In the Squid Game Season 3 premiere, shaman Seon-nyeo (Chae Kuk-hee) predicts that none of her fellow players will escape the competition alive. In Season 3, Episode 6 — the series finale — it seems like Seon-nyeo really may have seen the future. None of the original Squid Game competitors manage to survive the soul-crushing, life-taking contest — including the series’ noble hero, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), who sacrifices himself for the greater good. Instead, the winner of Squid Game is Jun-hee’s (Jo Yuri) baby, who is born in Episode 2. 

Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk intended the twist to inspire hope. “Ultimately, the baby represents the future generation,” he tells Tudum.

“I believe we also have the responsibility and duty to try everything that we can in our power to leave a better world for the future generation,” he continues. “The baby coming out [as] the winner was in line with the meaning of Squid Game.” 

While the outcome of the ultimate challenge, Sky Squid Game, is loaded with meaning, the victory is not an easy one. In the final round of gameplay alone, alliances shift like swirling water as players attempt to score the grand prize of 4.56 billion won. So how did Squid Game Season 3 wind up with its newborn champion? Why did Gi-hun make the ultimate sacrifice? And what happened to the rest of the series’ heroes and villains? Well, stay in the game, as Hwang and the cast give answers to all your Squid Game burning questions — including what happened during the Front Man’s (Lee Byung-hun) trip to Los Angeles … and that shocking final scene.  

Who wins Squid Game?

Player 222, aka Jun-hee’s baby, wins Squid Game after a harrowing final round. The last game of the series is Sky Squid Game, which requires players to move across three separate towers, one shaped like a square, one like a triangle, and one like a circle. On each tower, players must push at least one participant off the structure; for the deaths to count on the second and third tower, a player must press a button on the ground to officially start the round. Any deaths that occur outside an official round do not count. 

The complicated rules of Sky Squid Game are what eventually lead to the baby’s win. Throughout the game, Gi-hun protects the infant as several other players — including her father Myung-gi (Yim Si-wan) — attempt to kill her. “If I were to characterize Myung-gi’s ultimate goal, it would be ‘take as much money as he can,’ ” Yim tells Tudum. “He’s asking for too much, and that is because of his greed.” 

Gi-hun manages to shield the baby from the violence for the first two parts of the round. But the already dangerous situation escalates on the third tower, when Gi-hun, Myung-gi, and the baby are the only ones left. Gi-hun and Myung-gi immediately get into a brawl, which turns into a visceral knife fight. Myung-gi wants to eliminate the baby, and take the prize for himself, but Gi-hun will stop at nothing to foil Myung-gi and protect the baby. Eventually both men tumble off the third tower. Gi-hun keeps them alive by holding onto the tower’s edge with one hand and a jacket connected to Myung-gi with the other. The jacket rips, and Myung-gi falls to his death. 

But amid all the tension, no one remembered to press the button to start the round, so Myung-gi’s death doesn’t count. It’s all down to Gi-hun and the baby. 

Gi-hun has three options. He can press the button and kill the baby, making him a two-time Squid Game winner with even more extreme survivor’s remorse. He could do nothing, and condemn both himself and the baby through his inaction. Or he could press the button, thus ending his own life, and allowing the baby to live — and win. He chooses the third option. In his final moments, Gi-hun gives an impassioned speech to Front Man — and the onlooking VIPs.  He reminds them that the players are not “horses,” they’re humans. 

For Lee Jung-jae, Gi-hun’s sacrifice made perfect sense. Squid Game’s protagonist is a father who entered the game estranged from his child, and, the actor says, “It is almost like Gi-hun’s looking at his own daughter.” 

Director Hwang explains the baby also represents Player 456’s rediscovery of his “humanity and conscience.” During production, the creator started to think differently about his own life and consider what kind of person he wanted to be — a pessimist or an optimist.  “I eventually came to believe that, no matter how hopeless and dark the world may seem, perhaps we still have a chance if we can find even a glimpse of hope within ourselves,” he says. 

“Rather than seeking something from or in others, I hope we can reflect on our own values and whether we have faith in ourselves, so we can build on the good within us,” he continues. “That’s the takeaway I hope viewers will have after watching Season 3.” 

PHOTO BY NO JU-HAN

What happens to Myung-gi (Player 333)? 

