[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Squid Game - Season 2" Episode 3

As Gi-hun wakes up at the game once again, "Squid Game - Season 2" moves on to rehash the first round of the first season. This surprised me a little bit, since I was quite sure that the games were explicitly stated to change every year. But I was only surprised a little bit. The Young-hee statue featured so prominently in marketing it would be odd for it not to show up again, even if there's not really much "Squid Game - Season 2" can do with it that didn't already happen last time.

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I should note that "rehash" is not a word I use necessarily pejoratively. Every character except Gi-hun has no idea how the game works, so redoing the Young-hee gauntlet allows "Squid Game - Season 2" to explore the idea from a new hypothetical. What if the people playing the game were warned ahead of time about all the death? Would their behavior be any different? The situations are mostly the same, if mildly different. Jeong-bae, or 380 (played by Lee Seo-hwan), is another old friend of Gi-hun's, but as a co-worker, not a school chum.

Hyeon-joo, or 120 (played by Park Sung-hoon), is a transgender woman who needs money for her surgery. Joon-hee, or 222 (played by Jo Yu-ri) is one of the few characters we saw in the previous episodes visiting an obstetrics clinic. Yong-sik, or 7 (played by Yang Dong-geun), and Geum-ja, or 149 (played by Kang Ae-shim) are the best fleshed out new characters here just because they have excellent mother-son chemistry.

The rest of them are mainly crooks and hustlers. Their main introductions happen in a montage of all things, that mainly notes how they're all so deep in debt that they shouldn't be giving any lip to their pink jumpsuit masters. No-eul gets more characterization than any of them- an interesting choice, and it's no longer a spoiler for me to note that she's working for the game as an enforcer.

Does the exact behind the scenes mechanism of how the Young-hee statue was killing people really matter? Probably not, but it's definitely the kind of thing that people who liked "Squid Game" will probably enjoy finding out. Me, though, I found the philosophical arguments of the first season to be muddled at their best, and the philosophical arguments of the second season aren't much better. They're just more explicit.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Squid Game - Season 2" is directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, written by Hwang Dong-hyuk, and features Lee Jung-jae, Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Jo Yu-ri, Yang Dong-geun, Kang Ae-shim. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2024/12/26~Upcoming, Thu on Netflix.