Squid Game Recap: Doll Eyes

Phew, there’s a lot of death in this episode. No-eul kicks things off in the first 30 seconds by shooting the doctor as soon as Gyeong-seok wakes up. Perhaps she’s aware that she’s just made a pretty startling first impression, because she puts her mask on and tells Gyeong-seok, “I’m trying to save your life.” The rest of the deaths we see happen during the game of hide-and-seek, where red players are ostensibly killing people to try to save their own lives, though some of them — such as Gi-hun and the newly formed tag team of Nam-gyu and Myung-gi — clearly have other motives, too.

The pink soldiers omitted some helpful information when explaining how this game would work. Jeong-dae is one of the first to realize that not every blue player’s keys work on every door. This is good news for Hyun-ju, Yu-ri, and Geum-ja, who, between them, happen to have a key for each of the three shapes of locks (circle, triangle, and square, of course). The trio — who dub themselves the bathroom team in a nod to their past late-night trip to the toilets — hand their keys to Hyun-ju, the natural choice for leader. Jun-hee becomes an even easier target after she injures her ankle and rolls down the stairs, but when a red player tries to attack, Hyun-ju is such a skilled fighter that she is able to overpower him while unarmed, then kill him and take his knife as extra protection.

They’re not the only group with good chemistry. Nam-gyu, who popped two pills before heading into the game, works surprisingly well with Myung-gi. When it’s time for their first kill, Myung-gi falters  —  murder probably feels different than stabbing Thanos in self-defense did — but he’s able to step in after Nam-gyu is also disarmed. When the victim pleads that he has a wife and kid, Myung-gi pauses. Is it because he’s feeling empathy as a soon-to-be-father? Nope. He wants to make sure Nam-gyu doesn’t get the fatal blow first. They agree to stab at the same time to get half-credit, and Myung-gi shrewdly thinks to take the dead man’s key to open doors.

After their second joint kill, they could go their separate ways; they’ve met the one-player quota. Nam-gyu’s fascination with the way people’s eyes turn into “doll eyes” when they die is creepy, and he’s now making fun of Myung-gi’s relationship with Jun-hee by singing “Love Scenario,” a popular breakup song. But most important, Myung-gi promised Jun-hee that he would come find and protect her as soon as he killed someone. If he really wants a chance at a fresh start with her, he should focus on keeping his word. Yet he pauses when Nam-gyu proposes that they keep upping their body count instead, since eliminating more blue players will indirectly eliminate more red players who won’t have enough people to go after.

It doesn’t take long before we learn what choice Myung-gi makes. Seon-nyeo has been leading a group of her believers around, claiming that the souls of the dead are guiding her wiggling ears. She finally declares that she’s found the exit, but after she opens the door, she slams it shut and sprints away. Seconds later, Myung-gi comes charging through the doorframe with Nam-gyu, stabbing as many of Seon-nyeo’s faithful followers as he can. Ugh, all men do is lie. Jun-hee deserves so much better.

Seon-nyeo has the bad luck of running right into a glowering Gi-hun next. But she shakes him off by directing his attention back to Dae-ho, whom Gi-hun has already cornered once. During that first confrontation, Gi-hun hesitated to stab him. We know that Dae-ho has since obtained a knife blade that he got after kicking a red player to his death down a flight of stairs. But Dae-ho’s leg was sliced in the scuffle, and thanks to a tip from Seon-nyeo, Gi-hun is now aware that his target is nearby and leaving a visible trail of blood to follow.

Meanwhile, Min-su is high as a kite, having earlier picked up Nam-gyu’s accidentally discarded Thanos necklace and taken a pill. He approaches Seon-nyeo and urgently asks her to help him find Se-mi. Unsettled, she backs into a room where she discovers an exit. The problem is that she only has one of the three keys needed to open the door. While looking for keys, Seon-nyeo stumbles across Jeong-dae, who was playing dead to fool a murderous, off-key Nam-gyu. Since Jeong-dae predictably betrayed the first ally he made in this game, he has the two keys that Seon-nyeo needs. She leads him back to the exit, allowing him to believe that she is being guided by gods rather than the arrows she draws on the wall using blood from the growing number of corpses in the halls.

Amid all this death, a new life is also being delivered. Our bathroom squad has found a room where Jun-hee and Geum-ja initially say they’ll stay and hide in, encouraging Hyun-ju to go find the exit on her own. But when Jun-hee’s water suddenly breaks, Geum-ja goes into midwife mode and instructs Hyun-ju to come hold Jun-hee’s hand. Despite the fact that Jun-hee just fell down a flight of stairs, has only had access to the bare-bones meals that the game offers, and has been under a great deal of stress during her pregnancy, she gives birth to what appears to be a healthy baby girl.

There’s not much time to celebrate before Hyun-ju has to fight off another red player, though. Even though she takes more hits and ends up getting injured this time, she still ultimately turns the tide and kills her opponent. It’s starting to feel like no one can beat Hyun-ju in hand-to-hand combat, and it makes sense that a red player who sees her wiping her face with blood decides to mind his business and walk away.

