#51. Squid Game, Episode 1
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This is a short Patreon-only bonus episode (~23 minutes, no lengthy how-is-everyone-doing banter) kicking off the hosts' episode-by-episode coverage of Netflix's Squid Game, which Sonny reports was already on pace to become the platform's most-watched show ever despite minimal pre-release hype. Sonny walks through the premise of episode one — a debt-ridden gambling addict gets lured into a deadly children's-game tournament for the entertainment of wealthy spectators — and pitches the show as Parasite crossed with Battle Royale, saying he's enjoying watching "these poor idiots kill each other for the scraps." Vic admits he was briefly disappointed there are no literal tentacles once he learned "squid game" is just a Korean playground game, but says he got pulled in anyway, particularly by the protagonist's degenerate-gambler backstory, and works out that the man's debts translate to roughly $345,000. JVL, self-styled "resident communist," muses that South Korea must be "a really fucked up country" to produce something this bleak, then poses the episode's central debate: if the murder games are entered into with full, uncoerced consent, what's the free-market/libertarian objection to them — a question Sonny answers by comparing it to boxing, MMA, and the NFL, while JVL argues society retains the right to ban such contracts on externality grounds. Along the way they briefly revisit The Many Saints of Newark (noting its odd lack of Scorsese-style food-porn shots), gripe about the show's overuse of CGI blood over practical squibs, and needle Jeff Bezos for praising an anti-capitalist Netflix hit as "the greatest troll of all time." They close by debating whether to cover the show weekly or twice a week and by teasing that Vic's promised tentacle payoff may be coming in a later episode.
From the show notes
What is Squid Game ? Why are we watching it? Why should you be watching it? All that and more on this in the first of a series of bonus episodes on what will likely be Netflix's most popular show of all time, at least according to Netflix.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another bonus edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is available on Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe and tell your friends. The last main episode we did was the Many Saints of New York. You know what I was going to briefly say was that unlike a Scorsese pic, not a lot of food shots. Did you notice that? Not a lot of food scenes and I like the food scenes. Yeah, I did notice that. Yeah, and I love the food scenes with the Manigat, Ragat and of course the Galamad. You got to have squid. Oh, speaking of which, this is a bonus episode talking about a series on Netflix that everybody is talking about called Squid Game. Squid Game. I have many thoughts but also many questions and maybe you guys can help me through this. Sonny, what is going on here?
Sonny00:01:05So Squid Game is supposedly, you know, it's hard. It's always hard to tell, but Squid Game is supposedly Netflix's most popular series of all time. They're talking about that. It is. It is already on the verge of being their most watched show ever, which is fascinating because like it. I think I believe I know it was not like one of these super hyped things. It was not like. We didn't get like six months of previews like we did for Bridgerton or something else. It just kind of showed up and people went nuts for it. So Squid Game is a Korean production, a South Korean production. It is in the vein of Parasite or Old Boy or, you know, some some movies like this. A very snowpiercer. It takes a snowpiercer. It takes a very dyspeptic look at the stage. It's a kind of state of capitalism in the country of South Korea, which our resident communist is very, very into. But our but so the premise of the show is this. The episode starts. It's focused on this down on his luck guy who's living with his mom. She or grandma, mom or grandma's mother. He's living with an older woman and he needs money.
JVL00:02:23So what's his name, Sonny?
Sonny00:02:25No idea. Not going to. I don't have any names here because I don't want to get canceled. So the so this guy is living with his is this older woman and needs money to buy food for his daughter. He wants to take her out for lunch. It's her birthday, wants to buy her present, et cetera, et cetera. And he takes the money. He goes straight to the track, go straight to the track and start betting and gambling with it, because this is a show about people who make bad decisions and then to make up for their bad decisions, have to play murder games. Have to play murder games to get out of out of hock with their finances. The the the guy he loses, he loses all his money, he gets he loses it at the track. It gets stolen from him, whatever. And then he gets into a slap fight with some guys. This guy's like, if you can beat me in this weird Korean game where we throw bags at the ground and if you flip it over, you win. I'll give you one hundred thousand won. But if you lose, I'm going to slap you in the face. And again, this is just. It's capitalism. It's capitalism slapping this guy in the face. But the real problem is that the guy's a loser, so he deserves to get slapped in the face every time he loses. And then he deserves to get put into the murder version of Red Light, Green Light, where he agrees to he agrees to participate in a game for the entertainment of the wealthy.
