Squid Game Season 2- Episodes 1 and 2 - TV Series Review

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Seong Gi-hun had overwhelming gambling debts and was about to lose his daughter, who was moving to America with her mother, his estranged wife. He thought his luck had changed when a mysterious stranger recruited him to play in the Squid Game, a secret game in which hundreds of competitors risk death to compete for a large sum of money. As the sole survivor of the game, he now possesses a vast fortune and chooses to use it to try and stop the game from continuing.

The first series of Squid Game, released on Netflix in 2021, was a huge international success. Like a lot of people I had high expectations of the second season, although to be honest I am still excited to be getting a second season at all since K-dramas seem to mostly only have one season and so many Netflix shows get cancelled without getting a proper ending. I've only watched the first two episodes so far, and it's shaping up to be exciting and is probably to going break viewers' hearts all over again.

Lee Jung-jae reprises his role as Seong Gi-hun, or Player 456. Much as I wanted Seong Gi-hun to be safe and happy in another country with his daughter, staying to take on the game's creators is what makes him a hero. In the first two episodes, he uses the services of the loan shark to whom he owed money in the first place to help him track down the Salesman (played by Gong Woo from Coffee Prince and Train to Busan) who invites players to the game. Wi Ha-joon (from Romance is a Bonus Book and Gyeongseong Creature) is back too as Hwang Jun-ho, the police officer who sneaked into the game looking for his missing brother. He is now the only police officer who believes Seong Gi-hun about what happened to him, and the two join forces with some gangsters to try and put a stop to the event once and for all.

Episode 2 focuses on a new character, Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young from It's Okay To Not Be Okay and Sweet Home), a former soldier and defector from North Korea. She has been paying the same broker that Kang Sae-byeok (another defector trying to rescue her younger brother) used in the first season in the hope of finding her infant daughter, who she left behind in North Korea. Her character is easy to like, but season 1 taught me that it's probably best not to get too attached to any of these people.

The second episode ends with Seong Gi-hun about to head back into the game for a second time, a decision he is sure to regret. Since there has been violence and death already, I assume that it will only ramp up from here. Here's hoping that there is an interesting new plot and more characters with depth for whom we can hope for the best but fear the worst.

Squid Game season 2 began streaming on Netflix on December 26, 2024.




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