Netflix’s 2-Part Thriller Series Is Officially One of the Biggest Streaming Hits in History

There have been many valid criticisms made of Netflix’s streaming model and how the binge-watching model does a disservice to viewers, but in many cases it can be an important tool in spearheading experimental shows with daring high-concept stories. Squid Game was a surprise sensation that no one could have anticipated through algorithms or marketing meetings, as there was no expectation that a South Korean dystopian thriller would end up being a crossover success around the world. The greatest takeaway that can be drawn from the dominance of Squid Game is that it resulted from the singular vision of Hwang Dong-hyuk, the brilliant creator and showrunner who remained steadfast in producing the show his way and not making compromises. It’s this unfiltered and sincere approach that Hwang took to the material that made Squid Game such a lightning-in-a-bottle event, as audiences responded positively to a show where they genuinely could not predict what was coming next.

Squid Game happened to air at the right time at the end of 2021, when audiences were slowly beginning to move on from COVID-19, yet were still sticking to the viewership habits that they had picked up during the height of the pandemic. One of the novelties of the COVID era of Netflix is that international content grew more popular. When there was a limit on the amount of new English-language content being produced due to shutdowns, audiences showed willingness to try out international shows and ended up learning something about their own taste. Although a more enlightened viewership block may have helped Squid Game get a leg up in initial engagement, a show that is popular doesn’t rack up this amount of hours watched if it doesn’t cut deeper. Squid Game explored the devastating gap between the haves and the have-nots, and it questioned the way that entertainment took advantage of those deemed by society to be “lesser.” This wasn’t just an idea that resonated in South Korea, as it embodied sentiments that were shared around the world.

‘Squid Game’ Was an Unprecedented Global Phenomenon

Despite the fact that the series is completely original and not based on any previously existing material, Squid Game has a didactic style of storytelling that allows viewers to get clued into its implications because of their familiarity with dystopian narrative tropes. What distinguishes Squid Game from other shows or films that involve survival game show programs is that it is not set in the distant future; the reality of Squid Game resembles that of the present, and it is not unfeasible within the era of the “gig economy” to imagine that those with debts would sign up for the chance to win a fortune. Part of the reason that Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is such a compelling protagonist is that he has a very relatable story of someone who wants to provide for his family, but is stymied by economic consequences. It was also a pure showcase for Lee, an actor with such charisma and pathos that he made the twisted plot mechanics of Squid Game all the more involving.

• The Wick films run on discipline: an underworld with actual etiquette, a hero who honors
  every rule of it, and a world that unravels the instant someone breaks one against him.
• You share that quality. You are extraordinarily reasonable right up to the line, and then
  completely immovable past it.
• Focus, commitment and sheer will. You’d be the one carrying grief through three sequels
  and turning it into technique rather than noise.
• People wouldn’t call you dangerous. They’d say your name quietly and let that do
  the work.

• This series went from street racing to orbit without ever changing its real subject, because
  loyalty scales and plot doesn’t have to.
• You have the same instinct. You build a family out of whoever turns up, and then you defend
  it past the point of reason.
• You’d thrive here because the franchise rewards exactly your strengths: warmth, nerve,
  an absolute refusal to leave anyone behind, and a relaxed relationship with physics.
• The mission can wait. The barbecue cannot.

• This is the franchise of the plan that collapses on schedule: the team, the mask, the
  rooftop, and the one person sprinting flat out because sprinting is all that’s left.
• You share that refusal to accept an outcome. Told the odds, you treat them as an
  administrative error.
• You’d thrive here because these films reward competence and loyalty in equal measure.
  The mission matters, but nobody on the team gets left on the wrong side of a door.
• Some people delegate the cliff. You have never once been that person.

• Die Hard invented the modern action hero by making him mortal: outnumbered, out-planned,
  battered, and extremely funny about it.
• You share that stubbornness. Adversity doesn’t make you noble, it makes you sarcastic,
  and then it makes you unstoppable.
• You’d thrive here because these films reward improvisation and nerve over preparation,
  and you’ve never had the luxury of preparing anyway.
• You didn’t want any of this. You just declined to be the person who let it happen.

Although Squid Game is a series that works best as a binge-watch because of how each installment dovetails into the next, the show takes advantage of the episodic format with the different challenges that exist within the game. The teases as to how the game escalated made it more exciting to finish the season, especially given how much focus Hwang put into the strategy involved to complete them. The complication of the series goes beyond pure survival because each of the individual games requires judgment calls regarding the ethics of self-sacrifice and making decisions on behalf of a collective. Part of the reason that Squid Game stuck around in the culture for months after it initially aired is that it prompted legitimate social, philosophical, and political conversations among audiences who debated what they would do in a similar situation; it is one of the few instances in which a streaming show had a “water cooler effect” and became “must-see television” over time.

‘Squid Game’ Retained Enthusiasm Until the End

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

• Image via Netflix

The overall viewership numbers for Squid Game are staggering, and it’s unlikely that there will be another show that matches its performance given the way that streaming has grown more fragmented. The first season of Squid Game is the most-viewed individual season of any Netflix show ever with 265.2 million views; of the top five, three slots are taken up by Squid Game, as Seasons 2 and 3 take up the third and fourth places, respectively. Although Wednesday seemed as if it could have posed a challenge with its second-place performance of 252.1 million views for Season 1, it took a dramatic spiral for Season 2, losing half of its viewers. One of the advantages that Squid Game had in shooting Seasons 2 and 3 back-to-back was that it didn’t ask audiences to wait years for a cliffhanger, and thus there was not a significant drop-off.

Squid Game is Hwang’s show, and it has been proven that no one else has the vision to make it successful. The American remake of the show ended up dying in development, and the strange attempts to make an actual game show ended up feeling counterintuitive to the point of the story. Although Seasons 2 and 3 did not entirely live up to the hype, the joy of discovering Squid Game in its inception was a truly wondrous moment that showed the magic of what “peak TV” can do.