Squid Game season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
If season 1 of the masterful Korean thriller Squid Game launched audiences to the capitalist hellscape that made its macabre elementary faculty subject day for deeply indebted adults doable, season 2 is seemingly meant to parse via the complexities of that cutthroat terrain. As we observe reluctant winner Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) again into the world, we discover an environment charged not by deadly rounds of I Spy or hopscotch, however by interactions that muddle any prior notion of hero vs. villain or proper vs. unsuitable. Expanded backstories and sophisticated motives ladder as much as this season’s harshest actuality: As simple as it’s in charge a faceless machine for every little thing that’s unsuitable with the world, no machine can work with out the cogs that hold it working. With a a lot leaner seven-episode run at his disposal, creator, author, and director Hwang Dong-hyuk explores the layers of this universe with wealthy storytelling that doesn’t merely take the cruelties and inequalities of this method to activity. This time, he and Squid Game’s proficient solid dig into why any cheap particular person would feed themselves to its gears within the first place.
Still traumatized from the occasions of season 1, burgeoning vigilante Gi-hun refuses to vanish into a comfortable life together with his winnings. We study that he’s invested three years and his personal money into a personal seek for the sport’s magnetic recruiter (Gong Yoo), initially satisfied that ending him would finish the video games. We additionally study the recruiter’s unsettling backstory, which presents the grim perspective of somebody wholly blinded by his allegiance to those video games and a deeply flawed, oversimplified pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality. This primarily offers Gong Yoo the house to be much less stoic and extra of a terrifying arbiter of company injustice, delivering a completely rattling efficiency within the course of. Not solely does he make a worthy adversary for Lee’s extra grounded however equally intense Gi-hun, he’s additionally a conduit for among the season’s most artistic moments of pressure and breathtaking cinematography.
The recruiter’s story makes up many of the first episode – a departure from how shortly season one acquired to the video games. But this isn’t trigger for alarm. Despite going down fully within the outdoors world, the primary two episodes are so loaded with anxiety-inducing stress factors that even a sport of Rock, Paper, Scissors in a darkened constructing can turn out to be nightmare gas. Yes, the video games are an apparent centerpiece, however this considerate, extra leisurely journey to them proves that Squid Game’s greatest draw is its worldbuilding.
We additionally reconnect with police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), who beforehand went undercover as a video games guard in the hunt for his brother In-ho (who, in a first-season twist, turned out to be the sport’s Front Man, performed by the quietly chilling Lee Byung-hun). After taking up a a lot much less thrilling project, he ultimately reunites with Gi-hun and joins the hero’s quest to uncover the key location of the video games. His presence briefly and intriguingly signifies that season 2 has the police in its social-commentary sights; new character Choi Woo-Seok (Jeon Seok-ho) notes that cops, in his expertise, not often assist civilians. But it’s a thread that Hwang and firm solely tug at calmly, a notably weaker method when in comparison with the opposite methods Squid Game speaks reality to energy
When we do ultimately return to the Squid Game, we meet a legion of latest gamers, together with a former YouTuber in hassle for slinging defective crypto (Im Si-wan), his pregnant and savvy ex (Jo Yu-ri), a mother-son duo seeking to collectively repay playing debt (Kang Ae-shim and Yang Dong-geun, respectively), a younger former marine (Kang Ha-neul), and a menacing former shaman (Chae Kook-hee). While some really feel extra like archetypes than totally fleshed-out characters, Kang’s Jang Geum-ja stands out. More than a doting mother, Geum-ja typically leans on her hard-knock upbringing to attract immeasurable energy for herself and the ragtag bunch of gamers she adopts as her circle of relatives. Other opponents would possibly underestimate the older girl of their midst, however she proves them unsuitable with fierce conviction and a powerful resolve.
Also among the many ensemble are two fairly high-profile additions. Park Sung-hoon performs Hyun-ju, a former particular forces soldier and transgender girl who enters the video games to earn funding for gender-affirming surgical procedure. (Worth noting: Park is a cis man; Hwang says he had issue discovering an out trans actress in Korea and selected Park for the function fairly than slicing this vital storyline.) Hyun-ju is sharp, compassionate, succesful, and sophisticated – a totally realized particular person together with her personal extremely legitimate motivations who’s handled with notable care by Park and Hwang. Another headline-grabbing alternative: Choi Seung-hyun, a.ok.a revered, once-underground South Korean rapper T.O.P, who performs, nicely, a revered underground rapper named Thanos. Thanos is a lightning bolt of unrepentant chaos in an already electrical setting, and Choi has discovered a method to imbue pitch-perfect bodily comedy, rage, and tragic recklessness into a personality that makes the viewer concurrently maintain their breath in concern and beg for extra. It’s a match made in hell via and thru – although Thanos isn’t with out his personal sobering baggage, making him simply as simple to pity as he’s to concern.
There are new video games and the return of 1 daunting bloodfest – however in truth, all of them take a backseat to a brand new, unnerving wrinkle: democracy. Voting performed a small function in season one, however every one among season two’s video games is punctuated by an opportunity for the surviving gamers to finish all of it with a majority vote, strolling away with a fair share of the prize cash. Of course, because the physique depend grows, so does the dimensions of these shares. Here, Hwang greatest blurs the strains between “us” vs. “them,” that are now not restricted to the gamers and their overseers. It additionally means roles are continuously adjusting. While the gamers might not have weapons, they’re armed with their very own private motives (like pricey healthcare, or combatting critical addictions), strategic tales, and a vote that dictates everybody’s possibilities at survival. It’s a game-within-the-game, and it supplies the possibility for everybody to indulge their killer intuition – even those that appear to imply nicely.
Following a U.S. election cycle when voting for self-preservation versus the larger good was the most well liked of hot-button matters, this improvement is nearly uncomfortably well timed. But it additionally cleverly illustrates how the video games can sow division, how powerful selections can swiftly alter our notion of different individuals, and the way, in some instances, you don’t want masked gunmen to make an area really feel extremely harmful. Before, it was a lot simpler to inform when the video games had been in session. Now, not a lot. Squid Game trusts us to navigate this extra nuanced story, and it’s rewarding. As we watch this heightened depiction of the financial and political forces that dictate our on a regular basis lives, we’re challenged to pinpoint how we’d really slot in in such a thorny universe.
