The first season of Squid Game is the most successful season of TV ever produced by Netflix. Netflix is the biggest streaming service on the planet, so that's saying a lot. It's a Korean-language series about people who are deep in debt getting recruited to play a series of games for the amusement of a group of shadowy billionaires. If they lose any of the games along the way, they die. But the one person who survives the gauntlet walks away with tens of millions of dollars. And most of the people are financially desperate enough to risk continuing.
In a world where the divide between the halves and the halve-nots is growing deeper and wider, where billionaires are building luxury apocalypse bunkers while people who have worked hard their entire lives can't afford prescription medications, this metaphor hit with blistering force: the rich don't care about you beyond your ability to dance for their scraps.
Now, writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk is back for a second season. Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), who won the Squid Games last time, ended the first season by vowing to find the people who are putting these games together...and put a stop to them. How is his quest going? We're going to review all seven episodes of Squid Game season 2 below.
Read on! And please, beware MASSIVE SPOILERS. We'll be talking about the plot in detail.
Episode 201: "Bread and Lottery"
We pick up two years after the end of Squid Game season 1. Seong Gi-hun has been using his millions trying to track down anyone involved with the games so he can question them. He's put together a task force to troll subway stations in Seoul looking fo the handsome, besuited man who recruited him years ago, who he assumes is still stalking these tunnels looking for marks.
And he's right! Gi-hun's men eventually do find the recruiter, who leads them on a weird chase around the city. Learning more about the recruiter is the highlight of "Bread and Lottery." He's not a billionaire in control of the games, but he's absorbed the dehumanizing attitude of his bosses, taking pleasure not just in shepherding the less fortunate to their deaths but in torturing homeless people by offering them a choice between taking a scratch-off lottery ticket or a piece of bread, and then stomping on the leftover bread in front of them to teach them a lesson about how stupid they are, further convincing himself that what he does is okay because these people deserve it. Actor Gong Yoo gives a manic, funny performance as he bugs out in public.
Things get more sinister behind closed doors as the recruiter corners a couple of Gi-hun's men who were tailing him and forces them to play a deadly, extremely tense game of rock paper scissors. And later he tracks Gi-hun down to the motel where he's been slumming it and challenges him to a game of Russian roulette. That's also very tense, because it's Russian roulette, but I didn't quite get the battle of wills these two were playing. Either of them could just take the gun and shoot the other at any time, but their pride won't allow it. I couldn't relate. Shoot the guy, Gi-hun!
In general, the premiere episode doesn't go very hard on the central metaphor from the first season, focusing rather on the fight between these two people rather than the fight between Gi-hun and an inhuman system. I think it's too early to say if that's a series-wide pivot, though.
My other complaint about the episode is the role coincidence played in the plot, which seemed a little hacky. Whoever organizes the Squid Games knows that Gi-hun is looking for them, so why would the recruiter return to subway stations in Seoul at all? Then there's Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), the police officer who tried to infiltrate the Squid Games in the first season. He ended that season by getting shot over a cliff into the ocean...but it ends up he's fine. A fisherman found him and now he's looking for the island where the Squid Games are held.
I think that's lame, especially for a show with a reputation for killing people often and brutally; the show doesn't shy away from some horrific violence in this very episode. It feels like Jun-ho survived because Hwang Dong-hyuk wanted him to survive, not because it's what would naturally happen next.
So season 2 begins a bit strangely for me, but the filmmaking is as taut as ever and there are six episodes to go.
Episode Grade: C+
Episode 202: "Halloween Party"
Things begin to ramp up in the second episode of Squid Game season 2, which ends with Seong Gi-hun voluntarily re-entering the Squid Games. It feels like we're taking longer to get into the action this season — remember that the series premiere ended with the contestants playing a bloody game of Red Light, Green Light — but I have hope that this meatier setup will pay off in the episodes to come.
Part of me wants to complain that the show is repeating itself. For instance, in this episode we meet a character named No-eul, a woman who fled North Korea and is currently working a thankless job as a mascot at a theme park. She's trying to locate her daughter, whom she left behind in North Korea, and badly needs cash. She's also fond of the young daughter of another worker at the theme park, who we learn has blood cancer and is rushed to the hospital in a heartbreaking scene.
