SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from the “Squid Game” series finale, now streaming on Netflix.
Clocking in at under an hour in runtime, the “Squid Game” third and final season finale wallops the audience with several shocking moments before the smash-hit South Korean Netflix drama comes to its conclusion. And the biggest one happens just over 20 minutes in, when our protagonist Gi-hun/Player 456 (Lee Jung-jae) dies.
Following the first two rounds of Sky Squid Game that were played in Episode 5, the finale opens with three players left in the game: Gi-hun, Myung-gi/Player 333 (Yim Si-wan) and the baby strapped to Gi-hun’s chest. The newborn is the child of Jun-hee/Player 222 (Jo Yu-ri), who sacrificed herself earlier in the season and left her daughter in Gi-hun’s care, even though Myung-gi is her father.
And while Gi-hun is still intent on protecting the child until the end of the deadly game atop the three sky-high-pillar structures, Myung-gi crosses to the final of the three pillars and holds Gi-hun at pole length and threatens him to hand over the baby so that Myung-gi can leave Gi-hun to his death on the second pillar. Then Myung-gi can throw his own daughter off the final pillar to win the game.
Gi-hun reluctantly sets down the child and lets Myung-gi pick her up and bring her over to the third pillar. But at the last moment, as the path between the two structures is retracting, Gi-hun jumps over and begins to fight Myung-gi to the death with the knife he’s had in his possession, as the baby lies off to the side. Eventually, Myung-gi picks the baby back up and holds her over the edge, threatening to drop her if Gi-hun does not give up. Myung-gi eventually puts the baby down, and he and Gi-hun continue their fight with the knife until they both go over the edge together. Gi-hun manages to grab onto an exposed bar just in time, and holds Myung-gi by his clothing as long as he can, until the fabric rips and Myung-gi falls to his death.
Gi-hun climbs back up, seemingly victorious, until he realizes neither he or Myung-gi ever actually pressed the button to start the final round. That means Myung-gi’s death didn’t count toward the game, and now Gi-hun has to either kill himself or the baby for it to end. Gi-hun holds the child as he walks to the edge and stands there for a long time, staring into the two-way glass he knows In-ho/The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) is watching with the wealthy spectators of the games. Gi-hun eventually makes his decision, and with tears in his eyes, he puts down the baby and chooses to fall backwards to his death. His final words before the jump were, “We are not horses. We are humans. And humans are…” He does not finish the thought.
With Gi-hun’s sacrifice, the baby is declared the winner of the games, and In-ho — clearly inspired by the selfless choice that Gi-hun has made, and what he’s proven about the good in humanity — goes to collect the baby and bring her to safety. As he’s doing so, the rest of the members of the Squid Game facility are hurriedly packing up to leave as In-ho and the team have discovered the authorities are coming. When In-ho reaches the baby, his brother Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) — who has been leading the mission to find the island, and has spent several years trying to find his brother after discovering In-ho had been brought into the games — sees him from the control room. Jun-ho screams at In-ho, wanting to know why In-ho has become the Front Man, but In-ho just turns and exits with the baby.
There is then a time jump to six months later, and we see No-eul (Park Gyu-young) back at the amusement park where she worked before she was pulled in to become a guard in the games. She’s having her caricature done by Gyung-seok/Player 246 (Lee Jin-uk), who has no idea that this woman was the masked guard who broke him out of the games to reunite him with his daughter, who was sick with cancer. He thinks she looks familiar, but she waves it off as having worked here previously before giving a a lollipop to his young daughter, now recovered, and wishing them well as she goes.
No-eul is informed that her daughter, who she was convinced was dead back in North Korea, has seemingly been spotted in China, and she moves to leave quickly in hopes of finding her. While No-eul is checking in at the airport, we see Kang Cheol — the little brother of Kang Sae-byeok (HoYeon Jung), Gi-hun’s good friend and fellow player in Season 1 — reunited with his mother, who had been stuck in North Korea.
Woo-seok (Jun Suk-ho) is bailed out of jail by Jun-ho, and the two wonder about what happened to all the prize money that Gi-hun had hoarded after his first games, as it had disappeared by the time Jun-ho went to look for it over the past few months. When Jun-ho arrives home later, he finds the baby that In-ho had been holding has been left for him, along with a bank card loaded with Player 222’s winnings: 45.6 billion in won.
In the final scenes of the finale, In-ho goes to Los Angeles to deliver a package to Gi-hun’s daughter, Seong Ga-yeong. He tells her that her father is dead, and he has left these belongings to her. Though she is furious with her father for not having come to the U.S. to see her, she accepts the package. She opens the box to find it contains his 456 uniform, along with a bank card that is implied to be loaded with Gi-hun’s winnings from the first game — meaning, In-ho was the one who took them from Gi-hun’s room after his death. In-ho leaves, and is riding in a car with a driver in downtown Los Angeles with the window down when he notices two people playing a familiar game of ddakji with a slapping twist in an alley.
One is a homeless man, the other a woman dressed in a fine suit (played by Cate Blanchett) who looks like the Recruiter from In-ho’s Squid Games. They make eye contact and acknowledge each other before In-ho rolls up the window and the car continues on, as the woman goes for another round with the eager man.
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