As the biggest Conclaviac (that's a fan of director Edward Berger's movie Conclave) around, I was always seated for Berger's next movie before it had even been filmed. Now I've seen Ballad of a Small Player, it's clear that it was never going to live up to the hype.

Really, we're wrong to pit the new Netflix movie against Berger's previous work (which includes All Quiet on the Western Front), yet it's inevitable. Each of his last three projects exist in their own right, not sharing any characteristics outside of Berger's outstanding personal vision.

If you're coming to Ballad of a Small Player hoping for cinematography that will blow your mind, you're in the right place. If you're hoping Colin Farrell bares his acting soul in the portrait of a tortured gambler at war with his addiction, he charmingly delivers.

The downside is that the movie suffers from the classic problem of waning at the two-third mark – in a nutshell, the fatal moment where you're itching for things to wrap up and draw their conclusion, checking your watch in the process.

But besides this, I fell in love with Berger's end goal, flaws and all. While I wonder if being streamed on Netflix does the film's artistry a disservice, we should be thanking out lucky stars for such immediate access to thoughtful, quality craft

Ballad of a Small Player's visuals are the real star of the show

Macau is a city where, by Berger and his team's own admission, is unlike anywhere else in the world. A beast with two distinctly different identities, it's the perfect place to reflect big-time gambler Lord Doyle's (Farrell) inner demons, struggling to get himself out of a hole he makes deeper with every decision.

Without giving too much away, he's a man who owes a lot of people money (or has flat-out stolen it), spending anything he has left on the next game of Baccarat. When Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton) begins to tail him for the life he's left behind, Doyle turns to Dao Ming (Fala Chen) in his hour of need. What follows is the ultimate test of his character.

Where there are big-scale locations like Macau and Hong Kong, there's big-scale vision. Doyle is accurately reflected as the flea in a circus of lights and power that he is, lost in an environment he's tricked himself into thinking he understands.

That's bad news for Doyle but excellent news for viewers, who'll be entranced by visuals that'll leave their eyes blaze in wonder, like a child seeing light for the first time. We see repetitions of Conclave's cinematic framing, meaning you can easily pause Ballad of a Small Player from time to time and find a freeze frame worthy of gallery installation.

In this respect, Berger is playful. Light plays against dark, overwhelm contrasts against stillness and chaos manifests under many different guises. As far as artistry is concerned, both he and the movie are at the top of their game.

Should Ballad of a Small Player have been picked up by Netflix?

Obviously, there are very few films in existence that are objectively flawless, and Ballad of a Small Player comes with its issues. Fans of the original 2014 novel of the same name might be horrified to realize quite a few key details have changed.

For example, Dao Ming is now directly tied to the Rainbow casino thanks to a switch in occupation, and Swinton's character has been entirely invented for the adaptation. Subjectively, I have a separate gripe here – a film without Swinton in every conceivable shot is one that doesn't have enough seasoning, offering up yet another chameleonic performance that stands uniquely on its own two feet.

But even if you're okay with the above, you'll likely feel the dreaded narrative lag that hits around the two-thirds mark. It was almost a given considering how much mental anguish Doyle puts himself though (which the storyline relies on), but we find ourselves frustrated with his lack of personal progress. It comes in the blink of an eye towards the end of the movie, making the journey from zero to hero unconvincingly rushed rather than thoughtfully mapped out.

Most importantly, though, Ballad of a Small Player being a Netflix release doesn't feel like the right fit, and that's for two reasons. The advantage of its stylistic visuals means it needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, and I fear the average living room TV won't do the scale of what's been achieved true justice.

On top of this, the movie is going up against huge Netflix releases like Knives Out 3 and Frankenstein within weeks of each other. Out of all originals movies dropping on the streaming service, I think Ballad of a Small Player is the most likely to be glossed over (if for no other reason, purely because it's the smallest IP).

As Netflix hits its fall of back-to-back movie stride, my plea to you is to not overlook this one now that it's arrived. Granted, it's no Conclave, but what Ballad of a Small Player lacks in narrative nous it more than makes up for in cinematic scope, taking us to locations and circumstances we cannot access in reality.

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

Wayward is the title you need to keep your eyes on most of all when looking at the line-up of everything new on Netflix in September 2025. Brought to us by Feel Good creator and comic Mae Martin, they've even bagged Toni Collette for her most explosive horror role since Ari Aster's Hereditary in 2022.

