Lee Jung-jae and Lee Byung-hun headline new episodes that make the Korean drama’s established formula feel violently new.
Remember when “Squid Game” took the world by storm in 2021? The South Korean series became Netflix’s biggest hit, surpassing even “Bridgerton” and “Stranger Things.” Its creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk, cleverly tapped into global economic and social struggles, making the show incredibly relevant and a must-watch phenomenon.
After a three-year wait, “Squid Game” is back with a second season, and it’s more brutal and captivating than ever. Season 2 kicks off right where it left us, with Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) gearing up to take down the sinister Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) and put an end to the deadly games. As two years pass, Seong builds a secret network using his winnings to hunt down Gong Yoo’s mysterious Salesman, determined to stop the games once and for all. Meanwhile, Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) is on the mend after a near-fatal encounter, plotting his own revenge.
With both men on a collision course to bring down the Front Man, “Squid Game” Season 2 promises to be a thrilling ride full of suspense and unexpected twists.
Once Seong finds himself back in the game, a familiar sense of dread comes to the surface. As with last time, there is a mix of memorable supporting characters: a rapper named Thanos (easily a favorite in the bunch and bound to be a standout, played by Choi Seung-hyun aka Korean music star T.O.P., complete with purple hair and Infinity Stone-colored nails), crypto influencer Lee Myung-gi (Im Si-wan) and his ex-girlfriend Kim Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), former marine Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul), a woman in the midst of transitioning Cho Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), a mother (Kang Ae-shim) and her burnout son (Yang Dong-geun), Seong’s friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan), and plenty of others all with their own reasons for wanting the prize money. Combine these archetypes alongside a redux of Red Light-Green Light, and “Squid Game” threatens to rely too much on its established formula.
But what’s old now becomes violently new as Hwang weaponizes Seong’s (and the audience’s) expectations of what the game might be to radically reinvent itself and “Squid Game” in the process. Season 2 often calls back — either spiritually or directly — to iconic moments or character beats from last time, but through a funhouse mirror that warps and distorts them into something more horrifically memorable. Hwang doesn’t stop at going bigger and bolder either, deciding to go deeper into the logistics of the games themselves, courtesy of a new character, No-eul, played by Park Gyu-young. Instead of losing the intrigue around how the sausage is made, Hwang allows for more mystery to unfold. The savviest decision is the more active role the Front Man takes, allowing audiences to get to know the man behind the mask.
Despite a shorter episode order — seven this time instead of nine — Hwang allows for plenty of space around the proceedings, with his direction and writing (he’s on double duty for both tasks again this time) as strong as ever. What becomes quietly devastating is how willing the participants seem to be this time around, especially after realizing what’s at stake. The world has become a harsher place since the last games, and the players involved are willing to do whatever it takes to get to the prize money, despite Seong’s protests and attempts to play hero. The games are hauntingly photographed, allowing for tension to build and build, exploding with propulsion that makes Season 2 even more watchable than last time.
The only part that slows things down is Hwang’s search for where the games occur. It’s not as dynamic as everything else. It’s very clearly a building block to a more substantial plot for the upcoming third and final season, and therefore, a little too early on how it will all resolve.
Lee Jung-jae is tasked with selling quite the transformation for Seong this season, moving closer in line to a full-on action hero than the stumbling and bumbling oaf he was in the season prior. It’s an extremely believable performance, becoming more empathic based on the audience’s pre-existing relationship. Every time he warns the new cadre of players about the dangers to come, we can feel the weight of his survivor’s guilt hanging over his every decision. Lee Byung-hun’s take on the Front Man this season will be a real standout, with his shifting role in the games marking one of the season’s best developments. Hwang gets a lot of mileage out of the pre-existing character relationships, most notably Yang and Kang’s mother/son duo, who are a consistent source of laughs across these continued dour times. Just like Jung Ho-yeon’s Kang Sae-byeok served as the show’s beating heart last season, so does Park as Cho, whose transgender journey is handled in a lovely and affecting way. And that’s to say nothing of Thanos, who joins the pantheon of television bad guys in short order, yet something about him remains endlessly appealing despite it. After last season’s cast of characters, it was going to be a tall order to make a new and compelling cast, and yet, Hwang makes it look effortless.
Sequels are always a difficult proposition. How do you appease fans of the previous iteration without it being a carbon copy of what’s come before? How do you evolve without losing the soul of what made it a hit in the first place? Can the show still have something meaningful to say? These questions, and many others, are ones that the series addresses head-on, resulting in the rare sequel that’s just as much a worthy successor to what’s come before.
The popularity and expectations around “Squid Game” may no longer be an unknown quantity. But that doesn’t mean the show can’t still find bold new ways to surprise.
“Squid Game” Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
