The second season of the game hit a red light
Squid Game: The Story of Seong Gi-hun and the Making of SQUID GAME. Part II: The Seasons, The Final Season, and Beyond
In the first season, Gi-hun discovered that O Yeong-su is actually the creator of the games and that a group of ultrarich individuals used the murder and carnage to their advantage. In the last moments of the season, Gi-hun had a choice to make: get on a plane to reconnect with his estranged family, or stay and do something about the games. He does not get on the plane.
As much as we would like to think that the series is about something other than dollar signs, we do not believe that the creator of the series has forgotten what it is about. The second season doesn’t explore a lot of new territory thematically but, instead, cleverly expands the Squid Game universe while offering up a thriller that plays out like an even more brutal remix of the original.
The show goes all the way to a conclusion that promises to shake up the games but never gets to the big moment. The third and final season of the program will hitNetflix in five years. The end of Squid Game is disappointing, but it is still a relief to Hwang and his team that they did not lose sight of what made the game so great to begin with. The original season was not the biggest shock, but with clever twists and storylines that hit even bloodier notes, it makes up for that. Even better: the promise of a conclusion that knows where it’s headed.
The first season ended in a way that Seong Gi-hun, better known as player , won the initial games, which caused the new season to begin a few years later. That meant he earned a ₩45.6 billion prize but also had to live with being the only survivor from a group of 456 people.
The second season sees Gi-hun in a very different place. He has spent the past several years isolated and paranoid, planning how to shut down the games in order to save his wealth. It’s first thing to locate where they take place. He was able to find the salesman by paying a group of criminals to go through the subway system. The hope is that by finding him, they’ll be able to locate the mysterious island where the games go down.
The show is focused on the games in a few episodes. There are green tracksuits, armed guards in bright pink jumpsuits, and a large bank that fills with cash as more people die. But rather than rehashing previous events, these episodes are like a remix of season 1. The games have been changed up, and because Gi-hun is the only returning player, there’s a whole new cast. And, like in the original, there’s a great mix of compelling stories, with characters who have been pushed to the brink and left with few other options.
That includes an expecting young mother looking to start a new life, a trans woman who needs money for gender-affirming care, and a mother and son who both signed up to pay off his gambling debts, tragically unaware the other had also joined the games. There are some great new villains as well, like a purple-haired rapper who is having the time of his life amid the bloodshed, and a cold-hearted crypto influencer who lost himself — and his viewers — all kinds of money. And once again, there’s an undercover member of Squid Game management who is trying to manipulate the games from the inside.
The games feel different this time because of Gi-hun, who does everything he can to both save people while playing and convince them to leave after the match is over. After a game, the surviving players can vote on if they want to continue, and these moments of counting hundreds of X’s and O’s are very tense. But greed pushes people to make the wrong choice over and over, and it’s hard not to get disheartened alongside Gi-hun. But for many of the players, death in a schoolyard game is preferable to what awaits them on the outside. Gi-hun has a tough task in convincing the other contestants that their real enemy is the system that put them there to fight over money. The bloody massacre pushes Squid Game further into horror than it has ever been.