Vic00:03:49I guess we don't know why one person all we know is this one person, but for the for the
JVL00:03:53entertainment of the winners, the winners in society.
Sonny00:03:57Right.
JVL00:03:58For the entertainment of society, the people who create value for everyone else.
Sonny00:04:02Right. So and and if he if he wins, if he wins this series of games, if he is one of the last people standing, he'll he'll take home a big, big prize. Supposedly, you know, we haven't really seen what that is yet, but it's interesting. So it's basically like it is basically like Parasite crossed with Battle Royale. More or less, those are Battle Royale was the Japanese. It's it's like. Imagine it. Different. Different races. Imagine. Imagine. Well, that's why I said it's Japanese. But imagine imagine the Hunger Games, but set in a Japanese school. That's basically Battle Royale. So this is like I said, it's Parasite crossed with Battle Royale.
Vic00:04:41Possibly hostile, but instead of torture, it's saw because you have all you have in the hostile situation, of course, is like all these very rich people bidding to torture or watch people get tortured in their make member. You can you could bid and people were getting there. And for those of us who watch hostile or hostile to you get the numbers on your phone and you're like, oh, I got it. You know, let me interrupt my golf game because I got to I'm going to bid for these Americans, you know, and capital. Yes. And do this thing. But it's the same thing. We don't we don't know who's watching. We just know one mysterious person who looks like Destro.
Sonny00:05:16And speaks English. No character who speaks English. So this is, you know, it's America oppressing the Koreans. Whatever. Why? It's it's it's very. It's very amusing. It has the color palette of a Wes Anderson. It's amusing. Yeah. The whole thing is very amusing. It's amazing watching these these dumb idiots play their murder games to try and get out of the bad decision they made. I love this.
JVL00:05:43I you know, we're only one episode into it. So I don't know. It could go.
Sonny00:05:47It could go. It could go wrong. It could go. I have I've only watched the first episode so far. But watching watching these these poor idiots kill each other for the scraps. That the that Destro, the American Destro throws at them, that the productive members of society has has brought me a great amount of joy so far, and I hope they I hope they keep it up.
JVL00:06:07Victorino.
Vic00:06:08I almost turned it off when I found out that Squid Game was a kid's game and that was really that.
JVL00:06:13So the first thing I was going to say was, were you able to overcome your initial disappointment? There are no tentacles.
Vic00:06:19What? What's the whole point of it? Why am I watching this?
JVL00:06:22Because I imagine you must have thought yourself bait and switch.
Vic00:06:25Wait a minute. I was.
JVL00:06:27I was.
Vic00:06:28Social commentary. Please spare me. Spare me the commentary. I'm like, quote unquote, late capitalism. I want. We want. I want tentacles. Give the people what they want. You know, the masses. That's me. The I found it very compelling for that. I normally hate a lot of these movies or series where they have, you know, the exposition is interminable or it feels interminable for me and I'm not really care about it. But I found myself very much interested in. Sion Kihoon's life story. Thank you. And in the fact that he is a degenerate, you know, I mean, and there are bits moments scum scum. There are moments where he he wants to do well, but he can't. I've been to the horse. I've been to the tracks. I've been to Churchill Downs. I it's there is quite the allure to placing bets and studying that, you know, the the guide. And and of course, he gets it wrong. Until he gets it right. And there's the thrill in this exhilarating. But of course, he owes money. There's a little bit of a Chinatown thing going on with the the creditors, shall we say, who question.
Sonny00:07:38Are we supposed to feel bad for this guy that he is in?
Vic00:07:42Yes, because he's going to lose his daughter. To his the mother and the stepfather, they're going to a right.
Sonny00:07:51So the mother, the mother who and the stepfather who have like managed to get a productive job that will take them to the other the bad guys in the world, America, they're they're the villains here. We're supposed to we're supposed to think like this guy needs to this. We should be cheering for this deadbeat to maintain control of his daughter when she could have a much better life somewhere else.
Vic00:08:13All right. First of all, did you all appreciate that? The Korean for steakhouse, the stick house. Thank you. Hmm. Also, I assume we're all watching the the subtitle version. I didn't have the energy to put on dubbed. But you know, having watched Black Belt Theater growing up, which was dubbed, I can only imagine how horrible this squat watching Squid Game would be like, Hey, weren't you at the university?
JVL00:08:42You know, it's I just would think it would be do you even need the subtitles? Doesn't this almost play as a silent movie?
Vic00:08:50No, I'm I'm 100% serious.
