's part of the commentary. Like, frontman says it.

If you kill me right now, someone else takes my place tomorrow. And that is, we have. had no reason to doubt that that would be true. Right. But also certainly seeing GameLand Chance American recruiter really confirms it. And it's like there is simultaneously the fact that Gihun and Junho in this moment and in this place, like, Chekhov's Stairwell bomb went off. No one stepped on Chekhov's button, but Chekhov's Stairwell bomb went off.

When I was doing my rewatch to prep for this, and I had completely forgotten about that. But then when I got to that part in season one, I was like, I guess. that's going to explode and the island's going to blow up. Like, why else would we be lingering on that so heavily? You know, they made an impact. They made an impact on that baby's life. And I think, you know, we'll talk a little bit later in some of our other questions about because we leave the island, we say goodbye to Gihoun, about 30 minutes into the final episode.

There's like 18 to 20 minutes a story after where we're with multiple characters, obviously, most meaningfully are Guy Choi, who's like, like, I have a business plan that I would like to reveal. I'm in. But foot, I mean, we haven't talked about this. Yeah. There's dog murder in this show, Mallon Rubin. That's just horrible. Absolutely horrible.

Yeah, I did not, I did not enjoy that at all. Horrible. And I thought it was, while I really fucking loved when Troy, when the officer's questioning him and they're laying, he's showing the picture of the recruiter at Captain Park. And the officer's like, who is it? Name, address. And Troy's just like,

you know, it's your fucking job to tell me? That was great. When Choi grabs his phone and runs for it, great stuff. I comedy the cuts to park back on the boat. And he's like, I can just like really clearly hear everything he's saying for that. That was all, that was pretty amusing. But yeah, I did think it was while I love Choi appropriate that the officer when he was going through his rap, she was like, And I'm going to add dog murder to this list.

So that's a demerit for our Guy Choi, undoubtedly. But in that stretch at the end where we spent some time with our characters who have made it out alive, you know, the other thing is, like, beyond the game, you feel Gihun's ongoing impact, right? Like the reunion, the reunited family at the airport, obviously, like, we have multiple ways in which we're tying back to, say, Buyuk from season one. You alluded to the ghostly apparition, like, went in the moment from season one. She's like, don't use this isn't you.

Don't do this. This isn't you. When he was considering killing Sang Wu with the knife. But, you know, to see, like, to see that her mother was finally there and was with her brother and that Sang Wu's mother who had been acting as this, like, a grandma, this adoptive figure in that young boy's life and cared for him and nurtured him like that, that family was back together. only happens because of Gihun. So, like, the fact that people's lives are improving still because of him, I thought was, like, a really affirming note. I don't, I don't, I think that it's, to me, more of a complex brood than, like, overt cynicism at the end, but I think the cynical aspects feel, like, appropriate to me. Yeah, no, no, it's not, I don't think it's an unhappy, bleak ending. There's a lot of, like, you know, this baby's going to be okay. And, like, you know, but, and then the game.

goes ever on is part of it too. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, sorry. Do you want to talk more about the CGI baby? Let's talk more about the CGI baby. This is just like, first of all,

let's talk about the CGI of the CGI baby. But I am curious if you think, not to ask you to speak on behalf of every person who watched Squid Game, but do you think that this was genuinely too much for people? And I don't mean just that we had a CGI baby is like maybe the second lead of the third season of the show in terms of the prominence of the runtime and the centrality to the plot. But, and I say this is somebody who thinks the red wedding, which in the television version,

spoiler included a pregnant woman being stabbed in the stomach is, you know, peak TV. And I say this is someone who, with you on a podcast, we both were like, blood and cheese in TV land. That was kind of tame. We're no strangers to seeing children imperiled in the shows we watch and love. I don't know. like the level of, and obviously it's intentional, the commentary, everything that is being parsed when these, the blue circle six is like, we won't ask you to kill it, so just hang the baby

on the pole, please. Like, this is, you know, they're doing what they want to do with like, hey, these guys are going to move from. Every time you say blue circle six, I'm like, that's just absolutely exquisite. Thank you. I thought the shift from like, the baby doesn't deserve the money. Yeah. The baby didn't work from the money into the baby's an easy target, into we're going to pretend that we're actually doing the right thing because the baby won't survive. Like all of that commentary was actually effective, but I don't know, just like seeing

our beloved youngie tangle his own kid over the edge of Sky Squid game. I was like, this is like, I think a lot for people to have to watch. His performance was so good. It was really. He was amazing. A friend of mine was texting me about the show and she's like, Very upsetting. She's like, do you think they're going to start selling those, like, good game-branded formula bottles, like the bottle warmer? That's pure luxury. Honestly. Beautiful.

