“Squid Game” took the world by storm in 2021, racking up 1.65 billion hours of viewing in 28 days and hugely impacting pop culture. Right before 2024 ended, “Squid Game” returned for season two. Its brutal new direction is splendid, even if you can spot where season two dragged and rushed so hard to the finish line that it slightly stumbled.
Three years after winning 456 billion Korean won, sole survivor Seong Gi-hun became a vigilante hunting for leads to stop the games with his past loan shark and company and some collaboration with Detective Hwang Jun-ho. Even with proper preparation, Gi-hun eventually accepts the nuclear option: playing the games again.
Don’t expect season two to replicate its predecessor. Season two focuses more on stopping the games than surviving them. It’s surprisingly part crime-thriller, especially during its first two episodes where it works best. Unfortunately, Jun-ho’s arc couldn’t quite keep my attention when he seeks the island’s location after Gi-hun reenters the facility. All of the cunning and planning went down the drain when he’s thrown off the scent early on, but afterward, it feels like nothing was really accomplished.
The better half of the show are the series’ games. The stakes remain unchanged: 456 players compete for 456 billion Korean won, but losing a game results in a sheer death penalty. Due to the story’s curved trajectory, only three games are played, but I was always anticipating what the next game was since that’s part of the tension the series creates. When the games start, you’ll be on the edge of your seat with your fingers crossed that nobody bites the dust during them.
“Red Light, Green Light” returns as the appetizer to the main course, only with less death since Gi-hun desperately offers everyone guidance.
Following this is a six-legged pentathlon, where five people cuffed by their feet must lap around a circular track, winning minigames at checkpoints. The idea of playing five different Korean games was as fun to watch as non-participating teams cheering with sportsmanship to motivate others.
Lastly, “Mingle” requires an exact number of people to fill a room before time expires every round. I found this one as the most heartbreaking since separation was sometimes required, but with reasonable motivation. When characters encountered an extra person in a room or one less person, it felt like a small conundrum with a split-second decision to be made.
Fueling the fire are post-game voting sequences where players vote for whether or not the games should continue. The show deserves credit for making a simple button push as intense as the games themselves.
When people aren’t civilized, they’re getting into faction-based arguments or fighting and lowering the player count further. These heated situations alleviate some tedium the exposition-based filler creates.
Season two also explores the guards that facilitate the games and punish those that flounder. It’s mainly driven by Kang No-eul, a defector who finds herself in a typical contestant’s position of financial hassle but instead zips up a pink suit, moral conflicts still intact. She reinforces the fact that the guards are still human, even if they’re fearsome.
If anything stood out to me, it’s that the character study aspect of the show is its biggest strength.
Gi-hun stands tall without even requiring effort. Lee Jung-jae’s great performance allows you to read the trauma on his emotionless face: He’s watched enough people die to the point where he was numb to finding his own mother dead. As a result, he doesn’t want anyone else to die, nor suffer the same mental toll.
New characters more than fill the shoes of last season’s cast. Transgender woman Cho Hyun-ju stands in Kang Sae-byeok’s shadow; mother-son duo Jang Geum-ja and Park Yong-sik’s tight attachment mirrors the married couple; and elderly Oh Il-nam is succeeded by Kim Jun-hee, a young pregnant woman who is as big of a liability.
Purple-haired rapper Thanos constantly steals the spotlight, replacing Deok-su and copping a “bad boy” attitude. He takes nothing seriously as he dances around, freestyle raps about female players, and lethally sabotages others. What also makes him interesting is how he deviates between English and Korean and copes with stress by partaking in ecstasy he smuggled in.
While they replicate the archetypes of past figures, these new characters feel more modernized than last season’s group of financially troubled players. With a bigger quantity of significant faces, there are bigger risks on the line… or there would have been.
Without saying how, season two distinguishes itself from season one more by entering action territory in its final moments. Initially, it seemed like a promising mode to shift gears into. That came to a screeching halt with an expected betrayal, a disheartening death, and then, suddenly, the credits. It all makes sense in the moment, but it feels like there should have been way more after that abrupt ending.
Despite “Squid Game” season two feeling more like season two part one, it retains most of what made season one shine. Its harsh difference from its predecessor made for an intriguing turn of events, but the writers should maintain the pacing, too. Regardless, it will only make you worried for what danger season three has in store since some characters were left in a dangerous spot that they’ll only survive with luck.
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