SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from the “Squid Game” series finale, now streaming on Netflix.
Halfway through the final season of Netflix’s “Squid Game,” a major character is introduced who ends up having no lines and is mostly played by a robotic doll: Jun-hee/Player 222’s (Jo Yu-ri) newborn daughter.
The prop is a key figure through the series finale, and is at the center of the final moral battle between Gi-hun/Player 456 (Lee Jung-jae) and The Front Man/In-ho (Lee Byung-hun). (Read our “Squid Game” character guide if you’re lost.)
While Jun-hee has been visibly in the third trimester of her pregnancy (Myung-gi/Player 333’s is the biological father) since she was introduced into the games at the start of Season 2, the fact the baby was actually born during the Squid Game was a twist for even star Lee Jung-jae, who wasn’t expecting “Squid Game” creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk to go that far.
“When I first read the script, when I read the part about this baby being born, I was just in quite a shock myself, too — I thought it was a great element in the story,” Lee Jung-jae said. “And as for the VFX, we actually had a robot built in the shape and weight of an actual newborn baby. So the robot had actual facial expressions. It would wiggle like a newborn baby, and the weight was quite realistic. So that helped me a lot with my performance.”
Jo Yu-ri as Jun-hee in “Squid Game 3”
Courtesy of No Ju-han/Netflix
Gi-hun agrees to protect the newborn at all costs before Jun-hee sacrifices herself for her child, and he holds to that promise until the very end — giving up his own life for the baby’s. The reasons for Gi-hun’s motivations to put this child — to whom he has no outside relation — before himself and his chance to get out of the games again are manifold, according to Lee.
“Those that have come into Squid Game, the players of the game, they’ve chosen to be there — but that’s not the case for the baby,” Lee said. “And so I think from Gi-hun’s standpoint, that’s one of the reasons why it becomes very important for him to protect the baby, because that baby didn’t make that choice to be there. And also, Gi-hun, being the person that he is, who has such a good heart, he wanted to help the baby’s mother.”
Another motivating factor is Gi-hun’s ongoing battle of morals with The Front Man/In-ho running the games to entertain the VIPs.
“A newborn baby represents innocence, and I think there’s another theme that is expressed through the birth of the baby, where it is part of Gi-hun’s struggle of wanting to protect innocence in a cruel and brutal world, which is the games,” Lee said. “And when you see the VIPs, it’s almost as if they welcome the baby being born, because it’s a newly added entertainment factor to their spectacle. And so by showing that, the contrast between the VIPs, who want to use this for their own entertainment, and Gi-hun’s struggle to protect the baby, I think that story structure itself really makes it nail-biting and unpredictable. And I thought it was an amazing idea and capability of Director Hwang.”
The Front Man/In-ho and Gi-hun differ in their beliefs about humanity until In-ho has a change of heart after Gi-hun’s sacrifice, but even before that, Lee Byung-hun says he saw The Front Man’s sliver of sympathy for the baby.
“With the baby’s birth, it definitely really rattles The Front Man, and shakes something inside him,” Lee Byung-hun said. “While his facial expressions are masked, when he is with the VIPs, he feels like it’s almost his duty to seem to be completely prepared and completely in control of the situation. The basic setup of the story is that he includes the baby in the games because he wants to entertain the VIPs. However, I believe that deep down, under all of that, a part of him does that because he wants to give the baby a chance, and he wants the baby to survive. I think you’ll notice when you watch these seasons that The Front Man seems to have a special place in his heart for Jun-hee and the baby, and I believe that is because of his actual personal experiences with his wife and child.”
After much time spent together under false pretenses in Season 2, Gi-hun and The Front Man/In-ho share their first scene together in Season 3 toward the end of the series when The Front Man reveals his true identity to Gi-hun. When Gi-hun meets The Front Man in his office, he finally learns that this is the same man who played alongside him in the games as his friend in Season 2. Up until that moment, Gi-hun had no idea that In-ho was the one behind all of this, and was the one who killed his best friend Jung-bae.
“The level of betrayal and the feeling of realizing that he had been mocked and deceived and ridiculed almost, and realizing that this is the person who had killed his precious friend, Jung-bae — I think the emotions that I felt as Gi-hun in that moment, even when you compare it to all of my past characters throughout my career, it’s one of the most intense ones, where the sense of seeking revenge came so naturally,” Lee Jung-jae said. “And I think it really was something that allowed me to feel that sense of rage and and revenge in a very intense way against both the VIPs and The Front Man.”
During that showdown between Gi-hun and The Front Man, which is the final scene they share together in “Squid Game,” The Front Man makes Gi-hun the same offer In-ho was given by Squid Game creator Oh Il-nam when he entered the competition years ago: the chance to stab all the other players to death in their sleep, saving himself and the baby. In-ho making the offer is both a selfish and a selfless one.
“That scene, I had a lot of different emotions going through me as the character,” Lee Byung-hun said. “While it’s true that a part of him really wants to save Gi-hun and the baby, even greater than that, and stronger than that, is his purpose, his major purpose of wanting to completely make Gi-hun’s beliefs that are deemed noble to be collapsed. And I think it was almost a test where The Front man is thinking, ‘No matter what you do, you’re going to end up like me.’ And so when he hands him the knife, if Gi-hun did what In-ho did in the past, obviously, that would have probably driven In-ho into even greater despair, because that only proves that there is no hope. I think a part of him would also have felt a sense of victory.”