I just was, I just never thought they were going to kill a baby on the show. So I don't know why. I just never thought they were like, they killed so many people. I never thought they were going to kill that baby. So I just kept doing Survivor Math. I was like, you know, and before I was like still on, I think episode. And I was like, I was like either Noel or, you know, Juneho are going to save that baby. Like, you know, even if it's not Gehoun, like, someone's going to save that baby. That baby is going to make it out. And so then it just became like, which is fine because it doesn't, you can know something is going to happen and still feel tension around, like, the decisions around it and stuff like that. But I just like, also the CGI was quite bad. Our producer Carlos was like, I saw a clip of it and I thought it was fake.

And yeah, it wasn't quite like, yeah, Renzme, Twilight level, but that was a bad CGI baby. And I just simply would have refrained from showing the baby's face that often if that were the CGI available to me. Yeah, so I guess it, but probably was too much for some people. I mean, like, you know, also just like, Jenhee dropping herself off the side of, you know, the game and a lot of brain splatter. in these last... Tull chips and brains. Tons. Yeah.

It was like... Even by the standard of squig game, which is pretty... Yeah, pretty robust brain matter stretch. Player 100 dying with the lots, kind of like...

Beauty. Yeah, yeah. And the angrily clever was in charge of limb arranging. Really. These... Really good. Talk to your stuff.

Genuinely really good. Joanna, what else, if anything, would you like to say about our problematic fave, Miyangi, M-G-Koin-3-3-3? We've talked about him a bit. Is there anything else that we haven't gotten to that you would like to, either from the final moments or just in general, everything we saw in the last couple seasons and in this stretch of episodes, the final conversation between Juni and He and Myeongi and hide and seek, anything else that you want to hit? I will say I can definitely fix him. I just don't understand why. Isn't it more fitting with like the lies that he was telling himself, why wouldn't he do everything he could to try to make the outcome it's him and his baby?

He gets to keep all that money anyway. So like why wouldn't he figure out a better, he just like, I don't know. The journey to hang in the baby over the side. I'd happen in a way that I didn't really understand. But again, I can fix him and he'll be fine. But he was at the end of the day. And I said this back when Rob and I were covering season two, like one of the most interesting characters to track in terms of like,

will he? And in the end, he didn't. And in the end he didn't. And in the end he didn't. And that's interesting to me. Agreed. And a lot of his machinations leading up to that. But, like, there are things that happened where, like, he's talking to Janine.

He's like, come on. Let me get you across. Yep. And then he just, like, leaves her there in a way that, like, I don't mind that he makes bad, selfish decisions. But, like, I need more, like, desperation. The clock's ringing out. Like, something, something, something. And then he's just like, God, I have no choice.

I got to go and leave you here. I don't know. Anyway, uh, mix, mix pause on our guy. But, like, a really interesting setup. of a character. And like I said, a really great performance, I thought. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing this actor again.

I thought he was, like, exceptional. I thought that he's, on that scene, the conversation with June He, the pitch during hide-and-seek. I actually, I think you're, I agree with you that, like, in that final moment, I wanted him to, like, look back and beg once more, I think. But inside of the conversation, I actually like, I'd like to that scene, I thought that her, you know, because like we talked about last pod, she also has these, like, kind of push-pull moments. I'm repelled. I've talked myself into it again. And, you know, that the high of, like, my friend, like, he made it out and he's going to come help me during hide and seek into just her abject disgust. here staring his undeniable greed in the face. Like when she says to him, for the money, that person saved me and the baby and you killed her with the knife I gave you. And his face, he's like, you know, he's in this initial phase of kind of desperation, like trying to explain, trying to convince her. I didn't know. I did it so we could get out of here. I did it for you.

