Almost exactly midway through 2025, we have a candidate for TVLine’s annual Dumbest Line of Dialogue of the Year “award”.
“This is a bigger twist than the resurrection of Jesus!”
Squid Game Season 3 VIP
That goofy observation came to us courtesy of one of the golden-masked VIPs in Squid Game Season 3, now streaming on Netflix.
The idea behind the VIPs, I presume, is that somebody has to finance this highly illegal and incredibly deadly underground competition that dangles a 45.6 billion won (~$34 million) jackpot and comes with a pretty pricey infrastructure (guard salary/health plans, wardrobe, single-use coffins, Velcro patches, etc). And if you’re going to front the Front Man some of those greenbacks, you deserve a front row seat for the competition’s final rounds.
VIP SCENES KILL THE DRAMA, EVERY DAMN TIME
But just as much as Squid Game Season 3 masterfully ratcheted up the on-screen tension with a version of Jump Rope that got my own trick knee quaking, every iota of pent-up drama dissipated from the room each time they cut away to the masked VIPs’ reactions and utterly inane commentary.
“You have the father, the mother and the baby all in the same game? I mean…,” remarked the long-haired VIP (aka TEMU Ellis from Die Hard), before he mimed his mind being blown.
“It’s like watching one of those family reality shows,” sniffed the grey-bearded VIP.
VIP Jennifer tittered before chiming in, “I must say, I’m quite impressed with the player pool this time.”
WHO PLAYED THE SEASON 3 VIPS?
Squid Game‘s Season 3 VIPs were a different lot from those who made us cringe during Season 1.
According to the closing credits and Google Translate, David Sayers played Richard; Hong Kong native Jane Wong played Jennifer; Jordan Lambertoni played Zach; Kevin Yorn (who reportedly is series creator/writer/director Hwang Dong Hyuk’s lawyer!) played, well, Kevin; and a “Bryan Bucco” played Zach.
Thing is, Squid Game auteur Hwang Dong Hyuk absolutely knows what he’s doing — his directing of Season 1 won an Emmy, while his writing earned a nomination. So, why are the VIP scenes so very, very bad? They’re not cartoonish in a fun way, nor do they effectively serve as social satire.
The VIP scenes could have been additive to the series, if, imagine, a Stellan Skarsgård type growled a wry observation during Sky Squid Game. Or if the actors/lawyer at hand were not done so dirty by the dialogue and editing.
But apparently zero lessons were learned, or cared to be learned, from Season 1. Which is… a choice?
The matter of the painfully bad VIP scenes came up at the time of Season 1‘s release, and the actors from that troupe offered up theories on why the dialogue and line readings made our ears and eyes want to crawl up and die.
“Non-Korean performers often act with dialogue that is translated by a non-native – sometimes even by Google Translate — so it can sound unnatural,” one Season 1 VIP told the Guardian in fall 2021.
It’s also possible that the person editing the footage doesn’t speak English as a first language, and thus might use a poor take. “If I was editing a Russian actor speaking Russian, I wouldn’t have any idea if he was saying his lines correctly,” said the Season 1 VIP above, “or if his intonation was natural.”
A second Season 1 VIP told the Guardian that “heavy plaster masks” plus “sitting 20 feet away from each other” added up to: “We all had to yell our lines vaguely into the air, which added to the weird tonality of the delivery.”
