The Real Reason Netflix's Squid Game Is Ending With Season 3

As Bilbo Baggins once observed, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door and making an original series for Netflix." (For whatever reason, that last part tends to get left out of most printed editions of "The Fellowship of the Ring.") The clear winner of the streaming wars has only continued to tighten its purse strings in its ongoing bid to become more profitable in 2024, cutting off shows like Charlie Covell's clever ancient mythology re-imagining "Kaos" at the knees before they've barely had a chance to find their audience. Even once-unstoppable Netflix juggernauts like "The Witcher" and "Stranger Things" are in the midst of either wrapping things up or preparing for the end, having gotten too pricey for their britches.

It's probably for the best, then, that "Squid Game" creator Hwang Dong-hyuk is charging full speed ahead on the show's third and final season ahead of season 2 premiering this winter. Netflix surprise-announced that season 3 of Hwang's death game series was even happening back in the summer, with the creative simply teasing that the "fierce clash" between the "two worlds" of "Squid Game" protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) and the games' scheming Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) will culminate with the season 2 finale before spilling over into the final batch of episodes. Thankfully, unlike the three-year break between the first and second seasons, the show's conclusion is scheduled to arrive in 2025.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Hwang revealed he's already "nearly done with the editing portion of season 3," lest anyone doubt his ability to make that lightning-quick turnaround without having to seriously rush things. As for why Hwang decided to call it a day with "Squid Game" season 3 when he hadn't necessarily banked on a second season to begin with, well ... to hear him tell it, that's just how the dalgona crumbled.

Contrary to its relentless cost-cutting, all signs indicate Netflix would've been happy for "Squid Game" to continue for at least a few more seasons (right up until it's contractually obligated to pay Hwang, Lee, and everyone else involved with making the show more money, anyway). On top of the primary series and its astonishingly ill-conceived reality competition spin-off "Squid Game: The Challenge," the streamer has also turned to its old pal David Fincher to helm a new "Squid Game" show set in the U.S. (and, rumor has it, taking place in the same continuity as its Korean counterpart). So, suffice it to say, had Hwang come out and insisted he needed a fourth season to wrap up Gi-hun's one-man mission to take down the Front Man's deadly competition, Netflix would've likely been all too eager to oblige.

Instead, Hwang found that, by the time he began fleshing out his ideas for "Squid Game" season 3, he came to realize that he had more or less done everything he could've hoped to do with the show in a creative sense. As he explained to THR:

"When I was thinking about the idea for the ending of season 3, I think it sort of naturally came to me that this was the finale. I believed that with that story, I was able to tell everything that I wanted to tell through the story of 'Squid Game' and also in the perspective of Gi-hun as a character, and I thought that we don't need any further stories from here."

However much Netflix might've preferred to keep the "Squid Game" train going for as long as plausible, it's heartening to see Hwang choosing artistic integrity instead. The show certainly has plenty of real-world inspiration to draw from when it comes to its overarching look at class differences, capitalistic excess, and entertainment that takes the form of economic exploitation in its second and third seasons, so there's reason to remain optimistic that Hwang is ending things at just the right time. Then again, we'll see if making more "Squid Game" was even a good idea in the first place when season 2 drops December 26, 2024, on Netflix.