I did it for the baby. I did it so we could start a life to get together. I'll help you. And then like the look on his face, I thought a good kind of encapsulation of his stated desire to help her on the baby and to try to be better. And then total self-interest was like captured when he saw her ankle. Yeah. Because he's so crestfallen because he knows that like they're not going to make it across. That means that if he does you can go with her, he's not going to make it. And that's not what he wants, as we will see in an even more heightened circumstance with the baby. And then when she says to him, like, that baby is mine, that baby has nothing to do with

trash like you. We never want to see you again, not even in our dreams. And he's, like, sobbing. Nothing that anybody, Junhi, Guy Hoon, anyone says to him, justifies the decision that he makes at the end, ultimately. Obviously. Oh, but we're not just my baby dangling. That's not okay.

That's not okay. We're going to say it right now. No dog killing, no baby dangling. Okay. And, you know, because the story of our relationship watching this character is like, I've talked myself in once again to believing that he's going to make the right decision to have something so undeniable happen at the end where it's like there is absolutely no path back from saying, no, I am aware of what this means.

I am aware of what I'm about to do. that is the decision I have made. I thought was, I think the speed and haste of the seesawing that you've tracked is right. I thought overall as an arc, that was like a really interesting and satisfying end game. And like we already talked about, I really did enjoy watching him handle and maneuver his way around the six.

The six or the five, I guess, since he's part of the six. That was just kind of like amazing. And I thought that in terms of the The lunchbox fiasco, the stretch where everything just falls apart, right? Because he has like, shout and move at Gihun, charged with the poll. Also, he's the one who figures out what the pole is there for. I thought everybody else was very slow on the uptake.

I was like, guys, but there are only so many things to try to grab. Okay. You got some poll commentary? When he pulled the poll out, I was like that never. I was like, maybe that pole is anchored. Like a sharp paint chip that I could have like slit a jugular with. You have to touch everything there to try. I think we've already established you could win Squid Game.

I'm out in like game one, but you are. I don't think that I'm getting very far in Squid Game or Survivor as previously discussed. You have these instincts that I don't possess and I would just be like, that's a nice pole. And you're like, that's to shove you off a building win. It's a jousting lance. It's not a josting lance. It's a pole. It's a pole.

And I thought it was anchored. Like something to hold on to. Like they're trying to push me off. I hold onto this pole. Like probably I would have wrapped my body around the pole. Yeah. To try to like pulling me off. Yeah.

Yeah. And then you would have just been like, cool, the pole comes out. And I'm like, God damn it. And then I go over the side and we move on to the next platform. That's probably what happens. How are your limb? arranged. And like a real sort of like windmill pattern, I think.

Yeah. That's nice. And then the blood will seep out of my head and people will freeze frame and look really closely and they're like, is that a wolf? My favorite moment on the internet. That's a game. That's a game. Reference books.

You're the best. Oh, man. Great stuff. The number of us have your breakout outline. MS paint. dude see it's a wolf man clearly that was a good time in the fandom genuinely it was we had a time um with mungi and ghi and giehoun because as you noted ghiun is like i will be the eliminated player right and mungi is like you're trying to trick me i don't believe you

also what was up what's up with you you and Juni is something going on. It seems weird. He's jealous of that relationship.

Anakin, Obi-1. Exactly. He's jealous of the fact that she has entrusted Guy Hoon to nurture and protect and care for her baby

and she says to him, I don't even want to see you in our dreams. So again, I would like to be clear. None of this justifies what he does of the choices that he makes.

But, you know, to think about like the he has he has chosen to just his behavior to himself by saying, like, look at where this rejection has led me. And then the way that the greed aspect manifests of like, player 100, fight until the end. Got to say, he never quit.

