PremiumSquid Game Season 2: Anticipation breeds anticipation in a sequel far from S(e)oul
Squid Game 2 is brilliant when it sticks to telling the story, but haphazard when it forgets redemption arcs for the games.
Last Updated: 12.30 AM, Dec 27, 2024
Squid Game Season 2 Review: Plot - So Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) did not take that flight. He decided to stay back and find the root of Squid Game and finish it once and for all. But will that be easy? Clearly not, when two determined men are doing the task on the ground, and neither has a breakthrough. In another part of this world, Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), the police officer, is busy finding the Island where his brother is running the show. When they join forces, there is finally a breakthrough, and now Gi-hun must go back into the game to stop it once and for all. But will his plan work? We are back in the games, and things are getting murkier than they ever were.
Squid Game Season 2 Review: Analysis
To understand what worked in favor of Squid Game season 1, other than a crackling script and stellar performances, one must look at the release time. We were all slowly moving out of captivation by a virus that had made the entire world a playground like the show. 2021 brought season one, which probably replicated our captivation. Of course, the PPE kits were replaced by bright pink soldier uniforms, and in their hands were vaccines but guns. The show brought a man fighting to his full potential, trying to break free and take home a lot of money to end his problems. We all felt it and cheered simultaneously. The formula is now already seen; the times are more favorable to the normal world—will claustrophobia still work like it did three years ago? Well, we need to dissect that.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of the two seasons, has already confessed he is done with the IP and that the streamer brought him back. So when he makes a season probably against his will (maybe just initially) for commerce, it indeed is the maker going against his own idea of the show. Squid Game 2 returns for the second time with a fresh start. We see Seong skipping the flight and moving to Seoul to lie low and continue his hunt for the recruiter. He has hired a team of rookies to find him from Subway to Subway and is spending millions of won on them. The idea is simple: we now move toward either the end of the game or the end of Gi-hun, and either way, it is drama to the next level.
The beginning of the new season is unparalleled. Hwang Dong-hyuk writes some of the most fleshed-out women characters in this universe. There is a pregnant girl who wants to win big, her vlogger boyfriend being shamed for a wrong piece of advice leading to losses for many people, a mother-son duo who is here to pay the son's debts, a shaman confident about her callings, and a better upgrade from the irritating praying man from season one. These are all beautiful characters because there is so much to explore through them. Imagine a pregnant woman contesting in the Squid Game—what can be scarier than that thought?
But Hwang Dong-hyuk takes a U-turn from the point he is done introducing all these characters and remixes everything he has done in the first season with more brutality. Of course, the games change, but not the perspective, making it all look like a rehash of the first season with new characters. Of course, that gives the adrenaline the fans seek, but even the new story needs to move ahead with this. Seong Gi-hun has come in to end these games, and just playing them one after the other only to realize, “Oh, I had to destroy the establishment” in the finale episode—which is not really a finale.
Whoever in the writer's room was okay with the idea of catering anticipation with more anticipation in a season that has already made the fans wait for three long years needs to be sent for the next round of Squid Game. How do you justify that the most interesting storylines of the show never grow beyond “We care for each other” or “I need to save myself”? Remember the last season's finale where Park Hae-soo ends up killing himself after having one of the most delicious character arcs? This season lacks exactly that because it is busy chasing commerce and puts creating a story out of lucrative parts on the back burner.
Most of it screams FANS WANT THIS to the top of its voice and loses balance too soon in the season after having spent two episodes only locating where the Squid Game is. Add to it poor Jun-ho is reduced to an unsuccessful Dora The Explorer who cannot find anything and never asks questions to his audience. His complete arc, which, by the way, was the most moving one last season, becomes so pointless this time around that you cannot really help but ignore him after a point, just like the makers do. Jumping back to Gi-hun, just like the makers did, even Lee Jung-jae’s brilliant performance, which only gets better, cannot be saved because he isn't well-equipped to have the same speed as the last season. Add to it, there are so many chances for the Front Man to just kill him and end this, but he chooses to fool around like he knows the makers want them to combat hand-to-hand someday.
Credit where it's due, the detailing in Squid Game 2 continues to be top-notch. The little things, like the soldiers now having a character and an arc, or how they are more than their pink suits now, add so much to the viewing experience. A Guard played by Park Gyu-young gets a moving storyline of a mother in the quest of finding her child but is also a guard in the Squid Game. While it is a banger of a parallel track, season 2 does nothing with it and is mostly wasted. The acting performances are solid, and the set design is great; it is the execution that wastes a lot of time on things that are less important (like the voting process we see entirely thrice or more) and keeps the important things for the next season, relying a lot on the future.
Squid Game Season 2 Review: Final Verdict
Hwang Dong-hyuk still has the magic in him, and you see the sparks fly multiple times throughout, but they are fading because of the fan service expectations from the show. Squid Game needs its unapologetic, non-conforming soul back, where stories are being told rather than making shock-value sequences.
Squid Game season 2 is now streaming on Netflix. Stay tuned to OTTplay for more information on this and everything else from the world of streaming and films.