We seem to be learning the conditions under which No-eul will accept an invitation to participate in the Squid Games. She reminded me of Kang Sae-byeok from season 1, who was also a North Korean defector raising money for her family. But I think the show wanted me to think that, because we get a twist at the end: No-eul isn't going to earn money by entering the Squid Games; she's going to work in them!
It feels like this season will have more of a focus on the people under those creepy pink jumpsuits, which I'm all for. We also learn more about Hwang Jun-ho and his relationship with his brother the Front Man, the person who operates the Squid Games. Jun-ho's mother is under the impression that he's dead and Jun-ho does not correct her. This conversation feels less like a conversation and more like a lore dump, and I'm still a little weirded out that Jun-ho is here at all instead of dead, but whatever.
At least Jun-ho is helping Seong Gi-hun with his quest to hunt down the organizers of the Squid Game. Gi-hun is using his winnings to put together a little private army, which is fun. You have to imagine he's still vastly outgunned by whatever billionaires are bankrolling the Squid Games, but it wouldn't be as compelling if it wasn't an underdog story.
Anyway, Gi-hun's efforts result in him tracking down an agent of the Squid Games at a loud Halloween party at a club in Seoul. He ends up in the back of a limo talking through a speaker to the Front Man, which is when he enlists back in the games. But first they have a discussion that gave me hope that the season would hit on some of the social issues that made the first season resonate so much. The Front Man has convinced himself that because the participants join the Squid Games voluntarily, he and his clients bear no responsibility for their deaths. That's probably the tack that most a lot of corrupt, super-rich people take: they may be perpetuating an inequitable system where people have no choice but to put their lives on the line for a chance at making rent, but they're not actively gunning them down in the streets, so they can't be blamed, right?
I'm looking forward to Squid Game digging into those ideas through the hyper-violent metaphor of the Squid Games. If they can continue to put twists on the premise established in the first season, this could be very exciting. The twist in this case is that Gi-hun has a tracker implanted in his mouth (I appreciated how needlessly gross it was to watch it inserted), so his private army can follow him wherever he's taken. Game on.
Episode Grade: B-
Episode 203: "001"
Now this is more freaking like it! I found the first two episodes of Squid Game season 2 a little slow and lacking in energy. I was starting to worry that Hwang Dong-hyuk may have been a one-tricky pony, that he didn't have anything more to show us, that the second season wasn't going to get the adrenealine pumping like the first season did.
I'm very happy to be wrong! The missing ingredient were the Squid Games themselves. After voluntarily committing to rejoining the games, Gi-hun wakes up in a familiar room in a familiar uniform. He even has his old number: 456.
Just like in the first season, we meet a variety of characters we'll fall in love with over the next couple of episodes and then cry over as they die horribly. There's Gi-hun's friend Jung-bae, who remembers him from before he got rich. There's a mother and son who have both joined the games in an attempt to pay off the son's debt; there's surprised to see each other there. There's a middle-aged businessman who's deeper in debt than anyone in the room; there's a trans woman who's brave enough to help the wounded during a pulse-pounding game of Red Light, Green Light; there's a crypto influencer who's clearly in over his head; and there's a rapper named Thanos who does something absolutely and uniquely heinous during Red Light, Green Light. I wanted him dead immediately.
In the first two episodes, I was having trouble connecting with some of the characters, but in the high stakes environment of the Squid Games, every act hits harder, every joke is funnier, every decision means something, and characters crystalize incredibly quickly. I found myself attached to all of these people by the end of the episode, where the group narrowly votes to continue with the Squid Games over Gi-hun's stringent objections; this time around, they're letting them vote to go home after every game instead of just the first one, so he'll have other chances to sway them.
Much of this episode closely resembles the early parts of the first season of Squid Game: meeting the cast of characters; playing Red Light, Green Light; voting whether to go home...it's all basically unchanged. You might think that it wouldn't hit as hard the second time around...but it does, because the metaphor is as powerful as ever, the filmmaking is pristine, and we get a number of twists on the formula that change things just enough to avoid the impression that we're playing the exact same game over again.
For one, Gi-hun has done this before, and he tries to use his knowledge to help as many people as possible survive. It doesn't really work, but we think it might. We also spend time with No-eul, the woman introduced last week, who's sniping people during the game of Red Light, Green Light. Getting to know the Squid Games staff could definitely add an interesting new dimension. And then there's the big reveal at the end: that the Front Man himself will join the games. We don't know why yet, but consider me curious.