But this is just scratching the surface of why Wayward is so good. The new Netflix series tells the story of the small town of Tall Pines, Vermont, which is home to a school of delinquent teens that get shipped off to study under the watchful eye of Evelyn Wade (Collette). Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) are two teens caught up in the school's mysteries, alongside cop Alex (Martin) and wife Laura (Sarah Gadon), who return to Laura's home town to settle down before the birth of their new baby.

Their two points of view converge over the course of the eight-episode run, giving us a multi-dimensional look at what it means to be a brainwashed youth incarcerated against your will. The town's decisions (and I won't spoil what these are) aim to rebuild Tall Pines from the ground up, but instead break down and fracture every part of its infrastructure. Not that this seems to matter, though as Evelyn's got her metaphorical hooks into almost everyone around her.

Between Alex, Abbie and Leila, it's up to them to get to the bottom of what's actually going on in Tall Pines. As a result, we're taken on a journey that resembles something between Twin Peaks and Stranger Things, and boy, is the outcome satisfying.

Of course Netflix's Wayward is brilliant, Mae Martin created it

Viewers should have known Wayward would be an instant addition to their watchlist the minute it was clear the series was coming from Mae Martin. Feel Good is still regarded as one of the greatest comedy-dramas to come out of the last decade, and not just by me. Even though veering into sci-fi supernatural territory isn't an expected direction for Martin, it almost doesn't matter.

Why? Good TV comes from getting the basics right: we're talking structure, characters, setting, as well as peaks and pits to hold the audiences attention. It's Martin's craft that's always elevated anything they've been a part of, even though their character Alex could be seen as another extension of their own personality. But we're rooting for Alex every step of the way, and that paves the way for some effortless LGBTQIA+ representation.

Instead of overtly stating that Martin's character is a trans man, the ensemble use he/him pronouns without hesitation, and when they fumble it feels authentic, rather than clumsily wedging inclusion in to tick a diversity box. It's incredibly refreshing and makes us buy into Alex's personal experiences on a much deeper level. If you're looking for someone more shouty about their sexuality, Leila is your girl, with her blossoming bisexuality proudly worn as only a naive teenager can.

Then there's Toni Collette. As one of the most talented actors that seems to be continuously unappreciated (especially by the Academy Awards), I hope viewers will tune in merely to see her shine (though I already know they will). She raises the game of everything and everyone around her when she signs onto the project, and there's no doubt that Wayward is what it is because of her. It's Evelyn's world and we're just living in it, making even the most skin-crawling of scenes enjoyable.

Stick with Wayward after episode 1 – I promise the payoff is worth it

For the most part, Wayward is well structured, holds its intrigue and has enough mystery wrapped in suspense to sustain us for the rest of the year. I'm a biased fan of anything to do with sketchy communes, strange towns and schools for dysfunctional children, but its subject matter is incredibly compelling even for the uninitiated. I should have felt as though I'd seen this play out 1000 times over (and better), but I came away from Wayward with a fresh perspective.

That said, there are a few minor downsides. With such a strange ensemble cast of characters in Tall Pines, not all of them get their backstories explained outright, particularly those relating to Laura's past. Laura's own journey has an ironic symbiosis with Evelyn's and it would have been helpful to see more of how she actually functioned in her alma mater.

Looking back, episode 1 was the biggest stumbling block, and that's not helpful when it's the make-or-break point of a viewer deciding if they'll stick or split to something else in Netflix's expansive back catalog. It's worth point out that all events that occur in Wayward are happening in 2003 rather than being split across different points in time, with it initially unclear how Abbie and Leila's story will cross paths with Alex and Laura's. It gets there pretty quickly after in episode 2, but the first 40 minutes require a bit of patience and push-through.

But these are small prices to pay for an ultimately satisfying and well-rounded eight-parter. Touching on themes of identity, motherhood, loss, community and trust, anybody who loves unpicking the crux of a story will be fed well-timed mouthfuls at every turn. There's an interesting feeling of pride that comes with working out the subtext of something, and that's a uniquely enjoyable experience in Wayward. Tall Pines has a lot of its own lore, both directly through the phases of the school, and hidden in plain sight among its residents.

