Warning: This post contains spoilers for the ending of Squid Game, in case you have yet to watch it.
On Tuesday, the inevitable happened: Netflix finally confirmed a second season for Squid Game. The South Korean juggernaut has been so big it’s landed the streamer in legal trouble. But there’s a possibility it might not have happened, had creator Hwang Dong-hyuk gone with his other ending for the first season.
The show’s maiden nine episodes concluded with Seong Gi-hun, a.k.a. Player 456 (Lee Jung-jae), making an unexpected move: He decided not to get on the jet that would have taken him to his daughter, instead choosing to seek revenge on those who designed the deadly game, which ended the lives of 455 contestants. It was a controversial move, at least if you ask LeBron James. But in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hwang said his other capper was a bit different.
“We actually wrestled between two different scenarios for the ending … There was one, the other alternate ending, where Gi-hun would get on the plane and leave. And then there was of course the one where he would turn back and walk towards the camera. We constantly asked ourselves, is it really right for Gi-hun to make the decision to leave and go see his family, to pursue his own happiness? Is that the right way for us to really propose the question or the message that we wanted to convey through the series?”
In the end, he felt the ending that allowed him to better peruse those questions was the one you wound up getting. “We came to the conclusion that the question that we wanted to propose cannot be done if he left on the plane,” Hwang said. “The question that we want to answer — why has the world come to what it is now? — can only be answered or can only be proposed if Gi-hun turned back and walked towards the camera. So that’s how we ended up with that ending in the finale.”
So there you have it. But don’t hold your breath for more Squid Game, as Hwang said it’s “too early” to tell when he’ll be able to make it. But if you still fiend for more of almost the same, Netflix did recently add three of Hwang’s films to their coffers.
(Via EW)