Follow TV Tropes

Following

Recap / Squid Game S1E8 "Front Man"

Go To

Squid Game RECAP:
Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Episode 8:

Front Man

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/squidgamefrontman.png
"Have the Korean police ever been quick to act?"
Written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk

"Just in case either of us... can actually make it out of this hellhole somehow, we’ll look after each other’s loved ones, okay?"
Kang Sae-byeok

Jun-ho has escaped the island the games were being held and manages to reach another nearby island. He checks his phone and sees that it has no signal so he runs toward a mountain. However, the Front Man and a group of Soldiers are following Jun-ho and arrive on the island soon after. They find Jun-ho's diving pack and the Front Man orders the Soldiers to find Jun-ho and bring him back alive. Jun-ho sees them and hides in the bushes. He looks at his phone and finally gets a bit of signal so he calls the police for backup and tries to send the videos he took, but his police chief can barely hear him.

Meanwhile, the three remaining players are back in the lobby. Gi-hun and Sang-woo argue about whether Sang-woo pushing Player 017 was necessary while Sae-byeok rests on her bed. Gi-hun accuses Sang-woo of killing a man unnecessarily, but Sang-woo reminds Gi-hun that he was at the back and didn't have to dirty his hands when they were almost out of time to finish the game safely. Gi-hun asks Sang-woo if he would have killed him if he was in Player 017's position. Sang-woo doesn't answer and instead tears into Gi-hun for being irresponsible and always getting into trouble; Gi-hun in turn throws that back at Sang-woo, pointing out that "The Pride of Ssangmun-dong" fell right into the same "shithole" and has no one to blame but himself for his own dire financial situation. The argument is interrupted by a Manager and some Workers carrying boxes enter the lobby to congratulate them for being the finalists and give them the boxes.

Sae-byeok goes into a bathroom to get ready. While changing, Sae-byeok is then revealed to have been impaled by a large shard of glass from when the bridge exploded in the previous game. She painfully removes the glass shard from her abdomen and quickly tears off her shirt to wrap it around the wound to prevent further bleeding. She then opens the box to reveal a tuxedo.

The finalists are given a nice steak dinner in the lobby as a prize for having come this far. Gi-hun and Sang-woo dig into their meals, eyeing each other down, while a clearly weakened Sae-byeok barely touches her food. After the meal, workers clean the table and leaves the players' steak knives. The players keep the knives and go to their beds.

Jun-ho is still being pursued by the Front Man and several guards. He is now on the top of the slope and the Soldiers finally corner him. Jun-ho threatens them that he already sent the videos that he took to the police, but the Front Man doubts it because of the island's poor reception. As the Front Man gets walks closer, Jun-ho nervously steps back because of the edge and shoots the Front Man in his shoulder. The Soldiers get ready but the Front Man stops them and instead tells Jun-ho to come with them. Jun-ho asks who he is. The Front Man doesn't answer and instead takes his mask off to reveal that he is Hwang In-ho, Jun-ho's missing brother. Jun-ho is shocked and speechless and when In-ho extends his hand, asking him to come along, Jun-ho can only shake his head in disbelief. In-ho points his gun at his brother, and all Jun-ho can ask is "Why?" before In-ho shoots him in the shoulder, causing him to fall into the ocean, seemingly to his death. In-ho puts his mask again and goes back to his room where he remembers his brother asking "why" before shooting him.

Back in the dorms, the finalists rest on their beds. Gi-hun goes over to Sae-byeok, who readies her knife but Gi-hun assures her that he's not going to harm her and hides his knife in his jacket. They talk about what will they do after winning the money and their families, and promise each other that they will take care of them should one die. Gi-hun notices Sang-woo falling asleep and takes out his knife, but Sae-byeok stops him, telling him that he is not a killer. Gi-hun then hears Sae-byeok slump over in her bed, and uncovers her wound, which is bleeding profusely. Sae-byoek deliriously asks to go home. Gi-hun quickly runs to the door and begs for help. The doors finally open and the lights turn on but instead of help, the Workers walk past Gi-hun, carrying a coffin. Gi-hun turns around and sees Sang-woo covered in blood near Sae-byeok's bed. Gi-hun runs over to a lifeless Sae-byeok and cradles her in his arms, before discovering a stab wound in her neck. Realizing that Sang-woo had killed her with the knife in his hand, he furiously grabs his own knife to attack Sang-woo but both are quickly brought down by Soldiers. As the other Soldiers slowly carry Sae-byeok's body into her coffin, Gi-hun wails in agony.