If you want my advice: invest your time, trust nobody, and hope to God that you don't get selected for The Leap.

You might also like

• Knives Out 3 trailer sets up Benoit Blanc's most dangerous case yet – and it doesn't sound like it'll be his last one, either
• I’ve started my annual Gilmore Girls rewatch on Netflix – here’s why I think it’s a timeless piece of television
• Untamed season 2: everything we know so far about the popular Netflix show's return

As you can probably tell from my star rating, I'm completely split on My Life with the Walter Boys season 2. I've been around the block with this type of cozy TV show before – I'm a self-proclaimed Virgin River expert, Emily in Paris is my guilty pleasure, and I've even been sucked into watching Prime Video's The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 this year. But if I think about these type of cozy dramas in a broader capacity, My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 would be flour if it was a spice.

Let me explain. Our core concept is a very simple one: privileged New York teen Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) moves to a ranch in rural Colorado to live with her mother's best friend, Katherine Walter (Sarah Rafferty), and her large family after a family tragedy. Based on the book series of the same name, we then follow the ups and downs of Jackie's new life as she settles in, dissecting all the complicated relationships forged along the way. It should be a recipe for Netflix success, but there's something missing here.

The Rotten Tomatoes score for My Life with the Walter Boys season 1 should give you an idea about its existing division. Critics like myself have absolutely slammed it, while 'normies' (that's a compliment, I promise) largely enjoy it, even though the fan score is still lower than rival shows. Why? I think the answer is because its quality across the board isn't up to muster, and that's also the case in season 2.

My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 does the job, but that's not exactly positive

I don't wish to be a massive negative Nelly here. I completely believe TV shows like My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 serve a purpose, and their easy-going spirit and ethos is exactly what we need to tune out an increasingly difficult world. I typically use my mum as a gauge for the genre – if she watches a show without ironing at the same time, binges more than 2 episodes in one go and remembers its name, the show is a hit with its core demographic. Season 2 ticked all of these boxes, and she's already foaming at the mouth (metaphorically, sorry mum) for the green lit season 3.

In short, this means the people actively seeking out the mess that comes with trashy teen romance are getting exactly what they signed up for. But if you don't fit the bill, or you've had enough of the Netflix series hitting the same beats over and over again, season 2 doesn't do much to win you around. Jackie has inevitably arrived back in Colorado after returning to New York at the end of season 1, and her relationship issues have picked up right there they left off.

It goes without saying that romance and family remain at the core of My Life with the Walter Boys season 2, but this time, Jackie is almost acting like Belly (Lola Tung) in The Summer I Turned Pretty. Given how chaotic season 3 of the Prime Video show is going, that's a huge insult. The parallels between the two shows are now closer than ever (you can see this from the trailer above), but rest assured that Jackie isn't quite as bad... yet.

A knock-off The Summer I Turned Pretty isn't what we need this month

Now we've got my main grievances out of the way, let's dig a little deeper into the show's craft. Compared to rival shows, My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 looks slightly cheaper, which is probably a major part of why season 3 was renewed so early on. That wouldn't be an issue if the performances and execution of the storylines weren't so poorly done, at points feeling more like a high schooler's documentary film than a production on one of the best streaming services in the world.

We feel like we're going around in circles when it comes to Jackie's relationship with Alex (Ashby Gentry) and Cole (Noah LaLonde), with Danny (Connor Stanhope) and Erin's (Alisha Newton) only make our heads spin even further. We've even got a separate triangle going thanks to Zach (Carson MacCormac), Skylar (Jaylan Evans) and Nathan (Corey Fogelmanis), and that's all before we even get to George's (Marc Blucas) future plans for the ranch.

It does feel as though you need to study up before diving into season 2, and it can feel mind-boggling to keep up with all the changes, which simultaneously move incredibly slowly and like time is flashing past you at the speed of light. But by the time we get to the final few episodes, you know exactly what's going to happen. Without giving it away, My Life with the Walter Boys season 2 ends on a cataclysmic cliffhanger, but I could tell exactly what was going to happen about two episodes earlier. Still, it's a major shock to see it unfold, and will hopefully shift season 3 in a better direction. I'm sorry, Melanie Halsall, but a better direction is something that My Life with the Walter Boys sorely needs.

