Breaking Down the 'Squid Game' Season 3 Ending, From Gi-hun's Fate to the Winner

Spoilers ahead for all episodes of Squid Game season 3. On June 27, 2025, Squid Game, the thriller K-drama that became a global phenomenon, concluded with the release of season 3. (Or, if we're being real, season 2, part 2.) The death-game series, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk and originally intended to be just one season, ends with six episodes that stretch its brutal realism to absurd lengths in favor of shocking the audience with the depths of human depravity, as all the characters we became acquainted with in season 2 meet their inevitable deaths.

By the end of the Korean drama, most of its questions are wrapped up, before a surprise cameo, ensuring that Netflix's biggest IP could make its way to familiar shores. Below, read on for our breakdown of the ending of Squid Game season 3.

Does Jun-hee (Player 222) die in 'Squid Game' season 3?

Gi-hun might have been the linchpin of Squid Game season 2, but the most pivotal character of season 3 is a literal newborn. After Jun-hee (Player 222, played by Jo Yu-ri) entered the game pregnant in the previous installment, her baby is born during the homicidal Hide and Seek game that opens season 3. (Who else got war flashbacks when they realized it was the same arena from Marbles?) In Squid Game's biggest suspension of disbelief across all three seasons, Geum-ja (Player 149, played by Kang Ae-shim) can deliver Jun-hee's healthy baby as Hyun-ju (Player 120, played by Park Sung-hoon) guards them. Between Jun-hee's screams not luring out more attackers and the absence of a placenta, it's a medical miracle. (And it's a girl!)

Women never last long in Squid Game, so all three of my favorite characters soon meet their deaths. Right after Hyun-ju discovers the way out of the Hide and Seek maze, she's stabbed from behind by none other than the baby's father, Myung-gi (Player 333, played by Yim Si-wan). Geum-ja dies by suicide the next day, largely due to guilt after she killed her own son, Yong-sik (Player 007, played by Yang Dong-geun), to protect Jun-hee and the baby. And Jun-hee's as good as dead even before Hide and Seek ends, since she injured her ankle and can barely walk.

The second game of season 3 is Jump Rope, and Jun-hee can barely hop once, let alone down a bridge over a cavern. Gi-hun and her baby are the first to make it to the other side; Geum-ja had begged the former victor to help Jun-hee and the baby. Though both Gi-hun and Myung-gi want her to live, Jun-hee knows that carrying a grown person across the bridge is impossible. She ends the Jump Rope round by begging Gi-hun to take care of the baby, and then sacrifices herself, stepping off the ledge.

However, Jun-hee's death doesn't mean the end of Player 222's game. In a twist that instantly made me emotionally check out of the season, Front Man (In-ho, played by Lee Byung-hun) and the sadistic VIPs (yes they're back and the acting didn't get much better) decide that the less-than-a-day-old baby will take her mom's place and play as Player 222 in the final round. (Maybe I've just reached my overload on cruelty, but this was the point where I would've stopped watching if I weren't preparing to write this very piece.)

Does Myung-gi (Player 333) die in 'Squid Game' season 3?

After Myung-gi kills Hyun-ju, any love Jun-hee had left for her baby daddy promptly leaves her body. (Understandable.) He already proved in season 2 that his self-preservation can win out over well-meaning intentions, and she was never cool with him letting other people die to save her. (Remember Young-mi/Player 095's death during Mingle?) Before Hide and Seek, Jun-hee switched teams with Myung-gi and put herself in the more vulnerable Key team because he promised to protect her, but instead, he went on a murder rampage with Nam-gyu (Player 124, played by Roh Jae-won) that ended with him killing the person who did protect her. So it's no surprise when her last words to him before her Jump Rope sacrifice are, "That baby has nothing to do with trash like you."

