A Fair World
"You come over here and try doing this, especially when you’re sleep deprived."
Written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk
"Here, every player gets to play a fair game under the same conditions. These people suffered from inequality and discrimination out in the world, and we’re giving them one last chance to fight fair and win. But you broke that principle."
— The Front Man
After utilizing Sang-woo's Plan B, Gi-hun's team wins their tug-of-war match, but most of them are unnerved at having to kill the opposing team. Expecting another riot, Gi-hun's team builds a barricade, which Deok-su mocks until Gi-hun turns the tables by pointing out to Deok-su that he shouldn't fully trust his teammates, all of whom have similar criminal histories. That night, Gi-hun's teammates take turns on watch, but Deok-su's team does not attack. It is then that Player 001 catches a delirious fever.
Meanwhile, Jun-ho learns about the black market organ harvesting operation the other guards are running with Player 111. He's expected to help deliver the product with another guard. As they get ready to swim out off the island to meet with their clients, Jun-ho's partner reveals he knows Jun-ho is not a real guard and a confrontation ensues, with Jun-ho killing the other guard. Meanwhile, the rest of the operation comes to a crashing end when the Front Man catches them. The Front Man executes the remaining members of the conspiracy for giving a player an unfair advantage and kills Player 111 as well. Upon seeing the dead guard, he calls for a facility-wide manhunt for Jun-ho. Jun-ho avoids detection and gets into the Front Man's living quarters. He finds an office with an archive of records of the games going as far back as 1988, and that his brother, Hwang In-ho, was the winner in 2015.
"A Fair World" provides examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Player 111 and his staff accomplices in the Organ Theft ring all meet violent ends in this episode. Considering what they were involved in, it's hard to feel any sympathy for them.
- Back-Alley Doctor: What Player 111 assumes as part of an organ harvesting side-hustle with some of the staff. It's also revealed that he once killed a patient, which probably has something to do with why he ended up in the games in the first place.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted; Jun-ho interrogates the other guard when thinking his brother was the "zombie" organ donor. He's prepared to shoot with prejudice.
- Big Damn Heroes: As Gi-hun is mere centimeters from falling off the platform, Ali pulls back as hard as he can and helps his friend get his leverage back.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Jun-ho kills one of the staff members. A staff member who reveals his face to Player 111 faces the same fate as well.
- Break the Haughty: Deok-su is confident that his team will kill Gi-hun's that night and walks up to him to gloat about it. Gi-hun points out that his "team" is really just a group of back-stabbing thugs who would betray each other at the drop of a hat—especially their supposed leader, who as the strongest player poses the biggest threat to them. Deok-su clearly had not considered this and becomes incredibly paranoid and distrustful of his associates afterwards.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Player 111 is shot to death after the Front Man discovers him gaining the unfair advantage of getting information about the next games.
- Combat Pragmatist: A necessity. When the players on the other team trip, Gi-hun orders his side to pull and give them no leeway, so they don't get the chance to regain their footing. It's not honorable, but they win.
- A Death in the Limelight: Player 111 is given a significant role and a bit more expansion in this episode, which ends with him dying.
- Didn't Think This Through: Deok-su feels so comfortable with his group of fellow thugs that he doesn't consider a gaping hole in his security until Gi-hun points it out to him: his men really don't trust him, they just know he's the strongest and they are using that—and that same strength also makes him huge competition. If a fight were to break out, getting rid of Deok-su would probably be someone's priority. Deok-su is so rattled by this realization he doesn't go through with an attack after all.
- Doctor's Disgraceful Demotion: Player 111 signed up for the games after falling upon hard times due to losing his medical license in a malpractice incident.
- Fair-Play Villain: The Front Man is not happy when he discovers the organ harvesters in his staff were bribing Player 111 with foreknowledge of coming games in exchange for his cooperation. He couldn't care less about their side hustle, but providing a player with an unfair advantage is intolerable and punishable by death for both the staff involved and the player.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Aside from some additional shots of Il-nam clearly not cuffed to the rope, there's also a shot of a member of the opposing team losing their shoe after they fall down. Said member is thrashing on the floor struggling to catch his footing while his bare foot is visible, with the discarded shoe on the ground.