The Squid Games section of this episode was a blast of lightning right to the brain, and I don't have much time for anything else. But I should mention that Jun-ho and the rest of Gi-hun's men are looking for him. Somehow the Squid Games organizers knew about the tracking device implanted in Gi-hun's tooth; they removed it and gave it to a local fisherman, so Jun-ho and the rest of the gang are clueless as to Gi-hun's real location, as are we, as is he. As Gi-hun hilariously thinks to himself, "I'm fucked."
Again, Jun-ho's section of the episode very much resembles his role from season 1: he's trying to infiltrate the Squid Games, but with a bunch of guys under his command this time. Honestly, based on this episode, Squid Game could give me a repeat of the first season and I'd probably be happy, but I think it's going to give us some twists later on, like it did with No-eul in Episode 202. Let's find out together. I'm officially psyched.
Episode Grade: A-
Episode 204: "Six Legs"
I want you to know the sacrifices I make for you. The second this episode ended, I wanted nothing more than to immediately watch the next one. After a slow start, the second season of Squid Game has sunk its hooks in me, and I have to know what happens next. But I didn't keep watching, because I needed to write this review before I poisoned myself with foreknowledge. Everyone please appreciate me now.
If you're wondering whether this episode is good, that should tell you everything you need to know. It is, especially in the back half when the players begin a new game: a six-legged relay race where each of five team members needs to complete one mini-game apiece before advancing. Not only does everyone on your team die if you don't all make it to the end before time runs out, but you need to introduce yourself to four strangers beforehand to assemble your team. Its torture all the way through.
It's also thrilling. This is a stupidly obvious thing to say, but Squid Game really comes alive when the Squid Games start. Honestly, I could take or leave the first half of the episode, but once they enter that weird candy-colored death chamber, I am all in.
Writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk pulls some brilliant bait and switches here. He quickly introduces us to two five-person teams, the first to run this deadly relay race. We don't know any of their names, so we can guess that they're all going to die, but the way he draws things out keep us on the edge of seats the whole way through. It's the little things, like the shot of the one guy's foot going over the line when he plays the ring-toss-esque game, an illegal move. That team is doomed from early on, but the other team gets much closer to the finish line, close enough that we think, "Maybe they'll make it? Maybe?" But no, both teams are mowed down. It hits hard.
And it makes me ravenous to see what happens to the next team, which is full of characters whose names we know, because they name themselves right beforehand. The mother and son are named Jang Geum-ja and Park Yong-sik. "I survived the Korean war," she says. "I will not die playing some kids game." I love her. The trans woman is named Cho Hyun-ji; she teams up with a shy newcomer named Kim Young-mi. And then there's Seon-nyeo, the strange shaman who I've had a hard time getting a handle on. She's been kind of weird and distant, but in the face of possible death, she's just as scared as anyone. That endeared me to her.
I was endeared to this whole team, especially after Hyun-ji gave them a pep talk. They're determined to survive. I want them to survive. And then the freaking episode ended before we see how they do!
Hwang Dong-hyuk has a way of quickly drawing interesting, multi-faceted characters. He has a great eye for detail. I loved little moments like Jang Geum-ja giving her rations to a pregnant contestant who's trying to hide her pregnancy; Geum-ja has delivered many babies in her community, and she can tell. I was fascinated by the way most of the players treat Cho Hyun-ji with a mix of terror and disgust; speaking about this storyline, Hwang Dong-hyuk talked about the strains of homophobia and transphobia within Korean society, reflected here with humanity and grace.
As for Gi-jun, he's on a team with a new character, a former marine bearing the number 388. One of the mini-games they have to play is considered to be a game for girls, and 388 is forced to admit that he's actually really good at it, since he grew up with sisters. So even in this crazy, life-or-death situation, this guy still has time to feel insecure about his masculinity; funny little moments like this go so far towards helping characters feel human. This show just has characters you want to root for, plain and simple. And you know things are actually at stake because the show killed people left and right last season. I want to watch!
As for the rest of the episode, there's a lot of setting up and checking in. Jun-ho and his team are still looking for Squid Games island, but without success. There may be a mole among them; my money is on the fisherman. On the island, No-eul is messing things up for the guards by killing contestants the other guards would prefer stay alive longer so they can harvest their organs. I can see that going somewhere interesting.