At first, it's unclear how Myung-gi feels when his baby becomes Player 222. It's still a secret that he's the father, and every remaining player besides Gi-hun—and maybe high-as-a-kite Min-su (Player 125, played by Lee David)—wants to kill the infant and increase the pot. However, in season 3, Squid Game's final game, called Sky Squid Game, has different rules. Instead of just one victor, whoever's left standing will split the pot amongst them. After hearing that, and sneaking a glance at his baby, Myung-gi votes to continue the competition.

Sky Squid Game takes place across three massive pillars shaped like a circle, a triangle, and a square. One player must die for the remainder to progress to the next tower; after all three, the survivors split the pot. Myung-gi quickly teams up with the rest of the circle voters; however, they immediately want to eliminate the child, so he manipulates them into targeting another player for the first round. (R.I.P. Min-su.)

He tries to do the same in the second round, coming up with a plan to get the baby away from Gi-hun and then push Gi-hun off, but once he breaks the circle pact by pushing one of the men off instead of Gi-hun, he finally reveals to everyone that he's the baby's dad. For a brief moment, it seems to be Gi-hun, Myung-gi, and the baby versus everyone else, but then all of the remaining circle men attacked them. Gi-hun stabs one to protect the baby, and Myung-gi and his pole kill Player 100 (finally) out of greed. By the end of episode 5, Myung-gi, Gi-hun, and the baby are the only players left standing, with one round remaining.

Does Gi-hun (Player 456) die in 'Squid Game' season 3?

In season 3's finale, Myung-gi goes full neutral-evil and turns against his child. He tries to stop Gi-hun from crossing the bridge to the final pillar, so he can kill the baby and take the entire pot in the final round. The younger man assumes that Gi-hun plans to kill him and the baby and take all the money, not knowing that Gi-hun is the last person to screw the baby over. He also accuses Gi-hun of knowing Jun-hee before the game (or maybe even hooking up with her), not understanding how Gi-hun could care about her so much after just meeting her in the facility. (Chivalry is dead.)

Gi-hun acts like he's accepting death, giving the baby to Gi-hun, but he instead jumps off the pillar to the last bridge with a knife. The finale becomes another showdown between Gihun and an inherently selfish man (shout out to Sang-woo/Player 218), which ends with Myung-gi falling to his death as a dangling Gi-hun holds on to the ledge of the pillar. There's a beat when you wonder if Gi-hun has fully succumbed to the dark side, as he starts the final round and holds the baby while standing on the edge of the pillar, but instead Gi-hun remains the hero. He kisses the baby, puts her down, and looks directly into the camera, at both us and the Front Man and soldiers. "We are not horses. We are humans. Humans are..." He trails off as he leans back, dropping to his death.

Who is the winner in 'Squid Game' season 3?

So, that's it: Player 222, Jun-hee and Myung-gi's newborn baby girl, wins the Squid Game. She gets out of the facility alive and her rightful winnings of 45.6 billion won (about $33.5 million). Her parents (both biological and surrogate) may be dead, but she ends season 3 with a very familiar guardian.

Two non-game subplots continued in season 3: Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) searching for the island, and pink guard No-eul (Park Gyu-young) trying to escape with Gyeong-seok (Player 246, played by Lee Jin-wook). At the start of the finale, Jun-ho finds Gyeong-seok's escape boat and summons the coast guard before finally returning to the Front Man's facility. (Reminder, Front Man's real name is In-ho, and he's Jun-ho's brother.) Right as the game ends, In-ho evacuates the facility and goes to collect the baby. Jun-ho finds him in the arena and confronts his brother, but he can't bring himself to shoot him, and In-ho just leaves with the baby without even a look.

After everyone escapes the facility alive—In-ho, Jun-ho, the workers, and, assumedly, the VIPs—all the buildings on the island explode. There's a rather poetic shot of the explosions in Gi-hun's dead eyes. After all, he succeeded. He brought the end of the games. We also see the coast guard ship pulling up as every bit of evidence explodes, so all the people in charge will get off scot-free. (Of course they will.)

