Why not everything needs to have a happy ending to be good.
People hate when the art they consume doesn't have a 'happy ending,' but I think that's dumb.
I was absolutely delighted to binge the final season of Squid Game over the weekend, a show that challenges the status-quo, and explores human morality, corporate greed and power imbalances. I’ve done a bunch of coverage of the show across my channels, but I had another thought about the series finale that struck inspiration in me to write.
A lot of the discourse around Squid Game’s finale was negative. People seem unhappy with the ending, feeling as though they didn’t get the happy ending they may have desired.
While the ending to the series is ambiguous and disheartening (no spoilers here, btw), I thought it was perfect for the commentary the show was making. It got me thinking about how we, as humans, don’t seem to enjoy when art doesn’t wrap up the way we expect it to.
Perhaps it’s down to being raised on Disney films, where the guy always gets the girl, the villain is always defeated, the warped systems are overhauled and everybody lives happily ever after. We have an expectation that things will resolve and wind up well. That no further conflict will arise, and peace is the perpetual state from here.
Harry Potter finally defeats Voldemort. He marries his high school girlfriend and they have kids.
Darth Vader swaps sides at the last minute, he sacrifices his life to save his son Luke and the two finally embrace.
Simba returns to Pride Rock, defeats his evil uncle Scar, and becomes the rightful King.
The thing is… that’s not really how life works.
I’ve come to realise that there will be no point in my life where my problems cease to exist. Life is a perpetual journey from Problem A to Problem B. Then you die.
Sorry, no offence, but it’s true.
I remember watching the finale to How I Met Your Mother, one of my favourite shows ever, in 2014. After nine years waiting for the ultimate reveal of lead character Ted meeting “The Mother,” we find out that not only was The Mother DEAD the whole time, but Ted only tells his kids the story so he can try and date Robin again.
People hated it. Absolutely despised it.
But I think they missed the point of the entire series.
The point of How I Met Your Mother was NOT “everything always wraps up neatly in the end.”
The point of the show (if you watched closely) was that life doesn’t always go the way you plan, no matter how much you want it to.
Marshall’s dad dies in Season 6 unexpectedly.
Barney finally meets his father, who is a suburban loser, then the notorious womaniser ends up falling in love with Robin. They get a divorce.
Lily never gets to go to art school and become an artist, she partly regrets her decision to marry and become a mother.
Robin struggles to reach the career milestones she hopes for, and later finds out she can’t have children.
So, when the show ended with the death of “The Mother” (which was extremely hinted at throughout the series, so couldn’t possibly have been a surprise), I felt like the writers had perfectly encapsulated the meaning of the show. To enjoy every moment, because you never know what might happen.
Perhaps we’re caught up in the romance of happy endings. Friends took the total opposite route to HIMYM, with the ongoing will-they-won’t-they of Ross and Rachel finally resulting in a ‘they-will’ as opposed to a ‘they-won’t.’
Seinfeld’s ending is also contentious, commonly cited as one of the worst in the history in television. It was all wrong, apparently. The Seinfeld Four end up in prison at the end of the series. People expected different. Jerry & Elaine were finally supposed to get back together. Maybe George was supposed to meet the actual love of his life. And Kramer? Maybe he was meant to win the lottery or something.
The thing is, none of those events would be remotely linked to what the show was trying to tell the viewer. That life is meaningless and pointless. There was no inherit meaning in anything, and happy endings weren’t guaranteed. Larry David even claims that the show had a ‘no hugging, no learning’ policy throughout its whole run. Imagine spending the final episode undoing that identity.
Sure, Seinfeld and How I Met Your Mother might come across as nihilistic or existential.
Squid Game’s ending has the same effect. Nothing feels particularly resolved. Everything just feels kind of fucked. Excuse my language, but its the best way to communicate it.
The idea that a show like Squid Game, which is so critical of society, culture and capitalism, would end its story with a heroic twist, an overthrowing of the system by an individual and the world changing is idealistic.
The ending’s of all three of these shows aptly and more than adequately capture the message of the show:
HIMYM: Savour every moment, because life doesn’t always go as you plan it.
Seinfeld: Life is meaningless and purposeless, nothing really matters.
Squid Game: Wealth is power, and individuals cannot overthrow the systems in place to maintain and control that power.
Ultimately, humans love a happy ending when it comes to media. We don’t often want to be left feeling like things are unresolved, or that our desires weren’t met.
But through this piece, I want to encourage people to think more deeply about the media they consume and the message it might be trying to convey.
Not everything we consume needs to be a dopamine surging candy cane that leaves us feeling happy.
Because that’s not what life is at all.
Mike Liberale
Resonance: A Weekly Snapshot of Stuff I Like This Week
🎤 A podcast I absolutely LOVED: Mr. G’s Room by Chris Lilley
Okay, anyone that has ever met me even once will know that Mr. G is my favourite character of all time, and the majority of my humour stems from him. In this podcast series, Chris Lilley reappears as Mr. G for the first time in 18 years (WTF!?) and its like picking up exactly where he left off. He says outrageous things that completely take you by shock, and even performs various original songs. Could not stop laughing throughout this.
🦸 A comic book series I’ve been reading: Spider-Verse from Marvel Comics
The Spider-Verse movies are absolute all-time greats, and I’ve been wanting to dip into the comics for the first time. I love Spider-Man so much, in literally any media he appears in. Spider-Verse is literally a bringing together of multiple Spider-Men, Women, People and sometimes animals from various multiverses fighting against a common enemy. It’s absolutely epic.
🎮 A game I’ve been replaying: Super Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch
I haven’t picked up this game for nearly 10 years, but since picking up my Switch 2, I’ve been re-exploring a bunch of original Switch games. Super Mario Odyssey is just sublime. This game is the perfect culmination of everything that came before it, and I love wasting time on it. So adventurous, so creative and so fulfilling.
📺 A TV series I’ve been rewatching: Summer Heights High
So after dipping into Mr. G’s podcast, I had to rewatch this classic Australian series, because it’s one of my favourite shows of all time. It’s amazing how well this show holds up, and Lilley’s performances are just amazing. He completely disappears into these characters, to the point that you never even feel like they are the same person. Not to mention the amount of nuance behind a lot of the writing — particularly in Jonah’s sections 😢
Something I Made This Week: