Squid Game season 3: Triumph, failure or both?

This week on Take the Black, we give the final word on Squid Game season 3, as well as dig into some news from the Seven Kingdoms.
Squid Game S3 (L to R) Jo Yu-ri as Jun-hee, Kang Ae-sim as Geum-ja in Squid Game S3 Cr. No Ju-han/Netflix © 2025
Squid Game S3 (L to R) Jo Yu-ri as Jun-hee, Kang Ae-sim as Geum-ja in Squid Game S3 Cr. No Ju-han/Netflix © 2025

The third and final season of Squid Game dropped on Netflix the other week, and by now a lot of people have had the chance to watch it; after all, it garnered 60.1 million views within three days of release, breaking a Netflix record. It was the number one most watched Netflix show in 93 countries. And in how many countries does Netflix keep track of which shows are the most popular? Ninety-three. This show is big.

But is it good? That's what we talk about on this week's episode of Take the Black, the weekly chat show where we discuss all things sci-fi, fantasy, movies, TV and books. My usual cohost Daniel Roman is out for a couple months as he welcomes a new child into his family, so I'll be drafting new cohosts until he's back. This week I've invited on Aysha Ashley Househ, who writes for our sister site Show Snob. She and I both watch Squid Game ahead of time and have been dying to share out thoughts.

And we do, right after I run through some news concerning HBO's two Game of Thrones prequel series: House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The former is getting filmed as we speak and the latter has been delayed. We get into all that and more in the new episode. Watch below:

Plenty of fans have rejected the ending to Squid Game. What about it has people upset? Did the show pay off what it needed to pay off? Did it deliver a bigger message, and if it did, does that excuse some sloppy plotting? Did the pulse-pounding games? Which characters did we wish lived longer and which couldn't we wait to see die?

We dig into all this and more before winding down with our two recurring segments: What Are We Watching and the WiC News Lightning Round. Aysha was nervous about the lightning round but quickly got used to it. I like to think that my advice about none of it mattering in the slightest helped.

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