While Gi-hun embodies the values Hwang hopes viewers carry from Squid Game, Myung-gi reflects society’s ills. 

“He tries to look the other way, prioritizing his own interests, immediate financial gain, and greed. He seeks his own interests even at the expense of the baby,” Hwang says. “Myung-gi represents all of us. We constantly talk about passing on to our future generations, how the planet is at its limit, or how the national pension system will soon [run] dry. But when it comes down to it, no one wants to pay more into the pension fund, we aren’t really living carbon-neutral lives, and we still produce just as much waste — all for our own convenience and self-interest.”

For the creator, Myung-gi’s desperation to kill a baby — his baby — simply for his financial gain is the embodiment of all the ways people prioritize their comfort over the well-being of generations to come. 

Are the VIPs in Squid Game Season 3? 

It’s a good thing the VIPs are back, because without their interference, Jun-hee’s baby would not be the winner of Squid Game. The high-roller spectators return in Season 3, Episode 3, and one of them explains that after having imbibed a little bit too much, he accidentally bet on Jun-hee, aka Player 222, to win. At this point in Season 3, Jun-hee is alive, but she’s in a delicate state, thanks to being post-partum and contending with a severely injured ankle. After Jun-hee dies, another VIP, hungry for more drama and even higher stakes, suggests her baby should be forced to play. The Front Man obliges, and Player 222 lives on in the form of a newly motherless infant. 

PHOTO BY NO JU-HAN

How does Jun-hee (Player 222) die? 

Jun-hee gives up everything for the good of her baby. By the time she gives birth during Hide and Seek, she has fallen down a set of stairs and seriously hurt her ankle. The new mom is in no shape to compete in the following game, Jump Rope. 

Instead, Jun-hee asks Gi-hun to protect her baby by taking the infant across the treacherous walkway. “Jun-hee trusts that Gi-hun would proceed with human dignity,” Jo Yu-ri says. Gi-hun succeeds, but doesn’t want to stop there. Once everyone else is across the walkway, Gi-hun intends to return to the starting line to retrieve Jun-hee. She knows such heroics aren’t possible in the time remaining, and that her baby will die if Gi-hun gets stuck on the wrong side of Jump Rope. Should both Jun-hee and Gi-hun be eliminated, the remaining players will use the opportunity to kill the newborn. To prevent Gi-hun from coming to her and this awful fate from ever coming to pass, Jun-hee steps off the platform and falls to her death. 

“I hope that when viewers see Jun-hee that they realize that a mother’s love is so strong and powerful and indestructible,” the actor tells Tudum. 

Hwang found inspiration for the story of Jun-hee and her baby from Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 dystopian drama Children of Men. “In the film, the child symbolizes the future of humanity,” he says. “I wanted to explore humanity’s last hope through Jun-hee’s baby and Gi-hun, who tries to protect the baby at all costs.” 

Although Jun-hee dies wearing the Player 222 track suit, her baby continues her legacy — and wins the game wearing her mom’s number.  

Inside Look: Squid Game Season 3

What does Gi-hun and Front Man’s meeting mean? 

At the end of Episode 4, Gi-hun is summoned to Front Man’s office. There, the game’s host removes his mask — literally and figuratively — and reveals he’s the man Gi-hun knows as his fellow player Young-il. Until this moment, Gi-hun had assumed Front Man was to blame for the Season 2 deaths of his best friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) and his new ally Young-il. Lee jung-jae says his character felt “explosive emotions” during the encounter. 

“Gi-hun trusted Young-il so much. He thought that Young-il was one of the only people he could depend on within the game,” he says. In fact, Gi-hun felt closer to Young-il than to his longtime pal Jung-bae in certain ways, the actor explains. “Especially because Gi-hun had heard Young-il’s backstory and what led him to the games,” he continues. “To have that all completely shattered? Gi-hun starts questioning himself. ‘Has Front Man been mocking me all along? Does he only see myself and all other players as horses in a game? Is that why he killed my best friend, Jung-bae?’ ” 

Lee Byung-hun was excited to shoot the face-off as soon as he read about it in the Episode 4 script. “I was so intrigued by it. My hands were getting sweaty, and I was really looking forward to filming the sequence,” he tells Tudum. “While we were shooting it, I remember that thick tension in the air at the studio. It was truly something else.” 

