How Did Squid Game End? Brutal Game Play Twists Set The Stage For A Highly Unusual Season-Finale Showdown

The following contains spoilers from the series finale — aka Season 3, Episode 6 — of Squid Game, now streaming on Netflix.

To the very end, Netflix's Squid Game had some surprising — and at-times stomach-churning — game play twists up its sleeve.

Courtesy of Netflix

The six-episode Season 3 opened with the players who had survived (or not taken part in) the Season 2-ending shootout with the guards taking turns pulling large "gumballs" from a machine. Whether they got red or blue determined which team they were on for a game of Hide and Seek — key-holding hiders, or dagger-equipped seekers.

The high drama in Hide and Seek, which took place in a day-glo maze of hallways and rooms, involved 1) Myung-gi/Player 333 unwittingly-ish killing Hyun-ju/Player 120, who had been so diligently safeguarding his baby mama Jun-hee/Player 222, and then 2) Geum-ja/Player 149 having to kill her own son Yong-sik/Player 007 when he, rather desperately, set out to kill new mom Jun-hee in order to gain access to the maze's exit.

JUMP ROPE

The next challenge was a supersized version of Jump Rope, with a towering Young-hee doll and her male friend Chul-su holding a 50-foot cable that continuously looped above a high, narrow bridge. Nam-guy/Player 124 was first to try to dart across, but, addled by drug withdrawal — Min-su/Player 125 had stolen his remaining stash — he got knocked off the bridge, to his death.

Gi-hun/Player 456, having made a promise to protect Jun-hee's newborn while she nursed a very busted ankle, made his way across the bridge while clutching onto the tot. Player 096 was next to cross, but the twist there was that once on the other side, he plotted to keep any others from competing the trip!

Gi-hun set the baby down and turned the tables on 096 by threatening to push him off. An eye-gouging brawl ensued, and 096 wound up falling to his death. Alas, though Gi-hun had hoped to race back across and help the hobbled Jun-hee also make it to the next round, she preemptively stepped off the ledge to her death, knowing Gi-hun would protect her baby.

OH, BABY!

With the VIPs — or VBAs, Very Bad Actors — now on hand to witness the finale, it was decided that Jun-hee's baby would take the mantle of Player 222 (!) and thus potentially share in any winnings. This got most everyone in the dorm who wasn't Gi-hun plotting to eliminate the tot (!!!), in one of the series' most disturbing sequences ever.

After the remaining, tuxedoed players partook in their lavish last supper, the Front Man summoned Gi-hun to his chambers and offered him a knife, with which to quietly kill those who aimed to off wee 222. A flashback showed that In-ho back in the day was made, and obliged himself of, the same offer, but in the middle of that night, Gi-hun couldn't bring himself to slit a single throat.

As such, Gi-hun, the baby/Player 222, Myung-gi/Player 333, Min-su/Player 125, Jeong-dae/Player 100 and three other, suddenly emergent and big-mouthed finalists entered the last challenge, where it was known that at least three players would be "chosen" to die....

SKY SQUID GAME

The bulk of Episode 5, titled "△○□," and the first half of the series finale, "Humans Are...," covered the final challenge, Sky Squid Game.

The eight remaining players (the baby included) traveled by elevator to the top of a tall, stone pillar with square surface. Adjacent to it were triangle- and circle-shaped pillars. The challenge was to, within a finite amount of time, knock at least one player to their death, before a bridge would appear to allow access to the next stage. As long as at least one player was eliminated each round, the last players standing would share the jackpot.

Min-su/Player 125 was going through his own withdrawal by now, having finished off Nam-guy/Player 124's supply, so after being spooked by visions of both Thanos (Thanos!) and Nam-guy, he proved to be an easy first elimination.

Atop the next, triangle pillar, Player 100 and his cronies aimed to take wrest the baby away from Gi-hun — though each was wary of getting close/pulled over if he fell to his death. They thus fashioned their tux jackets into a "rope" to tether Player 336, who'd lost a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, as he confronted Gi-hun. When 336 lunged at 456, Gi-hun pulled out the blade that the Front Man had slipped him, and slashed the rope of jackets.

A melee ensued, with Myung-gi suddenly allying with Gi-hun — while announcing that he is the baby's father! Player 100 and his cronies wound up stabbed or lobbed to their deaths, leaving only Gi-hun, the baby, Myung-gi, and a battered/bruised Player 039 alive to enter the final round.

Or so we wanted to think....

Gi-hun and Myung-gi watched in horror as their fellow survivor, Player 039, decided that he would be nobody's "lunch box" to be dragged across the bridge and easily slain in the final round. Instead, the battered and bloodied man pitched himself over the edge of the triangle-shaped pillar.

That meant that in the final battle atop the round pillar, either Gi-hun or Myung-gi — or the baby! — would have to die before a winner could be crowned.

As the bridge to the third pillar extended, Myung-gi quickly came up with a shocking solution, demanding that Gi-hun leave the baby on the bridge... and then stay behind. That'd leave Myung-gi to sacrifice his own baby daughter (WTF?!) and claim the 45.6 billion Won jackpot for himself.

Gi-hun of course all he could do to avert such a ghastly outcome, even offering to sacrifice himself in the final round if Myung-gi let both him and the baby cross. But an increasingly paranoid Myung-gi suspected a double-cross — even more so once he learned that Gi-hun had "promised" to protect Jun-hee's baby at all costs. ("Did something happen between you two?!" he theorized aloud. "No wonder she was always hovering around you. I knew it was weird from the start!")

With the bridge set to "break" after five minutes, Gi-hun eventually agreed to set down the baby, for Myung-gi to carry over to the third pillar. But after Myung-gi turned his back, and just as the bridge started to retract, Gi-hun grabbed out of a slain player's back the knife that the Front Man had slipped him... darted onto the shrinking bridge and leaped across the gap... and joined Myung-gi atop the round column, for a final skirmish.

Myung-gi set down the baby and wielded the third platform's pole, while Gi-gun waved around his dagger. Myung-gi at point dangled the swaddled newborn over the edge of the pillar, forcing Gi-hun to lay down his weapon. Myung-gi set down the baby again and the men charged at each other, ultimately both toppling over the platform's edge!

Thank God for handy exposed rebar. Because Gi-hun had grabbed hold a piece, with Myung-gi down below clutching onto the jacket in his other hand. The fabric slowly gave away, though, and Myung-gi fell to his death.

Just as the VBAs started marveling at 456 winning his second tourney, it dawned upon Gi-hun that the floor-based button that needed to be pressed to officially start the round had never been activated! Meaning, Myung-gi's death would not count toward the final round. Gi-hun then tapped the button... swaddled Jun-hee's baby anew it his tracksuit jacket (yet placed it too close to the edge for MY liking!)... walked to the edge... and. his back to the chasm, leaned backward to his own death.

The Front Man eventually arrived at the third platform to collect the winner, aka Player 222's baby, as his arriving brother, Jun-ho, watched from an observation deck. Soon after, the compound began being exploded by a self-destruct sequence set off by the arrival of the Coast Guard, which had been tipped by Jun-ho & Co.

We then got a six-month time jump and a 26-minute coda, detailed here.