Fighting to the end. He pitches, lunchbox again. Don't worry. Don't worry. A couple more players just died. We had some scraps. 203. Goodbye. Two of three. Stap. But we packed to lunchbox. We packed the lunchbox. He's still here. I just need 10. I will give you. 11.4. Here's another 1.4 billion. And then the look on Gihun's face when Myeongi said, 15.2 billion, though, if you're gone. And he's just like, okay, he literally says it, right? He's like, it can't be you. You can't win. It's the kind of level of greed that has driven this whole thing he's trying to tear down. But he's also like, I can't leave the baby with you. Right. And so like, I thought all of that was it. interesting, and I think is like it feels representative and reflective of what you were saying

earlier where like there's enough kind of potent stuff happening here that if we rework some of it and switch and change and tweak, there's something kind of like really scintillating happening here. Four more passes and I think we're there. Oh, man. The baby plays another key rule, which is that Noil, after everything that happens with her and there are various boat related plots happening all at once. Leave, we're back. Yes.

And then Noel versus the officer. Sure. Which I thought I felt like extremely flat because we just don't know nearly enough about their history together. Obviously, we know they have like that he brought her into the game, etc. But like the fact that he gets this big speech of like the reason I thought you were special and like I lost the person too. And like we just didn't have nearly enough investing. in that relationship in those characters. But, like, the baby, to your, would she save the baby?

The baby kind of saved her, right? She, like, when we have these parallels, obviously, with, like, her and... Her child. And, like, this, in different ways, obviously, like, regret and loss and this absence. And then this, like, reminder in another form of a different path forward. I was trying to figure out why the Noelle stuff did not work for me. And I think it's because... So, we start strong, I think,

with her at the beginning of season two, like watching her interact with player 246 kid. I will say my heart melted when she came back at the end. The kid. The kid is so cute. The kid is just gangbusters. I was like incredible kid. And the bunny again.

But I think the problem is that Noel had no other character to talk to about who she is and what she was feeling the whole season. And so without another person for her to, like, we're just not inside of her head. She's a stoic character. Again, stoicism is fine. But, like, I need Brian to have a pod. Like, I need that character to have someone that they can talk to. If she in 246 have been able to, like, have conversations outside of just the logistics of how do we get out of here.

Then I think it could have sunk deeper into, like, their connection or, you know, who she is as a person all. So instead, it's just like, I was like, I don't, I feel like she's going to save him. Whether or not she makes it out, I wasn't sure, but like she's going to save him. He's going to get back to his kid. His kid's going to be fine. So it just feels like this real drawn-out boat shenanigans to get us there. Yeah.

And I just, like, was deeply uninterested. Yeah. I'm sorry. On the telegraph room for so long. The archive room for a while. Why? I did think it was, it was when she saw the picture of her family. I was like, that was quite sad.

And then the fact that she has it, like, the burnt, the chart edges hanging in her car at the end. That was touching. But, yeah, to the point about, like, not that she is shut off and closed off. And obviously, that's intentional in the story design. But, like, it was interesting when the broker calls her at the, at the, in the finale with news of her daughter. She, like, doesn't even recognize the voice or who it is. It kind of reminded you of how long it had been without her interacting with other people other than, yeah, get go, keep going north through the fog. Like, very kind of.

of practical tactile. I thought on the officer front, first of all, I know obviously we're moving up to the frontman's floor and that's his, but we did briefly get to see the officer's quarters. They've done a nice job with some of the interior decorating here at Squid Game. And, you know, always a nice glass of whiskey available, which I appreciate. On the, there's a difference between characters making mistakes, which is interesting, and characters being dumb, which is. bad storytelling front. I'm sorry, but like the officer forgetting that the gun was in the elevator was nuts.

Nuts! It would be a thing that happened. He's like, you boasting, right? You're not going to make it. It's not about her making it. The machine gun is in there. She's going to kill you with it. All of us at home knew the gun was in the elevator.

Yeah, yeah. That was very strange. Speaking of boats, all the various boat plots, what else, if anything, we've already talked a little bit about June Ho and Inho and how that plot concluded. Is there anything we haven't hit there that you want to get to? No, I am glad that Junho made it. And I'm glad that he's got a bunch of money and a cute baby to raise. Like, that sounds like a great life for him.

And, you know, I'm excited for Choi and his hotel plans. I really liked when Choi was, like, briefly trying to convince him to try money lending. That was amazing. That was good. Like, I'm glad he made it. But I wish that he and his brother had had, like, a more meaningful, you know, confrontation at the end of everything. I don't mind that it was unresolved because I think the lack of closure in some ways can be effective.

