Squid Game

When this started blowing up everywhere I dismissed it because I thought it was some sort of weird gameshow, but I wasn't prepared for it to take that Takeshi's Castle style concept and turn it into Battle Royale. From episode one watching these games unfold my heart was in my throat, it's some of the most intense stuff I've seen in a long time and it had me shouting out "OH FUCK!" to myself in my bedroom quite frequently. What I wasn't expecting was it's ability to rip out your heart and stamp on it. It's a show that programmes you to expect that anyone could die at any moment because from the get go you see so many people die in pretty brutal ways. However, it also manages to get you emotionally attached to a select group of characters quite quickly, so whilst you know that anything could happen it's still very shocking when it does. I found myself tearing up on more than one occasion whilst my heart was simultaneously racing which really impressed me. This isn't the first time we've seen the of exploration of what greed can do to a human being but it's more than just that here. This money could literally change their lives but it asks the question of is it worth it at the expense of others? And we see that explored through the eyes of different characters with wildly different moralities. What's stopping me from giving it the perfect 5 rating is that it has this extended epilogue with a twist that felt quite unnecessary. It's constantly teasing that we will get answers to all of the burning questions surrounding the games and to be honest I'm really not entirely sure how I feel about the answer we get. It didn't ruin my enjoyment of the series overall though and it's easily the best thing I've seen on Netflix for a very long time. It's not a surprise though, Korean media never fails to be anything short of brilliant.