You might also like

• Netflix cancels what could’ve been the next Virgin River even though the series had more views than Ransom Canyon
• 3 Body Problem season 2 is underway as star reveals first days of filming: ‘The stuff they've got planned out is pretty epic’
• Netflix’s new streaming recommendation tool is about to make my astrology-obsessed friends unbearable

The most talked about new movies have been so heavily focused on The Fantastic Four: First Steps, you probably didn’t even realize that Vanessa Kirby also starred in a new film coming out on Netflix only a few weeks after.

Night Always Comes sees Kirby do a complete 180 from the new Marvel movie, but just like Sue Storm’s brush with Galactus it’s similarly far from perfect. This time, Kirby plays Lynette, a former sex worker turned bread factory staffer, desperately trying to keep her dilapidated home as a roof over her family’s heads. When her mom blows their $25,000 downpayment on a car, Lynette embarks on an unhinged mission to raise all the money in one night, before local enforcement repossesses the house.

I know what you’re thinking. Night Always Comes has the potential to be heartpounding, gut-wrenching, slick and commanding in such a dynamic storyline. But this is only half true thanks to a complicated plot that doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.

This is particularly frustrating because the subjects being explored are such a vulnerable, authentic window into the realities of life in America when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, and the new Netflix movie effortlessly enthuses real-life inspiration points to hammer that point home.

But on the fictional end, the drama often goes too far. As we delve further into the new film, we see Kirby dust off her Mission: Impossible movie training and dropkick more nefarious men than I’ve ever seen be taken down in one small-town setting. This leads us to an ending scene that’s so bonkers, I couldn’t suspend enough belief to buy that it was something that would actually happen. It’s these jarring changes in tone and narrative speed that make a plot already hard to understand that little bit more challenging.

I still haven’t made my mind up on Night Always Comes, but I’ve fallen back in love with Julia Fox

Okay, let’s get straight to it. While Night Always Comes is no doubt Vanessa Kirby’s best performance of the year so far (more on that later), I couldn’t help but be the most charmed by Julia Fox’s Gloria. She’s an old friend of Lynette’s who owes her $3,000, willingly letting her into her apartment in the middle of the night before refusing to stay in one place because her “car is here”.

It’s the sort of flamboyant chaos we’ve naturally come to associate with Fox (remember Uncut Gems?), but she plays it with such conviction that you forget how much talent she has buried away under those killer looks. Fox herself bears so much weight in terms of her cultural capital, so I hope fans and the industry re-recognize a woman who genuinely knows what to do with the craft she’s chosen.

Then there’s Kirby. Teetering across a delicate balance of misplaced confidence and a complete mental breakdown, Lynette has us in the palm of her hand as she desperately clings to a life she doesn’t even want in the first place. Her backstory is well fleshed out, and it makes sense for her logical patterns to be as archaic as they end up being. Kirby’s emotional range is what really sells it, though, digging as deep as a woman has to when she’s acting out in pure panicked desperation.

Performances aside, the Netflix movie has built its foundations on sand

While I really appreciate the honesty of living in modern-day America and easily falling into an unsavory way of living, I have a lot of issues with Night Always Comes’ plot. I can buy one chaotic caper happening, such as Lynette beating a bunch of men to a pulp when she takes a stolen safe to be broken into, but four or five in a row? That’s just getting absurd. This also contradicts the safety of Lynette’s older brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) who has Down’s Syndrome, and is the bulk of the reason why Lynette is fighting so hard to keep the house. She eventually puts him in grave danger, but as much as the move shows Lynette’s slippery slope of inner morality, I cannot buy that an entire nightclub’s worth of people would equally throw Kenny under the metaphorical bus, too.

The more people Lynette meets to try and steal, barter and plead for her cash, the more you forget how she knows them, what their significance is and how she hasn’t magically run out of avenues to try. It’s a headscratcher and a bleak one at that, which is just as much of a blessing as it is a curse. There’s no foot off the pedal, meaning Lynette’s wild antics and desperation chug along at a constant pace without any letup. That’s exhausting for anyone, and I think it eventually does a disservice to the overall impact of her story.

As much as I enjoyed pretending to punch anyone who crossed Lynette’s path with a bad attitude, Night Always Comes ultimately has us sitting on the fence. With an almost equal amount of good and bad, it’s perhaps an ironic microcosm of life itself, only I wish I had Julia Fox strutting around sassing me in mine.

