The first season of Squid Game dropped on Netflix in 2021 and became a smash hit no one saw coming. When the dust had settled, this Korean-language series about a group of deeply indebted people forced to fight to the death against each other in the hopes of winning a huge cash prize had become the most successful original series in the history of Netflix. Maybe it was that we were all staying inside during the pandemic. Maybe it was the way the show reflected what people everywhere were feeling about the growing divide between super-rich and the rest of us: for a lot of folks, everyday life can feel like the Squid Games, as they work themselves to death while billionaires sit back and reap the benefits. Or maybe it was just that Squid Game is a well-made, richly imagined series with a great cast. Probably a little bit of everything.
The first season introduced us Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a working class guy and divorced dad who enters the mysterious Squid Games hoping for a chance to get rich quick, and soon learns that it can only happen if he's the last one standing, meaning that the hundreds of other contestants have to die. The first season takes him on a full arc: he goes from innocent layabout to desperate survivor to jaded winner who has all the money he could possibly need...but he can't enjoy it since he knows it was bought with blood. He ends season 1 vowing to take down the people behind the Squid Games and end them once and for all.
Season 1 ends with the promise of a new story beginning, but it still tells a more-or-less complete tale. That isn't the case with this second season, which ends in the middle. The third and final season will wrap up the whole saga.
And that's acceptable, especially since the third season is already shot and will be coming out sometime in 2025; we'll have to wait a year most to see how everything ends rather than three years to see how it continues. Still, there's a sense that Squid Game is saving some of its best material for that final lap. There's a lot of thrilling stuff here, but there's also stuff from season 1 that season 2 didn't follow up on, hopefully because its time hasn't come yet.
Let's get into some of the details, while still keeping things spoiler-free:
Squid Game season 2 SPOILER-FREE review
The second season of Squid Game has two fewer episodes than the first: seven versus nine. And season 2 takes longer to ramp up than season 1. The first two episodes mainly follow Seong Gi-hun as he tries to make good on his promise to find the people behind the games. While they're entertaining enough, they feel slower and less tense that fans expect from this show. Things don't get really interesting again until Gi-hun finds himself back in the games.
Once that happens, the season takes off. We meet a colorful cast of new characters, come to love some and hate others, and watch with hearts in our throats as they participate in a series of deadly games, some of which we remember from the first season and some of which are brand new. My personal favorite characters were Jang Geum-ja and Park Yong-sik, a mother and son who find themselves competing together. And there's a rapper named Thanos whom I wanted dead immediately. When you meet him you'll know why.
It's interesting that these middle episodes more or less repeat the formula from the first season, right down to police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) trying to stop the Squid Games from the outside, although this time he has more support. We even get another game of Red Light, Green Light. You might think that this would feel repetitive, but I was on the edge of my seat during these sections. These scenes are unbearably tense to watch, with all credit going to the actors and to Squid Game writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk. The man just knows how to construct a scene. I also like that he throws in a lot of humor around the edges. This is a very serious situation, but learning about the characters' funny little foibles adds a lot of humanity to the story. The jokes are much funnier when everything else is so serious, and the dramatic parts hit much harder because we're given little comic relief breaks in between.
We do get some twists. For one thing, Gi-hun has done this before, so he tries his best to prepare the other contestants for what's coming. They organizers of the Squid Games make some changes to the voting system that shake things up in interesting ways, a surprising person joins the contestant pool, and we follow around one of the guards, which gives us a new perspective on the games.
Also, Gi-hun has his sights set on the prize this time: bringing down the games themselves. In the season finale, he executes on a daring plan that's too good to spoil here. Let's just say it's been a long time coming.
But with another season left to go, it probably won't surprise you to learn that the plan doesn't come to full fruition. I was also hoping that this second season would pull the curtain further back on the people who are putting the games together in the first place, but that's yet another thing the show seems to be holding back until season 3.
And this sounds like a bit of a sociopathic complaint, but I was hoping this season would kill more characters. People die, of course; these are the Squid Games and no one gets out unscathed. But there were fewer emotional gut punches that I was expecting, which isn't the kind of thing you realize you want until they don't come. I suspect they're saving some of that drama for — you guessed it — season 3.
It's hard to give the second season of Squid Game a proper grade because because so much of its success hinges on what happens in season 3. But I definitely enjoyed watching it and think most fans will too. The big picture may still be coming into focus, but the snapshots we get in season 2 are unforgettable.
Squid Game season 2 grade: B+
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.