There’s a familiar TV discourse taking shape online right now, the kind that I suspect will look awfully familiar to you if you remember the way Game of Thrones crashed and burned in its eighth and final season. Basically, it’s now Squid Game’s turn.
Netflix’s Korean juggernaut, once a global phenomenon and creative lightning bolt, just dropped its third and final season over the weekend — a season, just to clear, that nobody really asked for, and one that many viewers seem to actively regret watching.
Squid Game Season 3 is, to be sure, currently the #1 show in the US on the streaming giant. But that top ranking, impressive as it sounds, doesn’t tell the show’s full story, either. According to data from Samba TV, for example, 1.6 million US households watched the premiere over its first three days. That’s a big number — and yet it still marks a 17% drop from the Season 2 debut. Some of that may be a function of timing: Season 2 dropped the day after Christmas, when lots of people are sitting around at home thanks to holiday time off from work.
That said, it’s a little more revealing how sharply Squid Game has slipped in audience sentiment. The Rotten Tomatoes data certainly tells a story of diminishing returns:
- Season 1: 95% critics’ score / 84% audience score
- Season 2: 83% critics’ score / 63% audience score
- Season 3: 80% critics’ score / 50% audience score
In terms of the audience reaction, that’s a free fall. Accordingly, the online commentary from fans has been pretty brutal. “This ending sucked and felt like a cash grab for an American Squid Game,” one viewer wrote on X. Added another: “There was no need to split this into a third series … actually, no need to make another series after the first.” Many echoed the same complaint — that Season 3 felt bloated, poorly written, and driven more by corporate math than creative vision.
Here’s the truth: Squid Game never needed a second season, let alone a third. It is the height of irony to me that a show about the evils of dog-eat-dog capitalism has kind of … well, strike that. Not kind of. Has very much become a victim of that same capitalism the show skewered in Season 1. Squid Game’s final season was filled with contrivances and baffling character choices that, if you ask me, made the show’s entire emotional logic collapse (“456 went through all that just to never talk to his daughter again?” one Rotten Tomatoes audience reviewer asked. “Seriously?”).
For Netflix, the numbers may justify the decision. For the rest of us, this is another reminder that the world of TV was not built by people who know how to leave well enough alone. Likewise, streaming TV is not a game where subtlety or quitting while you’re ahead ever seem to rule the day. If you do decide to take the plunge and watch Season 3, don’t be surprised if, when it’s over, you find yourself wishing the games had ended a long time ago.