JVL00:08:53I mean, I guess you could you simply block all of the dialogue?
Vic00:08:56It's degenerate. That's visually apparent. It's very evident.
JVL00:09:01All of it. You can get you can get 95% of everything you need without on the next episode.
Sonny00:09:07On the next episode, you should turn on like, the German subtitle see if you're able to
Vic00:09:11follow titles. And just see if you can you figure out what you okay, here's a question for you. The red light green light game, which by the way, seems to be a weird version. You would think it's either green light and red light means stop and green light. And it means go but in their version, they say red light green light, and then everybody starts going. I don't know if that's a subtitle thing or what they say. I have no idea. But it's basically Simon Says or no, what is that? Oh, no, there's no it's like Red Rover, Red Rover. That's what it is.
Sonny00:09:43Yeah. Kind of or not Red Rover. I mean, I mean, I mean, red light green light is what we say that Yeah, but then red light
Vic00:09:50would be stopped. Did you and did you know, immediately, how that was going to play out? Well, I mean, you watch the trailer, I didn't see the trailer. So I knew that it was going to be deadly. But I was trying to figure out how and then I realized there's all these machine guns around the thing. It's okay. And then, and of course, they're in some exotic foreign island, which, you know, I guess you
Sonny00:10:16why just assume that's part of like, it doesn't isn't isn't there, like, island?
Vic00:10:21Yes, there's many, there's many, so I shouldn't say foreign, but they're just done. They're not on sole proper.
Sonny00:10:26They're on Monster Island. Yes, it's actually, this is actually a crossover with Godzilla, the final the final episode
Vic00:10:32will be a tag with I assume that somehow they're going to, well, I'm not going to give it away. If you haven't seen the second episode, then I'm not going to give it away.
Sonny00:10:41Yeah, we're gonna do the second episode next next week.
Vic00:10:43It's something else.
Sonny00:10:45We should discuss what form we want this to take actually, and with with the listeners, but we're thinking about doing either we're trying to decide if we want to do one episode a week or two episodes a week. Let us know. JBL, JBL, what did you make as as the resident communist? What did you make of?
Vic00:11:02Let me take my ear plugs off.
JVL00:11:08South Korea's gotta be a really fucked up country.
Vic00:11:11It's funny you say that I watched this and I said, Man, I gotta go over to South Korea. That's right. I really did. It's fascinating.
JVL00:11:17I didn't get some fried chicken tree, which is you know, I said this when we have the parasite episode. Living that close. To insane, psychotic, existential threat. For generations. I don't see how it could do anything other than create basically a sense of total paranoia and just craziness within a society. We should we should get our boy on this, Paul. Yeah. Right.
Sonny00:11:52Paul. Yeah. Oh, he.
JVL00:11:55Because I would love to know. Oh. I would love to know what Paul he's an expert on this stuff. I would love to have him on literally to do one of these bonus episodes with us.
Vic00:12:03That would be great. I and to talk about actual tentacles and things, because I'm sure it's there.
JVL00:12:09What a totally fucked up country to create something like this. And here is here is a very serious question, Sonny, because we talked about this. You know, I wrote a newsletter column about you guys last last week based on our Lula Rich show. So this is a serious question. If you guys believe in capitalism in the free market and a bunch of unproductive losers willingly said, Yeah, my life is worth they signed a contract and I will sign it freely. No coercion, nothing like that to enter a murder game. Because again, my life is worthless and I hate living. And the murder games created economic value. They provided jobs to the people with the circles on their face. And the wealthy people were willing to pay for it because it created entertainment value for them. What could possibly be the rationale so long as the games are conducted fairly and in accordance with all of the strict legal contracts of and again, coercion is really the key here,
Sonny00:13:15right? So it's true. The trick here is that most of these people did not understand that they were signing up for murder games that they have been tricked into it. So maybe you get slapped. That is that's dirty.
JVL00:13:26So absolutely, that's a terrible idea.
Sonny00:13:30Dirty pool.
JVL00:13:31But but in a in a version of Squid Game where that is not the case, what is the free market argument as to why that would be wrong?
Vic00:13:41I have none. Yeah, we're not if we're not talking about murder, we're not talking about murder. People are free to do what they want. It's a free country.
JVL00:13:48They are free to volunteer to be murdered. No, not murdered.
Sonny00:13:51Yeah.
?00:13:52Why not?
Sonny00:13:53You think you can win the murder game? In UFC or boxing?
