Squid Game's Final Challenge Is a Brutal Set Piece Fueled by Toxic Masculinity

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Squid Game Season 3. Read at your own risk!]

Eight tuxedo-clad contestants enter the final Squid Game arena, a cavernous hall containing three towering pillars. To move between the pillars and reach the prize money on the other side, the players must push at least three of their opponents to their deaths. Spicing up the dramatic tension, they're also given the option of killing a newborn baby, who recently took the place of her deceased mother, Player 222/Kim Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri).

For most of these men, Baby 222 is an easy choice for elimination: a victim who can't fight back. Our hero, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), is the one thing standing in their way, tying into the season's defining question of whether he can survive the games without betraying his moral principles. Leading into the finale, he's left with only two decent options: either kill himself to save the baby, or murder the baby's father and survive. But before that final act unfolds, Episode 5 gives us the most compelling set piece of an otherwise patchy season, as the eight players frantically negotiate over who will have to die.

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Aside from Seong Gi-hun, these finalists represent a cynical cross-section of who thrives within the brutal ecosystem of the games: ruthless, violent, selfish men. Some are cowards, excusing their actions with pleading statements about fairness and "deserving" to win. Others are simply remorseless killers. They've all repeatedly voted to stay in the games, convinced of their own ability to come out on top. Led by a greedy old businessman (Player 100, played by Song Young-chang), and a distasteful thug (Player 203, played by Choi Gwi-hwa), they descend into macho posturing while pressuring other contestants to do their dirty work.

When presented with an order to murder three people, this gaggle of wannabe alpha males quickly agree on the obvious targets: Seong Gi-hun, Baby 222, and Player 125 (Lee David), a nervous young man in the midst of a drug-induced breakdown. In theory this should be a straightforward win for the show's villainous coalition, but their plan doesn't survive contact with the enemy. Gi-hun is a canny competitor, and since his adversaries are a bunch of untrustworthy assholes, it's not hard to sow discord among their ranks. He also receives some unexpected help from a man on the inside, the smooth-talking cryptocurrency influencer Player 333/Lee Myung-gi (Im Si-wan), who is secretly the baby's biological father. 

Drenched in flop-sweat, the six bad guys agree to vote on who to eliminate first, complimenting each other on their ability to make a democratic decision. Hoping for safety in numbers, they rationalize their plan to kill the baby.

"Frankly, Player 222 was already eliminated once," argues one man, claiming that it's unfair for the baby to usurp her mother's place in the game. Another suggests that "the game and the voting process will be fairer for everyone" once the baby is dead.

This farce of the democratic process — which predictably descends into physical violence — continues a longstanding Squid Game trend, where the more amoral and overconfident contestants repeatedly win the vote to stay in the games. Characters like Player 100 love to reference democracy as a shield for their ugliest decisions, promoting an illusion of fairness in an intrinsically predatory system.

As we approach the final round, another long-running theme comes to the fore. Focusing on an all-male lineup of survivors, Episode 5 ramps up the male-dominated atmosphere of the past two seasons — a quality that sometimes felt like a narrative blindspot, even as it highlighted the way gender roles and toxic masculinity affect the dynamics of the game.

Both inside the games and out, male characters shape the story. Gi-hun and the sinister Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) play cat-and-mouse as the pivotal hero and villain, while police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) searches for the games' island HQ, accompanied by an all-male supporting cast of mercenaries.

Meanwhile, among the dwindling pool of contestants, a subtle gender divide begins to emerge, with aggressive men dominating the faction that wants to continue the games. On the opposing side, three sympathetic women form an underdog alliance: the pregnant Jun-hee, the elderly mother 149 (Kang Ae-shim), and the transgender military veteran 120 (Park Sung-hoon). Partially defined by their status as women, they risk their lives to protect each other, ultimately dying so Baby 222 can live. By contrast, the child's father, Lee Myung-gi, fails to help his ex-girlfriend in any meaningful way, watching from the sidelines as Seong Gi-hun steps up as a responsible guardian. 

Even once Myung-gi decides to prioritize his child in the last challenge, there's a philosophical gulf between these two men. Offered the chance to quietly assassinate the other finalists and enjoy a smooth path to victory, Gi-hun turns it down, refusing to descend to the Front Man's level. Myung-gi has no such compunctions. During an earlier round, he quickly acclimatized to the act of murder, and by the final game he's a more efficient killer than the obnoxious but gutless 100 and 203. In the end, he's the one who pushes Player 125 off the precipice, setting the scene for a bloodbath that leaves him and Gi-hun as the last two standing.

The great tragedy of the finale is that if Gi-hun and Myung-gi could figure out a way to trust each other, they might have found a peaceful solution — most likely with Gi-hun sacrificing himself so Myung-gi could leave the arena with his daughter. But after killing multiple people and displaying no evidence of nurturing instincts, Myung-gi hasn't given Gi-hun any reason to trust him. Meanwhile, Myung-gi literally can't comprehend the possibility of Gi-hun dying to protect a baby that isn't his. Flying into a rage, he starts making absurd accusations about Gi-hun having a secret affair with Jun-hee, threatening to kill all three of them unless Gi-hun hands over the child.

This conflict leads to a bleak conclusion. After provoking Gi-hun into a fight, Myung-gi falls to his death, creating a horrifying but predictable dilemma for Gi-hun. One person must die so the other can win, so he chooses to kill himself, leaving Baby 222 as an extremely wealthy orphan.

Back in Season 1, Gi-hun entered the games as a deadbeat dad with no particular skills or moral backbone. His journey to victory was a transformational experience, radicalizing him against the very system that made him rich. The events of Season 2 then forced him to realize that he has no hope of destroying the system from within, and as the games draw to a close, he only has one way left to rebel. He must stand by his principles and refuse to play into the Front Man's mind games, even if that means death. 

Gi-hun's final opponents evidently haven't gone through the same transformation. After witnessing (and participating in) the deaths of 448 other contestants, Episode 5's villains still buy into the system, perceiving themselves as natural winners. Their instinct is to close ranks with like-minded bullies and victimize the most vulnerable people around them: a strategy they probably followed in the outside world as well.

Of course, they still end up losing. Ruthlessness got them to the final round, but it also leads to their downfall, as their alliance self-destructs and leaves Gi-hun and Myung-gi to decide the eventual winner. Baby 222's survival is a brief respite from an otherwise dark and cynical ending, reinforcing the same message that Squid Game has been repeating since day 1. Encouraging players to embrace their worst impulses, the games are designed to exploit and destroy the people inside — and in the end, no one can really win. 

The third and final season of Squid Game is now streaming on Netflix.