After an agonising three-year wait, the global phenomenon, Squid Game, is back for season 2, and fortunately, it’s just as exhilarating. Squid Game 2 brutal and brilliant in equal measure, and if you enjoyed the blood and gore of the first season, you’re certainly going to love this second installment. If you can mind the beginning, that is, which does drag a bit, until, of course, the momentum builds after which, there’s never a dull moment.
Squid Game 2 takes off three years after the bloodbath of season 1, which saw the killings of 455 players, leaving the sole survivor and winner of the contest, player number 456 aka Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae), with the 465 million won cash prize. However, Gi-hun, who had initially planned his escape, has decided to now use the blood money to seek revenge on the very perpetrators who devised these deadly games, especially the suave recruiter (Gong Yoo) who initiates the recruiting process. The other survivor is Detective Hwang Jun-ho, who miraculously escaped his death after it was revealed that the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), one of the chief engineers of the game, turned out to be none other than his brother, a former cop, Hwang In-ho.
The show starts with a series of car chases, gunshots and a few killings along the way, as these two survivors join hands. But their plans go awry, as Gi-hun finds himself back as player No. 456, in the neon pink, green and yellow facility, waiting for the bloody horrors to unfold.
His fellow participants, a motley crew of drowned-in-debt participants which include a mother and son with insurmountable debt, a former cryptocurrency influencer (Yim Si-wan), a pregnant woman who lost money due to bad investments ( Jo Yu-ri), a former marine suffering from trauma (Kang Ha-neul), a trans-feminine character (Park Sung-hoon), and an egomaniacal rapper called Thanos.
The games begin again with Red Light, Green Light, and the automated doll overseeing the proceedings. Gi-hun warns the contestants that elimination means death, but no one pays heed to him. As the the participants are given the choice after each game to vote in favour of continuing or discontinuing with the games, the director, Hwang Dong Hyuk, zooms his lens on the socio-political question, one which is also currently plaguing the world: is the choice of the majority always right?
We also get a glimpse into human avarice and greed, as the Recruiter tempts possible participants with bread and a scratch card, all opting for the latter, without knowing their outcome. What unfolds later, highlights the rapacity of the players who can hurt and kill another in their need to survive, but at what cost?
All seven episodes of Squid Game 2 are high on gore and violence. Somewhere along the series, there’s also a big twist thrown in, which we’ll let you discover on your own. The show also has a rather quirky musical score which includes operatic pieces woven into the bloody premise. Though it retains the flavour of its predecessor, Squid Game 2 struggles a bit in pace, and the storytelling gets uneven in places. We are far from done with these games though, as season 2 ends on a cliffhanger, leading to the final season 3, which is currently in the works.