2021’s “Squid Game” became one of the biggest hits of the Streaming TV era, unexpectedly launching its way to the title of Netflix’s most-watched show ever, on its way to Emmys for acting (Lee Jung-jae) and direction (Hwang Dong-hyuk). Despite a bit of a cliffhanger in its final episode, the first season of “Squid Game” could have easily stood alone, but Netflix backed up trucks of money to writer/director Hwang and he figured out how to expand this story for two more seasons, although the way the 7-episode second chapter plays out, it’s clear that chapters two and three, which were shot simultaneously, are really one story. Despite the high body count by the end of these seven hours of inventive television, “Squid Game 2” does feel like set-up for a showdown in the third and final season. Even if it does end on a less satisfactory note than the landscape-shifting first outing, “Squid Game” is likely to be another huge hit for Netflix, enough to carry them into an ambitious 2025.
“Squid Game 2” (which is how it’s credited on the open of each episode, FWIW) opens where the last season closed, as winner Gi-hun (Lee) chooses not to board the plane to the United States, returning to take down the game that takes advantage of those in need. He spends the next three years scouring the country for the salesman (Gong Yoo, the excellent star of “Train to Busan” and “Age of Shadows”), the mysterious figure who recruits players for the game. Another survivor of season one also wants to find his way back to the island too: the police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), who discovered at the end of last season that the game’s head tough guy, a mysterious figure known as The Front Man (the incredible Lee Byung-hun), was his brother. The first two episodes center both of these parallel endeavors to return to the place where childhood games become life-or-death dilemmas, in order to take it down.
Without spoiling anything (the previews give this away), Gi-hun is plunged back into the game in the third episode, which allows the writers to introduce a new cadre of fellow players, a rich crew of interesting supporting characters to bounce off Gi-hun and The Front Man, who gets a much bigger role this season in a way that I won’t spoil although likely will be by the time you read this. Most importantly, Gi-hun’s friend from season one Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) becomes a player, alongside a mother & son duo named Jang Geum-ja (the excellent Kang Ae-shim) and Park Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun), a cocky rapper named Thanos (Choi Seung-hyun), and many more. Most controversially, a cisgender man named Park Sung-hoon was hired to play a transgender woman named Hyun-ju, leading to some opining that a trans performer should have been cast, an undeniably preferable option but more difficult in Korea than other parts of the world. For the record, Park is good in a role that seems destined to be controversial based on casting alone.
The new players are thrust into a version of the game that blissfully doesn’t just repeat the original. First, the involvement of a former winner totally changes the dynamic, making him an instant leader by virtue of knowing more about what comes next. More impactful is a change to the structure of the game wherein the players vote after each round whether or not they want to stay or play another game. Continuing means more money for the survivors but possible death. While the writers arguably spend a bit too long in the actual scenes of voting and campaigning to stay or go, it does insert a new theme: The greed & desperation of one half of the population (those willing to put everyone’s life on the line for more money) that basically keeps the other half prisoner. It also creates more divisions in the players by dividing them into—of course, given the childhood game aesthetic—X’s and O’s. Would you try as hard to help someone who you know will vote to leave if you want to stay, and vice versa?
“Squid Game” is undeniably well-made in terms of craft, sharply directed in all seven episodes by the same creator, giving it a visual continuity that helps make it so bingeable. The art direction this year is consistently engaging, including some new games that once again turn childhood joys into adult nightmares. Some of it echoes last season thematically and visually, but when it’s good, which is often, it’s very good. The writing in the back half of the season struggles when it has to check in with characters outside of the Squid Game compound, but it hums in-game, introducing new ideas and bouncing these new personalities off each other. That latter part sidelines Gi-hun a bit, but that feels like a choice to set him up as the true center of the final season, and it makes it feel like even more of an ensemble piece than season one. It also helps to have a larger role for Lee Byung-hun, a phenomenal performer who gets to toy with Gi-hun this year in ways I didn’t see coming.
“Squid Game” is a tough act to repeat. I don’t expect the sequel to have the same cultural impact as the first, which led to awards, spin-offs, and copycats. And the fact it doesn’t stand alone as much as year one will likely add to a sense of disappointment. However, it almost feels like we should wait to judge “Squid Game 2” until we see where these new characters and thematic developments lead us in “Squid Game 3.” After all, you can’t know who’s won a game until it’s over.
Whole season screened for review. Now on Netflix.