And then there's the Front Man's participation in the games. I don't know what to think about it. He tells Gi-jun a sob story about his suffering wife, which is probably true, but I have trouble summoning sympathy for him, if that's what the show is trying to get us to do.
And there's this one part where the Front Man and Gi-jun have a philosophical debate about whether it was right or right to vote to continue the games. The Front Man asks if any of the contestants would be happy on the outside, and Gi-jun has no response. This felt forced to me. Who knows if they'd be happy on the outside? Maybe, maybe not. But at least they'd have a chance to be happy; in here they'll definitely die. It felt like the show wanted us to stroke our chins and go, "Hmm, does the Front Man have a point?" But I didn't buy it at all. You're praying on desperate people and making them fight to the death, dude. Get f**ked.
Okay, review written. Onto Episode 5! Now, now, now!
Episode Grade: B+
Episode 205: "One More Game"
The opening chunks of "One More Game" have all the payoff I was hoping for. As I expected, Cho Hyun-ji's group makes it through the six-legged relay race, but I was still white knuckling the edge of my couch the entire time.
As usual with this show, the scene comes alive in the little details, all of which feel so much more important when every word, look and movement can mean the difference between life and death. Jang Geum-ja and Park Yong-sik are hilarious as they encourage each other through the mini-games. ("Mom, just imagine the stone is dad's mistress' face.") I like how Hyun-ji naturally settles into the leadership role in this group, with Seon-nyeo instinctively turning to her for help during her minigame. Later we learn that Hyun-hi was in the army before she was fired for transitioning, so it makes sense that she would step up like this.
After she was fired, Hyun-ji racked up debt quickly, which is how she came to be in this situation. Obviously, the Squid Games part of Squid Game is electrifying, but most of this episode is concerned with the aftermath, where the contestants hold another vote to decide whether to continue with the games or to go home with the money they already have...and a majority choose to stay.
The arguments for going and for leaving are key to what Squid Game is all about. We see lots of different shades. The middle-aged businessman, No. 100, argues that if they go home now most of them still won't have enough money to pay off their debts. He riles everyone up with cries of "One more game! One more game!" Kim Young-mi, the shy girl on Hyun-ji's team, tearfully says that she just wants to go home, but her pleas are drowned out by a roomful of gamblers high on adreneline who think they've figured out to a way to beat the system, forgetting in their mania that the house always wins. Hyun-ji, who votes to stay, feels terribly guilty about that. Thanos, who seems to be enjoying the opportunity to be a sadist, doesn't feel guilty about that or possibly about anything in his entire life. He can't die soon enough.
The vote divides mother and son, with Jang Geum-ja voting to leave and Park Yong-sik to stay; later he admits to his mom that he's in far more debt that he let on. He thinks that if they can just last one more game, he'll be able to pay off all his debts. Her retort is withering. "What if one of us gets killed before that?" she asks. "I know...maybe you'd be fine without me. But if something happens to you...I wouldn't have a reason to live, even if I make it out of here."
Geum-ja is fast becoming for the second season what Gi-hun was for the first: a core of decency to hold onto in this maelstrom. Before the vote, she invites her team over to her house for dinner, and when two of them vote to stay, she forgives them. After night falls, she convinces a guard to allow her and the pregnant girl, who's name we learn is Kim Jun-hee, to use the bathroom, crying crocodile tears and excoriating the guard for denying a sweet old motherly woman like her the right to pee.
Not only is that strategy effective, it's hysterical, which highlights another of Squid Game's strengths: it always remembers to include humor. Yes, the show is intense, more intense than any I've watched this year, but it's also ridiculous, and it rolls with that. I laughed when Gi-jun's team confidently tackled the six-legged minigame relay to what sounded like a South Korean pop version of "Eye of the Tiger," which of course cut out form the soundtrack the second they ran into trouble...and then picked back up when they got over the hump. And then it cuts out again as they cross the finish line and realize the other team across the room didn't make it. That team is brutally gunned down.
Pops of humor don't cheapen or dampen the intense, dramatic moments; they help them hit all the harder. That's something I wish more ponderous prestige dramas realized. As grim as life can get, people are always going to find a way to amuse themselves; that Squid Game acknowledges this makes its characters feel real, which means I'm going to feel real emotion when they inevitably face hardship. I can't tell you how scared I am for Geum-ja and Yonk-sik going into the next episode.