You might also like

• Already binged everything new on Netflix in August 2025? These 5 unmissable Netflix series have 100% on Rotten Tomatoes
• The protagonist of Wednesday season 2 has psychic powers but we don’t – here are 5 big clues about what might be coming next
• Monster season 4: everything we know so far about the hit show's return to Netflix

Wednesday season 2 is back with a bang, and even though we have to wait until September for part 2, we're off to an excellent start.

Part one of season 2 is made up of four episodes, so it was crucial to keep audiences engaged and make sure they'd come back for the final installment. Considering Wednesday has been renewed for season 3, the pressure is on, but I personally can't wait for this show to keep going.

When we catch up with Wednesday after a two-year break, the gloomy teenager is returning to Nevermore as summer has come to an end. But while her peers were all partying and having fun, Wednesday spent her summer break pursuing a serial killer, very on brand for her.

Upon returning to Nevermore, a lot has changed. Following Gwendoline Christie's departure as Principal Weems, we've got a new head of school in the form of Steve Buscemi's Principal Dort, a dorky yet suspicious character who is keen to secure funding for the school.

He's not the only new addition to the cast, either. Joanna Lumley joins to play Morticia's estranged mother, Hester, expanding the beloved Addams Family and providing more family drama, something season one was seriously lacking.

I was thrilled that the family takes center stage this time, with Wednesday's brother, Pugsley, joining Nevermore, and her parents, Morticia and Gomez, sticking around to help with a gala. Having them around is a delight and you can expect laughs, macabre delights, and some cringeworthy moments because yes, Morticia and Gomez are sickeningly loved up this season.

The Nevermore students are back, too, of course, and we're reunited with familiar faces like Enid Sinclair, Bianca Barclay, Ajax Petropolus, and Eugene Ottinger.

It's not long before more drama ensues, of course, as Wednesday attempts to track down her stalker, deal with her psychic abilities, and figure out why a murder of crows is well, murdering people. There's never a quiet day for Wednesday.

While the main plot focuses on the crows and who (or what) is controlling them to kill people, we do have several subplots going on. Wednesday gets a vision of Enid's death, Enid is caught in a love triangle, Pugsley accidentally creates a zombie, and more.

I will admit, not all of these are attention-grabbing and do slow the pacing down in places, but the main plot is enough to keep you invested. I was also very enamored by the zombie character, named Slurp, who provided laughs and scares in abundance.

We're only halfway through, but so far, I can confidently say this has been a good season and there's real potential to expand on things across the next four episodes.

I'm hoping we get to learn more about the family and their buried secrets, some of which have been referenced early in season 2. Without spoiling anything, there's plenty for fans to look forward to on that front, and Addams Family drama can rival any reality TV show.

Will Wednesday season 2 continue to impress when it returns on September 3? Until then, why not check out 4 more spooky Netflix shows with over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes to watch next?

You might also like

• Everything new on Netflix in August 2025: stream 49 movies and 31 TV shows, including Wednesday season 2 and more
• Wednesday season 2 should have been the biggest show of 2025 but there's radio silence – so what happened, Netflix?
• 3 Body Problem Season 2 is now in production, but has Netflix already repeated the same mistake as Stranger Things season 5?

I know what you’re thinking – why isn’t Girls getting rebooted like every other TV show these days? Why isn’t Lena Dunham contorting herself to make that happen? Isn’t everything else she works on going to be Girls 2.0? It’s understandable that her new Netflix series, Too Much, will be compared to the show that launched her career to global heights, but it’s a lazy contrast.

You see, I am not a Girls fan. Aside from brief flashbacks of Dunham’s character Hannah spaced out on drugs while wearing a string vest that wasn’t hers, much of the show’s scenes blur into one hazy hallucination for me. That’s not to say the hit TV show was a bust in my eyes – far from it – but 17-year-old me wasn’t ready to embrace the messy reality of womanhood when Girls first aired in 2012.

Aged 30 in 2025, I couldn’t have fallen harder for Too Much. Set in my back garden of London, Jessica (Megan Stalter) takes the opportunity to move to the city for work after her ex-boyfriend, who she’s still not over, proposes to a popular influencer. It’s not the most original lead-in to a new Netflix show like this, but it’s the springboard for something even better.

