#55. 'Squid Game' Episodes 4 and 5
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This Patreon-exclusive bonus episode covers Squid Game episodes 4 ("Stick to the Team") and 5, with Vic, Sonny, and JVL walking through the show's bloodiest stretch: the overnight dormitory brawl, in which gangsters denied food by the guards manipulate the starving contestants into a killing free-for-all that wipes out roughly half the remaining players, followed by the tug-of-war cliffhanger the old man's team appears doomed to lose. Episode 5 resolves the tug-of-war through the old man's counterintuitive leaning-back strategy, then pivots to the guards' organ-harvesting side racket with the smuggled-in doctor, which prompts the episode's liveliest argument — JVL, semi-seriously channeling a capitalist perspective, presses Sonny on why the masked overseer Destro should object to his employees' "entrepreneurialism" absent an explicit contract clause, while Sonny insists the violation isn't the organ theft itself but the guards' betrayal of the game's core principle of enforced equality among players, comparing it to filing a TPS report before taking initiative. Vic, having already binged ahead to the end of the series, needles the other two with cryptic almost-spoilers about a coming reunion and an "egregious" fairness violation before catching himself. The episode opens with a long riff on the show's TV-MA content warning absurdly listing "smoking" alongside organ harvesting and on-screen murder, detours into a Thank You for Smoking bit and a running joke about "historical smoking" in period pieces, and closes with Vic explaining a recurring Korean subtitle mistranslation and reviving his crush on "the hottest North Korean woman ever." Vic gives the nudity scene between the gangster and Han Mi-nyeo a Quadrant grade of A.
From the show notes
The murder games are ramping up! Plus, how does episode four do on the quadrants?
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello, and welcome to another bonus episode of Squid Game on the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. Today, we are talking about episodes four and five that is stick to the team and a fair world. As I like to open up every Squid Game episode on . Thank you. That means how are you in Hangul. I learned that. I mentioned before, I used to work for Koreans at a Hallmark store. And so I learned, I picked up some Korean or Hangul from them. And I found this movie. It was very, very... No, I'm just kidding. It was not easy to understand.
JVL00:00:57Did they make you play tug-of-war? There were two clerks and they said, "You want to play tug-of-war? Only one of you get shoebox card."
Vic00:01:08Yes, that's right. The shoebox. The one with the old lady in the front, he's like, "Who bought that one?" And she told really corny jokes. Okay. Sonny, you were saying...
Sonny00:01:20Before we get to the episodes, before we get to episodes four and five, I want to ask you guys a question. So, at the beginning of the episode, in the TVMA slot, they tell you why it's mature. Here are the reasons: language, violence, sex, nudity, suicide, and smoking. Oh my gosh. And I know that this is like a standard right wing, pussification of America sort of complaint. The conclusion of smoking on that list will never not be funny to me. That will never not be a thing that makes me laugh.
Vic00:02:04I thought the same exact thing, particularly with the fifth episode where you're witnessing organ transplant.
Sonny00:02:13Organ. They're cutting eyes out of people.
Vic00:02:15Right. I mean, you're seeing their body cavities completely open. Oh, but hey, there might be some smoking, so, you know.
Sonny00:02:19Right. Does that fall under violence? You know, whenever-
JVL00:02:22Is that violence? Whenever I see that, all I can think of- All I can think of is Aaron Eckert and Rob Lowe in Thank You for Smoking. Yeah. That's right. Sitting around, Rob Lowe is in his kimono and he explains, you know, we just say that they can smoke in the space station because they have the who's in the chicken what's that. The filters.
Sonny00:02:42Yeah, the who's what's. Filters. Yeah, the who's what's. No, the best is historical smoking. My favorite is when there's a period piece. Oh, at the end. And it's like- Yeah, William H. Mason. This movie is rated R for rape and violence and historical smoking. Oh, historical smoking. It's like, okay, well, if it's got historical smoking. You know, it's an R. Sorry, I didn't mean to derail you episodes four and five of Squid Game Vic.
JVL00:03:03No, no, no, no, no. So- Can you give us a big boy review? I think you should do the big boy review.