I've barely talked about Gi-jun this episode. He came into these second Squid Games a hardened, haunted man, which has made him feel kind of remote. He has a great scene this episode with his friend Park Jung-bae, who knew Gi-jun from before he got involved in the Squid Games. We see some of the old Gi-jun resurface as he bickers with his friend about whether he's a cheapskate. That put a smile on my face.
I love how careful Squid Game is when it comes to drawing its characters. I liked the little moment when we see that MC Coin, the crypto influencer and Kim Jun-hee's ex-boyfriend, voted to end the games after this latest round, probably for her sake. The one character I can't figure at all is the Front Man, who's still implanted within the Squid Games going by the name Oh Young-il. Who knows if that's his real name? Who's knows anything about why he's doing this? I understand the show is withholding the answers to these questions on purpose, but it's still irritating. These characters wear their hearts on their sleeve, but the Front Man is keeping everything hidden. He's annoyingly inaccessible.
The episode ends with the start of another game: Mingle. What fresh horrors await? I don't know if I'm ready.
Episode Grade: A-
Episode 206: "O X"
"Mingle" is another very creative entry into the Squid Games, filmed with a ton of tension and drama. The contestants all stand on a rotating platform and have to form groups of differing numbers the moment it stops, and then run with their groups into one of several rooms before the time limit runs out. Anyone who is left outside, or anyone who enters a room without the required number of people, is shot. It's simple, quick and horrifying.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, who wrote and directed all of these episodes, slows down and speeds up the action at the exact right times. There are some slo-mo shots that pulled my heart into my mouth. Which of our characters will make it into the rooms in time?
It ends up that pretty much all of them do; the only one who dies here is the gentle-hearted Kim Young-mi, which will surely lay heavy on Cho Hyun-ji's conscience. I don't want to say that I'm disappointed, exactly — I've come to like a lot of these characters — but this late in the season, I'm expecting the stakes to rise. I'm starting to worry if Squid Game isn't saving some of the real fireworks for season 3.
The real meat of the episode takes place in the iconic waiting room, where the contestants vote on whether to continue the games or to leave with the money they have. I'm happy to say that all of the characters I've come to like choose to leave this time; I have definitely taken a side in this debate. Get out of there!
But not everyone feels the same. Seon-nyeo, a character who's been hard to get a read on, has decided to take offense at other characters not immediately making space for her during the Mingle game, even though they had their own lives to worry about and she's been a weird jerk to everyone from the jump. Determined to get revenge on them, she and convinces a few terrified people to follow her and vote to stay. That's enough to offset those people who previously voted to stay who now want to leave, and the vote ends up tied.
What's the procedure? They have to vote again until there's a majority. One of the guards points out that this is stipulated in the content form they signed before they came here, which is a recurring theme; if the contestants signed a piece of paper, it makes it alright to do unspeakably horrible things to them. Just a little bit of a light comedy on the limits of contract law.
The remaining contestants are now firmly divided between those who voted to stay, who wear patches marked with an "O,"; and those who voted to leave, who wear patches with an "X." This divides them down the middle, something the organizers of the games are counting on: the moment Gi-jun realizes they've all been given metal forks for their meals, you know something is about to go down.
In this environment, it doesn't take much to start a fight. The most violent clash goes down in the men's room, where the simmering tension between Thanos and MC Coin finally bubbles over into violence. The episode ends with Thanos taking a knife to the throat, one last cliffhanger before the finale.
This is a good episode, but I feel like it's time for things to take a big turn. If the show wants to turn me into an emotional wreck on my couch, it's going to have to start killing off more of the likable characters. I don't want that, but dramatically, it's the naturaly next step. Or else they need to give us a big narrative serve. The clashes between the Xs and Os are exciting, but we saw something similar back in the first season. It's time for this second season to take that foundation and build upon it, or blow it up.
Moreover, the second season has been missing the element that I've been most curious to see: the exposure of the billionaires who are funding the Squid Games in the first place. And I'm ready for the Front Man to reveal whatever it is he's up to, at least to the audience if not the other contestants.
With Gi-hun's men closing in his location, I have hope that a big twist is coming. Onto the finale!