Director Hwang is proud of how his cast “masterfully” pulled off the scene, which culminates in Front Man handing Gi-hun a knife to kill his rival players. As Front Man explains, murder is the only way to save his life and the life of Jun-hee’s baby ahead of the final round. 

“Gi-hun is pure fire in that moment, while Front Man is ice. I wanted to highlight that contrast,” Hwang says. “Gi-hun is engulfed in rage. He’s trembling, holding the knife given to kill others, barely holding back the urge to stab the Front Man. Meanwhile, Front Man is completely composed and coldly lays out Gi-hun’s situation.”

Despite Gi-hun’s anger, he doesn’t use the knife on anyone, rejecting Front Man’s antisocial outlook once and for all.  

Why does Gi-hun (Player 456) choose to die? 

Squid Game’s creator did not initially plan for Gi-hun to perish. But as Hwang strategized Seasons 2 and 3, he realized he needed a resolution that would bring “both the game and Gi-hun’s journey” to a fitting and resounding close. 

“The message I wanted to communicate was that if we solely pursue our immediate self-interest, and refuse to self-restrain, sacrifice, or bear any costs — and if we don’t put our heads together — we have no future,” Hwang says. “ Gi-hun’s self-sacrifice to save the baby is the message we need to hear today. This character, who is thrust into the game, endures everything, and then jumps back in to end it, is the one who should deliver this message.” 

Gi-hun’s decision to sacrifice his own life also reflects his desire to protect Jun-hee’s child, no matter the consequences. He might not know what the future will hold for her, but he knows that he did all he could, right up to the end.

PHOTO BY NO JU-HAN

What does Front Man do with Jun-hee’s baby? 

Immediately after Gi-hun’s death, a Pink Guard tells Front Man the coast guard is approaching the island. Front Man instructs the guard to begin evacuation. Before fleeing, however, Front Man goes to see Gi-hun’s body and decides to save Jun-hee’s baby. As he escapes, his brother, Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), appears in the VIP viewing area and demands answers about why Front Man was involved with all of this. Front Man refuses to respond. As he escapes with the baby though, it becomes clear that perhaps Front Man has had a change of heart — or, at least, remembered he has one.

Lee Byung-hun has some insights into the mind of his masked character. While Front Man saving the baby is his most humane decision of the series, there were signs long before that he was warming up. Take, for example, his decision to let Jun-hee’s baby into the game. “That actually highlighted the fact that he has that last remaining piece of humanity deep down somewhere. That’s the agreement that director Hwang and I came to. That’s how I played my character,” he tells Tudum. “Front Man has that last piece of benevolence remaining inside of him.” 

He maintains that benevolence for at least half a year. In a six-month time jump at the very end of Season 3, Episode 6, we learn Front Man has broken into his brother Jun-ho’s apartment. But the Squid Game host is no thief. Instead, he leaves Jun-ho with a present: Jun-hee’s baby, and her 4.56 billion won prize as the newest champion of Squid Game. 

PHOTO BY NO JU-HAN

What happened to Gi-hun’s money? 

When kindly criminal Woo-seok (Jun Suk-ho) gets out of jail, he has only one question: Where is Gi-hun’s fortune from Season 1? As last seen in Season 2, it was sitting on a bed at the Pink Motel. But it’s since disappeared. The last section of Squid Game gives us the answer. Front Man takes the cash and deposits it in a bank account. He then flies to Los Angeles to meet Gi-hun’s daughter Ga-yeong (Jo Ah-in) and give her the money. Front Man also informs her of Gi-hun’s death. At last, Ga-yeong knows her father isn’t ignoring her. 

But was this a kind move on Front Man’s part? Lee Jung-Jae doesn’t think so. “When I saw the scene where the Front Man goes to see Ga-yeong, I thought ‘Gi-hun’s going to be so mad he’s going to rise from his grave and just jump out of the coffin. That’s how upset he was going to be!” the actor says.  

What does the final scene of Squid Game mean? 

As Front Man leaves Ga-yeong’s home and drives through Downtown Los Angeles, he hears a familiar sound: the slap of ddakji tiles hitting the ground. When he looks over, a mysterious and well-dressed stranger is playing the familiar game with a clearly distressed man. Front Man and the stranger see each other from a distance. Could they have a certain game in common?  

