Popverse's top stories

• Summer 2026 is getting started already - we have the Florida Supercon 2026 dates!
• Why have a family vacation from hell when you could read one instead with Jennifer Thorne's Diavola? [If It Bleeds, We Read]
• Marvel Studios veterans are teaming up to bring 2000 AD icon Judge Dredd to the big screen one more time

Spoilers for Squid Game season 3 follow. Dare you keep reading?

Despite what it might have looked like, the final scene of Netflix hit Squid Game really isn’t ending with a teaser for its own spin-off, despite that big name cameo appearance. If anything, the man behind the show intended it as an open-ending finale showing that the problems that the show was created to address hadn’t gone away even if the series was ending.

For those who haven’t seen ‘Humans Are…’, the final episode of the series, the last scene shows the Front Man seemingly discovering a recruiter for an American version of the games, played by none other than Cate Blanchett. Many fans assumed that this was a deliberate tease for the reportedly in-development American version of the show that Netflix has been rumored to be developing for years. (We can’t just have reality show spin-offs, after all.) However, that wasn’t the intent of the scene at all, according to the one man who’d know for sure.

“I didn’t end it on that note in order to deliberately leave room for further stories to happen,” series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk told The Hollywood Reporter. “Gi-hun and Front Man, through these characters, the Games in Korea have ended. And because this story started out with me wanting to tackle issues about the limitless competition and the system that’s created in late capitalism, I wanted to leave it on a note highlighting the fact that these systems, even if one comes down, it’s not easy to dismantle the whole system — it will always repeat itself. That’s why I wanted to end it with an American recruiter. And I wrote that scene wanting an impactful ending for the show, not in order to open rooms for anything else.”

So, if there is an American version of Squid Game in the works, it’s not one that we’ve already seen the start of — and there’s no guarantee that it’ll include Cate Blanchett, either. Sorry to disappoint, everyone… but, honestly, doesn’t this version of the ending just seem better than discovering it’s a big cliffhanger for another show that’s not even been officially announced yet?

Squid Game season 3 is available on Netflix now. It’s the end of the show, for real. (For now.)

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out Popverse's guides to:

• Upcoming movies
• Upcoming TV shows
• Upcoming comics
• Upcoming games
• Upcoming fiction books
• Upcoming comic conventions