Squid Game Season Two Review

“We’ve played these games before”

More than three years after the show’s debut, Netflix released the highly anticipated second season of Squid Game. Season two follows the plot chronologically and follows the protagonist Seong Gi-hun’s story as the sole survivor of the previous deadly contest.

Overall, despite retaining many of the aspects of the first season, season two was surprisingly refreshing with new games, fresh and exciting characters, and a fantastic use of dramatic irony through the Frontman’s infiltration as a player. For many, it was the cast that made the show. Rapper T.O.P, or Choi Seung-hyun, played Player 230, who went by the moniker “Thanos.” Thanos’ broken yet lyrical English served as a necessary comedic relief to the intensity of the show and faced the language barrier issues of season one head-on in a hilarious fashion. Similarly, other characters, such as Player 120, Player 333, and Player 007, maintained the nuance in personalities already established in season one. Each and every character has at least an understandable, albeit often questionable, motive for risking their lives for the 45.6 billion Won.

Viewers, of course, took to social media to react and share their opinions on the show fueled by the timely release of popular YouTuber Mr. Beast’s Beast Games, a reality TV show inspired by Squid Game, and the second season was perhaps equally viral online as the first. TikTok memes and edits on memorable lines, many from the aforementioned Thanos, both satirized and promoted the show. In addition, the second season also led to the resurgence of minigames inspired by Squid Game on the sandbox platform Roblox, and the multitude of clips and highlights from said Roblox games also spread rampant on social media.

However, the show was nonetheless criticized. While the season remained just as intense and riveting as the first, the cliffhanger ending was quite disappointing for many viewers. Thus, perhaps the most frequent complaint was the abundance of unresolved plot threads, including an entire storyline that seemingly amounted to nothing. However, due to the fact that seasons two and three were filmed back to back, the third season of Squid Game is expected to release in 2025, and will hopefully conclude the numerous newly introduced yet unexplored threads. Of course, the second season also lacks the ominous mystique of the first season. Each and every game no longer felt as pressing, as intimidating, even though the consequences are just as dire. While the show continued its ruthless streak by killing off heroic and loved characters, deaths no longer served as the stabs in the heart they were originally.

It’s hard for a sequel to live up to the original work, and while the second season of Squid Game also didn’t accomplish this feat, it certainly didn’t disappoint. Furthering the plot with some additional twists and turns, it’s definitely worth a watch, if not at the very least for the purpose of keeping up with the memes across all short-form content platforms.

Ethan Yuan