“I thought it was an incredible ending that no one could predict,” Lee Byung-hun says. “Despite all the noble efforts of so many people, the world still continues as it was before.” 

For even more insights into Squid Game’s final scene — and its shocking cameo — continue reading here. 

Is Squid Game coming back for Season 4? 

In the last seconds of Season 3, Front Man closes his window on Squid Game. And, the series is doing the same. Director Hwang has confirmed Season 3, Episode 6 is the definitive and planned series finale of Squid Game. The thriller will not return for Season 4. 

To hear more from Hwang about Squid Game’s farewell season, click here. 

So the boat captain is a villain, right? 

Yes, he certainly was. Season 3 confirms Captain Park (Oh Dal-su) is an associate of Front Man and an operative of the game. Woo-seok even finds a Pink Guard uniform at the sea captain’s home, along with a photo of him with the vengeful Recruiter (Gong Yoo). There are also photos of Captain Park with Front Man, but Woo-seok doesn’t notice them. 

Park unveils his true nature in Episode 4, when he realizes Woo-seok and Jun-ho are onto him. He opens fire on everyone aboard his boat, killing many of Jun-ho’s allies and hired guns. Once Jun-ho finally gets the upper hand, he shoots the captain with a harpoon. Before Park dies, he tells Jun-ho he was “just following orders,” confirming Front Man was controlling the mission from the very beginning. 

PHOTO BY NO JU-HAN

What happens to Gyeong-seok (Player 246) and No-eul? 

Rebellious Pink Guard No-eul (Park Gyu-young) creates an elaborate scheme to save player Gyeong-seok (Lee Jin-uk) and get him off the island. She fakes identities, kills her superior, and sets fire to the records room, all to achieve her goal. And she succeeds — she manages to get Gyeong-seok off the island where he’s rescued before he can be caught. As for No-eul? She escapes in plain sight among her fellow Pink Guards as they’re being evacuated.

Six months later, when the season does a time jump, No-eul visits Gyeong-seok, and he’s alive and well — as is his young daughter, Na-yeon. Gyeong-seok is back to drawing portraits at the amusement park, where he and No-eul first met, and adorable, strawberry hat–wearing Na-yeon seems to be totally healthy. 

Still, while No-eul is happy to see how Gyeong-seok is doing, he doesn’t recognize her at all, and has no idea she once saved his life. 

Is No-eul’s daughter really alive? 

Before Squid Game, No-eul defected from North Korea for her own safety. But in protecting herself, she left behind her husband and daughter. Although she’s originally told her family is dead, No-eul gets a promising call while leaving the amusement park. Apparently, No-eul’s daughter Han Song-i might be alive. There’s been a possible sighting of her in China, and No-eul decides to chase the lead. The news may not be true, but finding out is worth the flight. 

“She’s someone whose inner light has all but faded, drifting deeper into the night,” director Hwang says. But when No-eul witnessed Gi-hun’s “ultimate act of self-sacrifice” during Sky Squid Game, something changed inside her. “A flicker of hope and pull towards life reignites within No-eul. I wanted to show her rising again, reclaiming her will to live, and giving life another shot.” 

PHOTO BY NO JU-HAN

Whatever happened to Sae-byeok’s brother?

As No-eul heads to China, Squid Game checks on another set of travelers at the airport — and nods back to the series’ very beginning. As luck would have it, Sae-byeok (Hoyeon) — Gi-hun’s friend and ally from Season 1 — is getting the happily ever-after she always wanted, from beyond the grave. Her little brother Cheol (Park Si-wan) finally reunites with their North Korean mother, something Sae-byeok always dreamed about. Cheol is so shaken by this development he can’t speak. But he’s prompted to do so by his guardian (Park Hye-jin), the mother of Gi-hun’s childhood friend and Season 1 rival Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo). In Season 1, Gi-hun connects Cheol and Sang-woo’s mother out of respect for Sae-byeok’s memory. 

“Sae-byeok tried to send money to the North, dreaming of bringing her mother over so that the three of them could be reunited and live happily together,” Hwang says. “She held onto that hope — a sliver of light like the break of dawn.” 

With the close of Squid Game, that dawn is finally here. 

(Re)watch every breathtaking twist and turn of Squid Game now — the entire series is currently streaming on Netflix. And for all your news from the arena, keep checking in with Tudum.

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