Episode Grade: B
Episode 207: "Friend or Foe"
The first season of Squid Game ended on a cliffhanger, but it still told a full story. We met Seong Gi-hun, we were bewildered along with him as everyone else died in the Squid Games, and we were at his side when the uber-rich creator of the games revealed that he started them because his immense wealth made it difficult for him to get excited about life. There's a full arc of a story in there.
The second season of Squid Game basically ends in the middle of its story. We don't meet any of the shady billionaires who are funding the Squid Games, Gi-hun's men on the outside are still searching for him, and none of the contestants realize that Oh Young-il and the Front Man are one and the same.
I do think this is a drawback, but of course I recognize that this is basically part one of a two-part final season, whereas season 1 was designed more to stand on its own. The third season of Squid Game will bring the series to a close, and hopefully it will answer a lot of our questions and make these episodes feel more of a piece.
As for what actually happens in "Friend or Foe," it's pretty exciting. The pool of contestants have split themselves down the middle as Xs and Os, which is by design. A few people died in the bathroom brawl that ended the last episode, including Thanos, who I was honestly hoping would have a more epic death considering how loathsome he was. Anyway, there's too much bad blood between the camps now for there to be any hope of reconciliation, and things get real Lord of the Flies, real fast.
Gi-jun is looking at the bigger picture. He knows that the Os will attack the Xs when the lights go out, hoping to pick a bunch of them off and tip the scales in their favor ahead of the vote. But he has his sights set on the real enemy: the people organizing the games. "Where are they?" Jung-bae asks? "Up there," Gi-jun answers as we switch to an overhead shot. He means they're on the upper levels, but there's a deeper, spine-tingling meaning to what he's saying: that the people organizing the games are the richest people in the world, trying to divide the desperate against themselves for their own amusement. By uniting everyone and fighting back, Gi-jun hopes to disrupt their plans.
I wish the second season of Squid Game had pulled back the curtain on the organizers more, but that's another thing we'll have to wait to see. Anyway, Gi-jun devises a plan to surprise the guards by playing dead, which requires select members of the X team to hide when the Os attack. Essentially, that's means he's going to sacrifice a bunch of contestants, which seems to please the Front Man; we still don't know why the Front Man is a part of these games, but he clearly likes hearing that Gi-jun's is willing to do some morally murky things, probably because it helps him justify to himself why mounting the Squid Games in the first place is okay.
That said, the Front Man is deeply embedding in this whole scheme. Gi-jun's plan works, his team surprises the guards, and suddenly the contestants have their hands on a bunch of guns. They try to break into the upper levels of the complex by sneaking through that bizarre pastel-colored M.C. Escher staircase room, where I'm always happy to spend time. Squid Game has terrific sets and that may be the weirdest, wildest, and best.
Anyway, a firefight between Gi-hun's army and the guards breaks out, and the team has to split up. We get some good character work here. Cho Hyun-ji, who we know used to be in the army, is excellent in the field. But Kang Dae-ho ends up having what looks like a panic attack. The both of them survive, but just barely.
That's one more thing I feel like the second season of Squid Game lacks when compared to the first: character deaths that hit hard. Sure, Thanos died, but he was a jerk. I was upset when Kim Young-mi died in Episode 6, but this deep into the season I expected more gut punches. The constant deaths are part of made the first season of Squid Game feel so tense, and as heartbreaking as it would be to lose characters like Jang Geum-ja and Park Yong-sik, I feel like the show loses some needed tension if it's not willing to put the lives of its characters on the line.
But that is, once again, something that could be remedied with season 3. As for "Friend or Foe," we do get one major death: the Front Man finally gives up the charade of trying to work with the contestants when Gi-jun and his friend Jung-bae are right at the door of the control room, albeit in a way that doesn't reveal his identity. Jung-bae, who has definitely grown on me over the course of the season, dies, and Gi-jun's rebellion is put down. That's a loss; Jung-bae had the sort of everyman likability that Gi-jun had in season 1.
A rebellion against the guards is something Squid Game viewers have been waiting to see for a long time, and even if this one ended in failure, it was awesome to watch Gi-hun try. I don't like how often in this review I had to say things like "maybe my concern will be addressed in season 3," but at least we won't have to wait very long for it. This second season of Squid Game came out over three years after the first, but the third will drop no more than a year after the second. The show remains a great watch, and I am happy to wait for the second blow of this one-two punch.
Episode Grade: B+
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