General TV Thread

Beer & Queso
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BTW, I finished Squid Game. The hype is deserved. Highly recommended.

Spoilers

The first two games were pretty intense, but when the games switched from playing against the house to playing against each other, it kicked everything up a notch or 10.

Game #4 - Marbles (Ep. 6) was a horrific bait and switch. Heartbreaking.

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Such good characterization in the show. You end up with sympathy for the gymnasium of deplorables.

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An HOA (stole that one).

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There’s another Korean show called “DP” that came out before Squid Game and was made by Netflix too. It’s about the guys in the Korean military that go out and find the deserters. Deals with a lot of issues like bullying, abuse, mental health, and suicide. And if you’re into crime/gangster films, Korea makes some of the best you’ll ever see. Another Netflix production was “Night In Paradise” that’s really good with a killer cast.

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To each his own but unless you are subtitle-averse why not simply choose the option to watch the original Korean language version?

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Episode 6 was even more a gut punch if you know the nuances of Korean culture and language. As the game progresses Ali’s language becomes less formal with Sang-woo and eventually refers to him as “hyeong” which is like older brother. Hyeongs are trusted to look after their younger friends and take care of them. Sang-woo exploited that trust and hung Ali out to dry.

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Didn’t see that as an option.

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SNL parody song about Squid Game. Major spoilers!

FYI, SNL is reasonably funny this season. Very little cutting edge, however, outside of Weekend Update (which itself is a little too fond of self-parody, which is funny, but getting over-used). Pete Davidson as Rami Malik and vice versa in a panel game show was funny.

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Thanks, that’s really helpful insight. The cultural nuance went over my head, but it signifies how detailed and subtle the show is. Easter egg hunters have taken time off from scouring the latest Marvel trailer and gone deep on Squid Game. The stuff they’ve found is stunning.

Including (Major Spoilers):
  • The kids’ Squid Game at the beginning includes an inspector who can move about the game freely, foreshadowing Jun-ho’s infiltration of the game.
  • After being dumped in the street following their release from the first game, Gi-hun promises “on his mother’s life” that he will not ask Sae-byeok for his money if she helps him, immediately breaks that promise when she does, and returns home to find his mother has died.
  • 456 is the middle of pack of numbers 0-9, which is where Gi-hun tries to play until he ends up going last in the Bridge Game (which has meant death up to that point). By the time he gets to play the Squid Game, he is done with all that, and goes on offense, essentially going first. You could also look at it that 456 was the last number in the game, and he won.
  • Il-nam wasn’t scanned by the robot girl in Red Light, Green Light.
  • In the Tug o’ War, Il-nam’s handcuffs were not padlocked to the rope like the other players, allowing him to free himself if they’d lost.
  • Mi-nyeo said she felt powerful leaning back in the Tug o’ War, which is exactly how she took out Deok-su on the bridge.
  • Il nam was actively trying not to get picked for the Marbles Game (feigning dementia etc.) so that he could be “eliminated” out of sight of the other players. There was an empty water bottle by his side after he’d supposedly pissed himself.
  • Il-nam extended the Marble Game with Gi-hun so that they would be the only two left in the game at the end, so that he could “die” without anyone seeing (and it’s the only death we don’t see). After this happened, the frontman takes a call and says “I glad you enjoyed the game, sir.”
  • Il-nam had to get out before the Bridge Game, because there was no way to be protected from falling or being pushed off.
  • Ali was scammed out of money by his real world boss, and scammed out of his marbles by Sang-woo in the game. His real world boss had told him to go and ask the other workers if they’d been paid…
  • The frontman stopped looking for the intruder once they found the body with the police badge planted on it, because he knew it was his brother.
  • When Gi-hun confronts Il-nam in the big reveal, and wins his bet against him, Il-nam is “eliminated” (although some people have spotted that the monitor flatlines because the sensors have been disconnected, not because the patient dies, which could mean that Il-nam is alive or simply that this is how the effects team got the machine to display the flat line).
  • All the food and the games were from Il-nam’s youth. It was right there the whole time. Also, when Jun-ho looked in the records for past winners, the player numbering always started at 002.
  • When Gi-hun finally won the Slap Game, he forgot about the money and only wanted revenge on his opponent. His reaction to winning the Squid Game is the same.

