Lee Jung-jae says wearing the green tracksuit again “felt like being pulled back into hell,” as Netflix’s global thriller Squid Game enters its final stretch after a 27 June third-season launch that closed a two-year production marathon.
The actor explained that Seasons 2 and 3 were filmed back-to-back for ten months, including overnight shoots at Incheon Airport that triggered a public apology when passengers complained about noise and traffic disruption.
Filming wrapped in July 2024; the new six-episode run has occupied Netflix’s global Top 10 for six consecutive weeks, underscoring sustained interest four years after the series first shocked viewers.
Viewership data released by the streamer shows the second season’s 2024 bow pushed Squid Game to third on the all-time chart, a position Season 3 now threatens to overtake.
Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk expanded the cast with Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul and Park Gyu-young alongside returning faces Lee Byung-hun and Wi Ha-jun, arguing that a broader ensemble allows “a larger moral laboratory” for the show’s commentary on inequality.
While early reviews questioned whether the follow-ups can match the first season’s shock, Hwang maintains the new games are “more intriguing” and designed to make audiences reflect on their complicity in exploitative systems.
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Cultural critic Jeff Yang suggests the premise endures because its depiction of debt and gig-economy despair “feels less like dystopia than everyday life for many viewers.”
Professor Kim Soyoung of Korea National University of Arts views the show’s continuing success as a test of whether Korean creators can keep authorial control amid intense competition among global streamers for local hits.
Balancing the shoot with a recent role in a galaxy far, far away, Lee says his priority is giving Gi-hun “a truthful exit,” hinting the character’s final act of self-sacrifice may already be written.
