The second season of the most successful Netflix series, Squid Game, was released on December 26, 2024. This season was just as successful as the first, as millions of people who watched the first season wanted to see what would happen next. I truly recommend this series; it’s a great thriller. I researched the second season and watched it twice to give you my full opinion and what to expect from it.
Episode 3: “001”
5 out of 5
3.9 out of 5 on IMDb
Gi-Hun wakes up in the sleeping hall with another 455 people. Gi-Hun was back to being Player 456 yet another time. Most of the people there are very confused about what was going on, however, 456 knew perfectly well what was happening. The square guard introduces all 456 individuals to what the game will be. It was the same as the last season, but with one difference: players can vote if they want to continue playing or not, the majority wins, and the money would be divided among all the people.
The people line up to sign their lives away to a contract agreeing to participate in the games and follow along and accept the fact that losing leads to elimination, or in that matter, death. They also offer players the option to opt out of the game and not sign the contract, which none do. Gi-Hun, or Player 456, signs the contract, knowing that his life is now at risk of death. They go to the room to take their picture, and Thanos, a rapper, makes an appearance with a lot of fans. The guard tells them that he would not be able to take a picture with all his fans. After everyone got their pictures taken, they follow along a long complex of stairs to their next game, Red Light, Green Light. A game where, if the doll is not looking, during “Green Light” the people can move freely, and during “Red Light”, where the doll is facing the players, they must stay absolutely still, else they will be eliminated.
The scene switches to the crew who were tracking down Gi-Hun with the tracker. Then, back to Gi-Hun, he starts digging his finger into his fake tooth, where the tracker was. He pulls out his tooth, and the tracker wasn’t under it. The scene goes back to the crew; they find his tracker inside a dish of fish bait. That’s when Gi-Hun realized that it was over for him, and there was no way for the crew to locate him. Gi-Hun decides to take action and go ahead of the other players and tells everyone to listen to him, and tells everyone that if they move after Red Light, they will be shot and the doll’s eyes are motion-tracking (36:00). Everyone else didn’t belive him, they didn’t believe the fact that they could potentially die playing a children’s game, them, the game began.
After a few rounds of Red Light, Green Light, the first victim moves, Player 196. After her death, everyone else became freaked out and started running towards their entrance and banging on the door. That’s when a large quantity of the player base got eliminated. At the end, everyone returns to the sleeping hall with all the beds, and the guard introduces the results of the next game: out of 456 players, only 365 of them survived. Player 456 points out that in the contract they signed, they had the right to make a vote to terminate the game if the majority wish to do so, which gives a lot of people relief. But before that, the guard shows the money gained after the first game, ₩9.1 billion (6.4 million USD) had accumulated from the first game.
If they wish to end the games now, each one of them would leave with ₩24,931,500 (17,439 USD). People then notice that if they keep playing the games, more money will be accumulated, they change their minds on leaving, and they’re no longer desperate to leave the games. Then they started voting, that’s when Player 456, Gi-Hun, points out that he had played these games before and says he had gotten the full cash prize. The votes took place, and the last player needed to vote, which was 001, would be the tiebreaker since the score was 182 to 182 to leave or stay.
This episode was the best one out of them all, which is why I gave it a 5 out of 5 rating. It’s one plot twist after the other here. This episode was the climax of this season. The first reason is that Gi-Hun lost his tracker, so he will have to play the games as was intended, and then the other plot twist is that the Frontman was playing as Player 001. Also, we get unforgettable new characters, like Player 230, Thanos. Player 124, Nam-Gyu. Player 044, Seon-Nyeo. Player 120, Hyun-Jun. That would be just a tiny number of the grand number of iconic players that this episode introduces. This was a great episode to introduce the games, and to reintroduce them to us watching it.
Episode 4: “Six Legs”
4.5 out of 5
3.8 out of 5 on IMDb
After everyone realized that Player 456 played the games before, they started questioning him about what the next games would be. Some had so much trust in him that they voted to continue the games since he knew what he was doing. Then Player 456 finally tells them, “Dalgona’s the next thing we’re playing” (4:26). This amused people and overestimated 456’s knowledge. Everyone got a sense of trust in him. Then, when they were eating, Player 333 and Player 230 get into a fight, and it takes Player 001 to stop the fight. Then, in another scene, Triangle Guard 11 gets in trouble with the leading square guard in a black suit because she was killing everyone rather than leaving them paralyzed from the first game.
The leader guard wanted to sell as many organs as possible, and for that to happen, the organs needed to be in great shape. Guard 11 refuses to leave them suffer in pain and leave them paralyzed since she became a guard to help people end their pain, not to torture them. Then, when the players went to sleep, Player 456 had a nightmare where they played the Dalgona cookie game, where players were required to carve out a shape out of a cookie, with a triangle being the most straightforward shape. In this nightmare, everyone had lined up on the same line to get a triangle, which was supposedly the easiest shape to carve out. Then Player 456 opens up his tin, and it is an absurd triangle with many tiny triangles around each other. Then, the other players started complaining about the fact that the cookie shape was absurd. Then Player 456 wakes up, realizing it was all just a nightmare.
The following day arrived and the players were ready to play the next game, Six Legs, where five people had their legs strapped together and they had to work together for every one of them to play five different games: Ddakji, where one tries to flip over the piece of paper on the floor with another sheet of paper. Jegichagi had to kick an item and keep it up in the air for five kicks; players in the innermost legs couldn’t win this game. In Gong-gi, you had to throw five small pebbles up and catch all of them in a particular sequence. Paengi chigi, or Spinning Top, you had to make a top spin, and it was much more complicated than they expected. Biseokchigi, they had to throw a small rock at a small tombstone-shaped rock and knock it down successfully. Player 456 lost all his trust when he realized that they had changed the games.
This was a 4.5 out of 5 for me because it was really relieving to know that they had changed the games to keep it fresh and original. This new game was also creative, five games in one. Something that viewers love is skill games and not ones that require strength, physiques, or randomness, and this game did just that; it was up to the player’s skill to be able to complete the game.
