HA! INSANE! This is one of those shows where I don’t have much to say cause everything was great! I mean there was no way we could’ve love the ending cause love would mean a happy ending and that was impossible (rip 067, my real winner), so I was just expecting the worst possible scenarios, like maybe 218 winning! (I’ll never forgive him) or he wins and he loses it all AGAIN or he flees the country leaving his mom to her doom, so 456 winning was a relief, but I really was ready for anything, like he losing the card in the sewers (I feel like that would happen to him) or the guys he owed money to following him into the bank and robbing him!
So I was prepared for every shitty scenario, except one! I never saw that twist coming!!! Never ever never! But once you finish the show and start watching clips you realize there were little clues here and there and that it was so perfectly executed! Like after he won every game he was so happy and at first it was like yaaay old man celebrating he’s got another day to live, but nope it was old sick and twisted man celebrating all these people dying. I cried so much for him, he didn’t deserve my tears.
So that twist was genius! The golden rule of television is if you don’t see a body they aren’t officially dead. And I remember thinking that about the other girlie who didn’t have a partner for that game, we assume the guards killed her for automatically being disqualified but I told my friend nope she’s safe cause we didn’t see her body, and I also thought the same thing about the detective but who knows about him, so when we didn’t see his body I just thought maybe the guard had mercy on him. HA!
So excellent show, nothing to complain about EXCEPT maybe a couple of storylines that felt unfinished:
1. Detective and brother: the detective did a very good job investigating, but he went there without any sort of backup, not even alerting his boss beforehand, first night he had like 50% battery, overall very stupid but still he did a good job while being inside, then I think some photos actually went through, and I wanna believe the boss would notice he’s still missing after that phone call and would send someone eventually, and then I believe that wasn’t a lethal injury and he fell into the water (I say this as if it was easy to get shot and fall from a cliff into the ocean) and we didn’t see his body so I don’t know! What also I don’t know is wtf with the brother, he won in 2015 and he’s back as the leader but also he lived a very meager existence outside the game, he owed rent for that little room! So there’s something there.
2. The guards! We’ve seen that theory about the color of the envelope and that makes sense to me, cause even if there’s some deranged people out there, there were like 500 guards? I think one for each competitor, and I guess they were also there for the money since they had that side business, so I believe they were also indebted people, and maybe they are assigned a competitor and if they win that guard also wins? Or every guard gets an smaller payment? That’s also intriguing.
3. How global this game is? One of the vips said the Korean edition was his favorite so we can assume it happens in other countries too and I saw a binder that said 1999 so at least since that year they’ve been playing.
So what I would’ve changed, is maybe omit that last subway scene and just send him directly to New York and then he’s on the subway there and he sees the same Korea scenario but there and he freezes and that’s how it ends... but that kinda opens the door for like an american adaptation and I wouldn’t want that, but I like that it shows how global/scary the game is.
Or maybe the ending we got but somehow the detective makes a subtle comeback and we know 456 has back up! Cause what I got is not that he is going back to play again, but to stop them, and yes 456 is a smart man but I don’t think one man can bring the square-triangle-circle down, so implying the detective’s involvement in any way would’ve been clever.
Still I don’t think I want a second season, if anything maybe a separate show about the leader/guards perspective and 456 can be a secondary character.