But there's a difference between that being the placefully land. And like, I think without question, the second biggest driver of the entire three seasons of Squid game after Gihun's experience is Junho trying to figure out what's going on to the island. Junho is his second build on this show. And I don't care enough about him. And I wish I did. Like a 13 second exchange was just not, not enough. Not enough. So that was very strange.

I wonder, do you think he'll be spending any of that money on himself? Is he saving it all for player two, two, too, too? I think he's going to, like, he's going to keep working. Yeah. But he's going to make sure that they have like, like, they'll go on vacations together. He might use some of her money to like, let's go on a nice vacation. Right. And it's enriching for you.

I also get to. I'll be there, but we'll be there. But most of it in her, like, college fund and trust and all that sort of stuff like that. But like raise her in a nice sort of lifestyle, yeah. That sounds great. Do you believe, what's your head cannon here? Like, is he still searching for his brother? No, I think this allows him to let it go.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. What else on that front, however big or small, like, did you have a favorite? series long payoff. I like that we came back to Giehun's daughter

and like... Me too. Not just like she has the money now but her just being like fuck my dad. I thought that was really sad and in a very effective way.

Like she's like he we're watching him do this like incredibly brave heroic thing and she's like if he doesn't give a shit about me fuck him and that was sad. Yeah. But he was It tied really nicely back to that sterile conversation that you and I really liked, where he's like, you know, the most of rich you think of my life was watching her after she was born, grow up.

But we remember, you especially since you just had to be watched in season one, remember how we met him. Yeah. And what a fucking absolute dip shit he was. Yeah. He gave her a gun lighter for her birthday that he had to get a kid at the arcade to use the claw machine to get for him because he blew the money that he was. Because he blew the money that he was supposed to use to buy her a nice dinner. Not great. No. The money that he got from his mom to do that.

So I think that her being like, fuck him. You know, and like, yeah, she'll have his money. And maybe she'll be like, but she doesn't know why she's get the bloody jacket. Okay, here's my note for our beloved frontman in hoe. I thought, and I thought his, he has such an expressive face and, like, he's such a great performer as we've talked about. And, you know, like, obviously when we've covered, like, Mandalorian, you have a character in a mask, you're like, I think he's, like, so magnetic that even when he was wearing frontman's mask, you can, like, feel just the level of, like, emotion that he was on set. Exactly. Exactly.

That he is conveying just in, like, all of the scenes. He was such a highlight of the series. And the despair, you know, the tears in his eyes when he watches, Gihon, decide not to stab everybody in their sleep. The look in his eyes when he sees Cape Lanchett's American recruiter and he's like, we'll get to that more than a second, but he's like,

this is like, it almost doesn't matter where I am with it and what I think and what I feel. This is sprawling and uncontainable and like the rot has creeped into every corner. I do not think he should have handed a bloody jacket.

Without information. Without any information to Kiyun's daughter that feels like a bit of a mistake. I think him giving the money to her was lovely. If he gives the money, is like your father was hero actually or something like that.

But instead he's like, here's a bloody jacket that means nothing to you and a debit card. I, resoundingly, the feedback I've seen from people is like we wanted a frontman spin-off or we want a front-man origin story

or whatever it is. He's my favorite character by a mile. Yeah, they did a great job with him. I just wish he was pretty absent in the back, in this entire season, I would say, just frustratingly. So after we got to feast on his presence in season two, so. Even like just the logistics at the end and, you know, it was active, it was propulsive, but like the Coast Guard's on the way.

Like, we're on the clock. And he has to kind of move into like exit mode. And I sort of just wanted to, I would have been happy to sit there and just linger on the tears in his eyes. like, it's of maybe two seconds when he walks into Sky Squid game arena to go get the baby. And he looks down at Giehoun, like, I feel like that should have been like... Longer. Nine minutes of just him staring at him, right? No, Nuel had to be in the record room for that entire...

