Note: This story contains spoilers from “Squid Game” Season 3, Episode 5.
From the first episode of “Squid Game,” series star Lee Byung-hun has been impressed by the originality of director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s thriller. But even though he’s knows to expect the unexpected, Lee was still shocked by the Netflix drama’s series finale.
“Usually when you read through a script, by the time you get to the last episode, you kind of know how it’s going to end. But when I read it in ‘Squid Game,’ I was shocked. I was surprised to read an ending that I think no one out there probably could expect or predict,” Lee told TheWrap. “I am personally happy with how it ended. On the other hand, I feel like it’s so nuanced that it almost feels like it’s also a beginning.”
What that potential beginning may be remains to be seen. Season 3 is officially the final season of Hwang’s globally beloved thriller. Lee admitted he’s joked with Hwang about making a Season 4. While that’s unlikely, the pair have more seriously talked about telling other stories in the “Squid Game” universe.
“In interviews, and also when it’s just us, he would talk about possibly telling these stories. He is quite open to stories about the Front Man, the recruiter and then the masked guards and how he thinks that those are stories are worth telling,” Lee said. “So like I said at [‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’], nothing is decided or concrete. But I think director Hwang is leaning more towards positive.”
When it comes to “Squid Game,” nearly every part of this Netflix original is tense and upsetting. But one of the most charged scenes in the entire series happens in Season 3 between Lee’s Front Man and Lee Jung-jae’s Gi-hun.
After Gi-hun reentered the Squid Game in Season 2, he quickly befriended Hwang In-ho, a man who was allegedly competing to win money to pay off his wife’s medical debt. The two became very close, with In-ho being accepted into Gi-hun’s inner circle. Gi-hun even trusts In-ho enough to tell him about his plan to overthrow the guards. When In-ho disappears in the midst of the fighting, Gi-hun assumes that he was just another player who was killed in the crossfire. But in Episode 5, In-ho reveals that he was the Front Man all along, the man leading the entire Squid Game who murdered Gi-hun’s best friend to teach him a lesson.
After brushing off Gi-hun’s rage, In-ho offers his former ally a new game when they reunite in Season, Episode 5. He gives Gi-hun a knife and tells him that if he murders all of the remaining players in their sleep, he and the baby can escape with their lives. Unbeknownst to Gi-hun, it’s the same challenge that was presented to In-ho when he competed in the Squid Game years ago.
“That action has a lot of different meanings. Firstly, because he sees himself reflected in Gi-hun, he has a certain attachment or affection for Gi-hun, and, in that sense, he wanted to give Gi-hun a chance. But even more importantly than that, he, as the Front Man, saw Gi-hun struggle to continue to hold onto his hope and his noble beliefs. I think there was this part of him that felt envy toward Gi-hun because he wasn’t able to do that, even though they went through the similar circumstances,” Lee explained. “I think a part of him wanted Gi-hun to continue to hold onto his beliefs so that [In-ho] might start to believe that there may be hope in the world again.
“It’s very layered. There are a lot of complex emotions in that scene, which is why, as an actor, I was really looking forward to shooting that scene. I had a lot of fun with it,” Lee added.
By competing in the games together and facing the same challenge, Lee sees the relationship between these two men as more intertwined and complicated than ever before. “I believe that Gi-hun influenced the Front Man, and the Front Man influenced Gi-hun too. What I wanted to portray through his character development was that I wanted Front Man to almost seem like something inside him sparked, maybe the last sliver of humanity that was somehow hidden deep inside him. Something about [Gi-hun’s refusal to kill] shook him up,” Lee said. “After the series is over, I wanted the audience to think maybe the Front Man will now live on with a new or different set of values.”
“Squid Game” is now streaming on Netflix.
