Thoughts: Squid Game Season 2

The games are back and bloodier than ever. Our main protagonist and winner of the previous Squid Games, Player 456, is setting out to stop the games from the inside out by once again partaking in the deadly competition. Donning his previous contestant number, he’s here to band together these desperate contestants in a revolt against the game creators or die trying in the sequel to the surprising hit of 2021. 

While Player 456 tries his best to save and rally the other contestants, he is faced with the losing scenario of money vs morality. The more in debt the contestants are, the more they are willing to believe they can win one more game to increase the prize pool and save themselves. This ideal flies directly in Player 456’s face once he reveals that he did win the games before, and instead of heeding his warnings, it inspires the rest that it is possible to win the grand prize at all costs. This false hope is what drives the division amongst the players between those who would fight to win for themselves and the rest who would prefer to end the games.

While the first season had us on the edge of our seats wondering how to win each game, Season 2 doesn’t have the same weighted approach. At times you can see the main character plot armor in full effect as Player 456 always finishes before the time runs out or just escapes before meeting his end. This rings all too true for the antagonist of the games, Player 001, who stands at the complete opposite end of everything Player 456 strives to accomplish. In what has to be one of the easiest twists to spot, the final moves by the game master are not without a bit of cringe instead of the shock the creators may have intended. 

By the end of the season, I was less invested in the characters like I had been in Season 1 and felt like the big money prize was no longer the driving factor of the games. It turned into a literal modern class warfare as the children’s games of life and death were abandoned in favor of an oversaturated gun battle between the remaining contestants and the masked figures in charge of the games. At 7 episodes, you can feel just how much shorter Season 2 is compared to the first season at 9 episodes. There was less shock and more bloodshed that totaled for nothing short of a let down of a season.