Vic00:03:08You really should be doing the big boy reviews. I could, but I can't remember now because it's been so long ago, but-
Sonny00:03:12You got to read the Wikipedia entries before we do these episodes.
Vic00:03:15Yes, I guess so. So the-
Sonny00:03:17So you finished the show.
Vic00:03:18I'm done.
Sonny00:03:19You went all the way ahead and you finished the show. I couldn't stop.
Vic00:03:22You son of a bitch. I couldn't stop. And JVL was right. Okay. Stick to the team. That really is where it turns full on Oz, okay? Because they had finished their other, what was the last game, was the- The Honeycomb game. The Honeycomb game. Okay, good. What is the, and then all of a sudden you hear, "Stay tuned for tonight's special game." The special game does not count as one of the six games. It's ridiculous. Yes. And this is not what kids would do unless you're trying to reenact a playground fight with actual consequences. So, what happens is they go to bed, but of course, anything goes.
Sonny00:04:02Well, very importantly, they feed them very little food. Oh, that's right. The idea was that people would get cranky because you only had- The gangsters cut in line and some people don't get food. That's right. And then one of the guys gets beaten by the head gangster, gets beaten to death. And the square face, circle face guys are like, "We don't care. One fewer guy on the board." Now, I had a question about this because it was- There's a moment in the first episode where a fight is about to occur and the guards step in and they say- They do break it up. "No, you cannot interfere with playing of the game." That is against- Doesn't this count as interference? Yes. I mean, I feel like this is- Non-interference is interference. I feel like this is a cardinal violation.
Vic00:04:45Right. And the thing is, the end result is like half the contestants are eliminated.
Sonny00:04:50It's a bloodbath. But it is more proof that these people all deserve to be there.
Vic00:04:54Yeah, I guess. There is-
Sonny00:04:57They're getting in fights with each other, they're murdering each other.
JVL00:05:01If you find this- No wonder they couldn't hold a real job on the outside.
Sonny00:05:04Yeah. They can't- I'm sorry. You had your time, Mr. Lebowski. The bum's lost. Oh, I'm sorry. You're telling me that the person who can't stop himself from beating somebody to death after getting one egg for dinner has credit problems? I'm shocked. I, for one, am shocked.
Vic00:05:23Yes, it was like, "Hey, wait a minute. This isn't quite fair." But there is something else that happens in a later episode that'll be the most egregious.
Sonny00:05:33Save it for those episodes. Save it for those episodes.
Vic00:05:35It'll be the most egregious thing. It's totally unfair, but we'll get to that later.
Sonny00:05:38What do you- Fairness plays into episode five a lot. We can talk about the fairness.
Vic00:05:43The fairness. Yes. Yes. This is where they eliminate half the contestants with an overnight Oz style. Everyone gets beaten or shoved to death, and the broken glass, and of course, somebody brought a knife. So, I mean, that's awfully useful.
Sonny00:05:58Here's what I liked about this episode. Here's what I liked about this episode, is that it was nothing but murder games. In previous episodes, there's some murder game- A lot of talking. And then, and a lot of talking, a lot of backstory, but this is just pure- A lot of talking. Murder games. Right. From the fight in the dorm room to the tug of war murder game at the end.
Vic00:06:21Okay, so the end of it is where you find out what the next game is. Tug of war and they're just about to do it, right?
Sonny00:06:29There's a great cliffhanger where the guys, all of the characters we know and love are on one side against some people we've never met on the other side. And we are left to wonder- Who could possibly win? We are left to wonder who could win this tug of war game.
Vic00:06:43I felt comfortable watching that knowing there's no way. And I also put myself in that position, how scary that is, because I said, "Can they hang there?" No, because there's some sort of guillotine device that cuts-
Sonny00:06:56And they're chained to the rope.
Vic00:06:57And they're chained to it, so there's no way out of it. But my other question is, how do they then get the other rope in there? We don't see when the new team comes in to face off against each other.
Sonny00:07:07You think the murder games lacks for ropes? You think they're funding- How do they get it through the loop? Their funding doesn't have- Don't really understand.
Vic00:07:13Rope money? This place. And it's a huge facility.
Sonny00:07:18What did you make of episode four, JVL? This is where things start picking up. Was your interest more peaked?
