I'm sure the whole squid game thing won't come up in the plot at all...
The pilot episode centers around the Nicolas Cage version of a Korean character actor having ridiculous outbursts in public and barely giving a shit about his daughter but randomly later in the same episode is very caring towards her. It's sort of feels like the beginning of the first hunger games novel where they go out of their way to emphasize just how poor the main character is and how desperate they are.
As far as getting me invested in the characters and the story, this opening fails for me. Once you've seen the rest of the show it works quite well, but for the first time viewer you're probably wondering what the f*** this has to do with anything else. It felt At first like they were trying to establish the fact that he was an asshole, so it's a strange flip when his daughter shows up and he suddenly starts giving a shit. He's one strange and bumbling dude who isn't very likable whatsoever.
Despite my feelings about the opening, it does have a few extremely jarring scenes of tension that slap you into remembering this is definite horror. Not only that, the ridiculous performance from the main actor leads you to a few great scenes of accidental comedy that are fun as hell. And lucky for me, the real-world plot of this movie quickly doesn't matter as we are drugged and wake up in one of the best settings in horror history.
If you were like me, you were probably debating turning this off in the first 20 minutes, and I'm here to tell you that you have to wait until the 31-minute mark before this show gets really interesting. But to its credit, once it gets interesting it stays interesting. The setting was dropped into is instantly is treating as hell, and every small detail of the environment instantly becomes a mystery.
The production design reminds me of a mixture of Portal's aperture science and Beyond the Black Rainbow. We've seen quite a few massive settings for these types of narratives, but this one feels unique and is fun as hell to watch characters explore its seemingly endless incredible settings.
------------------------------------------------------
So I just wrapped up squid games on Netflix and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. When I first started watching the show, I thought it would be a show about the games. After the first few episodes, I thought this would be a show about why the games are taking place. I assumed the ending explanation of it all would be something I haven't seen before, and that simply wasn't the case. Instead of doing something new with the format, it seems they just put a Korean spin on an old classic.
It's still a very enjoyable show with some great characters and games, but the simplicity of this shows conclusion is somehow not sitting right with me. Perhaps it's the 1-year jump in time, the unessacry twist ending, and the semi cliffhanger this show leaves you with. Perhaps my biggest issue with the ending has a hole is it very intentionally leaves room for a season 2, Even though the first season is a perfectly fine well-contained story in its own right.
I really don't think this show needs a season 2, but if it ends up getting one I'll sure as shit be talking about it.
Until then, try and avoid playing kids games with strangers on the subway for money.
9 harvested organs/10
Comments