[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Squid Game Season 3.]
The games began anew on Squid Game Season 3 — with some familiar faces returning from the grave … well, sort of. One of those just so happened to be fan-favorite Thanos (Choi Seung-hyun, T.O.P), a.k.a. Player 230.
Fans will undoubtedly recall that Thanos, formerly a rapper, became an antagonist in Season 2 and was murdered in the bathroom by Lee Myung-gi (Im Si-wan), a.k.a. Player 333. Some fans may have been hoping to see him return somehow in the final stretch of the show, and indeed, he did so — just not how you might think.
Thanos returned to the screen, briefly, in a surprising moment in Season 3’s penultimate episode. Here’s how.
Thanos’ death had major ripple effects
Nam-gyu (Roh Jae-won), a.k.a. Player 124, was essentially Thanos’ sidekick in the games and, after Thanos’ death, Nam-gyu took possession of his cross necklace that contained psychedelic drugs that enhanced his performance in the games.
Nam-gyu quickly became dependent on the drugs, and Park Min-su (Lee David), a.k.a. Player 125, used that to exact his revenge on him. Min-su stole the necklace from Nam-gyu and threw it onto the bridge during the jump rope game, causing Nam-gyu to panic in a race to pick it up and be knocked off by the metal rope. Min-su then began to use the pills himself.
Thanos came back to haunt Min-su
Min-su experienced hallucinations as a result of his use of the drug. In the final game, titled “Sky Squid Game,” he was one of three players — alongside Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a.k.a. Player 456, and the baby, a.k.a. the new Player 222 — to be targeted by the others: Players 039, 100, 203, 333, and 336. The game required at least three players to die, with one on each of the three precipices, and since Gi-hun was protective of the baby, the others warred over whether to target the baby first as they intended and risk killing Gi-hun and requiring another one of them to die in the third round.
As Min-su faced the ledge, he saw an apparition of Thanos hanging off the edge and asking him for help and luring him to reach down with the necklace. Thanos’ image was then replaced by that of Nam-gyu taunting him, and then Thanos popped back up to do the same. The back-and-forth hallucinations continued, with Min-su kicking their imagined hands and leading the others to conclude he was a junkie and should be attacked first, which he was.
Thanos’ legacy also loomed large throughout the season
Before his own death, Nam-gyu imitated his former idol several times while he was using his pills, including doing his chaotic head dance, fit with similarly zany facial expressions. His ruthless brutality also informed Nam-gyu’s behavior throughout the season — along with that of Lee Myung-gi, who joined forces with him to slaughter countless blue team members in the hide and seek game. In other words, even though Thanos wasn’t present for most of the season, his memory was more than alive among the other players in his squad.
Thanos wasn’t the only one who returned through Min-su’s imagination
Also reappearing in a drug-induced vision was Se-mi (Won Ji-an), who was murdered by Nam-gyu. Though Min-su tried to save her, he still blamed himself for her death. She appeared to him in a vision during the hide and seek game.
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