Squid Game S1 was a global phenomenon and an unexpected hit for Netflix. There has been much made of the drama and advertisements for S2. Any drama would have a hard time living up to those expectations. Season 2 wasn’t perfect but was still entertaining given its middle child syndrome.

Instead of joining his child with his new won wealth, Gi Hun becomes obsessed with finding those in power and ending the games. Armed with 45.6 billion won he hires his old loan shark to locate the games’ recruiter. Officer Hwang now works in the traffic division with most of the police force thinking he’s lost his mind when he rambles on about the murderous games. With the help of a fishing boat captain, he searches for the elusive island. Eventually, the two survivors of S1 find each other and devise a plan to bring down the cruelly sadistic creators of the deadly competition. Gi Hun ends up back in the games and as before there are those who want to go home and those who want to see how much money they can win regardless of how many people must die.

The players this year included an influencer in a disastrous crypto business, a drug addicted and psychotic rapper, a mother and son, a pregnant young woman, a trans woman, an old friend, a deranged shaman, and an obvious plant. This time around there were people who had lost billions of won/millions of dollars. There was one mole known to all who watched the first season with plenty of hints for the clueless players to put together. The second secret plant was overly obvious from early on for the audience. As before there were unexpected heroes and cowards. The focus shifted slightly more to the players and their teams as people picked sides of whether to vote to stay or go. There were new games and an old one, all as insidious and barbarous as S1 for those who need their daily dose of gore and carnage.

Gi Hun could be a difficult player to root for. By the time he made a catastrophic choice I suppose he saw everyone as already dead. He certainly wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. Hwang also didn’t choose his allies too wisely. There were only a handful of characters I hoped would make it through to the end, and that’s if a person has small hands. S1 taught me to not become too emotionally attached to any of them.

The acting ranged from excellent to over the top to barely had a pulse. There were characters who were killed that scarcely made a ripple in the puddles of blood. The production values were once again of a high quality and the writing was nicely paced. I wasn’t bothered by the cliffhanger knowing there was a S3 scheduled. Sometimes it takes a third installment to take down Sauron or Darth Vader.

While S2 didn’t have the element of surprise that S1 had, it was still a solid effort. The characters who valued life, theirs and others showed the quandary of wanting to stay alive and also of having a life to go back to. As the money poured into the giant translucent pig other players’ greed and gold fever broke out over them in a lascivious sweat. Traitors lurked in the open and in the shadows. The games of the “have nots” on full display for the “have everythings” once again showed the disparity between the desperate and the bored. I wasn’t sure SGS1 needed a sequel but I’ll stick around and see how the writers decide to conclude the multi-tentacled story.

31 December 2024