The Most Watched Series In History Ends
Let's begin with the context: no television series in history has been watched more than Squid Game. Season 1 remains Netflix's single most successful television season ever produced. Season 2 drew 1.445 billion viewing hours — 201.5 million completed views. Season 3, the final chapter, closed Gi-hun's story with 142.4 million completed views across nine weeks in the global top 10.
The numbers are staggering. The reaction is divided. And the division is itself the story of Season 3.
Gi-hun's Final Gambit
Following the events of Season 2, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) finds himself back inside the games — but changed, radicalized by what he's survived, and determined to end the machine from the inside. Season 3 is darker and more politically charged than either of its predecessors. The systemic critique that was always implicit in the games becomes explicit; the show wears its thesis on its sleeve.
This is both its strength and its weakness. Viewers who wanted the games' allegory sharpened found Season 3 deeply satisfying. Viewers who wanted a more conventionally thrilling conclusion found it preachy and its ending unsatisfying. Both groups are right, in their own way.
The Cultural Event That Spanned Four Years
Squid Game arrived in Malaysia in 2021 as an impossible cultural explosion — the first time a non-English drama had genuinely permeated every layer of pop culture simultaneously. The green tracksuits, the dalgona biscuits, the Red Light Green Light countdown — they became part of the landscape in a way that transcends entertainment.
Watching Season 3 is partly an act of completion and partly an act of cultural participation. Whatever your verdict on the ending, the complete Squid Game trilogy is one of the definitive television experiences of the 2020s. All three seasons are on Netflix Malaysia.