Squid Game “A Fair World”

All this time with the players, it might be helpful to learn more about the people behind the scenes.

I don’t think this episode revealed a whole hell of a lot, but there is a twisted philosophy behind the whole thing.

So, the main character players manage to win their Tug o’War game thanks to some strategy and quick thinking.  They even manage to keep themselves alive overnight with some more planning.  About the only thing I know for certain is Gi-hun is a lot more humane than most of the rest, the only one who treats the Old Man as an equal, and the one who manages to plant a little bit of doubt in Deok-su’s head by pointing out that, as the strongest member of a team of criminal types, wouldn’t he be the first target for them to take out overnight?

Most of what happens with the contestants is some high quality character work, showing how Gi-hun got there in the first place, and the Old Man seeming to remember an awful lot.

But then there’s Jun-ho, the undercover cop who isn’t really undercover.  Well, not authorized anyway.  He got a firsthand look at the organ harvesting thing, and it turned out the man he replaced was part of it.  It also turns out that the people running a black market organ harvesting scheme are maybe not the most trustworthy of souls.  With their doctor contestant and a few guards going at it, it was perhaps only a matter of time before they got caught by the Front Man.  Sure, Jun-ho is probably at fault because he clearly doesn’t know the things he’s supposed to know, but really, how were they not going to get caught?

Now, Jun-ho does learn a thing or two, mostly about how there are records for all the contestants going back years.  Or even decades.  Is his brother in there?  Yeah.

But as for the other members of the organ ring, well, they all die.  See, the Front Man knows about them (obviously).  And he has this idea.

See, the game is about being fair.  What happened to the dead wasn’t really an issue.  But giving a contestant a leg up?  No, that wasn’t fair.  It’s about giving everyone in the game one last, completely fair way…that is also lethal for about half of the contestants in any given game.  You can’t get ahead by cheating, even in a system made up of seemingly arbitrary rules set by the powerful for their own amusement.

Hey, wait a second…that sounds a wee bit wrong somehow…