Squid Game Season 3 Ends With a Wild Cameo [Spoilers]

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of Squid Game, “Humans Are…”]

Squid Game, over the course of its three-season run on Netflix, had a real knack for surprising the audience, and it saved one of its best surprises for the final moments of the series finale, a scene amplified by the fact that creator Hwang Dong-hyuk was somehow able to enlist Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett for a brief cameo.

You don’t need to understand anything specific about the chain of events that brings the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) to the city of Los Angeles at the end of the finale — all that’s necessary to know is that as while sitting in downtown L.A. traffic, he gets a glimpse of a very familiar scene: Two people standing in an alley, playing a game of ddakji. One of the players is a clearly destitute man, and the other is, well, Cate Blanchett, looking fabulous in a sharp black suit as she slaps the living crap out of her opponent.

Realizing she’s being observed, Blanchett’s character simply smiles at the Front Man. The message is clear: That the Squid Game never really ends, and may be everywhere.

It’s a reveal that could be interpreted as a promise (or threat?) that an English-language spinoff is coming down the line, and Blanchett’s not above doing TV — she did just star in the Apple TV+ limited series Disclaimer, amongst other projects. However, this really does sound like it’ll be the final season of Squid Game: In a note sent to press, Hwang made a point about saying that he has “taken a lot of care in closing this story.”

Which leaves us free to imagine what it would be like if Cate Blanchett slapped us across the face. Screw the 45.6 billion won — that would be the real prize.

Squid Game Season 3 is streaming now on Netflix. Read our full review here.