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It’s been three lengthy years since Squid Game first premiered on Netflix to change into the streamer’s most-watched TV sequence, ever. The Korean-language drama was an surprising cultural phenomenon, drawing one in 4 Americans into its story of lethal competitors.
That being stated, you’d be forgiven for not remembering all of what occurred in Season 1 forward of the second season, which begins streaming on Dec. 26. For those that are a bit fuzzy on the place we left protagonist Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), who the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) is, and the fundamental guidelines of the titular sport, here’s a recap with the whole lot you must know heading into Season 2.
What to recollect concerning the protagonist Gi-hun, aka Player 456
While Squid Game is an ensemble drama, the story up to now has centered round Seong Gi-hun, aka Player 456. When we meet Gi-hun in Season 1, he’s an affable deadbeat dad who has to borrow cash from his aged mother to take his daughter out for her birthday. While he struggles with a playing habit and the debt he has gathered in consequence, he is an efficient man who tries his finest to be there for his mother, daughter, and pals—however he usually fails. When Gi-hun is approached by The Recruiter (The Trunk’s Gong Yoo) to participate in a sport with the prospect to win billions of gained, he sees it as a possibility to lastly set his life proper.
What is the Squid Game?
The Squid Game competitors is a six-round competitors that pits a whole bunch of contestants towards each other in a sequence of easy kids’s video games—all for a forty five.6 billion gained prize (about $32.45 million, on the time of this writing). If the gamers win, they proceed onto the subsequent spherical. If they lose, they die. The sport takes place yearly and is implied to be held in varied locations around the globe. Gi-hun’s Season 1 expertise is the thirty third Squid Game.
Who are the Squid Game pink go well with employees?
The video games are held in a large compound on a abandoned island someplace off of the Korean peninsula. They are an elaborate operation that requires bringing in employees in addition to contestants. Workers put on pink jumpsuits with masks that conceal each their id and their standing as a employee.From lowest to highest tier: Circles are upkeep employees. Triangles are troopers. Squares are managers. Some of the employees have a facet hustle, harvesting the organs from deceased or dying contestants on the market on the black market.
Who is the Front Man, aka Hwang In-ho?
The Front Man oversees all the Squid Game employees, ensuring the whole lot runs easily in what is basically a sequence of massacres. He additionally performs host to the wealthy males who come to look at the sport in individual, betting on the outcomes.
The Front Man begins the sequence as a mysterious determine, however we finally study he’s the winner of the twenty eighth Squid Game which befell in 2015. After profitable, he was recruited to change into part of the operation. His identify is Hwang In-ho, and he’s the brother of Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon).
Who is detective Hwang Jun-ho?
Jun-ho is a good-natured and decided detective who spends Season 1 on the lookout for his lacking brother, In-ho. When Jun-ho discovers In-ho was a competitor within the mysterious sport, he goes undercover as a employee to seek out out extra.
Jun-ho is horrified by what he finds, and manages to flee from the Squid Game compound with proof of the horrific competitors. Ironically, that is what permits a reunion along with his brother, who hunts him down because the Front Man. When Jun-ho refuses to give up to his brother, In-ho shoots him, and Jun-ho falls off a cliff, seemingly to his demise. However, as promo for Season 2 has proven, Jun-ho survived and shall be again.
Read extra: Behind the High-Stakes Creation of Squid Game 2
Who runs the video games?
The Squid Game was created by a bunch of uber wealthy, bored pals, in all probability round 1988. This group included Oh Il-nam (Oh Yeong-su), an older Korean man who pretended to be a contestant alongside Gi-hun and the others in Season 1. Gi-hun befriends Il-nam, and grieves when the outdated man loses a spherical. Later, he discovers Il-nam didn’t die within the sport as a result of he controls the sport.
While Il-nam dies from a mind tumor within the Season 1 finale, a few of his Squid Game co-creators are presumably nonetheless alive. Whoever the individuals pulling the strings are, the Front Man often acts as their in-person consultant.
How does Squid Game Season 1 finish?
When Gi-hun returns dwelling after profitable the Squid Game within the Season 1 finale, he finds his mom, who suffers from diabetes, dead. A 12 months later, Il-nam, who’s on his deathbed, contacts Gi-hun, asking to satisfy. Gi-hun has an opportunity to confront the person he thought had been his buddy, however Il-nam reveals no regret for having created the sport, as he sees people as inherently egocentric and unworthy. They make a wager concerning the inherent goodness of humanity, which Il-nam loses, dying moments later.
The expertise spurs a torpid Gi-hun into motion. He remembers the guarantees he made to 2 of his fellow contestants: Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon), a North Korean defector who left behind her little brother, and Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo), Gi-hun’s neighborhood buddy who left behind his mom. Gi-hun drops off Sae-byeok’s brother with Sang-woo’s mother, and leaves them half of his prize cash.
Then, Gi-hun makes plans to go to his daughter in Los Angeles. However, on his strategy to the airport to go to his daughter within the U.S., he spots The Recruiter enjoying ddjaki with somebody in a Seoul subway station. While The Recruiter evades him, Gi-hun manages to grab the Squid Game calling card from the would-be contestant.
Gi-hun continues to the airport however, as he’s strolling down the skybridge to board the airplane, he alters his thoughts. He turns again in direction of Seoul, and again towards the Squid Game. He calls the quantity on the cardboard and tells whoever picks up: “Listen rigorously. I’m not a horse. I’m an individual. That’s why I need to know who you persons are, and the way you are able to do these horrible issues to individuals … It wasn’t a dream. I can’t forgive you for the whole lot you’re doing.” This is the place Squid Game Season 2 picks up.