JVL00:14:00That's a great question.
Sonny00:14:02I see no difference.
Vic00:14:04Apollo Creed.
Sonny00:14:05I don't I don't I don't understand your I don't understand the point you're trying to make here.
JVL00:14:11JBL. The point I'm trying to make is that socialism and communism have societies have valid reasons to prohibit certain types of economic arrangements such as murder games. Even if the participants are willing that there are certain contracts that societies can say, no, there are externalities to this. We are not going to countenance this. I agree.
Sonny00:14:39I feel pretty strongly that even choice is a thing.
JVL00:14:42I feel pretty strongly that our our listeners are going to come down on my side again on this. They'll be anti murder games, anti-murder.
Sonny00:14:50I mean, you're like, I'm opposed to murder, you shouldn't murder somebody, but like, if you want to take part in a game that might potentially result in you in suffering some harm, I don't see how it's any different than the NFL with its concussions. I don't see how it's any different than the race car driving mixed martial arts or boxing or professional wrestling. Lots of injuries there. People get hurt. People get hurt for the entertainment of other people all the time. And if your argument here is that this is just a matter of degree, maybe we can discuss that. But it's not like there's any blanket rule against signing yourself up to be injured for the entertainment of others. That is the basis of the entire American entertainment industrial complex.
JVL00:15:39That is a very interesting thesis. People can weigh in in the comments on that. I think there is a difference in both degree and kind, but that's okay. Qua murder game. What did you guys think of this? Because I got to say, part of me thought while we were watching it, this thing is just trying to get by on shock. This is nothing we haven't seen a half dozen times before in other ways. You know what? It was really shocking when it was Battle Royale, and it was teenage kids using weirdo weapons.
Sonny00:16:20So there's a difference between Battle Royale and Hunger Games, right? The kids versus each other, which is the kids are fighting each other, and this is just trying to survive the game. It's not like...
JVL00:16:35It's going to change. That's going to change. It's not like The Running Man, right? It's not like... That's going to change, Sonny.
Vic00:16:41I had a couple of thoughts here. One is I was pretty certain there were people who were not moving who were still getting shot. That was...
JVL00:16:50You know what? That was a complaint I had. There was a lot...
Vic00:16:53Towards the end.
JVL00:16:54Towards the end. Now, I'm sure that the... The filmmakers would say, "No, but they twitched somewhere." But for us, the viewer, unless you see them twitching, that just looks like random gunfire.
Vic00:17:04Like what? Oh, you blinked? You know?
Sonny00:17:07So, come on. Right. Okay, that's for the... Don't move. If you don't want to get shot, don't move. Those people were all... I think the best thing is I would run...
JVL00:17:14Those people were all shuddering. Those losers...
Sonny00:17:16They were all shuddering. Those losers moved somehow.
JVL00:17:18The losers, you know, maybe...
Sonny00:17:19The robot girl doesn't lie. The real question... The real question is what if one of the cowards who was running away from the gunfire crashes and knocks you over? What if you're done for?
Vic00:17:28Then you're dead. Then you're dead. Think about the North Korean girl behind the thug. Then you move. I don't know. Hard to say. She was going to... She's North Korean? Yeah. He makes a reference to her saying that, "Oh, yeah." Yeah. He knew that she was going to raise her...
JVL00:17:40What did you think of her, Beck?
Vic00:17:41Again, I hear episode four is amazing, so I'm excited for that. We'll find out. Just to see. Just... Have you already been on to Dailymotion? No, no, no. I looked at IMDB for like the parent's guide because, you know. And so, anyway, that's one thing. The second thing is... I'm getting... I'm convinced now there's a lot of these like blood scenes that are now no longer squibs and just CGI blood scenes. And I think I could...
JVL00:18:05There's a lot of CGI blood. And I can tell that. And it's... It sounds like a safe thing to say.
Vic00:18:09It's cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. It's cheaper, Beck.
Sonny00:18:13It's way cheaper. I shake my head. I shake my head. It's way cheaper and it's way safer. It's like when you have... James Caan. When you have squibs... Remember James Caan? When you have squibs on set, you generally have to have like a ton of safety personnel there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're like not...
Vic00:18:29It's not... But you could tell. It's not risk free. But you could tell the way it is. And I'm like, "Okay." So I felt like it cheapened it that way. The other thing though, on a good note, is on the pro side, the decision for everyone to just have mass hysteria, that was pretty entertaining in a terrible way. Because I guess that would technically be true. People would just freak out and then try to head for the doors. When in fact...