There are many, many more. It seems that pretty much every event, interaction or prop was symbolic somehow. To wit, Gi-hun’s daughter’s toy came in a dark box tied up with a ribbon, just like the coffins. The gift inside (that he didn’t know about before opening the box, mimicking the games) was a gun that was actually a lighter, symbolizing death and cremation. I mean, there was some deep thought put into this.

Lastly, after winning all the money, Gi-hun was offered “VIP” status by his bank. The overarching theme was how rich people exploit everyone else for their own gain and entertainment, and Gi-hun was now being invited into that crowd. He claimed he would never bet on a human life and yet, in the final confrontation with Il-nam, he does exactly that: betting on whether someone else would help the homeless man instead of just helping the man himself. Gi-hun was already being corrupted by the money he’d won.

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Korean language leans very poetic in how it is used and structured and the culture itself has a lot of nuances that are hard to pick up on.
The part when Gi-hun returns to his mother after the game is directly inspired by a famous Korean book about a low class laborer during the Japanese colonial era who works a day job and makes a lot of money and buys many gifts for his mother before returning to her that night. Not really a cultural insight or anything but that scene where they’re betting on the homeless man was filmed in my old office building. I recognize that corner and cake shop anywhere.

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How’s your Korean?

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According to my wife it’s terrible and I should be better at this point but generally I can function in daily life and have basic conversation. My reading and writing is pretty strong thanks to their amazing alphabet. Grammar and pronunciation make it a really challenging language and I function in English most of the day due to work so learning Korean has been slow-going.

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I ask because I’m genuinely curious, but also because I’ve read that Korean is one of the most unforgiving languages. That is, in a lot of languages a learner can sort of get close and make him or herself understood, but with Korean, if you’re not pretty much right where you need to be, no one knows what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t think that applies to pronunciation so much as grammar, but I wonder if your experience coincides with this.

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I agree when it comes to pronunciation but grammar is pretty forgivable if you’re a foreigner. I get away with some lazy Korean sometimes which drives my wife crazy haha Pronunciation is very nuanced and the way you place your tongue and move your mouth is very gentle and calm. It’s not visible or showy like in English so if I’m not focused sometimes I can screw up pronunciation which completely throws people for a loop. I also believe Koreans see me coming and expect English so they’re code switching to English as I’m switching to Korean so when less than perfect Korean comes off it catches them off guard. Also for a small country there are a surprising number of accents and dialects. The rougher dialects seem to understand my pronunciation easier than in Seoul. If you’ve never read about the alphabet Hangul, it’s a fascinating read. Really impressive and I love using it.

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This was my experience with Viet. Since it’s a tonal language, there was tons of opportunity to get things very, very wrong since the nuance between words spelled (and to my American ear) are slight but the actual meanings are not even in the same universe. It was a source of great comedy (and frustration) to my Vietnamese daughter. But, while over there, the Vietnamese people were gracious and forgiving and genuinely tried to figure out what you were trying to say. Especially in the north.

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Only Murders season finale fucking delivered. What a great season one.

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Loved it. Martin was on his game.

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Got a little vintage Steve in the elevator, which was hilarious.

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I’ve come to terms that I’ll never be fluent in Korean but I’ve learned to use it in delicate situations while doing business or in situations that require some emotion. It’s a very emotional culture so I’ve found that using English for most business dealings and then dropping some finely crafted Korean in important situations is very effective.

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Last night’s SNL was very good. The cold open “Ted Cruz Street” was excellent and Aidy Bryant as Cruz is pitch perfect. The first couple of live sketches were really funny too, and the song parody was hilarious.

Oh, and Tay Tay has something to say about an ex. This one a 10 minute opus that seems to go back to when she was 21, but clearly has been burning for a while.

And you call me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest

Oof!