It’s sometimes easy to forget just how Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) became Player 456 on Netflix‘s Squid Game in the first place. Sure, Gi-hun had a gambling problem and owed massive amounts of money to predatory loan sharks, but what really got the guy to sign up for the games in the first place was the realization that his young daughter Seong Ga-yeong (Jo A-in) was moving to America. He had just biffed her latest birthday — gifting her “junk food” and a lighter shaped like a handgun — and was feeling desperate. So it wasn’t just avarice or desperation that fueled his choice to play these mysterious underground games; It was love and the human need to provide.

While some Squid Game fans might have forgotten this, the third and final season of the Netflix hit certainly doesn’t. Squid Game Season 3 gives Player 456 the poetic end he deserves, while also teasing a bold new chapter for the streaming saga. These final six episodes of Squid Game also encapsulate series creator, director, and writer Hwang Dong-hyuk‘s most twisted and touching work to date. There are moments of sheer moral perversion set alongside the show’s most inspiring acts of love. It is upsetting, unsettling, and bizarrely uplifting in ways only Squid Game can be.

Squid Game Season 3 takes place in the immediate aftermath of Season 2. Seong Gi-hun, aka Player 456, used his insane prize winnings from the first season to do everything he could to end the games. He entered the games once more in the hopes that he can lead Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) to the island where it all goes down. This prompted fellow former winner, the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), to enter the games as Player 001. He gained Gi-hun’s trust and supported his daring rebellion, only to turn at the last minute. Squid Game Season 2 ended with the Front Man murdering Gi-hun’s childhood friend and blaming our protagonist’s desire to “play the hero” for all this carnage.

Squid Game Season 3 puts us and Gi-hun back in the games. Our hero has been emotionally trampled by the events of last season, partaking in the season’s first depraved challenge simply as a means of exactly revenge on one other player. Nevertheless, several of Player 456’s surviving allies — the pregnant Player 222 Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), maternal Player 149 Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim), and courageous transgender Player 120 Hyun-ju (Park Sung-soon) — still look to him with a shadow of hope. As the games continue to grind the humanity out of the remaining players, these three do their all to protect each other and reach Gi-hun in his tortured state.

What Lee Jung-jae has accomplished this season, and throughout Squid Game‘s entire run, is one of the greatest television performances of all-time. In Season 1, Player 456 was a mercurial everyman, striving to survive an impossible situation with as much honor as possible. Season 2 reinvented the character as both a haunted survivor and noble hero on a quest for justice. Squid Game Season 3, however, opens with Gi-hun at his absolute lowest, beaten down by his failure and consumed by nihilistic fury. Instead of trying to survive or destroy the games, Player 456 is now battling the ultimate opponent: Himself. Lee Jung-jae somehow lets this internal darkness consume his very appearance, carving shadows into his stare. It’s incredible to behold and should put him in line for another Emmy award.

Squid Game Season 3 is also a testament to the genius of creator, writer, and director Hwang Dong-hyuk. Fans of the series have known since Season 1 that Hwang has both a dastardly cruel streak and a deeply empathetic heart. Squid Game Season 3 contains some of the most depraved twists in the series’ entire run, but ultimately argues for the inherent dignity of human beings. No spoilers, but the final season of Squid Game remembers what got Gi-hun in the games in the first place.

Squid Game Season 3 might do right by its leading man, but its supporting characters are another story. The loathsome “VIPs” are back and their English-language dialogue is as unnaturally stilted as ever. While I’m sure it’s a creative decision from Hwang, designed to further dehumanize them, it’s nonetheless distracting. Side characters like Choi Woo-seok (Jeon Seok-ho) and Park Gyeong-seok (Lee Jin-wook) get cutely pat happily ever afters that don’t quite jive with the darkness that permeates the rest of the story. Oh, and the season’s biggest twist is one of those situations that is, I guess, medically possible, but extremely unlikely. You really need to suspend your disbelief here, but then that’s been part and parcel for Squid Game since the start.

Of course, none of these issues might matter once you’ve watched Squid Game Season 3 all the way to the very end. There have been rumblings for years that Netflix has been quietly developing international versions of the Korean hit, and the final scene, featuring an insane celeb cameo, all but confirms an American Squid Game is nigh. (When Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria kicked off the New York City Season 3 premiere screening last week, she wasn’t eulogizing the show’s impressive run as she had done for the launch of You‘s final season just last month, also hinting this isn’t Squid Game‘s end as a franchise.)

Squid Game ends in a way that not only echoes its own humble beginnings, but teases a massive new chapter for Hwang Dong-hyuk’s twisted saga. It gives the character of Seong Gi-hun and the actor Lee Jung-jae the poignant send offs both men deserve, while refusing to resolve the show’s existential drama in a simple, easy way. It’s messy, magnificent, and a fitting conclusion to the sensational story that started back in 2021.

Squid Game Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.