Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun in “Squid Game.” Image: Courtesy of Netflix Korea
The weight of survival haunts Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) as “Squid Game” returns for a second round. Three years after his harrowing victory in the deadly competition, Gi-hun is driven by more than just vengeance, a moral obligation to end the sick and twisted games for good.
The series’ sophomore outing, available on Netflix starting last Dec. 26, marks an interesting tonal shift in its approach. Gone is the wide-eyed desperation of season one’s debt-ridden contestants. In its place, a stone-cold sense of determination and guilt, as Gi-hun deploys his fortune to track down the game’s architects. He assembles a shady crew of mercenaries. He finds an unlikely ally in detective Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), who survived his climactic fall in the first season, and returns seeking answers about his brother, the notorious Front Man (Lee Byung-hun).
Gi-hun’s elaborate infiltration plan echoes “Oldboy” (2003) in its vengeful solemnity, down to his self-imposed exile in a grimy motel. But as the saying goes, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. When his scheme unravels due to a planted mole, Gi-hun finds himself truly alone in the games yet again, tasked with shepherding fellow contestants toward salvation.
The series retains its signature elements: Candy-colored death traps, visceral gore splashed across pastel sets, even the eerie animatronic doll presiding over “Red Light, Green Light.” But this time, beneath the familiar brutality lies a more nuanced exploration of human nature. Season two seeks to pivot from the first season’s relentless antihumanism toward probing difficult questions of collective will and moral choice.
As Hwang promised in prerelease interviews, the voting system emerges as the season’s psychological core, generating as much suspense as the deadly games themselves. Participants now wear badges showing their voting choice, with a crucial twist: Voting to end the games means splitting the prize money among survivors rather than compensating victims’ families.
This new element adds layers of moral calculation to every move, each episode turned into a quasi-political theater as alliances form and fracture. Long sequences devoted to persuasion, blackmail and inner turmoil might alienate viewers seeking pure adrenaline, but they certainly do create a different kind of tension. Here, the real psychological drama lies in watching contestants choose their own destruction one round after another, voting to continue despite impossible stakes — a reflection of human nature more disturbing than any physical violence.
The motivations behind each vote are, understandably, complex. For many, desperation makes death in the games preferable to life outside, a point the show drives home repeatedly. Yet the series takes a clear moral stance — those committed to ending the games emerge as an unmistakable force for good even through moments of doubt, and viewers are relentlessly encouraged to root for their cause.
This moralizing voice finds its heart in a richly drawn supporting cast. Hwang once again proves his strength in bringing marginalized narratives to the fore — from Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), a transgender contestant, to an inseparable mother-son pair (Kang Ae-sim and Yang Dong-geun) and Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), a pregnant woman abandoned by her child’s father (Im Si-wan). Unlike season one’s concentrated burst of melodrama in the marble game episode, their narratives and interactions flow organically throughout. This approach culminates in episode four’s team challenge, where the extended camera takes against the background of Shin Hae-chul’s rock anthem “To You” capture a rare moment of unity; even those who chose to prolong the bloodshed find themselves rooting for their rivals’ survival.
The antagonists, too, evolve beyond one-dimensional thuggery, though in quite unexpected ways. Choi Seung-hyun plays “Thanos,” a drug-addled rapper whose performative gangsterism and random English outbursts play like an SNL sketch. It’s a bizarrely memorable turn for the former BigBang rapper, an insufferable cringe-bomb that seems destined for meme status. Adding to the theatrical villainy is Seonnyeo (Chae Guk-hee), a strident shaman who manipulates vulnerable contestants with her sinister prophecies, echoing the fanatical Mrs. Carmody from “The Mist” (2005) in her grotesque repulsiveness.
Lee Byung-hun in a scene from “Squid Game” season 2. Image: Courtesy of Netflix Korea
Meanwhile, Lee Byung-hun’s Front Man becomes an enigmatic presence inside the games, one that is simply impossible to ignore. Formerly the villain-in-chief who coolly oversaw the carnage with whiskey in hand, he now enters the game as participant number 001 and positions himself as Gi-hun’s closest ally and confidant. Lee’s stone-faced performance is a masterclass in ambiguity, keeping viewers constantly guessing at his true intentions. His nuanced portrayal sustains the show’s momentum throughout, leaving audiences perpetually questioning: What is he thinking? Whose side does he really belong to? Is he genuinely convinced by Gi-hun’s cause or orchestrating a high-stakes subterfuge?
Of course, not every addition lands. A subplot featuring No-eul (Park Gyu-young), a North Korean defector working as one of the games’ masked executioners, feels precariously close to a rehash of season one’s Sae-byeok. The sharp-dressed recruiter (Gong Yoo) delivers an electrifying portrayal of madness, but frustratingly appears only in the first episode, with his back story largely reduced to expository dialogue. The parallel storyline of Jun-ho’s commando operation abruptly falters through a lame twist involving an internal mole. These are minor stumbles in an otherwise promising evolution of the show’s scope.
Season two of “Squid Game” ends with more unresolved questions than answers. As such, it squarely positions itself as the middle chapter of a trilogy (season three, already filmed, arrives mid-2025). For now, “Squid Game” seems to have drifted away from a visceral display of violence and toward something potentially more interesting: A test of whether humanity’s better angels can prevail in a deranged system designed to crush them. Whether Hwang Dong-hyuk ultimately delivers a triumph of human resilience or a cynical vision that dangles hope only to snatch it away, remains to be seen.