They needed that runtime for the record room fire, I guess. That's true. Let's talk briefly before we go about the Game Mancheck cameo. You've already mentioned the Fincher possibility, like, all of these rumors and whispers. We've talked about that a little bit. Anything else on this front that we haven't gotten to that you want to say either about this cameo and how it happened, what it might represent about the future of Squid Game or anything

else? So, like, naturally, when you see Cape Blanchett show up at the end of this. And once again, when I... You're like, the VIPs should be better actors. They can get anyone. It's funny. When I, once again, annoyingly, tweeted out about the VIPs, someone was like, well, maybe they blew their whole budget on that Academy Award-winning cameo.

And I actually had not finished the season yet. So I was like, okay, I can't wait to see what that is. Who's showing up? And I was like, wow, Kate Blanchett in a suit. She looks amazing. But like, and I thought it was she was really fun. But I don't know. It's kind of annoying because it's the creator said, like, no, this isn't part of a plan for a spinoff.

It is nothing to do with what Fincher has planned. There is no plan to do like a Kate Blanchett-centric things. So it was just like, I mean, yeah, sure. I would happily take it. But I was just like, so then it's just there to burn some, spend that money on the CGI baby, you know, is what I have to say. That's where I would put that. Hire some better. Hire C. Blanchett.

She had to play the baby? Hire C. Blancheet to play the baby in every single VIP. Just let them keep the mask on, but they're all C. Pallin. It's like that when she shows up in Hot Fuzz and she just keeps the mask on, but it's just but it's C. Blanchette. Oh, man. But, like, fun, but also felt like, you know, Charlie's their own showing up at the end of a Dr. Strange movie,

and you're just being like, I'm never going to see them again. Harry Styles, what are you doing here? I'll never see you again. So, yeah, I don't know. I feel it was fun and fine, but ultimately, like, not that additive, I guess, at the end of the day. How about you? Okay, here's, I loved it.

I was in. Yeah, like, but, you know, in part because it was, like, fun. it was bold. Ever since there was that moment in season one, when the VIPs arrive and they're like, I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the exact phrasing in front of me, which is actually probably pretty important for the point I'm about to make. But one of the VIPs is like, yeah, it's always fun,

but like there's nothing like seeing it in Korea. And I've always wondered was that meant to imply, seeing it in person versus watching it on my monitor, or was that meant to hint at the game here in Korea is better than exactly. The Paris Squid Games suck.

Yeah, exactly. Like, exactly. And so that's always, it's always been interesting to think about the idea of the global spread of Squid Game. And so just, I did really like that we got that kind of like, whether it's made to be a little,

yeah, exactly. Like, and then with Frontman, you have that moment where you're initially like, because he pulls up. or the car stops, actually, and then they make eye contact and she smiles. And it's like, oh, do they, is that a smile of recognition? Is he involved?

Or is it like what we were talking about earlier? Like, he's like, oh, fuck. Like, this is just, boy, there's no containing it. That was all sort of interesting to me. And then, you know, I think this is my version of doing the thing that we were critiquing Netflix for, like, that hour ago, which is immediately going into like, what should the game since squeak?

USB, but I kind of couldn't help it. You know, like, should the Squid Game U-Log next year? Exactly. Just have Cape Lynch and a suit sitting next to it. I think that's a great idea, and I should probably get on developing it immediately. Like, the holidays are still a few months away. What feel like these are the games that define the American childhood experience. They would absolutely be in the six games of season one of Squid Game.

There was a clear, I think there were like, obviously, like 50 candidates. I thought the number one was Capture the Flag. Capture Flag is really good and feels very American. Musical chairs. Musical chairs is a great one. Is a really good one. Duck, Dach Goose. Simon Says.

Yeah, Simon Says is on my list here. Red Rover. Red Rover, that's a good one. Ring around the rosy? My two favorites. I could. endlessly plays sardines. I love sardines. That would be a fun one. Yeah. Because like it's like you can't hide with, you know, like get out of here. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's just like a deadly

version of that. And then I also used to play like almost every weekend at my my best friend's house. There was like a pole and sort of like in the middle, not a pole you could remove and shove people off a cliff with, but like a pillar in the middle, the dead center of her dad's house. And A metal pole? No. This reminds me of the moment on the fantasy football show where Craig Horlebeck was talking about the handcuffs that his dad kept in the side table. And Hyfitz and D.K. We're like, why did your dad?

