Squid Game season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
If season 1 of the masterful Korean thriller Squid Game introduced audiences to the capitalist hellscape that made its macabre elementary school field day for deeply indebted adults possible, season 2 is seemingly meant to parse through the complexities of that cutthroat terrain. As we follow reluctant winner Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) back into the arena, we find an atmosphere charged not by lethal rounds of I Spy or hopscotch, but by interactions that muddle any prior notion of hero vs. villain or right vs. wrong. Expanded backstories and complicated motives ladder up to this season’s harshest reality: As easy as it is to blame a faceless machine for everything that’s wrong with the world, no machine can work without the cogs that keep it running. With a much leaner seven-episode run at his disposal, creator, writer, and director Hwang Dong-hyuk explores the layers of this universe with rich storytelling that doesn’t simply take the cruelties and inequalities of this system to task. This time, he and Squid Game’s talented cast dig into why any reasonable person would feed themselves to its gears in the first place.
Still traumatized from the events of season 1, burgeoning vigilante Gi-hun refuses to disappear into a comfy life with his winnings. We learn that he’s invested three years and his own cash into a private search for the game’s magnetic recruiter (Gong Yoo), initially convinced that ending him would end the games. We also learn the recruiter’s unsettling backstory, which offers the grim perspective of someone wholly blinded by his allegiance to these games and a deeply flawed, oversimplified pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality. This mainly gives Gong Yoo the space to be less stoic and more of a terrifying arbiter of corporate injustice, delivering an absolutely rattling performance in the process. Not only does he make a worthy adversary for Lee’s more grounded but equally intense Gi-hun, he’s also a conduit for some of the season’s most creative moments of tension and breathtaking cinematography.
The recruiter’s story makes up most of the first episode – a departure from how quickly season one got to the games. But this isn’t cause for alarm. Despite taking place entirely in the outside world, the first two episodes are so loaded with anxiety-inducing pressure points that even a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors in a darkened building can become nightmare fuel. Yes, the games are an obvious centerpiece, but this thoughtful, more leisurely journey to them proves that Squid Game’s biggest draw is its worldbuilding.
We also reconnect with police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), who previously went undercover as a games guard in search of his brother In-ho (who, in a first-season twist, turned out to be the game’s Front Man, played by the quietly chilling Lee Byung-hun). After taking on a much less exciting assignment, he eventually reunites with Gi-hun and joins the hero’s quest to uncover the secret location of the games. His presence briefly and intriguingly indicates that season 2 has the police in its social-commentary sights; new character Choi Woo-Seok (Jeon Seok-ho) notes that cops, in his experience, rarely help civilians. But it’s a thread that Hwang and company only tug at lightly, a notably weaker approach when compared to the other ways Squid Game speaks truth to power
When we do eventually return to the Squid Game, we meet a legion of new players, including a former YouTuber in trouble for slinging faulty crypto (Im Si-wan), his pregnant and savvy ex (Jo Yu-ri), a mother-son duo looking to collectively pay off gambling debt (Kang Ae-shim and Yang Dong-geun, respectively), a young former marine (Kang Ha-neul), and a menacing former shaman (Chae Kook-hee). While some feel more like archetypes than fully fleshed-out characters, Kang’s Jang Geum-ja stands out. More than a doting mom, Geum-ja often leans on her hard-knock upbringing to draw immeasurable strength for herself and the ragtag bunch of players she adopts as her own family. Other competitors might underestimate the older woman in their midst, but she proves them wrong with fierce conviction and a strong resolve.
Also among the ensemble are two rather high-profile additions. Park Sung-hoon plays Hyun-ju, a former special forces soldier and transgender woman who enters the games to earn funding for gender-affirming surgery. (Worth noting: Park is a cis man; Hwang says he had difficulty finding an out trans actress in Korea and chose Park for the role rather than cutting this important storyline.) Hyun-ju is sharp, compassionate, capable, and complicated – a fully realized person with her own incredibly valid motivations who’s treated with notable care by Park and Hwang. Another headline-grabbing choice: Choi Seung-hyun, a.k.a revered, once-underground South Korean rapper T.O.P, who plays, well, a revered underground rapper named Thanos. Thanos is a lightning bolt of unrepentant chaos in an already electric environment, and Choi has found a way to imbue pitch-perfect physical comedy, rage, and tragic recklessness into a character that makes the viewer simultaneously hold their breath in fear and beg for more. It’s a match made in hell through and through – though Thanos isn’t without his own sobering baggage, making him just as easy to pity as he is to fear.
The games take a backseat to a new, unnerving wrinkle: democracy.
There are new games and the return of one daunting bloodfest – but truthfully, they all take a backseat to a new, unnerving wrinkle: democracy. Voting played a small role in season one, but each one of season two’s games is punctuated by a chance for the surviving players to end it all with a majority vote, walking away with an even share of the prize money. Of course, as the body count grows, so does the size of those shares. Here, Hwang best blurs the lines between “us” vs. “them,” which are no longer restricted to the players and their overseers. It also means roles are constantly adjusting. While the players may not have guns, they’re armed with their own personal motives (like costly healthcare, or combatting serious addictions), strategic stories, and a vote that dictates everyone’s chances at survival. It’s a game-within-the-game, and it provides the chance for everyone to indulge their killer instinct – even those who seem to mean well.
Following a U.S. election cycle when voting for self-preservation versus the greater good was the hottest of hot-button topics, this development is almost uncomfortably timely. But it also cleverly illustrates how the games can sow division, how tough choices can swiftly adjust our perception of other people, and how, in some cases, you don’t need masked gunmen to make a space feel incredibly dangerous. Before, it was much easier to tell when the games were in session. Now, not so much. Squid Game trusts us to navigate this more nuanced story, and it’s rewarding. As we watch this heightened depiction of the economic and political forces that dictate our everyday lives, we’re challenged to pinpoint how we’d actually fit in in such a thorny universe.
