After unprecedented levels of success achieved by the first season, Squid Games, a Korean thriller show, has returned for season two on Netflix. Squid Games improved from a debut of 11 million viewers in 2021 to a massive 68 million when it came out recently in 2024. My main pro from watching Season one during the COVID-19 lockdown was how different the story felt from what was trending at the time. This is what still makes Squid Games increasingly popular to this day.
Squid Games is fresh, tense, and was able to effectively communicate the message of the negatives of living in a capitalistic society by placing the characters dealing with poverty in life-or-death situations so they can try to escape the oppressions they face. This unique and ultimately very entertaining premise is what keeps viewers watching on the edge of their seats.
When season two was announced, I was excited but also apprehensive that the season would just be the main character, Seong Gi-Hun, returning to the competition and playing the same games, with no real change in the storyline, even if his motivations had changed from Season one.
Thankfully, this was not the case at all in season two. The new season strongly builds on the environment created in the first season, but through the nine episodes, the viewers follow three different plotlines. The main one being Gi-Hun’s return to the game after winning last in the season. This time Gi-Hun comes back to destroy the games once and for all. He’s accompanied by an eclectic combination of characters including his best friend, a few military veterans, a mother-son duo, a rapper, a pregnant girl, and a potential ally in Player 001.
In Squid Games, the games and the development of the group’s connection with each other is the highlight of the season. Similar to the first season, the writers create a cast of characters that the audience is rooting for and feels connected to, which makes all their situations seem real and stressful.
The conclusion of this season is strong and explosive, literally. The subplots that were made to follow, however, aren’t as well done. They end up dragging and don’t seem to impact the storyline much. Though they might be a set-up for Season three, they had truly no development at all from when they started. It felt like a missed opportunity to have all these characters seem important when they just ended up doing nothing and being confused all season, but we’ll have to wait and see. Speaking of Season three, the release date was accidentally leaked on the Youtube Netflix Korea account, with a tentative date of June 25, 2025. So, if you’re waiting in anticipation to see who lives, dies, and the conclusion to Gi-Hun’s story, you won’t have to wait long.
