Squid Game Season 1 recap

Season 1 of Squid Game begins with the unfortunate Seong Gi-hun who is deeply in debt to dangerous people, divorced and the father of a daughter who he is estranged from. Not only this, he has also stolen his mother's earnings due to his gambling addiction.

During this bad time, a gentlemanly stranger challenges Gi-hun to play a simple game like Ddakji at the railway station for which he gives money. Seeing Gi-hun's growing interest in the game, he tempts him to win more money and finally convinces him to play high-stakes games.

After which Gi-hun is given a drug and he falls unconscious. Now, when he opens his eyes, he is in a big place among 455 strangers, where everyone is wearing green coloured tracksuits, and everyone has their unique number. Gi-hun's number is 456.

At the same time, Gi-hun and his fellow players realize that they are stuck in an unknown place where guards wearing pink masks are standing to monitor them, and they will have to win six different games in six days to win billions of rupees.

While preparing for the first game, Gi-hun finds out that one of his fellow players is his childhood friend Cho Sang, whose number is 218 and he has also participated in this game. Along with this, both of them befriend Player 001, whose name is Oh Il-nam, who is much older than them, and they agree to help each other in the upcoming games.

Gi-hun also recognizes player number 67, Kang Sae-byeok, who stole his money because she was a pickpocket.

After that, a masked secret Frontman starts the first round of the game while keeping an eye on all the players.

The game is very simple: red light, green light, where the rule is to run from one end of the field to the other in time there is a big doll, and players have to run on the sound of the green light and stop on the sound of red light.

This game proves to be as deadly as it seems. When a player breaks the rule, he is shot, due to which there is a stampede among the other players, and people try to run here and there in panic. Half the contestants are killed and the most scared Gi-hun and his other friends finally survive this round.

Now everyone knows that this game is not that easy. With every player dying, more money is added to the prize pot, after which the contestants stop the game by majority vote, and no one gets any money, and the guards release all the players so that they can go to their respective homes.

Then Gi-hun tells his entire experience to the police, but the police do not believe him. There is a detective named Hwang Jun-ho who believes him a little bit because his elder brother has been missing for a long time and his elder brother also received a similar invitation.

Gi-hun and most of the players slowly start realizing that the only solution to all the problems in their lives is to win that prize money, and finally, they all re-enter the game.

Cho Sang-woo was almost on the verge of getting arrested due to financial fraud. The other elderly, Oh Il-nam, wanted to die bravely rather than die of a serious illness. Sae-byeok wants to get her family out of North Korea, so they go back to the game.

On the other hand, detective Jun-ho secretly joins the guards and finds out that the game is being played on a remote island and while being with the guards, he also finds out that the organs of the dead players are being taken out from their bodies and sold in the black market.

Jun-ho checks the records of the game and finds out that this deadly game has been played for the last 30 years. In the same records, he also finds out about his missing brother In-ho, who was the previous winner of this game.

Now, as soon as VIP foreigners reach the remote island to bet on players, Jun-ho secretly attacks a VIP and gets his confession recorded for all these dangerous illegal activities.

But while trying to escape after collecting evidence from the island, Jun-ho is caught by the Frontman, after which the Frontman reveals his face and then it is revealed that the Frontman is actually his elder brother In-ho.

After this, the Frontman, i.e. In-ho, asks Jun-ho to join him to keep an eye on the game, but the deceived Jun-ho refuses his brother, after which the Frontman shoots Jun-ho standing on the seashore, and he falls into the sea.

On the other hand, going back to the game, everyone is more prepared than before, knowing the danger. Player 119 Ali joins Gi-hun, Sang-woo, Oh Il Nam, Sae-byeok, who is a Pakistani immigrant and has had to endure a lot in his normal life.

Now in the second game, every player has to choose a shape between a circle, star, triangle and umbrella. After they choose, they are given a cookie of that shape which they have to cut in that shape.

Unfortunately, Gi-hun had to choose an umbrella for himself, which was the most difficult shape, but Gi-hun and his friends completed their task.

After the completion of the second game, Player 101, i.e. Deok-su, gets into a fight with a player and kills him; the guards also do nothing, due to which more money is added to the final prize pool due to the death of that person.

