Squid Game Season 1 Episode 4 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun (Player 456)
Park Hae-soo as Cho Sang-woo (Player 218)
O Yeong-su as Oh Il-nam (Player 001)
Jung Ho-yeon as Kang Sae-byeok (Player 067)
Heo Sung-tae as Jang Deok-su (Player 101)
Anupam Tripathi as Ali Abdul (Player 199)
Kim Joo-ryoung as Han Mi-nyeo (Player 212)
Wi Ha-jun as Hwang Jun-ho
Yoo Sung-joo as Byeong-gi (Player 111)
Lee Yoo-mi as Ji-yeong (Player 240)

Gi-hun's whole team makes it through the honeycomb game. Sang-woo apologizes for suggesting they split up, and Gi-hun brushes it off, saying it was his own choice. The announcer reveals that 79 of the 187 players died, and the prize pool has grown to 34.8 billion won.

Dinner is a single boiled egg and a bottle of soda, and Deok-su's gang cuts the line and grabs extra portions, leaving five people with nothing. When one hungry player stands up to Deok-su, the gangster beats him to death in front of everyone. Gi-hun screams for the guards, but they simply announce the man's elimination and drop more money into the piggy bank. The message is clear: killing each other is allowed, and it pays.

Meanwhile, Jun-ho, posing as Guard 29, discovers a hidden side of the operation. Player 111, a disgraced doctor named Byeong-gi, is working with a handful of guards who sneak out the bodies of dead players and harvest their organs to sell. In exchange, they leak him the upcoming games. A guard warns the doctor that a fight is coming tonight, because the staff served less food on purpose to make the players turn on each other. His advice is to stick with the strongest group. The doctor goes straight to Deok-su and offers the inside information in exchange for protection.

Gi-hun's team decides to stay awake in shifts, and he invites Player 067 to join them if trouble starts. She says she doesn't trust anyone, but Gi-hun tells her that in a place like this, trusting someone is the only way to survive. As soon as the lights go out, Deok-su's gang attacks, and the whole dorm erupts into a brutal brawl. Gi-hun and Sang-woo fight off attackers, and Player 067 runs to their side. In the chaos, the old man climbs to the top of a bunk tower and begs everyone to stop before they all die. The lights come on and armed guards storm in to end the fight, but the bodies are already piled up. As the guards collect the dead, Jun-ho quietly asks Gi-hun whether there's a man named Hwang In-ho among the players, and Gi-hun tells him nobody uses names in here.

Shaken, the team finally introduces themselves. Player 199 is Ali Abdul, from Pakistan, and Player 067 is Kang Sae-byeok. The old man can't remember his own name, and Gi-hun reassures him that stress can do that to anyone. On the other side of the room, Player 212 cozies up to Deok-su and tells him her name, Han Mi-nyeo, and the two sleep together in the bathroom after he promises they'll stick together to the end. That night, Jun-ho writes down everything he has learned and begins piecing together the island's secrets.

The third game requires teams of ten, but nobody knows what the game is. Deok-su, tipped off by the doctor, rejects Mi-nyeo and loads his team with strong men. Furious, she swears revenge. Gi-hun's team scrambles for members. Sae-byeok recruits Player 240, a quiet young woman named Ji-yeong, and Mi-nyeo pushes her way in at the last minute. With three women and an old man, theirs looks like the weakest team in the room.

The game turns out to be Tug-of-War, played on two high platforms with a gap between them. The losing team gets pulled off the edge, and a guillotine slices the rope so they fall to their deaths. Deok-su's team wins its match easily. Gi-hun's team is matched against a team of all men, and the old man shares his strategy. Have a strong leader at the front and an anchor at the back, alternate sides of the rope, tuck it under your arms, and lean almost all the way back for the first ten seconds to break the other team's rhythm. The trick works at first, but the stronger team soon drags them toward the edge. Then Sang-woo shouts a wild idea: everyone should take three big steps forward on his count.

Player tracker

Eliminated this episode

• ❌ An unnamed player: beaten to death by Deok-su at dinner
• ❌ Unnamed players killed in the dorm brawl

Still standing

• ✅ Gi-hun (Player 456)
• ✅ Sang-woo (Player 218)
• ✅ Oh Il-nam (Player 001)
• ✅ Sae-byeok (Player 067)
• ✅ Deok-su (Player 101)
• ✅ Ali (Player 199)
• ✅ Mi-nyeo (Player 212)
• ✅ Byeong-gi (Player 111)
• ✅ Ji-yeong (Player 240)

Up next: Squid Game Season 1 Episode 5 Recap. Missed the last one? Read the Squid Game Season 1 Episode 3 Recap. See every episode in the Squid Game Season 1 episode guide or browse all Squid Game recaps.