We learn he has an immense amount of debt, most owed to violent loan sharks who threaten to steal his organs if he cannot repay them (yeah, you should accept the horrifying absurdity of deals like this early on, as there are even more to come). Despite her advanced age, she works very hard trying to provide for herself and her adult son, while Gi-hun appears entirely ungrateful, going so far as to steal her debit card to pull money from the bank before heading off to bet on horse races. (Don’t worry if you don’t grasp the rules of the squid game right away, all the games are explained in full later on.) We then jump to Seong Gi-hun, our main protagonist, eating at his mother’s house. The first episode of this Korean thriller opens with an explanation of a charming playground game called “the squid game,” cluing us into the origin of the show’s title.
