Squid Game Season 3 Episode 1 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun (Player 456)
Lee Byung-hun as Hwang In-ho / the Front Man
Wi Ha-jun as Hwang Jun-ho
Park Gyu-young as Kang No-eul (Guard 011)
Lee Jin-wook as Park Gyeong-seok (Player 246)
Yim Si-wan as Lee Myung-gi (Player 333)
Kang Ha-neul as Kang Dae-ho (Player 388)
Park Sung-hoon as Cho Hyun-ju (Player 120)
Jo Yu-ri as Kim Jun-hee (Player 222)
Kang Ae-sim as Jang Geum-ja (Player 149)
Yang Dong-geun as Park Yong-sik (Player 007)
Roh Jae-won as Nam-gyu (Player 124)
Lee David as Park Min-su (Player 125)
Oh Dal-su as Captain Park Yeong-gil
Jeon Seok-ho as Choi Woo-seok

The season picks up in the chaos right after the failed rebellion. Kang No-eul (Guard 011), the North Korean defector who works as a pink guard, finds Park Gyeong-seok (Player 246) hiding in the corridors. Instead of killing him, she shoots him in a spot that won't kill him, and the system marks him as eliminated. She then brings his body to the guards who secretly harvest organs from dead players, pretending she has finally decided to join their scheme. Once they show her their hidden operating room and get ready to cut him open, she turns her gun on the crooked guards and kills them. Only the frightened doctor is spared, on one condition: he has to save Gyeong-seok. When the doctor says the patient needs blood, No-eul offers her own.

Upstairs, Seong Gi-hun (Player 456) is brought back to the dormitory alive, still in shock. He is haunted by the memory of his best friend, Park Jung-bae, being shot dead by the Front Man, and he learns that nearly every rebel was killed. Only Cho Hyun-ju (Player 120) and Kang Dae-ho (Player 388) are left from his group. Hyun-ju survived because Jang Geum-ja (Player 149) held her back, while Dae-ho never returned with the ammunition he went to fetch. Gi-hun screams at the guards to kill him too, but they don't. With 60 players left and 39.6 billion won in the piggy bank, the remaining players vote again. Gi-hun sits silent and his vote counts as an abstention, and the players who want to continue win easily. Some of them even mock him, thinking he planned the uprising to thin out the competition.

Out at sea, Detective Hwang Jun-ho is still searching for the island with Captain Park Yeong-gil and his hired crew. Their drone operator has vanished overnight, and Captain Park says the man probably got drunk and fell overboard. Choi Woo-seok, Gi-hun's old loan-shark associate who joined the search, isn't buying it. He tells Jun-ho he saw the captain holding a screwdriver that night. Jun-ho defends Park, who once pulled him out of the sea and saved his life, but Woo-seok decides to stay ashore and dig into the captain's past. What Jun-ho doesn't know is that Captain Park is on the phone with the game's officials, and his orders are clear: keep the island hidden, and kill everyone if things go wrong.

As the masked VIPs arrive on the island, the fourth game is announced. Players draw colored balls from a gumball machine to split into two teams for hide-and-seek. Here are the rules: the Blue Team gets keys and has 30 minutes to find an exit or stay hidden. The Red Team gets knives and must find and kill at least one Blue player before time runs out, or they will be eliminated themselves. Red players are not allowed to attack each other. Before the game starts, players may swap vests with someone on the other team if both agree.

The swaps bring out who everyone really is. Lee Myung-gi (Player 333), the disgraced crypto YouTuber and father of Kim Jun-hee's (Player 222) unborn baby, pleads with her to trade her knife for his key, promising to protect her and the baby. She coldly tells him he could never actually kill anyone, but in the end she gives him the knife and takes the key. Geum-ja draws red, and her gentle son Park Yong-sik (Player 007) insists on taking her knife so she won't have to kill, even though she knows he has never hurt anyone. Nam-gyu (Player 124), the cocky club promoter, pumps up the timid Park Min-su (Player 125), and later tries to recruit Myung-gi as his partner, praising the way he killed Thanos.

Gi-hun, meanwhile, ends up on the Red Team with a knife in his hand, and he refuses every offer to swap. Dae-ho, who is on the Blue Team, keeps trying to defend himself, insisting the rebellion was doomed anyway. Gi-hun has decided otherwise: he blames Dae-ho for everyone who died. The Blue Team enters the maze first, Hyun-ju gathers Geum-ja and the pregnant Jun-hee to stay together, and as the Red Team is released into the arena, Gi-hun walks in with only one target in mind.

Player tracker

Eliminated this episode

• ❌ The crooked guards in the hidden operating room: shot by No-eul

Still standing

• ✅ Gi-hun (Player 456)
• ✅ Hyun-ju (Player 120)
• ✅ Dae-ho (Player 388)
• ✅ Geum-ja (Player 149)
• ✅ Yong-sik (Player 007)
• ✅ Jun-hee (Player 222)
• ✅ Myung-gi (Player 333)
• ✅ Nam-gyu (Player 124)
• ✅ Min-su (Player 125)
• ✅ Gyeong-seok (Player 246), patched up in secret
• ✅ The doctor, spared on one condition

Up next: Squid Game Season 3 Episode 2 Recap. See every episode in the Squid Game Season 3 episode guide or browse all Squid Game recaps.