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Warning: Spoilers forward for Squid Game
When a second season of Squid Game was greenlit following the huge success of the primary, it was unclear whether or not the story warranted an extension. Writer-director Hwang Dong-yuk, beforehand greatest identified for function movie work like 2017 interval struggle epic The Fortress, had not deliberate on persevering with it. And a lot of the primary season relied on the novel horror of watching the barbaric, exploitative Squid Game play out, hoping that protagonist Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) may maintain onto his humanity within the face of all of it. Could a second season actually recapture the visceral feelings provoked by that unpredictability?
Well, naysayers needn’t have feared. While Squid Game Season 2 accommodates among the similar story beats as the primary season, this can be a a lot completely different story that results in a a lot completely different place, pushed by a protagonist who is far modified from the Gi-hun who performed the Squid Game in Season 1. Let’s break down the whole lot that occurred within the violent, action-driven ending of Squid Game’s second season, and what it may imply for the upcoming Season 3.
Why does The Front Man be part of the sport?
Much of the dramatic pressure in Squid Game Season 2 is pushed by the addition of Hwang In-ho—aka the Front Man, aka Oh Young-il, aka Player 001—to the Squid Game as a contestant. While the Front Man is a earlier winner of the sport, by the point we meet him in Season 1, he’s a higher-up inside the sport’s behind-the-scenes group.
The Front Man’s Season 2 choice to hitch is motivated by Gi-hun’s personal request to participate within the sport. While Gi-hun’s involvement is presumably good for the sport’s behind-the-scenes betting enterprise (everybody likes a defending champion), he’s additionally unpredictable. Unlike the opposite contestants, he has earlier data of the sport and has completely different motivations. While others are within the sport to win the cash, Gi-hun is seeking to take the entire operation down. The Front Man may attempt to management Gi-hun as a behind-the-scenes drive, however he has rather more agility to take action as a fellow competitor and eventual ally. As the season progresses, we see the Front Man slowly earn Gi-hun’s belief after which use that belief to govern him in refined methods.
The pressure between the “X”s and the “O”s reaches violent heights within the Season 2 finale
One of essentially the most fascinating modifications to the principles of the competitors in Season 2 of Squid Game is the vote gamers have after the completion of every spherical. If a majority of gamers vote to depart, then the sport will finish and the surviving gamers can break up the prize cash amassed to date.
The gamers vote to proceed after the primary two rounds, however the vote following the third spherical ends in a tie. In the season finale, the contestants are knowledgeable they may have one other vote the next day to interrupt the tie. The violence escalates: First, there’s a guard-sanctioned massacre within the males’s lavatory that provides the “X”s a slight benefit in quantity. Then, as soon as the dorm lights exit for the night time, the “O”s assault the “X”s in an try and cull their numbers and guarantee an “O” victory within the vote. For every particular person taken out in these “particular video games,” more cash is added to the prize pot, additional encouraging this habits.
Gi-hun leads a revolt towards the Squid Game guards
Most of the contestants within the Squid Game solely see two choices. They can both keep within the sport and combat to outlive and win more cash, or depart with the cash they’ve amassed and stay. Gi-hun, nevertheless, sees a 3rd choice. He needs to danger his life for the possibility to take the sport down. Gi-hun is aware of that, after among the contestants have killed each other, the guards will ultimately step in. He instructs his small band of fighters to keep away from the combat, leaving their fellow “X”s to the slaughter, and as a substitute use their vitality to overpower the unsuspecting guards. They retrieve the guards’ weapons and make for the management room.
Gi-hun loses, and Jung-bae dies
Was this effort doomed from the beginning? Not solely do the guards outnumber the contestants, however the Front Man is a mole. Once the combat begins, he makes use of his affect to subtly maneuver the result (although, notably, does shoot and presumably kill a few of his workers within the course of). When Player 388 Kim Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul), who claims to be a former Marine, freezes up within the combat and is unable to carry extra ammo to the rebels, they’re simply taken out one after the other.
