Squid Game, a South Korean dystopian thriller TV series written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix, had become a cultural phenomenon overnight. Everyone talked about Squid Game during the initial days of its release. The series itself consisted of a secret contest between 456 players who are reeling through financial distress and poverty. They have to play children’s games—a zero-sum kind, where you have to risk death if you lose–with each other and win. The prize money is 45.6 billion.
In the first season, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a divorced father and indebted gambler who lives with an ailing mother, enters the game and wins. What was thrilling about the series itself was its games—childhood ones—but lethal if you lose. Players compete but also ally with one another to win games.
In these games, the players have to wear the green track and are always kept under watch at all times by masked guards in pink jumpsuits. The games are overseen by the frontman, who wears a black mask and a black jumpsuit. Each player’s death contributes a million to the winning total. So, for someone to win the Squid Game, the other 455 players must be eliminated.
The ending of the first season hints that Gi-hun feels dismayed by his mother’s death and is depressed by the prospect of deaths all around him through the games. He now vows to stop these games altogether.
Three years later, Squid Game 2 is plotted with Gi-hun, who is again the lead, to put an end to the games altogether. So, initially, we see him hire private detectives to track down the messenger, who lures and recruits people into games. Later, we see Gi-hun enter the games to see that the games are stopped.
Outside, detective Jun-ho and his team of private recruits are searching for the island where these games are conducted. Inside, because now the rules allow for the games to stop if the majority agrees to it, Gi-hun tries to convince people to stop the competition. Gi-hun is now united and is in alliance with his best friend from the first season, Park Jung-bae, and an ex-marine Dae-ho. Oh Il-nam is seen controlling the games, sipping his drinks, and listening to music. But he entered the game as a player 001 now and voted to continue in the crucial vote to stop the games.
There is as much thrill in the second season as there was in the first. The ending of season two sets the stage for what might come in the third season. The twisted ending keeps us gripped, guessing what we might expect in the final season of the Squid Game.
While it has been charged that usually, the extension of a season for a near-perfect series—like Squid Game—was unnecessary, and importantly, the sequels to other series have been a disappointment. So, when I was thinking of watching the Squid Game again, my scepticism was at its peak. I did not feel disappointed at the end. To my surprise, I felt all the more excited about what might follow next. So, season 2 is not a full story; it is just a half–and ended with a cliffhanger to continue the third season.
In the final season, we might expect an intense showdown between Gi-hun and Oh Il-nam, two characters who seem to be in alliance with each other in this season. The Squid Game season three is expected to be released in the summer or fall of 2025. If you have already watched Squid Game and are sceptical about watching the second, I recommend you give it a go—and you will not be disappointed.