No matter your opinions on Dunham or her work, she’s able to remain effortlessly relevant in a way that’s absolutely astounding. The script and situations feel fresh without ever venturing into laughable territory, incorporating 2020s culture like Instagram reels and TikTok beauty hacks with successful irony. Trust me, you’ve never wanted to own a hairless dog who wears bespoke turtleneck jumpers more.

Where Dunham has largely stepped behind the camera (aside from a few stray appearances), Megan Stalter’s Jessica is a flawless replacement. We’ve known she’s a comedy queen in the making since her role on Hacks, but Too Much is her circus ring for the performance of a lifetime. Jessica might question her choices every 0.5 seconds, but she never truly sacrifices her sense of self, unashamedly returning to the things that give her joy in darker moments. She’s a typical 2020s twentysomething and proud of it, and that in turn makes us feel better about the ways we’ve adapted cliché and overdramatic habits.

Clearly Stalter is our star here, but the rest of the ensemble cast is just as chaotically fleshed-out, and we want to sink our teeth into all of them. Even better is the frankly insane level of celebrity cameos, popping out more frequently than a teenager’s acne. It’s hard to pick a favourite, but Naomi Watts’ diabolically unfazed British housewife Ann has to cinch it for me. Keep a close eye on every episode, though – I won’t spoil it, but there’s a particularly good cameo in episode 9 that might remind you of a character they’ve played before.

There are a few downsides, but regardless of how Too Much tackled its subject, they were bound to be there. Jessica’s fixation on her ex-boyfriend becomes as tiring as it is in the show as we experience watching it ourselves, with the stereotypes of her new London chums not doing anyone any favours either. Roll the two together too frequently and the show becomes its namesake, but sadly, Jessica needs to wade through the worst to learn her lessons.

Too Much isn’t an in-depth exploration of what it means to love and live as a young woman in a new decade, and it doesn’t have to be. In hindsight, Girls was heralded as exactly that for its time and place, but to judge Too Much in the same way is to miss the raw emotion and humanity on display here. It’s never slacking on the chaotic front, and going with the emotions and bad decisions in real-time is what makes Dunham’s show feel like a new take on something we’ve seen before. Sometimes you’ve just got to make your peace with the fact your life has resulted in eating cold instant noodles at 1am, and that’s okay.

You might also like

• Everything new on Netflix in July 2025
• I watch TV for a living and these are my top 3 Netflix shows that you should watch now
• Best Netflix shows

Spoilers follow for Squid Game seasons 2 and 3.

Squid Game season 3 marks the end of the most-watched Netflix TV Original. Hwang Dong-hyuk's incredibly successful survival drama has had us on tenterhooks since its first season debuted in September 2021. And, with its final season out now, viewers want to know how Gi-hun's story ends, and if Hwang and company have fittingly stuck the landing with its last hurrah.

At the time of publication, it's impossible to say if that's the case because critics couldn't watch Squid Game's last-ever episode ahead of time. However, I have seen the first five chapters of season 3, and they're as thrilling, incredibly moving, and at times predictable as its forebears' entries were.

Death and despair

Picking up immediately after season 2's heart-breaking finale, Squid Game 3 reunites us with an emotionally crushed Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) after his unsuccessful insurrection. His best friend Park Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) was also executed by Front Man, aka Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun), who infiltrated the competition's latest installment and posed as an ally of Gi-hun's before ultimately quashing the uprising. Numerous contestants who joined the rebellion lost their lives amid the failed revolt, too.

With three rounds left until a winner is crowned, though, the games must continue. That is, unless Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) and his team of hired mercenaries can locate the secret island where the games are held and help Gi-hun put a stop to them once and for all.

Given last season's cliff-hanger ending and the narrative tissue that connects the pair, Squid Game 3 feels more like season 2 volume 2 rather than a standalone entry.

That's not an inherently bad thing, but six months have passed since last season originally aired. The passage of time has largely nullified the full effects of that season's gut-punch ending, so you'll want to rewatch season 2 episode 7 to redigest its true impact, reimmerse yourself in this world, and remind yourself of events concerning characters like Jun-ho and reluctant Squid Game soldier Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young). I didn't, and it took me an entire episode – i.e. the season 3 premiere – to reconnect with Squid Game's drama-fuelled story and eclectic cast of characters.