The fight has inadvertently led Hyun-ju to an exit, which she has all three keys for. She starts to hobble over the threshold, but stops herself and goes back to get Jun-hee and Geum-ja. Right as Hyun-ju shares the good news, she’s stabbed from behind — and collapses to reveal Myung-gi holding the knife. It’s such a painful contrast: Myung-gi didn’t need to kill anyone else, but he was selfishly tempted by the idea of eliminating more players and increasing his individual payout; Hyun-ju didn’t need to limp her way back, but she did so out of selfless consideration for her friends. Myung-gi at least reads the room well enough to know that he’s not welcome there and walks away without telling Nam-gyu that there are still people inside.

Seon-nyeo and Jeong-dae have successfully arrived at an exit, but her grandiose personality gives Jeong-dae the window to push her aside and slam the door shut behind him. When Min-su finds Seon-nyeo again, he hears her condescending words, believes that she’s Nam-gyu, and stabs her several times. Seon-nyeo dies right in front of the exit that she could have reached if she hadn’t celebrated prematurely, and a horrified Min-su is suddenly convinced that he’s just killed Se-mi.

Our next major death comes courtesy of Gi-hun, who has finally found Dae-ho. In a moment of panic, Dae-ho blurts that he actually was never a marine. “I lied so I could be with you guys,” he says, describing himself as a pathetic loser who just got scared during the rebellion. “It’s your fault. You’re the one who killed them all,” an unsympathetic Gi-hun tells Dae-ho, pressing a knife to his neck. Dae-ho then pulls his blade out and slashes at Gi-hun’s arm, abandoning his sniveling demeanor to scream that Gi-hun is the one who is responsible for killing everyone.

Their fight continues down the stairs and into the halls — Dae-ho is fighting for his life and, at one point, brandishes one of his shoes as a weapon. But he once again finds himself trapped in front of a door that leads to a deadly drop, and Gi-hun chokes Dae-ho to death in the doorway. Dae-ho uses his last breath to gurgle that it’s Gi-hun’s fault. When Dae-ho’s eyes become the glassy doll eyes that Nam-gyu has become so obsessed with, Gi-hun’s own eyes widen as he realizes what he’s done. After the game ends, he cries and says aloud, “It’s my fault.” He holds his knife up to his neck, but it’s shot out of his grip by pink soldiers who knock him unconscious. Just like in the season premiere, the game is refusing to allow him to choose to die.

That leaves us with the devastating final death of the episode, which really makes me begin to understand how show creator Hwang Dong-hyuk could have lost so many teeth over this show. Geum-ja, Jun-hee, and her baby have found the exit that Hyun-ju told them about. All three keys are in the locks when Yong-sik arrives in the room. He has … not been doing well. So far, he was unable to kill a blue player who ended up attacking him instead, a red player shattered one of the lenses of his glasses, and he seemingly started hyperventilating because of all of the  casualties around him. Yong-sik tells his mom he’s going to die because he couldn’t kill anyone. Instead of letting him approach Jun-hee, Geum-ja tells him to kill her, even guiding his knife to her stomach. Yong-sik can’t do it. He pushes his mom aside and goes for a shaking Jun-hee. “I’m sorry,” he says, raising his knife after looking at her crying baby.

Before he has the chance to follow through, Geum-ja stabs Yong-sik with her hairpin that she had just used to cut an umbilical cord and deliver a new life. Geum-ja chooses to let her son die as the little boy who never hurt anyone rather than letting him live to become someone who stabbed a mom holding a newborn child. As Geum-ja sobs and embraces Yong-sik, Netflix’s English subtitles have him telling her, “I’m sorry.” (A more literal translation would be “I was wrong” or “It was my fault,” which to me conveys more accountability than “sorry” alone and feels more poignant.) Once the game is over, pink soldiers approach Yong-sik to shoot him and ensure that he’s eliminated, despite Geum-ja’s heartbroken pleas. I’m glad that this part happens off-camera, because I don’t think I can stand to see her crying anymore.

Parting Shots

• This entire game of hide-and-seek happens over the course of half an hour. I’m not an expert in childbirth, and looking back, Jun-hee may have been in labor long before this game started. But as a viewer, it felt like she popped that kid out pretty fast. I’m just glad that there were no complications during the delivery, and am personally amazed that Jun-hee did it with no painkillers and a potentially broken ankle.

• In-ho’s face is covered by his Front Man mask when he watches Gi-hun kill Dae-ho, but I imagine that he was wearing a smug expression underneath. He’s been tired of Gi-hun taking the moral high ground, and Gi-hun definitely doesn’t feel like he’s in the right anymore.

• So … what do we think is going to happen to this baby in the next game? Will pink soldiers take her away, or will Jun-hee be forced to compete with her? Also, if Jun-hee is taking any suggestions for baby names, I think it would be sweet to call her Hyun-ju.