By Shaliyah Howell ’25
WARNING: Spoilers for Squid Game Season 2!
The highly anticipated show “Squid Game” has returned for a second season, bringing fans back to the thrilling life-or-death competitions. With new players, surprising plot twists, and tons of suspense, fans are excited to see how it all unfolds. This season brings back the intense and deadly challenges that the first is known for. The show dives deeper into people’s lives, showing people risking their lives. Although each episode keeps you intrigued and shocked, this season was short but amazingly good and so suspenseful. This season had fewer episodes than the first. I wish it had more episodes and more plot instead of being left on a cliffhanger.
“Squid Game” (the show and game) takes place in South Korea, where the game is kept hidden from the outside world. Old players are back, but there are a lot of new faces in the show. Players have to risk everything to stay alive and make it out, but not everyone makes it out alive. With even more dangerous games and rules, this season is sure to keep you interested. Who do you think will survive?
The show starts when the recruiter, Seok Woo, seeks out people who are in debt and can’t pay it. He goes to train stations with his briefcase full of cash and Ddakji envelopes, and he lures players in by offering them an easy way to make money. Ddajki is a traditional South Korean game played by two or more players using folded paper tiles. The game is won by flipping the other player’s tile by spiking it on the ground. After several games of Ddajki, if they wish to play more, they call the number on the card and give information before letting them play. After that, players get picked up and arrive at a dormitory, where they wake up to a place full of beds and shapes around them.
Before everything starts, Seong Gi-hun (Player 456, a recent player) plays Russian roulette with the recruiter (Seok Woo), and Woo dies. Gi-hun gets lured into a van in a nightclub and eventually persuades the Frontman to let him play again. He is very confident he’ll survive because he has a plan. Later in the episode, he realizes his tracker is gone and his plan is over. A mother and son (Player 149 & 007), a pregnant lady (Player 222), a famous rapper, Thanos (Player 230), a failed YouTuber and father of the pregnant lady (Player 333), transgender ex-marine (Player 120), and Gi-hun’s immature best friend (Player 390) are all included in this series.
After arriving at the dormitory, all players participate in the game “Red Light, Green Light.” Gi-hun manages to keep a good chunk of people alive. In episode three, players decide whether to keep playing or leave with the current money available. After all votes are tied, there is one player left to vote: Player One, the Frontman, disguised as a player to ruin Gi-hun’s plan. He befriends him and “joins” him in his plan. After the first game, Gi-hun is sure they will play the same games he played three years ago; the Frontman and guards were one step ahead. Instead of Dalgona, they played Six-Legged Pentathlon, where they were grouped into five, and each player had their legs tied together and had to complete a task in five minutes. Lots of players didn’t complete it. These games were: Ddjaki, Flying Stone, Gong-gi, Spinning Top, and Jegi.
The next game is called “Mingle”. All the players were gathered in a merry-go-round-like platform and had to group each other in a room based on the number of people called after the platform stopped spinning. If players don’t make it to the room, they get eliminated. During this, they introduce a new character (a new guard) named No-eul. She left everything in North Korea and is now trying to find her daughter. She plays a guard to make money to have people help her find her.
Another plot twist is that the people that Gi-hun hired were very good people, except for the boat captain (Captain Park, an unknown traitor). He is Jun-ho’s (Player from season one) friend and is trying to “help” him find this deserted island. But the captain was caught trying to tamper with the drone in the middle of the night by someone, and acted like he was very intrigued by the drone. After leaving, Captain Park killed him and threw him off the boat.
Now, back to the dormitory, Gi-hun and his friends kill off a guard and take his weapons, and create a plan to kill all guards and put an end to this game. After a while, Player One joins up with Gi-hun and kills his other two friends. He then goes back to dressing as the Frontman and kills Gi-hun’s best friend as a punishment. And that’s the end of season two.
This season was a thrilling show from start to finish. The games were more intense this season, creating a better plot. The return of Seong Gi-hun added so much more depth to this season. Watching him navigate throughout the show to help people escape was both scary and exciting. The new contestants, like the pregnant lady and her boyfriend, made it more emotional than it already was because the father ghosted the mother after finding out she was pregnant for 10 months. And the transgender ex-marine showed no mercy, which made it more thrilling because of her bravery and loyalty. This whole season was a roller coaster of plot twists. The Frontman acting as a player kept me hooked the entire time.
I do wish it had more episodes because I believe it ended too early. The cliffhanger was frustrating, and I just wanted more of it. I was left with unanswered questions, and it abruptly ended. Despite that, Season 2 was amazing, and I’m excited to watch Season 3 this summer!
The Raider Press 