Then Deok realises that he can make his position easy by killing the other players, so he makes an alliance with people like him which also includes Player number 212, the one who makes strange faces. (Mera Shona)

Then as soon as the lights go off, they start killing everyone. Gi-hun and his friends together survive these riots and move toward the third game.

The third game is Tug of War in which players are forced to make teams of ten where they will face off against each other. Deok-su betrays her most loyal partner, Player 212, because she is a girl, and Deok-su needs all strong men to make her team strong.

Han Mi-nyeo, i.e. Player 212, goes and joins Gi-hun and his friends. Although it is a weak team, they still include them. The elderly Oh Il-nam helps them and makes them win by telling them the best strategy to win the Tug of War.

After this, we are shown further in the story that the fourth game is about to start where everyone is forced to choose a partner. Gi-hun pairs up with Oh Il-nam and Sang-woo with Ali.

All the players are given marble pouches and are asked to win the game because to win, they have to get all the marbles of their partner by any means, and along with this, a timer will run, and whoever loses will be killed.

Gi-hun and his partner will now have to compete against each other due to which Sae-byeok gets very upset that one of them will have to die while Sang-woo deceitfully takes the marbles of his friend Ali.

Gi-hun, taking advantage of the amnesia of the elderly Oh Il-nam, takes all his marbles.

As the timer runs out, Gi-hun wins. Oh Il-nam admits that she intentionally let him win because they are both trusted friends and can share everything.

Gi-hun is now very ashamed and sad about his actions and leaves from there and Oh Il-nam is killed.

The story then moves forward to the fifth game where there are only 16 players left, including Gi-hun, Sang-woo, Sae-byeok, Deok-su and Mi-nyeo.

So the next game is glass tapping, where some glass panels are made on a bridge, some of which are real panels that can bear weight, and some are fake panels that will break and the players will die.

All the players are randomly given numbers in which they will cross the bridge and will see people dying in front of their eyes, after which Deok-su refuses to move ahead and decides to go last and says that either go and tell the right panels before he or all the people will die while waiting for the time to end.

Seeing all this, Player 212, i.e. Mi-nyeo, whom Deok-su had left alone, sacrifices herself by taking him and jumping down, due to which both of them die.

Now, the time was about to end, and many players had not crossed the bridge yet.

Sang-woo pushes the players standing in front of him, finds the fake panel, and safely crosses the bridge.

Only three people are left in the game, Sang-woo, Gi-hun and Sae-byeok, after which Gi-hun realizes that his childhood friend Sang-woo can go to any extent to win this game, even if he has to kill his partner, unfortunately this realization also does not work because Sang-woo kills Sae-byeok.

After which now two final players are left, Gi-hun and his childhood friend Sang-woo.

The final game is the typical classic Squid Game played in the schoolyard which Gi-hun and Sang-woo used to play together in their childhood.

Ultimately, Gi-hun defeats Sang-woo and can't stand seeing his friend die, so he begs to let both of them live and not give them any money so that they can at least get out of there alive.

But Sang-woo refuses and kills himself after which Gi-hun finally wins the game and gets all the money.

Now when Gi-hun returns, he finds that his mother is dead.

The story further shows that after a year, Gi-hun is now a rich man, but he has not been able to recover from all the things he has gone through, and he never spends the money he has won.

Gi-hun then receives an invitation to meet the dead Oh Il-nam, who is close to death, and shockingly survives the game where he reveals that he is the real creator of the game and that he created this game for the entertainment of rich people like him who are bored with life.

Also Oh Il-nam challenges Gi-hun that no passerby will help a drunkard lying on the road before midnight. Gi-hun accepts this challenge and gets relieved when some policemen help the drunkard after which Oh Il-nam dies.

After that Gi-hun regains his faith in humanity. Gi-hun saves Sae-byeok's orphan brother and puts him under the care of Sang-woo's mother and gives them the equal winning amount of both so that they can live a better life.

Finally, he prepares to meet his long-lost daughter when he sees a man in a suit convincing a man to play Squid Game. Now Gi-hun cancels his plan and decides that he will try to enter the game again and stop the game and save people's lives.

This is where Season 1 of Squid Game ends.