Yahoo Lifestyle Squid Game: Find Out When the Final Season Will Premiere, See First Photos
Squid Game will reach its (presumably bloody!) conclusion early this summer.
The South Korean survival thriller will release its third and final season on Friday, June 27, Netflix announced as part of its annual Next on Netflix event. The news comes barely a month after the hit series’ long-awaited second season dropped.
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Across nine episodes, Squid Game Season 1 (released in September 2021) followed Seong Gi-hun (played by Emmy winner Lee Jung-jae), a gambling-prone divorcé as he and 455 other downtrodden strangers were knocked out with gas and whisked away to a secret island complex, to compete in a series of children’s games all given decidedly deadly spins.
Ultimately emerging from the ordeal as the sole survivor/jackpot winner, Gi-hun found himself compelled to put an end to the game forever. In Season 2 (released Dec. 26), he tracked down the Recruiter who lured him into the game years prior, and eventually found himself back in the arena among a new batch of 456 players. This time, though, Gi-hun formed a plan to implode the game from within, building to a nail biter of a season-ending cliffhanger.
What will Season 3 look like, given how Season 2 ended? Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk told our sister site Variety, “the hidden clip after the ending credits roll after the last episode of Season 2 [offers] a slight hint as to where Season 3 might take you.”
Said footage showed three players (096, 100 and 353) walking beneath the “Red Light, Green Light” doll dubbed Young Hee, plus a peek at her equally creeeeeepy “boyfriend,” Cheo-lsu.
Meanwhile, a Season 3 scene shown to press at this week’s Next on Netflix event teased an upcoming game involving a giant gumball machine, from which the remaining players, many in blood-smeared tracksuits, either drew a red or blue ball. It was anybody’s guess, though, what the two teams created by the sequence will next have to do to survive!
Squid Game Season 1 was a massive hit for Netflix, emerging as the streamer’s most-watched series ever. Though there were rumblings about a renewal as early as two months after its debut, it would not be officially renewed until June 2022. Following that Season 2 renewal, it was later revealed that the series would end with a third and final season.
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Squid Game Season 1 racked up 14 total Emmy Award nominations. Among those nods, it was the first foreign language series to make the short list for Outstanding Drama.
Lee Jung-jae wound up winning an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Drama — the first actor in a non-English series to be crowned in that category — and series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk grabbed gold for best director for a drama. The show also scored Emmys for guest actress Lee Yoo-mi (as Sae-byeok’s friend Ji-Yeong), production design, stunt performance and visual effects.
Want scoop on Squid Game Season 3, or for any other TV show ? Shoot an email to InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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