No relation to these Frontmen.


"Front Man" provides examples of:

  • Agonizing Stomach Wound: Sae-byeok takes a large glass shard to the torso when the glass panels from the previous game explode. She attempts to dress and bandage the wound herself, but it does little to keep her from losing blood, ultimately leaving her dying and too weak to defend herself when Sang-woo murders her.
  • All for Nothing: Jun-ho learns what happened to his brother, and the identity of the Front Man, but is supposedly killed in the process. The Front Man's claim beforehand, of the island he escaped on, has poor phone signal to send whatever evidence he took to the police department, implies that Jun-ho's efforts to expose the games amounted to nothing in the end though at least he was able to send a Distress Call to his boss.
  • Appetite Equals Health: While Sang-woo and Gi-hun both clean their plates, with Gi-hun chugging his wine, Sae-byeok barely touches her steak dinner, claiming that it doesn't taste good, despite it being leagues above anything else they've had during the games (the previous meal was a raw potato). This turns out to be because her stomach was pierced by a shard of glass after the previous game. Her health quickly dwindles afterwards, leaving her defenseless when Sang-woo comes to kill her.
  • Armor-Piercing Question:
    • When Gi-hun and Sang-woo argue about whether Sang-woo pushing the glassmaker was necessary, Gi-hun asks if Sang-woo would have pushed him for hesitating that long. Sang-woo can't answer the question, but fires back with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech calling Gi-hun out as an idiot who mooches off his sick mother and has no one to blame but himself for his troubles.
    • However, Gi-hun throws Sang-woo's words back in his face, asking how he, who had done everything necessary to become successful, ended up in the same situation as him.
      Gi-hun: Sure. It's all my fault I ended up like this. I'm slow and incompetent. I'm a nosy dimwit who lives off the back of his old mother. But why is Ssangmun-dong's golden boy, the genius Cho Sang-woo of SNU, here? Rolling around this shithole with a dimwit like me. Is that also my fault?
  • Both Sides Have a Point: Gi-hun asks why Sang-woo pushed the glassmaker to his death, saying that he was almost certain to move with it being the very last tile, and Sang-woo didn't need to be so cold. Sang-woo claims that Gi-hun couldn't possibly know that for sure, and mentions that the glassmaker watched numerous people die without saying a word, and could've been just as bad of a person as Deok-su.
  • Cruel to Be Kind: The guards stop an enraged Gi-hun from fighting with Sang-woo after the latter kills Sae-byeok, pinning them both down. While they both need to be alive for the final game, one could view it as an act of mercy that Gi-hun won't be murdering his childhood friend in cold blood.
  • Desperate Plea for Home: Sae-byok begins to falter just prior to the start of the sixth and final game, having caught a shard of glass to the stomach at the end of the previous contest and slowly dying of blood loss as a result; barely conscious, she wearily tells Gi-hun, "If it's okay, mister, I'd like to go home now."
  • Distracted from Death: When Gi-hun notices Sae-byeok's injury, he runs to get help from the guards. Because of this, he doesn't notice Sang-woo approaching her while his back is turned.
  • Distress Call: When he gets a bar of service on the remote island, Jun-ho dials his boss and requests backup. The boss goes Oh, Crap! when he hears a garbled version of the past few days, asking Jun-ho to stay on the line as the latter asks for the chief to triangulate his location. Jun-ho when cornered attempts to use this as a means to stay alive but the Front Man points out that even if someone was coming, Instant Emergency Response doesn't happen in real life.
  • Dwindling Party: Two players remain for the finale: Gi-hun and Sang-woo.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: Jun-ho stares in shock when In-ho unmasks himself. All he can do is ask why did his brother go down a dark path before his older sibling shoots him.
  • Extra-Long Episode: Inverted; this episode is the shortest in the series, only clocking in a runtime of 32 minutes as opposed to all the other episodes which are an hour long each.
  • Foreshadowing: In-ho claims that the Korean police aren't all that competent, and has a suspicious level of knowledge about the bullets fired from detective Jun-ho's gun. This hints at his identity as the brother of Jun-ho, who is in the police and may be the source of In-ho's knowledge.