Sonny00:18:53Yeah. I mean, this is... Stay on the ground. Well, this is... My only issue with this is that people were misled into the murder games. That's right. That like the... If you fairly sign people up for the murder games, that's fine. But when you trick them into it, it's a little cheap.
JVL00:19:14Then there should be a civil penalty. If you trick the bums into entering the murder games, then the corporation should be fined as much as $1,000. Okay.
Vic00:19:27Okay.
Sonny00:19:28Before we get out of control here... Well, I don't... Well, let's not... Yeah. Let's not bring the hammer of government down.
Vic00:19:33I will say this...
JVL00:19:34Too hard. ... because we're hitting... Sonny's like, "Actually, shouldn't we let the market sort that out?"
Sonny00:19:37My favorite... By the way, my favorite...
JVL00:19:39My favorite reaction to this... Let the consumers... By the way... Let the consumers go choose the murder games which are more ethical.
Sonny00:19:44Did you guys... Did you guys see Lord Bezos praising... Oh, he did?
JVL00:19:48I did see that.
Sonny00:19:49That is the greatest troll of all time. Here's... I mean, look, here... Let's be serious for a second. Here we have... Here we have an anti-capitalism show about, oh, the awfulness of people who were oppressed by debt or whatever that is made for Netflix, the largest entertainment company in the entire world that has just absorbed and gobbled up everybody else. Jeff Bezos saying, "Oh, this is great. I love the internationalism of it all," is a perfect troll, is a perfect troll because I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I am not going to take my lessons on the evils of capitalism. I am not going to take my lessons on the evils of capitalism from fucking Netflix. Netflix can suck my beep. I'm not going to let them try to act like they're above it all.
JVL00:20:39I believe what Jeff Bezos was really intimating was that, you know what, they've got some really interesting ideas over there in Korea. And I've been bored ever since I came back from space. I felt like it's hard to get it up.
Vic00:20:49What else is next? What else do you do once you hit space? And he also has one of those masks. He wears one of those masks.
Sonny00:20:56Pat said he's making Gladiator 2. It's actually the story of Jeff Bezos trying to get his rocks off.
Vic00:21:00I will say this, you know what, as a tip to listeners, if you haven't started watching this or when you do, have a currency converter available because the difference between the US dollar and Korean won is staggering. Well, I was going to ask you that.
JVL00:21:14It's staggering. When they talk about like 100,000 won. Are you ready for this?
Sonny00:21:17What is that?
Vic00:21:18I will tell you what Sung Hyo-hoon owes in US dollars. $5. He's slapped for $5. He owes both the banks and to the loan sharks combined is about $345,000. That's what he owes. It's not nothing.
Sonny00:21:35It's pretty big nut.
Vic00:21:36That's right. No, I mean, really. He should be murdered. 10,001, I think is like 80, a little over $80.
Sonny00:21:44Well, I mean, look, if he didn't want to get into the murder game, he shouldn't have taken on all that debt he couldn't pay off. Like I'm sorry, I'm supposed to feel, I'm supposed to feel, you know, pity for this guy. He is just getting it, owing money all over town like you're like, you're like the real
JVL00:22:01Lebowski over here. The bums had their chance your day, your revolution is over.
Sonny00:22:10And I think it's really nice that a company would come along and give them a chance to
JVL00:22:13make a lot of money in their way out of that to work their work their way out of their debt. Uh, no, but so, but this is a serious thing. Do you think the way that this has popped, is it sustainable? And the initial shock of it, cuz the other thing I, I get the sense is that there was an element of the walking dead to it. So in the, the walking dead favorite character seems to have been powered by the show kills people every week. And the, the thrill is like, is, does my favorite character live through this week? And so there is a dead pool version of that attraction, I think with this, but I don't know, like ultimately, isn't this just super derivative, like, did you guys like it? I didn't, I would not watch it if we weren't doing it for the show, because I just thought that's interesting. This is like super derivative.
Vic00:23:02I found it much more entertaining than the, I found it much more entertaining than the many saints. What is happening to us Victorino living in weird worlds. And I know, I mean, it beats you over the head with its message, but I still find it interesting. And in my mind, it's like, what other crazy games will they come up with? That's what, that's what I'm thinking.
JVL00:23:23You're waiting for the actual tentacle game.
Vic00:23:26Episode nine.
Sonny00:23:28I thought it was fun.
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