This article contains discussion of addiction and suicide.

Major spoilers ahead for the entire run of “Squid Game,” including the conclusion of its third and final season. Consider this your warning—proceed only if you’ve completed the series!

From the outset of “Squid Game,” a hugely popular South Korean drama, we follow the journey of Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae), a man wrestling with a gambling issue. He’s presented with what at first seems like a potentially life-altering opportunity. In Season 1, he’s “invited” to join the eponymous games held on a secluded island, only to discover a grim catch. As many now know, 456 players enter the competition—Gi-hun himself is given the number 456—but nearly all face death in these macabre twists on childhood games.

At the conclusion of Season 1, Gi-hun earns victory in his initial games along with the grand prize of 4.56 billion won, yet he’s resolute in dismantling the games from within. Consequently, he returns to the deadly contests in Season 2 to attempt just that. Despite attempting to place a tracking chip in a false tooth to aid his allies, he awakens in the arena minus the tooth, rendering the plan ineffective. The pressing question on everyone’s mind is finally answered: Gi-hun meets his demise at the end of Season 3. The camera lingers on his lifeless form, ensuring viewers are left with no ambiguity about his death—a rarity in today’s era of misleading character exits. Witnessing his downfall after immense sacrifice is truly heart-wrenching, but what exactly leads to this tragic conclusion?

By the time Gi-hun meets his maker in the series finale of “Squid Game,” he’s really gone through it, which is a massive understatement. During his second go-around in the games, he’s completely aware of the fact that he could die at any moment but also has some familiarity with the entire concept, so he does his best to help out other players and protect them; this builds to the point where he literally becomes the caretaker of the game’s tiniest and most tragic player. 

What we mean by that is that a baby joins the games towards the end of Season 3. We found out in Season 2 that Player 222, named Kim Jun-hee — and played by (Jo Yu-ri) — was pregnant, and in Season 3, she gives birth during a particularly messed up game of “hide and seek” (which, unsurprisingly, involves a lot more murder than a standard game of hide or seek). The baby and Jun-hee survive that game, but as Jun-hee prepares for the next game, a version of jump rope that will send anyone off-beat plummeting from a narrow pathway to their death, she realizes that the combination of the baby and her ankle injury will stop her from fully competing. Gi-hun brings the baby safely across, Jun-hee dies by suicide by jumping off the platform, and the baby is named the new Player 222.

Gi-hun manages to bring the baby into the last game, where the players themselves decide who lives and who dies … and after fighting off people who would be more than happy to kill the baby for the prize money, Gi-hun sets the baby down and seems to experience a nervous breakdown. Slowly, he backs off yet another pedestal and falls to his death … and again, the camera zooms in on his body, making it quite clear that the hero has fallen.

Gi-hun may be gone forever, but “Squid Game” will continue without him — at least, now that the original series seems to be spawning its own franchise. Word on the street is that legendary director David Fincher is developing some sort of spin-off of “Squid Game,” but whether it’s a prequel or a different standalone series, we don’t know just yet. Still, we got a little clue at the very end of “Squid Game” about where that could be headed.

We met Gong Yoo’s Recruiter during the first and second seasons of “Squid Game,” and in the series finale, Oscar-winning Cate Blanchett is performing his duties and enlisting a bunch of broke suckers to participate in these deadly games. (Blanchett and Fincher worked together on 2008’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” so there’s literally no way that this is a coincidence.) Beyond that, Lee Byung-hun’s mysterious character Hwang In-ho, also known as the Front Man — who controls the games themselves — remains alive at the end of the series, and it’s entirely possible that we could get a series focused on this mysterious and fascinating character. In any case, “Squid Game” is so popular that it’s continuing past the original series … and without Lee Jung-jae, unfortunately.

“Squid Game” is streaming on Netflix now.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org