It was... uh, ok. I will definitely finish the rest when it comes out. The amount of people trying to compare it to the actual show are very silly. It is cool to see real people play the show out and that's about it for me.

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I was rooting for Rick and Stephen a lot so I was pretty gutted to see them eliminated and in such a... really flat way. Which is the problem with this show big time so far. You have your biggest villain go out in battleship to absolutely no fanfare. They build up Kyle as a snake only for him to go out in the cookie challenge to not buzz. Editing in general in this show is just really weird. They keep building up these big characters who just... get eliminated. I get the point of Squid Game is that anybody could die/get eliminated at any time, but this is a reality show that has 456 people to choose from when you're building stories and now it feels like the only ones who have been built up significantly entering the second half of the show is the mom and son, who are inevitably about to be split up in the first episode due to marbles.

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But if you look at the actual show, we didn't get the first major death until Marbles. Obviously quite a few side characters got killed in the meantime but the first one that really hit you was 001 and 199's demises. And man was I looking forward to Stephen/Rick being paired up in marbles, that would have been great. I think they did pretty good with some of the smaller arcs. Like the umbrella man's quick demise, the girl who was an "expert at battlehsip", Trey being devestated at Figgy not returning from a game, Stephen's best friend pretty much going out first. But it just feels like too many major characters are already gone and especially due to these dumb "tests" in the dorms. Not a fan of those at all and I feel like they go against the spirit of the game. If Bryton didn't randomly go out in battleship, he was guaranteed to be eliminated in one of these dumb vote offs and that would have been even worse. Imagine Jang Deok-su just getting "voted out" in the show? lol. The whole thing just feels too reality TV-esque and encourages people to be invisible and boring so they don't stand out and get eliminated randomly. I'll stop bitching though as I'm definitely going to finish it regardless.

Watched to Ep 9!

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What a random final three lol. Although I do LIKE all three of them. I feel like Sam was 100% invisible until this back half of episodes but I 100% remember seeing him in the background since the first episode and he was the one invisible character I was rooting for, so to see him not only suddenly get character development but actually have a chance to win is pretty funny. I liked Mai a bunch throughout this stretch and... did not understand why Ashley wasn't considered more of a villain for what she did? She literally fucked Trey over and disregarded what everyone agreed upon. I was shocked everyone was mad at Mai for giving her a taste of her own medicine. She is an awful liar though. Sam asking who eliminated Roland was hilarious. "Did... you give Roland the gift?" "Me? No..." "Who did you give yours to?" "Oh.... uh.... who did I give it to?" Yiiiikes. Her nailing down the English dude was a pretty great moment too. This was great! Much better back half to the series. Smaller cast allowed for some more rich development to the characters and the games were all very good. Marbles was as great as I expected it to be. Glass bridge was so tense to watch and I really enjoyed the way they gave out numbers. TJ's big ol' inspiring speech turning into him getting Russell Franklin'd on the first jump was absolutely hysterical. I fucking died. And the rest of the bridge was very tense. Some GREAT people eliminated in that game too.. which is how it should be! And that gift challenge was actually very fun. Still not a fan of the random ass vote offs. Although the schoolyard pick em' was a little bit better than just outright being able to eliminate someone, so I did enjoy that portion as it gave everyone a chance instead of just putting one person's fate in another's. Was a sad way to see Dan get eliminated, though I guess it was poetic since that whole alliance was pretty much gutted at that point. And RIP to that poor ORGer who never even got a line through the whole show. Definitely get that a big purge like that was necessary heading into the final stretch however. I'm pretty excited for the finale and I'm rooting heavily for Sam