  • Irony: The games started with Gi-hun wanting revenge on Sae-byeok for pickpocketing him. Her final episode features him desperately trying to save her life and get help.
  • Kick the Morality Pet: In-ho once gave his kidney so that Jun-ho could live. It's part of the reason why Jun-ho searched for him, to either mount a rescue or avenge his brother's death/disappearance. In the episode's climax, In-ho shoots his little brother, the only person to whom he's been consistently kind.
  • Last Request: Realizing that she's not going to make it, Sae-byeok uses her finals conscious moments to extract a promise from Gi-hun: whoever lives and wins will use part of the money to take care of the other's family. He promises, shortly before uncovering her giant wound.
  • Mêlée à Trois: Invoked by the staff, who tidies up after the dinner but leaving behind a single steak knife for each of the remaining contestants, with the implication that they're free to use them on each other. Sang-woo ends up using his to kill Sae-byeok while she's defenseless, and an enraged Gi-hun attempts to stab him in return but gets knocked out by the staff before he can do so.
  • Mercy Kill: Sang-Woo slits Sae-byeok's throat with the justification of giving her a quick end as she was already bleeding out. However, when he's called out, he admits that he just wanted to prevent the possibility of her and Gi-hun voting to end the games by majority.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After all is said and done, the Front Man tends to his shoulder wound. But he ends up seeing Jun-ho in the mirror, saying the same last words before he was shot by his own brother. This leaves the Front Man trembling at this sight.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: The night before the sixth game of six is going to start, the three remaining contestants are all fed a large fancy dinner, complete with dressing them up in formal evening wear and fancy silver platters for the rich delicious food. This is right before they're all being forced into one last Deadly Game, so there's still some uncomfortable tension in the air.
  • One Bullet Left: When confronting Jun-ho, The Front Man notes that considering the gun, Korean police guidelines, and Jun-ho's activity, he is down to one bullet. Jun-ho states it's still enough to kill him and aims for the shoulder. However, the ensuing shot is non-fatal, leading the Front Man to reveal himself as Jun-ho's disappeared brother and shoot him dead.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • When Gi-hun questions Sang-woo's decision to push the glassmaker, and if Sang-woo would've done the same to him:
      Sang-woo: Gi-hun! Do you know why your life is so pathetic? Because you ask such dumb questions even in this kind of situation. Because you're such a nosy-ass idiot who's freaking slow, and always have to get into trouble to know it's trouble.
    • This is followed by Gi-hun throwing it back at Sang-woo.
      Gi-hun: Sure. It's all my fault I ended up like this. I'm slow and incompetent. I'm a nosy dimwit who lives off the back of his old mother. But why is Ssangmun-dong's golden boy, the genius Cho Sang-woo of SNU, here? Rolling around this shithole with a dimwit like me? Is that also my fault?
  • The Reveal: The Front Man's identity is none other than Hwang In-ho, Jun-ho's brother who disappeared at some point before the story began, and who won the 2015 run of the games.
  • Secret Stab Wound: Seo-byeok got hit with a large piece of shattered glass in the abdomen, which she kept hidden under her clothes. By the time that Gi-hun finds it, it's far too late to receive medical treatment.
  • Wham Line: The Front Man takes his mask off in front of Jun-ho, who is shocked by the Front Man's real face. He identifies him with a single name.
    Jun-ho: In-ho.
  • Wham Shot: Two in quick succession. When Gi-hun bangs on the doors for a doctor to save Sae-byeok, they open, and staff enter... holding another coffin. He turns and sees an immobile Sae-byeok, with Sang-woo standing in front of her with a bloodied knife.

"In-ho, why?"

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

The Final Dinner

Before the final game, the remaining survivors are presented with high-quality feast compared to their previous meals. The tension still runs high, though.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (22 votes)

Example of:

Main / NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine

Media sources:

Report