JVL00:07:24I hate it. I hate the whole thing. I hate everything about this show. Victorino, what'd you make of the nudity?
?00:07:29Oh, right.
Vic00:07:30Sorry. How'd your quadrant- That was, again, this is, you know, the technical quadrant scores about an A. It is, again, but it's not, and it's mutual, it's consensual, but it is not the people- Don't speak elliptically. People, anybody who's listening to this has seen it, you're not spoiling. The gangster and the crazy woman get it on because she's nuts, and they do it in a bathroom stall. But it's a clean bathroom.
Sonny00:07:58She's not nuts. She's using her advantages that she brings to the game, her feminine wiles.
Vic00:08:03Trust me. Trust me. She's kind of nuts. And they do it in the stall, and I'm just hoping not to see certain things, you know? And at the end, I'm like, I'll take it. You know, it's fine anyway. It's an A.
JVL00:08:16And like, oh, I'm so repulsed.
Vic00:08:17Solid A. This is disgusting. Oh, well. I can't believe I'm doing this. It'll work. It'll work. You know? And so it was, that was interesting. It was definitely an interesting episode. And to refresh my memory, was there any update on the cop in that episode infiltrating the base?
JVL00:08:40Doesn't he see that stuff's going on?
Sonny00:08:43Well, he- It picks up more. I mean, there's something- It picks up with him more in the next episode. It's the next episode. Okay. It's the next episode where he sees the organ transplant, the organ theft ring.
Vic00:08:54Yes. Yes. And the fifth episode then is called A Fair Game. Is that what it's called? And so that begins at the height of the tug of war struggle. And as we know, because the villains, it's like family feud or something, but I mean, it's like the villains in the previous tug of war, they win, bringing the other side to their death. And I mean, Jun, who is the protagonist of Squid Game, he's credited as not wanting to kill anybody. And same thing with Ali, who is the muscle. He's not bright, but he's genuine. He's without guile, as they say. But they obviously kill these people on the other side, right? I mean, they- Well, you got to kill them.
Sonny00:09:40Well, it's either you or them. I mean, it's you. It's you or them. This is the law of the jungle, man.
Vic00:09:44But the old man was genius because who wants to get stuck with him? But he says, "Hey, wait a minute. I played this game."
Sonny00:09:52He doesn't have a tumor, but- The old man knows a suspiciously low and large amount of stuff about tug of war.
Vic00:09:58Huh. Wow, this old guy knows so much about games. But he played it before and he said, "Lee, it worked." It could not have ... I mean, it could have easily have not worked, but they leaned in. It was a great sort of image to ... I mean, it was well done, I thought, because it worked. It was a close run thing. It was a close run thing. And in the end, the other side fell to their deaths. And then in the following episode, you also realize that one of the contestants is a doctor, a doctor who is there. And obviously, there's a use for him because there is dissension in the ranks among the squid employees, the red soldiers. They're going to vote to unionize. Yes. Yes, they are. And they decide that, you know what, we're going to have a little action on the side because whatever they're getting paid is obviously not enough because then they decide to get into the organ transplant business. Some of these bodies are in pretty good shape. And I believe they make a reference to the the dealers, the people, they're Chinese. They're Chinese. Yeah, they're going to come in by boat. And so that's what happens in and and and then they get caught.
Sonny00:11:11Yeah. So here's the most interesting thing that happens in a fair world, a fair world is is at the end, the head guy, the guy in the weird, angular Destro, yes, John Destro, John Wayne Doctor Doom, he he comes in and he is angry. He's angry at the doctor, not because the doctor has aided in the theft of these organs, but because he has he has upended the most foundational, the most important principle of the game, which is a quality quality. This is a game that these people have suffered in their real lives. They have been they found themselves in bad situations. They have not been treated fairly by the system or by fate. And they are. They're all thrown together and they all have the same chance of winning, except the doctor has upended that order. He is. He has violated that principle, and that is why he is shot. It's not for the organ. No, no, he doesn't care about the organ theft. That doesn't matter so much. It's the violation of the principle. And I respect that a lot. When you are running, look, look, if you are if you are in charge of a murder game, you find yourself in charge of running the murder games, you are trying to make sure it's all running very smoothly. You have to have rules. Rules are the most important thing of any game. Without rules, you don't have a game. You have chaos. And his commitment to making sure that the system runs fairly and smoothly.
