I’ve watched a lot of television this year. That hasn’t necessarily been deliberate, but I’ve already watched more shows from 2021 this year than I watched shows from 2020 in all of last year. This includes WandaVision, Loki (all the Marvel shows, actually), Sex Education, It’s A Sin, Invincible, Pose, I Think You Should Leave, RPDR, RPDRUK, The White Lotus, Reservation Dogs, Only Murders In The Building, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Simpsons, GBBO, Brand New Cherry Flavour, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sweet Tooth, The Bad Batch, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rick and Morty, and🔯 of course, Squid Game. That’s not an exhaustive lisཧt of every show I’ve seen, and Ted Lasso, Mare of Easttown, and Midnight Mass feel like notable omissions, but I feel I speak with decent authority when I say Squid Game episode six is the only essential episode of television this year.
‘Essential’ television episodes are rare. It’s A Sin, Pose, WandaVision, and I Think You Should Leave are all excellent TV shows - none had an essential episode in 2021. I Never Knew Love Like This Before, a Pose episode from 2019, might qualify. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game of Thrones pre-whatever the hell happened in the end 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:only had a few. The Simpsons, for all its consistently high qualityཧ in the Golden Age, can only claim a handful. Bo🀅Jack Horseman, despite in my mind being the greatest television show to air this century, has just two - Fish Out of Water and Free Churro. Time’s Arrow and The View From Halfway Down make strong arguments, but while they are both excellent, I struggle to call them essential.
That’s because ‘essent🍰ial’ is not hyperbole for ‘bloody gooꦛd’. I mean essential. I mean you are missing out on a key part of the television canon if you do not see them. I mean I don’t believe there is anything on television quite like them. Essential episodes aren’t always my favourite ones in a series, but with Squid Game, Gganbu is the clear standout.
Major spoilers for Squid Game episode six follow
If you’re unfamiliar with Squid Game, here’s a quick catch-up. 456 people are invited to participate in a contest, which turns out to be a winner take all deathgame with billions of Won on the table. They work through a series of children’s games where the winners progress and the losers are killed violently, usually by being shot in the head. The underlying m𝔍essage is that it&🍰rsquo;s always okay to eat the rich, but the moment to moment action isꦰ🔜 ‘play games and don’t die’.
By episode six, this pattern is clearly established. There are far more players dead than there are alive. Teams have been formed, bonds have been forged, and players have begun to turn on each other. Bef🌜ore the game starts, the players are asked to form teams of two. By this point, most players have worked in informal alliances, while the game immediately before this had them competing in teams of ten in tug-of-war. They believe, just as the audience does, that they’re forming a partnership. Turns out they’re choosing their opponent.
Here we see the dynamic of the show inverted completely. Seong Gi-hun,𒅌 our protagonist, tries to pair up with his childhood friend, but misses out. He then surveys the room to find another partner, but after discovering that player 001, an old man he has grown close to, is alone, he chooses to pair up with the game’s weakest, most vulnerable player. It’s a selfless act, one he takes to protect 001, even though it puts him in danger. However, 🅠once the game starts, Seong Gi-hun is forced to become selfish, using 001’s dementia against him in order to win the game.
To describe the episode in a blow by blow fashion would miss the point of it entirely, but the other pairings are equally compelling. One matchup pits husband and wife against each other. Another sees the game’s toughest, most ruthless player brought down to size by his lackey. Two of the women, often discarded by the men out of fear they make weaker teammates, pair up and bond on the edge of oblivion. Cho Sang-wo, Seong Gi-hun’s childhood friend, pairs up with Ali - a Pakistani man with limited knowledge of Korean and Korean childhood gꦰames.
Sang-wo seems to believe Ali to be a better partner than Gi-hun - less knowledgeable about the games perhaps, but calmer and more intelligent. He has also pro𓄧tected Ali in the past, so there seems to be some charity in the decision. Either that, or he’s thinking three steps ahead and feels Ali is easier to manipulate. So it proves, with Sang-wo losing the game, yet conning Ali in the most connivi𝐆ng, underhanded move in the entire series. In some ways, Gganbu subverts our expectations of each character. In others, it finally reveals their true nature.
By far, the episode’s high point comes in the exchange between Ji-yeong and Sae-byeok, the two women. For all its grand ideas, Squid Game struggles to know what to do with women, but the one ꦡtim🐭e it decides to give them the spotlight, it becomes the highlight of the season. Ji-yeong and Sae-byeok decide not to compete with each other, as the rest of the players do. Instead they talk for almost the entire time, deciding to risk it all on a single bet just before time runs out. In the meantime, they just talk.
This arc is why Gganbu feels so essential. In a series unafraid to line its runtime with wall to wall bloodshed, Ji-yeong and Sae-byeok are allowed a moment of peace. The dialogue elsewhere is frantic and rushed. The stakes are literally life and death for the majority of the scenes. Every exchange is fraught with a kill or be killed energy. Ji-yeong and Sae-byeok push back against that. After the especially guarded Sae-byeok🍌 opens up and reveals her reason for playing the game, this leads🦂 to Ji-yeong willingly sacrificing herself to save her partner.
In a seriꦑes stuffed with all varieties of death, Gganbu is the only episode that feels like it contains loss. Squid Game is popular because of its violence, but it’s a masterpiece because it knows when to turn it off. Gganbu might be the most important episode of television☂ this year - I don’t think many others can claim to be as brave.