1x01 Red Light, Green Light

[7.8/10] That set piece. Holy hell. I’m inclined to talk about Gi-hun, about the ways in which he is both contemptible and sympathetic and how that ties into the show’s themes. I’m inclined to talk about the deft world-building that exists here, giving the audience just enough to raise an eyebrow about what’s happening here without giving anything away, while still delivering enough detail to make the stakes clear. I’m inclined to talk about the thematic work at play, of desperate people being willing to “pay with their bodies” in order to escape crippling circumstances.

But the truth is that this mortal game of “Red Light, Green Light” takes up all the oxygen in the room. It could stand on its own as a short film, a potent metaphor for the thumb-on-the-scale randomness of fortune versus fatality, a visual feast for the mix of a dollhouse aesthetic with the harrowingly real, a heart-pumping scenario of life and death. If all Squid Game delivered in its opening hour was this strange children’s game propped up with bizarre but lethal stakes, it would have been enough.

It matters more because we know Gi-hun from the extended introduction he receives in this first episode. On the one hand, he is a total screw-up. He steals his mother’s money to blow on horse races. He’s an inveterate gambler who can’t leave well enough alone. He’s a poor father, struggling to remember his daughter’s birthday and having to scrounge in crane games to get her what turns out to be an inappropriate present. He is selfish, full of poor judgment, and seems to have gotten himself into this situation with his bad choices stacked upon poor choices, calling to mind the protagonist of Uncut Gems.

At the same time, though, there are sympathetic elements to him. Even when he’s running for his life, he tries to fix things for the Pickpocket when he accidentally knocks her over. He contributes some of his fancy fish to a stray cat he finds common cause with. And most of all, even if he’s a bad dad, he appears to harbor genuine affection for his daughter, only motivated to submit himself to the perils and vicissitudes of the game when he needs enough money to keep her from leaving the country with her mom and stepdad. There is some good, something redeeming in him, even if he’s not the most likable protagonist you’re likely to come across.

And yet, therein lies the intrigue and thematic punch of this first episode. Gi-hun is not a great guy. He is desperate, yes, and seems like he’s faced some hard luck in getting there, but also seems like a less than decent or honorable person. The same is ostensibly true of the others who enlist in the game, including a more well-heeled colleague who found himself in such insurmountable debt from embezzlement, or others in hock to loan sharks or worse. Gi-hun is not a kind but unlucky person who’s just so happened to fall on hard times; he’s someone with limited options who gambled away his best ones and lost his family in the process.

But that’s no excuse to dehumanize him or those like him, to trade their desperation for their flesh, to strip them of any dignity in the name of sport and entertainment for others’ amusement. Gi-hun deserves some measure of comeuppance, but he doesn’t deserve this. The fact that there’s demand for his suffering, and that he’d sacrifice so much of his humanity and well-being out of a need to dig himself out of this pit, is an indictment of any system or society that would build itself in such a way that such things are even possible, god forbid necessary.

Apart from that stellar character and thematic work, Squid Game is visually arresting from the start. The grim, washed out city that Gi-hun occupies before he’s transported to the arena is aesthetically unremarkable, but sells the workaday world that he lives in. Even then, there’s some flourish to the chase through the off-track betting parlor and in well-composed scenes at home.

But once he arrives, it’s easy to see why the iconography alone would grab people. The horde of bodies given identical tracksuits and numbers instead of names a la The Prisoner, the hoodie and primary school shape get-ups of their wardens and facilitators, the polygon-peppered mask of “The Front Man” who watches from a comfortable diorama-devised distance, the spartan bunkhouse that conveys the interchangeable drudgery of the assembled, the candy colored processing center where they’re encouraged to smile, the Truman Show-esque command center where imposing drones keep watch -- these visions alone are worth the price of admission for conveying in images alone the notions of detached subjugation and exploitation that suffuses this exercise.

And yet, it’s enhanced and surpassed by the first game itself. There’s a tenor of uncanniness and unreality to the whole endeavor. A faux blue sky and scenic backdropped is matched with the actual beauty of nature. A disembodied voice lilts instructions in calm but firm voice. The unnerving “It”, a giant doll with sinister capabilities, lays bare the juxtaposition of child-like whimsy and grim death that characterizes the same. Even before the killing starts, it’s easy to take one look at this setup and understand that something’s wrong.

Once it does, though, the unfairness, the unstomachable immorality, the voyeuristic cruelty at play is gripping. What’s striking about this first game at first is the visceral element of it: the shock and panic when bodies begin dropping, the terror at your very existence depending on the whims of a soulless killing machine, the desperation to reach some arbitrary benchmark lest you be culled too. But the dynamics of the game are just as revealing.

While the rules seem clear, the enforcement seems unfair, as even those who seem effectively motionless are shot down on what may as well be a whim. The best, if not only way, to survive is to hide behind someone else, a metaphor for the way desperate people are pitted against one another. Altruism is discouraged, but happens anyway, with allies explaining the rules or even saving Gi-hun from death and destruction. This is, if not an unwinnable game, than certainly an unjust one, where self-interest and cruelty are rewarded, kindness is a risk, and those who comply with the impossibly stringent world are often cut down anyway. You don’t have to look far past the text to comprehend the metaphor, but it’s given gut-wrenching life in this construct, particularly as a comfortable, english-speaking official looks on from a place of safety and enjoyment.

Candidly, I didn’t know about Squid Game as I started. Spending nine hours with someone as unkind and selfish and self-defeating as Gi-hun isn’t my idea of fun, necessarily. But that set piece, and the combination of Parasite and Hunger Games/Battle Royale it portends, is the piece de resistance of this opening hour, delivering the captivating scenes and pitiable souls that promise more compelling, if harrowing things to come.