JVL00:12:43Laissez-faire, one might even say.
Sonny00:12:45I think it's admirable. It's not laissez-faire. No, but it's not laissez-faire. It's it's it's enforced equality. This is this is it's not he's not just letting things. It was laissez-faire. If it was laissez-faire, he would have just, you know, let him let the guy do that. So listen, if he wants to make sure every every we're talking about equity here, man, he's going to cut people off at the knees to make sure they're all equal.
Vic00:13:10And how it works, by the way, for listeners, if you haven't seen it, well, obviously you should see because you should watch it because we're talking about its little messages. They bury little messages in the food and whatnot. And that's how the doctor finds out what the next game is, except for. Maybe it's true or not. They don't know. The guards don't know what the next game is.
Sonny00:13:30And the doctor flips out and that's what it makes a mess. He had made he had made a deal. He made a deal and they violated the deal.
Vic00:13:36And he was like, I mean, it's a real mess at this point.
Sonny00:13:39The guy who's everybody, everybody's right in this situation is the thing. Everyone is right in the situation. The guy running the game is right to that, that that he should he has good reason to be annoyed that people have they've ruined the game and the guy and the doctor is right to be angry that these jerks. Are not living up to their end of the bargain.
JVL00:13:58Very unpleasant. What he did. I don't know. I mean, you had a question on the wording of the contract, doesn't it? I mean, the contract they signed, unless it explicitly said that the players were not able to inquire about future games. Then this is a gray area which should be submitted to arbitration and American John Wayne. Destro doesn't get to summarily design thing just because he happens to be the capital
Sonny00:14:30holder. Disagree. Disagree. You need you need a boss in situations like this. You need a guy in charge. And if you are, if you're a strong man, if you're if you're working, if you're if you're work, if you're running a murder game, you got to make sure that the murder game is fair.
JVL00:14:44So here's here's my my next question, though. What is from the capitalist perspective? What is the grounds of objection by the headman? To his employees being entrepreneurial and making some cash on the side again, unless the terms of their contract together expressly forbid them from harvesting the organs of dead players, then he has no right to object to them creating value in the marketplace to better themselves.
Sonny00:15:18Well, I think I think it has more to do with the other rules that they're having to break, for instance, circumventing the the. Surveillance systems and, you know, violating the rule, they're they're also get clear
Vic00:15:31returns. It's like in return for that, they're helping a player.
Sonny00:15:34You're supposed to be in you're supposed to be in bed at a certain time. You're supposed to, you know, you do think very regimen ABC. You don't you don't show anybody your face. You don't do anything like that. I feel like there's there are enough violations here to warrant a summary expulsion slash execution from the employment of Destro.
JVL00:15:52Yeah, I would have thought that you would applaud their entrepreneurialism. And if they could, their hustle and willingness to work.
Sonny00:16:01What I would my response to this would be, I think all of that is great. But you can't you can't you cannot you cannot have any of these organs are questionable. You cannot have one of the players involved here again. That's right. That's right. The whole reason that they're there is for the murder games. And if you start if you start if you start fucking with the murder games, you're going to mess up the whole thing.
Vic00:16:26If they were just doing it on there, if they were just doing it, they're on their own and successfully removing organs.
Sonny00:16:31If a doctor had gotten hired as a circle face and instead doctor knows how to find, but now look, look, let's be let's be clear here. There is an argument to be made that if you had a doctor as a circle face, come in and do the organ removals and take initiative like this, that he would be a stealing. Is a hard word here, but there, there you, he, he would in theory be stealing from the organization. The better thing to do would be to put together a plan, put together a proposal that you could take to Destro John Wayne and say, look, I can increase our, uh, economic efficiency by 17% by harvesting these organs and selling them on the black market to the Chinese. That's how you work your way up. The ranks. You gotta file your TPS reports.
Vic00:17:19Right. So you gotta put his TPS report together.
