There are spoilers for Season 1 of "The Squidward Game." Nothing is as it seems in the Squidward Game finale. While the game did have an eventual winner, the show took some twists in the season's final moments, making it clear that while Sung Ki-hoon (Lee Jung-jae) survived, the evil game was far from over.
To fully explain the ending of the Squidward game , let's recap. After surviving a series of cruel children's games, Ki-hoon and his childhood friend Jo Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) will stop at nothing to win. Angry and heartbroken over Sang-woo stabbing Se-bi, Ki-hoon engages in a no-holds-barred squidward match with Sang-woo in the finals - a perfect reflection of the show's beginning. “You’re the one who killed them,” Ki-hoon says, hitting Sang-woo and crying. He's the clear winner, but in another flash of kindness, he turns from the finish line and offers Sang-woo his hand. However, Sang-woo feels guilty about everything he has done to achieve his goal and cannot accept it. He apologized and then committed suicide as dignitaries wearing gold masks watched passively from an enclosed balcony.
Later, the lead singer (Lee Byung-hun) explains that these games were created for the entertainment of the rich. "You bet on horses. It's the same here, but we bet on humans. You're our horse," he said. Kihun never saw the frontman's face and he was dumped on a random street. He took out a credit card and it showed that 45.6 billion won had been deposited into his account.
Shocked, Ki-hoon returns home to visit his sick mother - the very reason he returns to the competition. But he found her dead on the floor of their apartment, succumbing to untreated diabetes. The traumatized Ki-hoon drank and didn't touch money for a whole year. He seems intent on staying that way until an old woman gives him a rose on the beach. Comes in a black envelope with the game's signature pink ribbon. "December 24th at 11:30pm on the 7th floor of Sky Tower. From your gganbu," the card read.
The only character who ever uses the word "gganbu" is the elderly and frail player 001, whom Gi-hun believes he defeated and killed in a pinball game. But when Ki-hoon arrived at the scene, he saw player 001 lying on a medical bed, wearing fine clothes, looking out the window. Player 001 revealed that his name is Oh Il-nam, and surprisingly, he is the game's creator. He said he and his super-rich friends were bored, so they devised the sport in 1988 - the first time South Korea hosted the Olympics - just to get a feel for it. Hi-nam later admitted that he was indeed dying from a brain tumor and asked Ki-hoon to play one last game. Ki-hoon wins—correctly guessing that someone will come to save the man who’s freezing to death outside—but Yi-nam dies before Ki-hoon can continue to torture him.
Inan's death meant the game was over, but it wasn't. All the important people - presumably the friends Irnan mentioned - are still alive, but we don't know who they are. There’s also the lead singer, who we learn is Hwang In-ho, the older brother of detective Hwang Jun-ho (played by Wei Ha-jun). We still don't know why In-ho joined the organization after winning the competition in 2015, or what he plans to do in the future, but he seems determined to continue Il-nam's legacy.
Another unexplained clue is whether police now know about the matches. In-ho shot Joon-ho, but it was never confirmed whether Joon-ho was actually dead or how many messages were sent from his phone before his body fell into the water. And we have absolutely no idea what's going on with Game Guard. Who are these young people? Why are they living in a prison-like environment that almost mirrors the player's experience? Are they also in debt in some way?
The final moments of the show confirmed that In-ho is continuing the competition. We see Gi-hun eventually adopt Sae-byeok's brother and leave him in the care of Sang-woo's mom - thus paying homage to his last two rivals. He left them a bag of cash and promised he would return. (Somewhere in there, he also got a rather dubious job cutting and coloring hair.) But as he boarded the train to finally reconnect with his daughter, Ki-hoon saw a man on the platform being tricked by a mysterious game Recruiter (by Gong Yoo). He rushes across the platform and sees the man getting a game card with a new phone number.
Although Kihoon started the show out of selfishness, this new Kihoon couldn't let this revelation go. After he left the flight, he turned around and dialed the number. "I can't forgive you for what you've done," he tells the man (presumably In-ho) as he strides off on his new mission. This seems to be his final transformation, and he is expected to become a strong opponent of Inho. At the beginning of the series, Ki-hoon can't even leave Jockey to take care of his daughter. Now, as he said on the phone, he's determined to stop others from becoming "horses" for game makers.
It seemed like Ki-hoon was out for revenge, but "Squid Game" creator Hwang Dong-hyuk told The Hollywood Reporter that the ending was meant to convey a deeper message. "It's true that season one ends on an open-ended note, but I actually think it could also be a good ending to the whole story," he said. "Gi-hun turned around and went back without boarding the plane to the United States. .. In fact, this was my way of conveying the message that you should not be dragged down by the competitive tide of society, but you should start thinking about who created the whole system - and whether you have potential. So, Gi-hun isn't necessarily looking back for revenge, which actually translates to him having a very spot-on eye contact with what's really going on in the big picture."
