If offered bread or a lottery ticket, which would you choose? Now imagine this question is posed only to students who are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Which would they choose?
Released on Dec. 26, Squid Game Season 2 follows Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae) as he attempts to dismantle the Squid Game, a competition in which players must compete in childhood games for a prize of 35.6 billion ₩ (over $45 million CAD). Winners take home the money while losers die, and each player’s death increases the prize money for the remaining players. Contestants are cherry-picked for having hefty debts; most are motivated to play to escape a life of poverty, pay off medical expenses, or recover from an unlucky gamble. In his efforts to undermine the games, Seong becomes trapped in them instead. Losing contact with his militant team on the outside, he must confront the game’s organizer, the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), on his own.
The first season premiered to unprecedented acclaim, and so far, Season 2 has been nominated for a Golden Globe and reached 152.5 million views on Netflix. Along with near-universal praise, the success of the first Squid Game led to a reality television spin-off and the second earned a Google Doodle. The cinematography is breathtaking; one could get lost analyzing the lighting, colour, and contrast used in a single frame. Lee’s performance of Seong is particularly captivating as he embraces his character’s duality: Vengeful and strategic, yet frustrated and desperate. In Season 1, Seong is motivated by self-preservation, a few friends, and fortune; in Season 2, Lee expertly captures the transition to a character who is now fighting for all of the players’ survival.
This season’s antagonist is no longer fellow competitors, but the Squid Game itself and those in charge of the operation. It mimics the plots of films like the Matrix and Hunger Games: Catching Fire, where in the midst of violent conflict, both the audience and underdog characters have to “remember who the real enemy is.” Squid Game Season 2 excels in highlighting the humanity of individual players, ensuring the audience never forgets that the players are not the criminals—the games are the true perpetrators. Squid Game Season 2’s antagonist inversion not only creates plenty of action-packed and gory scenes, but it also reveals an obvious commentary about the exploitation of desperation among impoverished and indebted people in society. Characters that would have been received as villains in the first season, like the pink-suited soldiers hired to oversee and kill players, are made tragic and even sympathetic as their despair is equally as preyed upon as the heroes.
However, while side character spotlights and side plots allowed the audience to focus on the players’ humanity rather than just that of the main characters, the expanding side characters failed to create a clear fan favourite. Viewers can empathize with every side character subject to the cruelty of the game, but each side character doesn’t have enough screen time to make their deaths nearly as emotionally devastating as in the first season.
A striking feature of this season is the increased representation of marginalized people within Korean society, featuring side characters such as a North Korean defector, individuals experiencing drug addiction, and a transgender woman, Cho Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon). Cho entered the games to acquire money for gender-affirming care, and is unfailingly heroic and caring. Though Cho represents a big step for the representation of 2SLGBTQIA+ characters in Korean media, the character would have been more accurately portrayed by a transgender actress.
Squid Game Season 2 is a masterclass in suspenseful pacing, creative cinematography, and mesmerizing performance, prompting the audience to empathize with those whom society leaves behind.
Squid Game Season 2 is now available on Netflix.
