After three years, Netflix’s most successful show of all time has returned in the form of Squid Game season 2. It seemed impossible the follow-up season would capture the viral magic of the original, and while viewing hours remain to be seen, it turns out that yes, this is a pretty solid season, albeit perhaps less so than the original, which is no great surprise.
Squid Game season 2 excels in some ways and not in others, fattened up with what feels like filler content, which is not great for a season only seven episodes long. Most of that feels like nothing but pure set-up for the third and final season, and once you reach the end, you realize that this is more or less just one long season split in half. Spoilers will follow in this review.
Seong Gi-hun has been using his billions to track down the games’ face-slapping recruiter to try and lead him back to those who run the games, namely the “Front Man” in the black mask. Similarly, Hwang Jun-ho is doing the same thing, sailing around trying to find the island to reunite with his brother (who is in fact, the Front Man).
The two join forces and the plan eventually becomes that Gi-hun will be abducted and return to the island embedded with a tracker and a mercenary team he hired, run by Jun-ho, will follow him to invade the island. Unsurprisingly, things do not go according to plan. His tracker gets removed, and Gi-hun finds himself thrown back into the games again, which is where we all knew this was heading.
While the season starts somewhat slow, once it returns to the games, you could make the argument that aspects of this portion of the season work better than even the original. Season 2 does a really great job of setting up a large cast of characters, each with their own motivations and personalities, in a way that season 1 didn’t do quite as well. Such memorable characters include an old woman and her loser son, a rapper who keeps taking drugs and partying through the games, a transwoman looking for money for surgery and relocate out of Korea, and a woman literally about to give birth with her deadbeat boyfriend also, separately, in the games.
The most significant addition is the arrival of In-ho, who we know is secretly the Front Man himself, but Gi-hun never figures it out all season. Through the end of the season, I still was not quite clear on why the Front Man would insert himself in these games, and it seems to mirror the season 1 storyline with the terminally-ill old man doing the same exact thing. Here, during an eventual player uprising, In-ho betrays some fellow players and puts the mask back on, but again, I still don’t really get the purpose of this, as he could have easily died at any point before this, or at least could not have survived without giving himself away. Is this just for thrills or was there an actual reason here? If so, we don’t figure it out by the finale.
There is also an interesting dynamic introduced here that was not present in season 1, the ability for players to vote to leave the games after every round, which results in some dramatic sequences and eventually wild moments like sides killing each other in order to secure their numbers. Continuing the games may ultimately feel like a forgone conclusion, but it’s a neat mechanic that has freshened things up a bit, in addition to the new games (and they are all new, except the introductory Red Light, Green Light).
Everything that is not the games in season 2 does not work well at all. This includes the aimless storyline of Jun-ho and the mercenary team sailing around trying to find the game island now that Gi-hun’s tracker died. This does not become interesting until the very last second when it’s revealed the captain of the boat appears to be a Squid Game-hired traitor, but even then, it felt like a waste of 10 minutes per episode.
Similarly, the season started with a cool idea showing the story of a North Korean defector behind one of the guard masks, rather than focusing only on the players. The guard, No-eul, finds herself at odds with other guards, including the new manager, as she stands in the way of an organ harvesting side-gig that wants preferably injured but not dead players, so they can extract valuable bits and pieces from them. She keeps killing the injured ones before they can be taken, which results in threats on her life. Then it just…stops. While I’m sure more is planned for her next season, it was bizarre to see this final “players versus guards” epic finale battle unfold and she had no role in it whatsoever. Another plotline that again, felt like a waste of 5-10 minutes an episode. And these add up.
While it’s good that the A-plot is solid in season 2 here, having utterly useless B and C plots does bring the season down and makes it feel overstuffed despite being just seven episodes. I don’t think it’s a bad thing the show returned, as this certainly does not feel like some disastrous follow=up. It’s definitely good enough, and I’m curious to see how it all ends. But yes, a lot of that initial magic has faded.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