Once I was locked back in, Squid Game 3 found new ways to emotionally ruin me, through – yep, you guessed it, more character deaths. I'd argue the demise of certain individuals is far more impactful, too, because of the emotional investment I've put in them. After all, I've spent more time with this cast than contestants who featured in seasons 1 and 2.

Regardless, with its battle royale-like structure, the titular games demand death, so in this final season of one of the best Netflix shows' even darlings and love-to-hate characters have to die. The former's deaths are tear-jerking, while plenty of the latter get their deserved comeuppance in highly satisfying fashion. If it was ever in doubt, Squid Game season 3 is an emotional rollercoaster in every sense of the word.

As the series' protagonist, it's Gi-hun's story that understandably takes center stage, although it takes an episode to get going again. Hey, he's lost the will to live after his best friend's demise, and feels extremely guilty over the deaths of other contestants he convinced to join his uprising, so cut him some slack.

Once it kicks into gear, Gi-hun's season 3 arc becomes an introspection of the series' primary theme of humanity and the fight to retain your morality when events and people want to beat it out of you. I enjoyed – if that's the right word to describe it – Gi-hun's one-man quest to battle back from the brink; the formerly jovial yet determined protagonist succumbing to, and then railing against, the blind rage, shame, and darkness within. It's not until this season's midway point that the fire in his belly is reignited, too, so there's scope for Squid Game 3 to make Gi-hun's descent into madness an unsettling watch. And it does so with aplomb before he gets up off the proverbial canvas.

Game on

Gi-hun's inner turmoil isn't helped by the introduction of new games that initially prey on his guilt-fueled fury, one of which was teased in Squid Game season 3's first clip. Ever the humanitarian, though, that emotional turbulence is replaced by his one-man quest for redemption, which centers on a key detail in Squid Game 3's first trailer and becomes an unexpectedly crucial component of the games' final three rounds.

Whether it's Jump Rope – which features giant robot Young-hee, introduces her companion Chul-su, and literally heightens the sense of fear among contestants and viewers alike – or other new games I can't spoil, Squid Game 3 knows how to raise the stakes. Like its forebears, it does a superb job of slowly ratcheting up the nail-biting tension before delivering spine-chilling and heart-pounding moments aplenty. Add in some narrative curveballs during and between the games that further tighten the screw, and Squid Game 3 surprises and captivates in equal measure.

Squid Game season 3 isn't above reproach, mind you.

Indeed, it gives Front Man far less to do than season 2 did – a grave disappointment when he was such a compelling and complicated antagonist last time around. Season 3 belatedly and pleasingly addresses this oversight in its second half, but I was nonetheless frustrated by his absence for large swathes of the show's final chapter.

Jun-ho's perennial quest to rediscover the island where the games take place drifts aimlessly in an ocean of subplot mediocrity, too. Bogged down by extraneous story exposition and a narrative that goes around in circles, it would've been more effective as a side story with less screen time and some genuine forward momentum. It doesn't actually get exciting until episode 4.

Season 3 does right by one underutilized character, though, in No-eul. Outside of what we learned about her in season 2's first episode, the renegade soldier is given a proper arc in Squid Game's final season and, whisper it quietly, might be the real MVP (most valuable player) of season 3.

It's unclear what impact, if any, No-eul will have on the series' final episode.

However, season 3 episode 5 sets up an engrossing finale that'll see Squid Game's various storytelling threads intersect and, hopefully, give it the send-off it deserves. I just hope its runtime is considerable enough to sufficiently and effectively wrap up each plotline. Based on how this season's fifth chapter ends, it's still got a lot of legwork to complete before the credits roll for the last time.

My verdict

Based on five of its six episodes, Squid Game season 3 is as gripping and delightfully miserable as I expected.

The show's final round could've been braver and less formulaic with its storytelling choices, and its incessant plot exposition regularly grated on me. But, as a character study and exploration of man's inhumanity to his fellow man and other sociopolitical themes, it's hard to argue that finale notwithstanding, Squid Game 3 is a grandstand finish to an unmissable series that fully deserves its place in the pantheon of Netflix TV Originals.

Squid Game season 3 is out now in full on Netflix.