- Freudian Excuse: How did Gi-hun become the Jaded Washout he is today? Well, he used to have a stable and comfortable factory job making car parts but was then laid off due to the higher-ups' financial mismanagement. He and his coworkers organized a protest to try to get their jobs back, only for it to degrade into a violent riot and Gi-hun witnessed one of his co-workers get shot and killed in front of him. At the same time, his ex-wife began going into labor and nearly died from complications, so Gi-hun also ended up missing Ga-yeong's birth. This event left him with PTSD and led to Gi-hun's downward spiral into becoming a slacker working poor-paying dead-end jobs and developing a gambling addiction.
- A House Divided: Gi-hun staves off an attack by pointing out that Deok-su's people will probably stab him in the back for an advantage. Deok-su is smart enough to realize the truth in his words and returns to his own camp eyeing his goons with suspicion.
- I Love the Dead: One of the staff reveals they've been "taking turns" with an eliminated player's corpse as proof it was a woman, and therefore not Jun-ho's brother.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Utilized in the English dub and subtitles. During the organ harvesting subplot, the guards talk about a "zombie" who turned out to be Not Quite Dead and woke up halfway through the harvesting. Korean doesn't really use gendered pronouns, but the English language versions chose to use "it" to refer to the zombie. This word choice does double duty in showing us just how little the guards care about the players and hiding from the audience and Jun-ho that the zombie in question is not Jun-ho's brother like he believed based on a mention that the zombie only had one kidney, but an unnamed woman.
- Life Saving Misfortune: If the other circle guard hadn't held Jun-ho at knifepoint, he wouldn't have been able to escape the Front Man's sweep and lockdown of the guards. Jun-ho uses the intel he got to hide in the Front Man's office instead.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Gi-hun has this expression as he lies down on the platform after winning tug-of-war. He looked into the opposing leaders' eyes before forcing them to fall off the platform and saw no villains, only a group of scared men. The survivors have to live with the guilt that they killed ten people to save themselves.
- Knew It All Along: After her team pulls off a miracle in Tug-of-War, Mi-nyeo later acts like she knew Sang-woo and Il-nam's strategies would work. Everyone else remembers that she was too busy panicking after hearing Sang-woo's plan, so they don't buy her claim for a second.
- Non-Dubbed Grunts: When Deok-su is conversing with Gi-hun and looks back at his own team, they are playfighting using steel beams from the bunk beds. In the dubbed versions, their yelling is very obviously still in Korean.
- Not So Above It All: Ali sarcastically imitates Mi-nyeo's panicking during the game when she tries to attack him for being The Illegal. She has no response.
- Not So Stoic: After maintaining his cover for several days, Jun-ho fears that his big brother was cut up like sashimi with his eyes gouged out, after the red light green light game, with his organs donated. He angrily rants at the guard who busts him, showing off his surgery scars. The staff he holds at gunpoint tearfully tells him that it wasn't a guy, it was a woman.
- Orderlies are Creeps: The staff members are creepy enough as it is, but it turns out the ones that are in cahoots with Player 111 also took turns raping the not-quite-a-corpse of one of the eliminated women players.
- Pet the Dog: In the middle of her Knew It All Along, Mi-nyeo gushes to the old man that he saved them all with his strategy and made her feel powerful. He smiles modestly.
- The Reveal: In-ho Hwang isn't a member of this years' games; he actually played in 2015. Jun-ho, his little brother, gets confused: he only saw his brother a few weeks ago.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Gi-hun acknowledges that Deok-su is the strongest player there — which means that the murderous thugs he's surrounded himself with are very likely to stab him in the back, since they can't beat him fairly. Deok-su is supremely unnerved by this, calls off the night's riot out of paranoia, and can't fall asleep afterward.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: During his time on watch, Gi-hun stares off and hallucinates as he remembers a violent strike 10 years ago at a car factory he formerly worked at.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Deconstructed. Gi-hun's team is technically the weakest with having two tiny women and one frail old man, so the odds were against them to win in a tug-of-war set. Yet, the other players are also underdogs as the poor and greatly indebted.
- Wham Shot: While investigating, Jun-ho uncovers collections of files with one reading "LIST OF PLAYERS, 1988" on the cover. Jun-ho then comes across a list of winners — with only one player per year, and with his brother, Hwang In-ho, as the winner of 2015.
"He's still here somewhere. Find him."