Sonny00:17:22No, you just show, you just show a little bit of, you know, if you want to look, if you want to move up, when I, when I was at, for instance, when I was
JVL00:17:28at the weekly standard, sir, I was working to show you if I was here on slide three,
Sonny00:17:34when I was working at the weekly standard as an assistant editor, I did, I was able to do all of my work in about 10 hours every week. And I, I realized that this was not a very good use of my time. So I started writing movie reviews on the side. Now if, if instead of writing movie reviews on the side, I had started harvesting organs from people and, and we could sell them in the back of the magazine, you know, to people who needed them, I, that would be, that would be a different thing. But, but you, you gotta take your, you gotta take your economic opportunities where you can find. Awesome.
JVL00:18:05So on slide seven, you will notice the Ebit data that much work.
?00:18:10Yes.
JVL00:18:11It's an Ebit data joke.
Sonny00:18:13I would like somebody to, I don't understand. I don't understand that. I don't understand it.
Vic00:18:17The 10 hours. Ryan will get that. Okay.
Sonny00:18:20The thing is, Vic is still blown away by the fact that I was able to do all of my work in 10 hours.
Vic00:18:24No, I'm going 10 hours. I was more like nine hours. I was going to say you're, it's, it's one of the secrets. You're not supposed to tell that we, you could put out a magazine in three days, you know,
Sonny00:18:34and then take, I don't think it really matters that much anymore. I don't think it, I don't think it, uh, I don't think it's gonna make that big a difference.
Vic00:18:41Okay. How does, how does a episode remind me? How does episode five and, uh, uh, episode five and episode five ends with the, the doctor
Sonny00:18:51being shot. I think that that's like the end of it.
Vic00:18:53Okay. So I, I do have one question. And then we can wrap it up, which is, um, I think so the operation, which, you know, when you start off the series, it seems extremely like well-run efficient. These guys are, you know, doing this job and everything is very controlled. And then by the time you get to episode five, things are wheel wheels off and, and Destro clearly does not have a control over the situation because all this insanity is happening. Do we think that this has always been the case during every game? Or do you think it's just happening now that it finally things are just fine?
JVL00:19:28Because obviously this thing is going on for some time. Vick, are you saying this has happened before? Wait, did I just say this in the last episode we did?
Vic00:19:37Did it? No. Wasn't this mentioned? No. I mean, I can't remember if, okay. I'm not going to say anything.
Sonny00:19:43Nevermind. I'm not going to say anything. This is why you don't watch ahead. I couldn't stop it. This is why we don't watch ahead. This is why we watch. This is why we watch. This is why we watch. Just two episodes a week and we talk about it, but you, the man of the people are like, no, I can't, I can't. This is why you would end up in the murder games because you have no, no self control. You would find yourself in debt and you would, you would have to kill people to get on.
Vic00:20:04Hold on now. So is this the episode where he's reunited with his daughter? Oh, oh, nevermind.
JVL00:20:10Oh, sorry. What's Vick? What are we? He's not even laughing. Sonny's not even laughing.
Sonny00:20:15I don't even, I can't even tell if that's a joke or not because you've watched ahead. How am I supposed to know? Ridiculous. Victorino.
JVL00:20:22Are we ever going to get your, uh, your North Korean? Bay. Is she ever going to, I love her.
Vic00:20:28I think she's great.
JVL00:20:29Uh, and a listener, is she ever going to get into any of the quadrants? No, not too bad.
Vic00:20:37In my mind. Yes.
JVL00:20:39But not in the actual, not in the hottest North Korean woman ever. Yes.
Vic00:20:43Oh, by the way, really, really quickly, uh, I do pick up, uh, on the language because I did, you hear them, you know, my bosses, you, you could refer to them as when I worked in a Hallmark store as a Mr or Mrs is, uh, I GMA or I just, she, and they say that they go, I GMA.
JVL00:21:01I just say, does that mean her birthday or his birthday?
Vic00:21:03His birthday? So I do. Secretary day and the, uh, uh, the other thing is if you notice the subtitles for any number of profanities, they're saying the same thing every time, even though it's like, it's either, you know, fuck this or fuck that. But it's always, she buy, she buy. I'm just going to throw that around from now on.
?00:21:27That's all.
Sonny00:21:28I'm sure that's fine.
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