Yakima

This season suffer exactly the same flaws that season 2 had with lack of emotional investment in the story and the characters. This season and the previous one is much more action filled and has more focus on that. I also feel like it was not necessary to have 3 seasons they could have easily combined this season into season 2.

Same as the previous season, I lacked emotional investment. The only character that I actually felt invested in got killed off very early, which just made me less interested in watching the rest since I didn't really root for anyone. Also I just started caring less and less about Gi-Hun unfortunately. He didn't feel like that strong of a character anymore and my investment in him just disappeared compared to season 1.

I'm also disappointed that pretty much any character that had some sort of story to them died off early. Like in the last games I could not care anymore who died because most of the characters left were very one-dimensional.

I remember watching season 1 and feeling dread watching specific games knowing that some of the characters that I got invested in would die. The characters also had much more dynamics and connections between them compared to this season. And the characters that actually did have some connection between them in this season were just gotten rid of very quickly.

Just like in the previous seasons I did enjoy the actual games. They are creative and still suspensful to watch. So I can't complain much about the actual games. Although, I would have probably been even more invested in the games if I actually had more of an emotional attachment to the characters. There were some moments that were more suspenseful and emotional, but it was still lacking unfortunately. Like I can't compare it to season 1.

Also the whole plotline with the detective and the boat is just way too dragged out. I found it so uninteresting during the previous season because nothing really happened with it. And now it is still just too slow paced. I'm sad that the detective didn't get to have more of an interesting arc in this season compared to the first one. He literally got no progress in his story or even a conclusion.

I also feel disappointed with how the front-man was handled. The whole thing that he was part of the games in the previous season felt kinda like it was forgotten. Nothing really happened with it. And we also didn't really get any more information or depth about his character. They showed that he was part of the games once, which is not new information! We knew this from season 1! It would have been more interesting if they actually explored him a bit more like how exactly he got his position, has he hosted many games before, how much control does he actually have and so on.

I have to say am I disappointed in the ending. It didn't feel satisfying at all and did not really contribute more to an overall story. The ending was similar to the first season. We had a winner and people made sacrifices to get there. And the whole thing with that the Squid Games actually is a thing in the US now just feels like a bad hook to milk this franchise even more.

Also the VIP:s moments didn't really add anything new as well. Like we knew how they were from season 1 and they are still the same. Also terrible acting and they felt so out of place.

I still have to give credit to the very good production and acting (except for the VIP:s of course), just like the previous seasons had. I was a bit disappointed with the soundtrack in this season. It did not really stand out for me that much and I had higher expectations since I loved the soundtrack in season 1.

Overall, this season was disappointing, but I also expected it to be so I'm not surprised. Still, it was entertaining to watch, but I do kinda wish they just stopped after season 1.