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. Spoiler warning!
Episode 1: “Bread and Lottery”
4.8 out of 5
3.95 out of 5 on IMDb
Episode 1 gives a great recap of where they left off from the last season. Gi-Hun, sometimes referred to as player 456 by fans, bought a motel for himself and hired Kim to find the salesman, which is the person who hands out the invitation to ‘the games.’ Gi-Hun offers these people ₩500,000,000 pay if they find this person. It takes around 2 years, for them to go out to the train stations all around South Korea, and then the person finds it with one of his crew members, Woo a person dressed in a black suit and a suitcase, slapping each other in the face, on the other side of the train station. They follow the salesman around and see him buying a lot of bread and lottery tickets. He goes up to an area where the homeless rest in the sun and offers each and every one of them a choice: a lottery ticket, or a bun of bread. Almost all the homeless people ended up choosing the lottery ticket, which was a lesson that the salesman was trying to teach.
Kim and Woo get caught by him and the salesman takes him to an unclassifiable room. They both play the newly introduced game, Rock Paper Scissors Minus One mixed with Russian roulette. The same was simple, they both played the classic game of rock paper scissors, but with both of their hands, then they quickly took away a hand of their liking, with little to no time to choose. The one who loses gets to play Russian roulette, which is a bullet loaded into a revolver and spun so it’s random, and there is a 1 in 6 chance of the bullet shooting. After a few rounds, the salesman chances the odds of getting shot, and makes it 5 in 6 chance of being shot, after the first round, Kim gets shot, leaving Woo alive, and traumatized.
Then, the salesman makes his way to the motel that Gi-hun owns and makes his way inside. Gi-hun becomes startled by his presence. Then Gi-hun says he wants to talk with the owner of ‘the games’. The salesman says that he can tell the owner, however, Gi-hun isn’t satisfied, and he wants to talk to him, himself. That is when the salesman offers him a round of Russian roulette. They spun the revolver on the table and Gi-hun went first, he picked up the revolver and pulled the trigger, it was blank. Then it was the salesman’s turn, yet another blank. This happened another time with the bullet not going through, and then it was Gi-hun’s turn; he became frozen, and there was a 1 in 2 chance of the bullet firing. The salesman calls him “trash and worthless and the only reason you made it out of the dumpster because you got lucky.” When he says he got lucky, it’s because he won ‘the games’ a few years ago and gained ₩456 billion from it. The salesman says that he could just pull the trigger on him and take his life, yet Gi-hun doesn’t do that. Gi-hun pulls the trigger on himself, it is a blank, which means the next shot is a bullet. The salesman pulls the trigger, admitting to his own failure, and takes his own life.
This episode was an excellent way to bring where we left off from season 1. We also saw that he still hasn’t gone to the United States to be with her daughter. Seong Gi-hun’s entire life was redirected to finding the person behind all of this. I say this is a 4.6 out of 5 stars because it introduced this friendly game, Rock Paper Scissors Minus One, and added a dark twist to it, which all the games have in general in this series. I took away a tiny amount of points from my rating because I felt as if this whole salesman business should’ve deserved more attention, considering he’s a beloved character by the community, and him getting more attention this season, makes them wish he got even more. We never really know what it’s like to be enrolled to work in ‘the games’ and the salesman had some more potential with that. This got above a 4 because like every episode for “Squid Game,” it’s something really high quality. Hwang Dong-hyuk, the film director who created the Squid Games show, had mastered the season’s return.
Episode 2: “Halloween Party”
4 out of 5
3.65 out of 5 on IMDb
The second episode starts with Jun-Ho, a police officer, breaking into Gi-Hun’s room and saying he’d be arrested for suspected murder. Jun-Ho lost his brother in ‘the games,’ and Gi-Hun won it, so they instead decided to work together to find the games and put an end to it. That’s when Woo arrives at their room in the motel and exclaims what had happened to Kim, and then he sees the salesman and stays in total shock. Gi-Hun goes into the ‘money room,’ and they see a bed with a load of money on top of it, which is Gi-Hun’s reward for playing the games; then, he shows his shooting range with all the weapons he’s collected throughout the years. He says they could take any weapons they’d like to revolt against the games. They call the game managers, saying that Gi-Hun can be picked up on a Halloween rave later that night. Gi-Hun was already prepared to go to the games because he had installed a tracker in his back tooth, which no one would suspect, so the rest of the crew would be able to find Gi-Hun and the island that he was on.
They make their way to the rave, and Gi-Hun finds one of the square guards from the games; he follows him. Woo, finds one of the people in pink suits, and he gets tased by them. Jun-Ho notices that Gi-Hun is leaving the building, and he tells the other armed crew members to prepare. Gi-Hun enters a white limousine and takes off, the rest follow the limousine. Gi-Hun talks to the Frontman, the former owner of the games, and Gi-Hun wishes to return to the games, which would help the rest of the crew to find where the games take place. As Gi-Hun gets driven away to the games, the other crew members try following along, but their car tire becomes deflated by a distant sniper guard.
Episode 2 was not the best. One of the things that lacked complete explanation was a scene where a girl in debt goes into a room located inside the truck and puts on a black mask. Fans speculate that she is clearly going into the games as a guard, but it is definitely a scene that lacks detail, and is really upsetting that we don’t get to see her in future episodes. This episode is a safe 4/5 because no tragedy or conflict takes place and it’s a pretty easygoing episode.
