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The final episode of Squid Game Season 3 continues with major spoilers.
You’ve been warned!
The final scene where the door was opened
The squid game ends with a slap – literally. After Gi-Hun’s final sacrifice and an emotional gut punch that closes the Korean game, the show quietly changes. During the six-month jump, they take you to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, a frontman (Lee Byung-han), also known as In-Ho, pays Jun’s daughter a gloomy visit. He offers two things: The Player 456 Jumpsuit and Gi-Hun’s bounty are iconic handovers that close one story with a quiet finality.
However, as Inho drives him out of the silence of the car, he hears something unmistakable. A swap of dodukji tiles slams the concrete, followed by a slap crack. He rolls down the window and sees a sharply dressed woman in the alley and plays the same game that started it all. She meets his gaze. That’s Cate Blanchett.
“Now, let’s go again,” a potential new squid game player tells Blanchett recruiters. “As you want,” she replies.
The recruiter resets the tiles. The game continues – not the ending, but just a change of location, or perhaps a glimpse into what was always there.
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Cate Blanchett joins the world of squid games
The Oscar-winning actor appears in a short, wordless cameo listed in the credits as “special look.” Her character plays Ddakji. It is the same slap and yearway game featured in season 1 by the Gong You character. He made his infamous return in the opening episode of Season 2. This ended with him taking away his life in a deadly game of Russian roulette on the other side of Jun.
Now Blanchett is carrying a torch, but in a very different setting.
“I thought having a woman as a recruiter would be more dramatic and intriguing,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, a squid game creator, told Tudum. “And why Cate Blanchett is just the best with her disagreeable charisma. Who doesn’t love her? So we were so happy to have her featured.
Fans also talked about the filming process, recalling how Blanchett slipped into the role with ease. “During filming, she remembered what true talent looked like. Her performance was seductive, even with just a few looks and lines. She was incredible to play Ddakji.
Actor Lee Byung-han didn’t share the frames with Blanchett during filming, even though the characters shared the scenes. “The cameras were just going back and forth, we filmed the parts separately,” he said during a squid match in conversation. “In the end we parted ways without even saying hello.” But that didn’t stop him from admiring her commitment: “I saw her practicing it for quite some time.”
He also spoke about the weight of the ending. “Personally, I have continued it as before, despite all the noble efforts of so many people.
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The Handoff of the Story – and a New Chapter?
The Blanchett looks short, but that’s not meaningless. “The Korean match ended with the sacrifice of Gi-Hun,” Hwang said in a conversation special on Netflix’s Squid game.
It is not entirely clear whether the games shown in Los Angeles are recent developments or part of a long-term international venture. Have you witnessed the beginning of the squid game: America? Or simply confirm that corruption is spreading far beyond the Korean border? And where does Inho fit now? Does he exist in the US branch? Will he be punished for something that goes down under his watch?
Either way, one thing is certain: the cycle hasn’t stopped.
David Fincher and the Squid Game: America
Blanchett’s cameo rekindled the buzz about Netflix’s long-running US spinoff. In October 2024, Deadline broke the story that David Fincher had joined in developing a new English squid game series.
“A new English squid game series is working on streamers and David Fincher is coming to develop it,” the outlet reported. “He was able to narrow down the film in advance, but Insider says it’s likely that the Squid Games series is a project that will commit his time in 2025.”
Dennis Kelly (Utopia) is reportedly writing the series. This is said to be an original extension to Squid Game Universe, not a remake. There are no official words from Netflix yet, but Netflix’s claims are that Fincher is about to start filming in LA this December. If that’s actually a plan, Fincher is also set in the film Netflix, written by Quentin Tarantino, a Hollywood sequel, “Adventures of Adventures.”
With a long-standing relationship with Netflix, Fincher feels like a natural fit. With titles like Mindhunter, Love, Death + Robots, The Killer, no one knows a story built on manipulation, delusions and psychological descent, let alone the 1997 game.
It is still unclear whether Blanchett will recreate her role, or whether this was a one-off. But her brief moments here feel like she has a purpose. It’s a tone and territory handoff, if not a personality.
The game isn’t over
Don’t spell out the future for the final shot of Squid Game Season 3. They don’t have to. What they do is leave us with a calm awareness. The game is still happening. They may have ended in Korea, but they continue elsewhere – and the cycle continues.
As fans summarise it, “In this story, squid games are hosted by a particular group of people, which serves as a real world rationale where capitalism burns merciless competition.
Slap echo. ddakji spins. And somewhere in the world, someone says yes.
Check it out again – ‘Squid Game’s shocking finale: What happens in the final game and why it ended like that (spoiler)
Image credit: Ju-Han/No Netflix
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