Carlos knows what I'm talking about as the producer of that podcast. This is not a stripper pole. This was just sort of like an architectural feature. It was like a sizable sort of. I bet. One could not. Anyway, all right. We play a version of hide-and-go-seek.

Okay. where you would hide and then someone was a seeker and the way his like house was set up, it was kind of like open. So like, but you're, you had to get to that pole. Okay. Before the seeker found you and tagged you. Okay.

You know what I mean? So it was like hide and go seek plus like a tag of some kind. That's great. I could play that endlessly. It was like her, her brother and me, it was three of us. And we could like play it endlessly. And then floor is lava. Flores lava is just like.

That would be. Absolutely. That will be in season one, probably. What about like hang man, you know? Oh. Going from drawing it to me in an actual game that feels. Oh, my God. Your teammate sort of just like hangs lower and lower on the noose as you...

Tough, tough stuff. Fuck up. Tough stuff. Or your opponent as you achieve. Yep. You can see how it would work. I don't know what the... I don't know what the equivalent of Squid game is as, like,

like the clear finale choice, the one that feels like the right game to build toward. But all of these feel like they could be games in U.S.S. Squid game or Squid game Cole in U.S. The flag is very quintessentially, feels quintentially American to me. Now, Hobbes and Drags to Gmail.com, if you're like, actually. Yeah. Caption of the flag was invented in the Czech Republic. It's entirely possible. Let me know.

Entirely possible. Yeah. Cape Lanchette, David Fincher, Flores Lava, who says no? I say yes. Her as the recruiter. Also, I just want to compliment her slap technique. It was great. She was just like a full body spin into the slap.

It was pretty phenomenal. She was rocking a fit and slapping the shit out of the person that she was recruiting into the game. It was a very effective couple minutes of television. Did you think of Five Hands, Rasky, rules when the Blue Circle 6 was all playing rugby processors together? No, but now I am and I love you. Oh, God. All right, any final thoughts on anything.

Any part of Squid Game of the VIPs are otherwise before we leave today. Oh, I had one more question for you. I'm just remembering. How present in your nightmares will the wax figurines question mark player one, the original host, B? I was like, freaky. I had to rewind that. I was like, what am I looking at? I was like, I had him more.

I was like, is he an android? Yeah, like, they like uploaded his consciousness into a robotic body. Like, what? Somehow. Oh, God. I was like, scary. What is that? Yeah, scary.

Okay, we did it. We sure did. We're done. I'll see you next week. After the holiday. Time you want to be. Time travel stuff of the last, since the year film and television.

Hobbit and Dragons at Gmail.com, if you have any thoughts about that. Fantastic. Got the 4K disc for Back to the Future. Did you already have it? Did you already have it? Or were you like, Adam, here's an excuse to buy the 4K back to the future? He doesn't need excuses, but he was like, I've been like tracking this one.

Excellent. And what day doesn't need to be here by? That's Adam. He's like, he's like, I just. he's obsessed as you, as you know. I loved getting to see the physical media collection. Adam's physical media collection was tremendous. I've never had the pleasure of seeing Sean Fantasies, but...

His is... Extensive, I'm sure. Ample. I'm sure. I'm sure. But I was just like, I was actually just mesmerized by the organization, like how your collection was organized. And also, like, I was looking at your Mission Impossible discs. And then Adam's like, oh, yeah, there's like a little terror.

in the bottom corner. This drives me crazy and I was like, I didn't even see that. I respect the attention to detail in this collection. Great stuff. Okay, keep me posted on the mead. Keep the bad babies posted on the mead. I will send you a photo. Keep you posted on my chicken tender intake. And we will be back together reunited on Tuesday. Thank you to our crew today, Carlos Chiroboga, who, listen, tomorrow is moving across the country, but is still here with us. us today. Carlos, the best.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. We'll be an L.A. is an Angelino soon. He's heading west to us. Incredible. What a thrill. Yeah.

John Richter. Arjuna Ramga Powell. Joe Mia Denneron. Killer crew, as always. Happy 4th of July to everyone. And we will see you next week for Back to the Future at 40 slash

Timey Why Me, best of the century so far. Inception at 15th. And then, before you know it, Superman, Superman. Bye. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th,

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