1x05 A Fair World

[7.4/10] This wasn’t my favorite episode, but it’s still a pretty good one. The main focus was on Hwang and his investigation, and that’s just not the most compelling part of the show to me. The whole thing works on a heightened reality, but the Hwang material continues to test the limits of my willing suspension of disbelief.

I’m not one to nitpick, but it seems really implausible that Hwang would be able to bluff his way through the organ harvesting crew for as long as he did, despite the masks and voice changers. That it passed muster for longer than five minutes seems pretty suspect. Hell, the fact that the organ harvesters are able to get away with it as long as they do seems to stretch the logic of the show. I know they have an ally in the surveillance room, but it’s still a stretch that they were able to pull off something so elaborate under the noses of such a tight operation. The statement from the Frontman at the end of the episode suggests maybe he knew about it and turned a blind eye to it because he didn’t think it affected the game, but still. The tension of Hwang’s double agent routine doesn’t work as well when the whole thing plays like a stretch.

The only thing that’s really worth it for me is that we get a decent amount of lore about the deal. We find out that the powers that be have been running this operation in some form since the 1990s. There is a special escape hatch tunnel for unnamed “VIPs” with Chekov’s bombs strapped to them in case things go sideways. The brother that Hwang is looking for not only was a part of the game, but even won back in 2015, and the fact that someone speaks his name at the end of the episode suggests he’s still a part of it, albeit probably on the side of the handlers. Learning the scope of this thing, and setting up the contours and history of the game in some way adds more dimension to it, even if the trouble with the organ harvesters doesn’t light my fire.

Once again, the theme here isn't hard to discern. The concept of fairness plays out in multiple ways. The Doctor trading his surgical services for advanced knowledge of the games goes awry when the harvesters don’t have the info they promised him, making the exchange unfair. Discussions over who will keep watch overnight in the bunkhouse, or Ali trying to pay Sang-woo back for saving their lives speaks to a sort of moral tally everyone keeps. The new girl from the tug-of-war match chastises a religious man thanking God for their victory, implicitly calling B.S. on whether a just deity would allow such a thing to happen and who’s responsible for these fates.

Most interestingly, though, is the Frontman executing Soldier Number 28, ostensibly not for harvesting organs from dead (or nearly dead, shudder) competitors, but for disrupting the competitive balance of the game. He claims that the game is meant to be a contrast to the outside world, where inequality reigns, instead providing a space where everyone has an equal chance to succeed and survive. Who knows if he means it, or if it’s a convenient self-justification, but it’s interesting that there are at least some professed philosophical underpinnings to the game, and it’s not purely for idle sport or entertainment for such VIPs in or out of the game.

The details we get about the main characters are solid. I appreciate the psychological warfare that Gi-hun pulls off on Deuk-su, distracting him from any attempt to attack their group by suggesting his own men might go after him to eliminate a strong challenger, especially in the pit of vipers he’s crafted. It’s also smart of Gi-Hun’s allies to set up a barricade and a watch system, continuing to show the benefits of their alliance and the mutual support it provides.

I’m particularly fascinated by Gi-hun’s PTSD flashback, to the time he participated in a general strike and had to witness his fellow watchman die in a strike-breaking raid. Thus far, Gi-hun has seemed like a slacker and libertine whose wounds are largely, if not entirely, self-inflicted. But his story, of losing a steady job he couldn't afford to go without, because it was easier to blame the employees than the people at the top making wrong calls, is a sympathetic one, especially in the face of brutal tactics used to suppress he and his fellow workers standing up for their interests.

I still don’t fully trust Number 1, even as he provides some comfort to Gi-hun, and has an episode that suggests he really is affected by some condition, even if there’s more to his story than we know. I also appreciate that, whatever Sae-byeok’s lone wolf qualities, she gives up her water to help cool Number 1’s fever, showing that there’s still some kindness and generosity in her.

Otherwise, this is a slower, more languid episode of the show than the others we’ve had so far, despite starting with the conclusion to the tug-of-war match, That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. It’s good to get some character development and a bit of downtime between major set pieces. And the prospect of Hwang getting made, and skulking around the Frontman’s penthouse is a decent tease. But in general, this one spends more time on the less-than-credible extracurricular activities of the organ harvesters than can sustain my interest, and isn’t as compelling an hour as the the first half of the show offered.