Squid Game Season 2 Premiere Recap

(Editor’s note: The second episode recap will appear on December 27.)

Two people managed to leave the island where the final episode of the games took place; It remains to be seen whether any of them actually survived.

Let’s get back to Hwang Dong-hyuk’s unexpected global hit Squid gameafter its explosive popularity; its spread into the world of Halloween costumes, mobile games, and reality shows; Two years have passed since the widespread MrBeast verification of what was once one of the most heartbreaking satires on television in years, and Seong Gi-hun has gone crazy – or close enough, if it doesn’t make a difference. Hides out in a run-down motel, has a gun in his hand from the start, and even plays a few games of his own – paying his old loan shark billions of his blood-earned prize money to launch a city-wide manhunt for the man, who recruited him into the competitions in the first place and offered huge prizes to the lucky idiot who first discovered him – Gi-hun is not a man on a mission, but rather a man possessed. For much of the Netflix import’s first season, Lee Jung-jae took a scalpel to every ounce of the goofy charm he brought to this character, leaving behind nothing but night sweats and steel. Gi-hun spends most of “Bread And Lottery” in a state of tense passivity, watching, waiting and occasionally twitching; It’s only at the end of the episode that Lee lets us in on the simmering anger that still fuels the man’s obsessive drive to find the masterminds behind the games.

Hwang Jun-ho, on the other hand – as I would argue was also the case in the first season of the series – is caught in a slightly less compelling situation Squid gamethe more standard mystery series, the better it could have ended up in less consistently capable hands. After most likely surviving the bullet he sustained in the shoulder after confronting his brother, former Games competitor/current Games standout In-ho, last season, Jun-ho returned to police work and chose to serve in the world of transportation where there is little at stake in enforcement. In his free time, he works with the fishing captain who saved his life to search for the island where the games took place – without success. Bread And Lottery has its fair share of clunky performances to get the audience back on their feet, and Jun-ho is often the one who doesn’t get it; Both the fishing captain and his former police chief helpfully explain the circumstances of his own life, while Wi Ha-joon grins happily along. (The captain found him hanging from a buoy, that’s why he didn’t drown; no one from the police believes his story, but his boss helped him keep his job. All caught up?) Like later scenes in which he Credit infiltrates shark offices or other basic detective work, these are such moments of the procedure probably necessary, but never reach the level of entertainment. Squid game was always at its worst when it got too caught up in the larger plot, and as the face of that side of its formula, Jun-ho will never be my favorite part of this series

But enough with the complaints about the plot, the character discussions, or all that other boring shit: how about this the games? “Bread And Lottery” makes you wait, and doesn’t reintroduce Gong Yoo’s nameless recruiter into the equation until he suddenly – with the signature sound of “slap-on-skin” – reaches the episode’s 25-minute mark. Once he’s in the game, however, Hwang wastes no time reminding the audience of the uncomfortable way the games’ agents mix apparent altruism, simple rules, and underlying cruelty into a cocktail of uncomfortable “fairness.” The first case is perhaps the most disturbing, but also the least violent: We (plus the loan shark and his favored henchman) watch as the recruiter brings 100 rolls and 100 scratch cards to a park and invites a group of homeless people to choose: Bread? Or lottery? The most disturbing thing about the entire sequence, which gives us many glimpses of Gong’s blank smile, is the way it becomes increasingly clear that the recruiter is not doing this as part of his role for the games. Proof that people will almost always take the risk of big money over the certainty of having food in their stomachs is apparently the way this madman blows off steam.

Gong – who grew up in the South Korean romantic comedy factories before making his international breakthrough with his leading role in a zombie film Train to Busan– was a small but memorable part of Squid gameis the first season. Here he gets the chance to become far unhinged, first by frantically stomping on the unselected food in front of the hungry poor, and then when he captures Gi-hun’s agents and forces them to eat a bizarre mix Rock, paper, scissors and Russian roulette. There are elements of this later scene (and the accompanying scene where he plays against Gi-hun at the episode’s climax) that veer toward the silly; The forced classical music in particular borders on trite Joker shit. But as the games go on and the revolver’s drum turns, Squid game picks up the hypnotic rhythm that made it so driving in the final days of 2021, the unsettling intersection between choice, fate and death that comes when you realize that the rules dictate that one of these lives inevitably comes to an end. Part of the reason this show worked then and now is because it knows how to make you feel trapped; When loan shark Mr. Kim is faced with the terrible choice of killing his subordinate or killing himself, it’s unclear whether he’s acting out of altruism or terror. What Is What is certain is that he knows he is going to die.

