The clock is ticking on Squid Game , and I don’t just mean for the contestants. In a short season of just seven episodes, we’ve just completed Episode 4 and haven’t even finished our second game out of six. Will the remaining games get rushed through via montage or some other means? Will the competition get cut short, perhaps by Gi-hun and Jun-ho’s mercenary team? Will the season finale end with a big TO BE CONTINUED? No matter the outcome, the result is going to be paced quite differently from the previous season.
In other words, we’re guaranteed something novel. Unfortunately for them, so are the players. Much of the season’s fourth episode centers on the ongoing debate between the contingent led by Gi-hun, who voted to end the Game, and the “Game on” faction, whose most prominent members include Thanos the rapper; player 100, an insufferable blowhard who’s the side’s de facto spokesperson; and the deciding vote, player 001, who is secretly the Game’s Front Man.
As we saw in the previous episode, Gi-hun’s intervention backfired: Since he revealed to the other contestants that he was a previous Game’s sole survivor, they believe he can guide them safely to victory, at least for as many individual games as it takes to narrow the field and build up their winnings. That confidence turns out to be misplaced, though through no fault of Gi-hun’s own, as we’ll see. In time, player 001 emerges as something of a hero among the other players.
He beats up .
