Spoiler warnings for the first two seasons of “Squid Game.”
The third season of “Squid Game” is set to be released this year on Friday, June 27. As a sequel to the second season, which was released last year on Thursday, Dec. 26, fans still have three months to wait before they discover the fates of the remaining characters who survived.
The show centers on Gi-hun who — just like the other 455 players in the game — was living in debt and needed a way to earn money for various reasons, such as medical bills, supporting their families or paying off dangerous loan sharks.
Gi-hun particularly needed money for his mother’s medical treatment, as she was suffering from diabetes, and to regain custody of his daughter, who was set to move to the United States with her mother and stepfather.
In a desperate attempt to earn money, Gi-hun eventually made a choice that ultimately led him down a dark pit, sealing his fate with no escape.
Gi-hun, along with 455 others, entered a secret competition, believing they would earn a large sum of money — ₩45.6 billion (approximately $30.9 million USD) — simply by participating in a high-stakes game. However, their assumption quickly crumbled when they discovered that losing a game meant losing their life.
Ultimately, at the end of the first season, Gi-hun was the last player remaining and won the cash prize. In doing so, he had to kill his childhood best friend, Sang-woo. Despite amassing enough wealth to help his mother, he later discovered that she had already died.
In the second season, Gi-hun joined the games again — but not to win the cash prize. This time, he wanted to put an end to the games permanently, a decision that would ultimately be his greatest mistake.
Gi-hun’s plan was to wait for the guards to retrieve the dead players after a game ended. Alongside his team of rebels, he planned to steal the guards’ guns and kill them all.
Unbeknownst to Gi-hun, his plan had many flaws: ammunition was scarce, his team was small, one member was unable to use a gun due to post-war trauma and one of his supposed allies, In-ho, was actually the main villain: the Front Man.
In the end, Gi-hun and his team surrendered, and his friend Jeong Bae was killed at the end of the second season.
My prediction for how the third season goes is that Geum-ja, the mother of Dong-geun, will die in one of the upcoming games while trying to save her son. Upon her death, Dong-geun will take his own life in despair. Similarly, Myung-gi, the ex-boyfriend of Jun-hee — who is pregnant — will sacrifice his life to save her out of guilt for abandoning her during her pregnancy.
In one game, Min-su, driven by revenge, will sacrifice his life to kill Nam-gyu, who murdered Se Mi in the last season. Dae-ho will suffer post-war traumatic flashbacks and may die as Hyun-ju attempts to bring him back to consciousness. Seon-nyeo, the shaman, as well as Jeong-dae, the old man, will both die in the games.
After realizing that Captain Park is deceiving him and preventing him from reaching the island where the games take place, Jun-ho — the brother of the Front Man — will kill him, find the island and persuade his brother to abandon it, ultimately stopping the games. With the help of No-eul, one of the guards, the remaining players will escape the island safely, leading to a happy ending.
Sadly, however, I can only imagine this scenario in my head, and I won’t know if this is how the story unfolds.