Gi-hun’s good friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) is the final to die within the failed revolt, shot by the Front Man (donning his boss masks as soon as once more) proper in entrance of Gi-hun. It’s a intestine punch for each the viewer and Gi-hun. In some ways, Jung-bae is the Gi-hun of this season: a divorced father hoping to get his life again on monitor, however not prepared to kill anybody for it. His dying echoes thematically throughout the finale and presumably into the following season.
The Front Man is aware of simply how devastating a blow that is for Gi-hun.While Gi-hun values all life, Jung-bae isn’t simply one other contestant; he’s an previous good friend. They had been on strike collectively years in the past, a interval that was a serious turning level in Gi-hun’s life. In a dialog the Front Man overhears between Gi-hun and Jung-bae earlier within the season, we study that Jung-bae was chargeable for Gi-hun’s entry into betting on horse races. In that very same scene, Jung-bae expresses remorse for not with the ability to give Gi-hun cash when he stopped by his pub, previous to the beginning of the Squid Game, in Season 1.
Gi-hun ends the season in utter despair. He has not solely failed at each of his acknowledged objectives (to take down the sport, and to get everybody out alive), he has misplaced an previous good friend—somebody who trusted him along with his life and who died due to it. Before they went into the combat, the Front Man requested Gi-hun: “Are you suggesting that we make a small sacrifice for the higher good?” When Gi-hun agrees, the Front Man smiles. For him, this can be a pleased ending.
Who is the Fishing Boat Captain working for?
In the season finale, the fishing captain that detective character Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) depends on in his seek for the Squid Game island is revealed to be a spy. When one in all Jun-ho’s employed muscle males catches the captain tampering with a search drone, the captain ruthlessly stabs him and pushes him overboard. Presumably, the captain is working for the individuals who run the sport, and his “rescue” of Jun-ho three years prior was something however a cheerful coincidence. Could he have been despatched particularly by In-ho, aka the Front Man, to avoid wasting the brother he shot from sure dying?
Who dies in Squid Game Season 2?
So many individuals die, as is Squid Game’s means. Characters taken out within the lavatory combat embrace rapper Thanos (performed by real-life rapper T.O.P.), certain to be a fan favourite if solely as a wealthy supply of Season 2 memes. Another rash of killings comes as soon as the lights exit and the “O”s assault. This consists of Player 380, Se-mi (Won Ji-an), who was reluctantly pulled into Thanos’ orbit. Though timid Player 125 Min-su (Lee David) tries to assist her, Se-mi is killed by Player 124 Nam-gyu (Roh Jae-won).
We see Player 246, aka Gyeong-seok (Lee Jin-uk), shot by one of many guards when the revolt fails. However, we additionally know that No-eul (Park Gyu-young), a North Korean defector who works as a guard, is sympathetic to his trigger as the daddy of a sick woman. I wouldn’t be stunned if Gyeong-seok someway makes it to Season 3.
Who survives Squid Game Season 2?
The gamers left standing embrace: trans girl and spectacular fighter Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon) and Dae-ho, who had been again within the dorms when the guards took out the remaining rebels. Mother-son duo Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim) and Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun), pregnant contestant Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) and her crypto YouTuber Myung-gi (Yim Si-wan). And after all Gi-hun and the Front Man.
Off of the island, Jun-ho remains to be looking for the Squid Game, unaware that the fishing captain he trusts is a mole. However, he nonetheless has good-natured gangster Woo-seok (Jeon Seok-ho) by his facet.
Will there be a Season 3?
Netflix has already filmed a Season 3 of Squid Game, with plans to launch it in 2025.
What does the Season 2 finale post-credits scene imply?
The last scene in Season 2 Squid Game reveals a gaggle of contestants (together with Players 100, 096, and 353) strolling right into a sport, just like the subsequent spherical. While viewers might acknowledge the enormous woman doll from the Mugunghwa (the Korean model of Red Light, Green Light) video games in each Seasons 1 and a pair of, there’s a second big doll within the scene. Both dolls are modeled after characters from a traditional Korean kids’s training e book collection. Young-hee is the woman, and Cheol-su is the boy. What does the arrival of Cheol-su imply for the following sport? It can’t be something good.
