Squid Game Season 3 Somehow Makes The VIPs Even More Disgusting

Put down your champagne and golden animal masks if you're not up to date on the third and final season of "Squid Game." Spoilers lie ahead!

Hey, remember that one thing that pretty much nobody liked in the debut season of "Squid Game" back in 2021? You know, those wealthy "VIPs" who travel to South Korea from all over the world to watch people fight to the death and bet on the outcomes? Well, they're back in season 3!

Unfortunately, "Squid Game" also decided to up the ante on just how gross these guys and gals are in season 3. We know from season 1 that the impossibly wealthy VIPs spend their time in a private room overlooking the game floor, where they drink and don gilded disguises to prevent anyone, even each other, from seeing who they really are. (At this point, I'm assuming that these people might be massive public figures within this fictional universe, although that assumption is challenged in season 3. Put a pin in that.) In the third episode of season 3, though, we watch as the guards clean up bodies during a new and seriously nefarious take on "Hide and Seek," yet another childhood "favorite." When a player attacks one pink-cloaked guard, a second guard shoots and kills the player ... but these aren't regular guards. They're two VIPs on a little field trip of sorts.

The guard who was attacked, a nameless white man, says "Mamma mia!" after nearly being killed by a player, which is definitely what I would utter if a desperate, crazed person tried to murder me and then was shot to death seconds later. He's met by another VIP, a woman, who fired at the player; she describes the experience as a "blast," and neither of them seems to care that their faces are visible. (Yeah, I groaned too.) Aside from these crimes against humor, the VIPs are responsible for one of the most despicable twists in the entire season.

At the end of that third episode, the VIPs take their entire disgusting schtick even further (to say nothing of their terrible acting). See, during the Hide and Seek game, Player 222, Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), a pregnant young woman who lost all her money after her boyfriend's failed cryptocurrency scheme, actually gives birth and is saved by two other players, Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim), Player 149, and Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), Player 120. (Sadly, Hyun-ju dies while protecting Jun-hee, though Geum-ja actually helps the young woman during labor.)

Watching from above now, the VIPs grumble about how Player 222 is now at a major disadvantage thanks to both an injury she incurred during hide and seek (an ankle that's either twisted or completely broken) and a baby, especially the one VIP who says he only bet on her for the next game because he got drunk and pressed the wrong button. That's when one enterprising VIP suggests that the baby itself join the game. The games played in "Squid Game" are extremely physical and mental, so the idea that a newborn baby could participate is ludicrous and horrible on about twenty different levels; also, not to state the obvious, but it's a newborn baby, and the VIPs are clearly fine with the idea of this baby facing its death. The thought process here? "A mother will do anything to save her child." (This line might have felt scary and foreboding except that it's followed by one VIP saying Jun-hee could become like a Marvel superhero, at which point another says, "Like Wonder Woman?" Another corrects him and says, no, that's a DC superhero. There is literally no reason to include this exchange, but whatever.)

Immediately after the VIPs decide that the baby will join the game, the next game begins ... and it's a particularly dangerous game of jump rope (in that, if you miss the timing, a metal "rope" smacks you off of a narrow pathway and to your death far below). Because of her ankle and her newborn baby, Jun-hee is completely unable to participate, even though the show's protagonist Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) crosses the pathway quickly with the baby and promises he'll return for her. There's also Myung-gi (Im Si-wan), Jun-hee's absentee boyfriend who knows perfectly well that the baby is his — except Jun-hee is furious with him and won't even consider accepting his help. 

When other players start shoving incoming participants in the game to their death to try to narrow down the pool of potential victors, Jun-hee seems to realize that, no matter what, she's not going to be able to cross successfully. She leaps to her death, leaving the players shocked when the guards inform them that, in her absence, the baby is now officially Player 222. "Squid Game" has a lot of sick, disturbing twists, but this feels like the worst one yet ... and it's all thanks to the VIPs.

"Squid Game" is streaming on Netflix now.