Warning: This post contains spoilers The 8 Show.
Almost three years later squid game that took the world by storm, Netflix hopes to fill the dystopian thriller-shaped hole in its heart with a new Korean survival drama. The 8 Show, now streaming, follows eight debt-burdened individuals — all about to commit suicide to escape their financial problems — who agree to take part in a mysterious reality competition show in hopes of winning a life-changing amount of money. The premise seems simple enough: contestants will be paid to live side by side in a bizarre apartment complex until the end of the show.
But, of course, the rules are a little more complicated – and cruel. After selecting a numbered card, each player is assigned to a completely unfurnished room on the corresponding floor. We learn through the series’ narrator, known in the game as 3rd Floor (played by Ryu Jun-yeol), that players earn money every minute and have the ability to use those funds to buy whatever they want through an intercom, but this it will cost them 1,000 times what it would in the outside world. The eight players are confined to their rooms from midnight to 8am, but can gather during the day in a courtyard that contains a giant clock that counts down the remaining game time.
They end up learning that the higher the floor they choose, the bigger their room and the more money they make per minute – a factor that immediately creates tension between the highest and lowest floors. They also discover that more time is added to the clock, which allows them to earn more money whenever they do something that those watching on surveillance cameras throughout the complex find amusing. For those who watched the recent Hulu documentary The contestantThe setup may recall what happened to aspiring Japanese comedian Nasubi when he agreed to participate in a 1998 reality television competition that involved living alone and without clothes in a tiny apartment while surviving on winnings from magazine sweepstakes.
Although The 8 Show Players, each referred to by their floor number, initially attempt to work together to gain time and money, the competition quickly turns into an increasingly violent and disturbing power struggle, with the 8th floor (Chun Woo-hee) eventually taking over. the control of a dictator. the group and subjecting several of his fellow players to extreme physical and psychological torture. Based on the webtoon series by Bae Jin-soo “Money Game” It is “Pie Game,” The 8 Show-as squid game—is a thinly veiled critique of the brutal realities of capitalism, emphasizing how the system destroys from the top down. According to director Han Jae-rim (The facial reader, King), the eight-episode season aims to explore the depths of human nature.
“Rather than portraying a simple dichotomy between good and evil, the series is more about the formation of power dynamics that arise when a small society is created.” Han said during a press conference on May 10 in Seoul.
How is it The 8 Show end?
After most of the lower floor players work together to overthrow the 8th floor’s tyrannical reign, they enact the 1st floor’s (Bae Sung-woo) plan to use the $1 billion won (about $740,000 ) that he earned to pay for a higher position. level room. Unfortunately, it turns out that the money only got you locker room instructions and the game’s creators never intended to make changing floors so easy.
With the 8th Floor and the 6th Floor (Park Hae-joon) tied, the rest of the group decides to leave the game. But a desperate 1st Floor points a gun at them and forces them to hold back to make more money. To gain more time on the clock, 1st Floor attempts a tightrope circus performance inspired by his real-life work as a clown, but ends up crashing into the projector that serves as the complex’s artificial sun, falling to the ground, and being engulfed in flames. The others manage to escape their bonds and put out the fire, but the 1st Floor is clearly in bad shape. After realizing that the game’s creators will not free them to save the 1st Floor, the 3rd Floor begins removing all the cameras in the complex to put an end to their entertainment. The doors to the outside finally open, but it’s too late for the 1st Floor.
Some time later, 3rd Floor, desolate and wasting away now that he has left the apartment complex, decides to use some of his earnings to organize a funeral for 1st Floor. He pays for a huge billboard in Seoul to read: “You are invited to the 1st floor funeral”, with date and time, which convinces the 2nd (Lee Joo-young), the 4th (Lee Yul-em) and the 5th (Moon Jeong-Hee) Walk to attend. A flower garland sent by the 6th Floor arrives and the 5th Floor shows the group an article about the 8th Floor going to prison for a feat of performance art. But the biggest mystery is the 7th floor (Rich Ting), who went to visit the family on the 1st floor, told his wife that he was her husband’s colleague, and gave her money for life, but did not attend the funeral.
In a mid-credits scene, we learn that 7th Floor, a previously struggling filmmaker, has written a new script titled The 8 Show this is based on his and his fellow players’ experience. The executive presents the script to joke that he was also on the show before laughing and teasing 7th Floor for acting like it was real. But after offering his full support to the project, the executive seems to give a hint of what could lie ahead for the Netflix series.
“Let’s do something amazing. Okay?” he says. “And hey, this might even lead to a sequel…”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
