Squid Game Season 3 just hit Netflix, which means the internet is about to be inundated with screenshots, clips, and social media posts spoiling the craziest twists in the show’s dramatic final season. Weirdly, the biggest Squid Game spoiler of the season might be one that doesn’t affect the story at all. The final season of Squid Game ends with a huge celebrity cameo that seemingly sets up the long-rumored American Squid Game spin-off!
**Spoilers for the final scene in Squid Game Season 3 Episode 6 “Humans Are…”, now streaming on Netflix**
Squid Game Season 3 wraps up the story of Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), the Korean gambler who became Player 456 all the way back in Season 1. After winning the brutal games back in 2021, Gi-hun used his massive payout to care for his friends’ loved ones and to hunt the monsters who built the underground death games in the first place. In Squid Game Season 2, Gi-hun re-enters the game as 456 to try to stop them. He ultimately leads a revolt against the game-makers which falls apart in the final moments of last season. Squid Game Season 3 follows the devastated Gi-hun as plays through the final rounds, surrounded by foes and allies.
Now, we’re not going to spill here who lives, who dies, and what insane games series creator/writer/director Hwang Dong-hyuk cooks up for the final season of Squid Game. Watch the story unfold at your own pace. What we are spoiling for you is the absolutely iconic Oscar-winning celebrity they nabbed to play the American counterpart to Gong Yoo’s iconic ddakji-playing Recruiter.
Squid Game is ending and Squid Game is just beginning.
Squid Game Season 3 ends in Los Angeles, the city that Gi-hun’s beloved daughter Seong Ga-yeong (Jo A-in) now calls home. While one character — okay, fine, spoilers, it’s Lee Byung-hun‘s Front Man — is chauffeured around the heart of Hollywood, we notice a woman in a sharp suit playing ddakji with an unhoused man in an alley. When the bedraggled man loses, she slaps him, hard.
A close up reveals that the American version of Gong Yoo’s Salesman is none other than two-time Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett! She and the Front Man make eye contact, suggesting the two know each other. Her appearance also very heavily implies that, yes, Netflix is making an American Squid Game spin-off, and soon!
While there have been rumors for years about Netflix’s ambitions to expand Squid Game with international spin-offs, the most concrete reporting came last year, when Deadline revealed David Fincher was attached to develop an English-language series set within Hwang Dong-hyuk’s universe. Dennis Kelly is reportedly attached as a writer. Everything else has been mostly rumors and speculation.
Ending the original Korean Squid Game with Cate Blanchett trolling the streets of Los Angeles, looking for poor desperate souls to bring into the games, seems to confirm she will be reprising this role in a subsequent USA-based series. For context, Gong Yoo is similarly one of the biggest names in Korean cinema, known internationally for his work in Train to Busan. So tapping a Hollywood heavyweight as his successor feels perfect.
Netflix hasn’t yet officially announced the American version of Squid Game, but Cate Blanchett’s big cameo has set off a countdown for one.
Squid Game Seasons 1-3 are now streaming on Netflix.