Plot: Three years after winning Squid Game, Player 456 gave up going to the States and comes back with a new resolution in his mind. Gi-hun once again dives into the mysterious survival game, starting another life-or-death game with new participants gathered to win the prize of 45.6 billion won.
Review: When Squid Game debuted on Netflix in 2021, it was met with critical acclaim, and a global sensation was born, ushering in a wider audience for many Korean drama series. One month after becoming the first Korean series to top the Netflix charts, it was revealed that a second season was being developed. Three years later, the long-awaited story continuation is here and does not disappoint. With returning stars and a new cast of competitors, Squid Game 2 mines the same tension as the first season with even more complex games, twists, and reveals that set the stage for a third season and beyond. With fewer episodes than the first, Squid Game 2 feels like a solid sequel that knows what worked well the first time while going in a few new directions that will surely make this season as big of a hit as the first.
At the end of the first season, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) won the titular competition and confronted Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su), the architect behind the game. On his way to the United States, Gi-hun received a mysterious phone call and decided to stay in Seoul to take down the people behind the games. The first season also saw Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) confront The Front Man in charge of the island, who happened to be his long-lost brother, Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun). In-ho shot Jun-ho and left him for dead. At the start of Squid Game 2, three years have passed, and while Jun-ho has tried to distance himself from what happened with his brother, Gi-hun has used his vast winnings from the first season to finance an operation to stop those running the competition. After developing a plan, Gi-hun finds his way back into the latest competition to save as many contestants as possible while seeing if he can stop those behind the games.
There is a lot to unpack in Squid Game 2, but very little that I can say without divulging major spoilers. I can tell you that the series opens with multiple episodes set in Seoul before moving to the new competition. While the games comprise most of the season, Squid Game 2 has a broader focus beyond the contestants competing for their lives and the massive prize for the survivors. This season gives us more time spent with the guards and orchestrators of the games, including insight into the individuals under the masks. There are also new wrinkles in the games this season, including an opportunity for the players to vote on the outcome of the competition. In the trailers and marketing materials for Squid Game 2, you can see players with an X or an O on their tracksuits, a split that has major ramifications through each round of deadly gameplay. The episodes also add more time with each round of games, ratcheting up the tension and distinguishing how things unfold compared to the first season. We do see what is happening off-island while Gi-hun is competing, but there is far more attention paid within the confines of the squid game facility.
While Gi-hun’s experience with the games makes him a natural focal point in the story, there are several new characters this season,n including Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul), Myung-gi (Im Si-wan), Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun), Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), Min-su (Lee David), and many more. Rapper Choi Seung-hyun is one of the more intriguing new cast members, as his character serves as a major obstacle for Gi-hun. How the story unfolds follows the overall structure of the first season, with each round of gameplay resulting in numerous deaths, which are again fairly graphic. The bloodshed and profanity are consistent this time with the first season, with some added intensity in the second half of the season. The games are a mix of games from the first Squid Game and new ones. The mix of games lulls the viewer into thinking they know how things will play out, but then we get new rules or new wrinkles. This means no character is safe, not even those returning from the first season.
It is also worth noting that this season is two episodes shorter than the first Squid Game. Each of the seven chapters of Squid Game 2 is significantly longer than the first season, which ran between thirty-three and sixty-two minutes. The shortest episode of Squid Game 2 is fifty-two minutes, with the fifth episode clocking in at just under eighty minutes. The longer episodes give ample time to develop the tension in the story as it amps up each successive chapter with increasing violence. Writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote and directed every episode of Squid Game 2 as he did with the first season, which gives the narrative a cohesive feel of a long feature film split into sections. Hwang Dong-hyuk and Netflix have been discussing a third season of Squid Game, which concludes the story that started in season one, and by the finale of Squid Game 2, you will know where that final series will be headed.
While the unique structure of Squid Game is no longer as novel in the second series, Squid Game 2 keeps the thrills at a maximum thanks to well-placed twists, a wider focus on characters in and out of the game, and a talented ensemble from different walks of life. Squid Game 2 is chock full of elements I cannot mention here that will be debated and discussed at length once the full season drops the day after Christmas. Fans will have new favorites to root for and even better antagonists to despise, but most of all, they will not be prepared for how Squid Game 2 ends. I expect many polarized reactions will be coming as soon as the credits roll on the seventh chapter, but it will make the wait for Squid Game 3 all the stronger. Squid Game 2 avoids the sophomore slump faced by most sequels while keeping what made the first season so much fun to watch.
Squid Game 2 premieres on December 26th on Netflix.
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