WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Season 1 of Squid Game, now streaming on Netflix.
In Netflix's Squid Game, Gi-hun truly loses his humanity as he plays a series of games on a mysterious Korean island for over $40 million. The competitors start backstabbing each other as the murderous contests whittle the field down, leaving Gi-hun and his childhood friend, Sang-woo, as the final two. However, as Gi-hun ekes out the victory and then has to deal with all the guilt and regret, the series rips its biggest twist from Saw -- except, in this case, it's much more perverse.
Gi-hun returns to the mainland but struggles to adapt to life. He lost his mom while on the island and doesn't even want to touch the prize money in his account. He continues living like a poor drunk, until he's contacted by the game once more to meet someone on Christmas Eve at a high-rise.
It turns out, Il-Nam (aka Player 001), isn't dead, after all. Gi-hun is stunned as he tricked Il-Nam during the "Gganbu" round, ripping him off and leaving the audience thinking the old man got his brains blown out. But as 001 admits, he was the boss of the island all along. Several clues were dropped, apart from his number, as the motion sensors didn't track him during "Red Light, Green Light," while operatives were sent in during a cellblock brawl when he summoned them.
Sadly, Gi-hun didn't pick up on the red flags and angrily demands to know why Il-Nam was hidden with them all along, risking his life. He confesses he's a money lender who became a billionaire, and along with his VIP associates, they began this game. They were simply bored, and as Il-Nam has a tumor and is about to die, he just wanted to feel alive again.
Gi-hun is pissed looking at him hooked up to machines, wondering how he could deceive and watch so many innocents die. 001 confesses, though, the game shows mankind at its most depraved, ergo why he makes a new bet with Gi-hun over whether someone will help a vagrant in the freezing cold as the clock strikes midnight. Simply put, this is how he gets his kicks, while also proving to himself what a broken species the Earth is overrun by. And to him, the game's deaths are a form of balance, removing the weak who resort to betraying each other. Still, in Gi-hun, he did find hope, hence why he's called for this meeting, only to die when Gi-hun wins the bet as the clock strikes and cops help the vagrant
This shapes 001 similar to the first Saw film when Tobin Bell's Jigsaw/John Kramer rose up as the 'dead' man in the bathroom in the 2004 movie. The terminally-ill man was manipulating Adam and Lawrence all along, playing possum, controlling the game and shocking them, all to get them to betray each other and see who'd amputate their limbs to survive. In his case, Jigsaw was more of a secret puppet master than a direct participant, but the concept of the mastermind helping orchestrate things still remains, as Il-Nam did have subtle control over the games.
But while a dying Jigsaw was all about vigilantism and removing society's rot, 001 killed many innocents who just wanted money to help families. Sang-woo and Sae-byeok are prime examples as 001 totally ignores how some people have to become killers, rather than unleash those latent within, to win his game. Ultimately, Il-Nam's legacy is all about ego and money, not course-correcting people's moral compass like Jigsaw was, making 001 the biggest monster out there and the very thing he critiqued.
The first season of Squid Game is now streaming on Netflix. At this time, a second season has not yet been announced.