Sometime after the end of the competition, Jun-ho gets home to his apartment and finds a gift waiting: Jun-hee's baby, tucked into the Player 222 hoodie, and the bank card with all her winnings. Since Jun-ho isn't terrible, it seems that he'll become the baby's new dad, which will give him a new purpose after the game hunt. (We're wishing them all the best.)

Who survives in 'Squid Game' season 3?

First off, No-eul and Gyeong-seok survive! While the latter was getting patched up by the coast guard, the former had returned to the facility to kill her boss (not the Front Man, the guy directly under him) and destroy the player files so no one could come after Gyeong-seok or his daughter, Na-yeon. No-eul had planned to shoot herself after torching the files, but she ends up seeing Gi-hun's sacrifice. It reminds her of her daughter back in North Korea, and in the scene following the explosion, we see that she got out in time.

No-eul returns to the theme park where she used to work. Gyeong-seok is drawing her portrait; he has no idea who she is, but he senses that he knows her. She also sees that Na-yeon is healthy now. As she leaves the park, the broker from season 2 calls her and tells her that they may have found her daughter.

As previously stated, Jun-ho and the baby are alive and rich. Former mob lackey Woo-seok (Jeon Seok-ho) gets out of prison and takes over the Pink Hotel. (Earlier in the season, he had been arrested for breaking into Captain Park's house and discovering that he was the Front Man's spy.) Also, in a lovely tie-in from season 1, Sae-byeok's (Jung Ho-yeon) brother and Sang-woo's mother return! The broker brings Sae-byeok's mom to South Korea, and she reunites with her son on the same day that No-eul departs the country to find her daughter. It is a bit sad to think that over three seasons of a show with such a big ensemble, the surviving major characters can be counted on two hands.

Wait, what's Cate Blanchett doing in 'Squid Game' season 3?

In the final scene of Squid Game, former Front Man In-ho pulls up to a random house in L.A. It's Gi-hun's daughter's new home, and In-ho is there to deliver something. Gi-hun's daughter is rightfully pissed that her deadbeat dad's friend is rolling up instead of him, but In-ho tells her that Gi-hun passed away and left something to her. The box contains the blood-splattered 456 jumpsuit and a bank card, filled with the rest of Gi-hun's winnings that In-ho stole from the Pink Hotel.

Throughout seasons 2 and 3, In-ho experienced a moral dilemma of whether he and Gi-hun were the same or different. Most of the new competition was designed to break Gi-hun's spirit and drive him to the same horrible state that made In-ho turn his back on the world. In an episode 4 flashback, we saw that when In-ho was a player in an earlier competition, he killed the other finalists in their sleep, similar to how Sang-woo killed a weakened Sae-byeok in season 1. At every turn, Gi-hun remained a noble man; by completing Gi-hun's failed trip to L.A. from season 1's cliffhanger, it seems that In-ho has learned some lessons from his dead rival. (Also, cool how the sun reflecting off In-ho's hair called back to Gi-hun's vibrant red hair color in the season 1 finale.)

But instead of season 3 ending on a full circle moment, there's one more scene that ensures that we haven't seen the last Squid Game. As In-ho drives through Downtown L.A., he peers into an alley where Cate Blanchett is wearing a suit and playing ddakji against a random man. She wins a round and then slaps the man, before looking over to see In-ho staring at her. Based on her expression, it's unclear whether she recognizes In-ho, but she has a similar crazed expression to the Korean Recruiter (Gong Yoo), as the man asks to play again and, still staring at In-ho, she answers, "As you wish." In-ho turns away with a sad expression (recognition? remorse? resigned acceptance?) and rolls up the window, as the camera goes back to the American Recruiter slapping the new player once again.

So with that, we're probably going to get Squid Game U.S. at some point. Odds are the spin-off will either be as voyeuristic and soulless as Squid Game: The Challenge, or it'll be a rehashed, toothless continuation like critics have argued seasons 2 and 3 were. Either way, the world will probably watch.