This brings us back to the final scenes and what kind of protagonist Seong Gi-hun will be in this second round of the games. The outcome of this final game of Russian roulette is beyond question – what we get is the only dramatically satisfying way to play off this kind of story beat – but the arguments Lee and Gong throw back and forth at each other are the real meat but spectators that you can get involved with. Both men acknowledge whoever is holding the gun could Just shoot the other guy, saving his own life at the cost of violating the rules of the game. We know well enough why the recruiter doesn’t do this and chooses to die rather than admit that the forces he’s so consistently killed in service of are just a bunch of arbitrary nonsense. Gi-hun is much more of a closed box: Is he pulling the trigger on principle, with a 50/50 chance of blowing his brains out? A desire for self-esteem? Or does he just not care whether he lives or dies? It’s fascinating to see how Lee’s mask of calm shows the slightest flicker around the edges, but it doesn’t give me any immediate answers. He tells us that he wants to send a message to the Games organizers; His mask cracks a little as he demands the recruiter admit that he’s just a better-fed breed of dog who lives and dies at the whims of his master. But how far is he willing to go? consequences the rules to prove they don’t matter? This is the most compelling question Squid game has just in his arsenal.

“Bread And Lottery” itself is a beast that serves two masters. By default, it has to complete the essential tasks of getting a second season of a TV show back on track after a very long three-year absence. (Including the introduction of some future players, such as a couple played by Im Si-wan and Jo Yu-ri, the latter of whom introduces the concept of pregnancy into the games in a way that gives you goosebumps.) And so the audience must remember Why This show was important to them from the start. It accomplishes the former task inelegantly, downplaying the exposition and table setting in a perfunctory manner (and with a strangely incongruous soundtrack). The latter task is completely and compulsively brought to mind by the audience Why Just by depicting simple games of tug-of-war or marbles, this show managed to win their hearts. It’s not just the violence; It’s not even desperation. This is how the villains keep reminding their victims that they are doing it chose to be there; that what is happening to them is with their own consent and is their own fault. This ugly paternalism, expressed here primarily through Gong’s almost unshakable grin, has always been the true horror Squid gameand it’s what gets me hooked again after so long without its black and bitter charm.

Crazy observations

• • Welcome to our episodic coverage of the second season of Squid game! From now on we will publish a new review every day until we have covered the entire season.
• • As for the format, I should note that I’m watching the series in Korean with English subtitles. I also stick to the rule that I don’t watch an episode until I’ve finished writing the previous review, so any review for future episodes should be spoiler-free. (No promises about the comments.)
• • It could always be a coincidence, but when Hwang keeps asking the fishing captain “Captain Hwang” (aka Jun-ho) where the hell he’s taking everyone to, it kind of feels like a meta-commentary from the series creator.
• • Our opening scenes add a nice surreal element to the pre-timeskip material, especially the part where a naked Gi-hun cuts some sort of tracker out of his ear while still wearing his bizarre bright red hair.
• • The episode’s plot also plays with coincidences or perhaps fate, including the part where Jun-ho almost meets Gi-hun after he is pulled over for speeding.
• • Interesting strange visual touch for an episode that mostly stays in the real world: the recruiter gags the loan shark and his henchman with rubber gags shaped like dog bones. (See also the artificial clouds of Gi-hun’s hotel window, which mimic the surrealistic backgrounds of the playground.)
• • I can’t read the end credits of the show, so unfortunately I can’t find out if Park Hae-soo and Jung Ho-yeon came back to play their own severed heads in Gi-hun’s dream sequence. One can only hope.
• • And if you want my essential critical reading of the show’s first season – including the tour de force of its second episode, “Hell”, then I wrote an essay about it here.