After a long wait for fans to finally get their hands on more "Squid Game," they definitely got more in the second season...of what feels like the same, from games to even twists.
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00:00After a long wait for fans to finally get their hands on more Squid games,
00:04they definitely got more in the second season — of what feels like the same,
00:08from games to even twists. We'll explain, so be warned — spoilers ahead.
00:14Song Ji-hyun makes the journey back into the contest of Fatal Playground games,
00:18and while it retains some of its initial spectacle, the second season's story feels
00:21robbed of the bite of the first. That's partially because of the season's first major twist,
00:25involving Hong In-ho, the villainous diamond-masked frontman.
00:29Series writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk admirably seemed intent on using him in an unexpected and
00:34potentially subversive way for the second outing, but it can't help but feel like a
00:37plodding remix of the first season's reveal. As fans surely remember, season one ended with
00:42two major twists. One, that In-ho, the long-lost brother of police officer Hwang Joon-ho,
00:47was not only alive, but running the island's deadly games for wealthy VIPs.
00:52The second was that Player One, Ji-hyun's in-game companion, mentor, and confidant,
00:56Oh Il-nam, was actually the game's creator. In the second season, when Ji-hyun re-enters the game,
01:01the new Player One is yet again quickly revealed to be a powerful inside man — none other than
01:06In-ho himself. The initial reveal that the frontman has entered the game is handled beautifully.
01:11His reintroduction as the tie-breaking vote to continue the games clearly mirrors Oh Il-nam's
01:15vote from the first season, and boldly underlines the season's core theme of the illusion of choice
01:20and exploitative systems — and also creates dramatic irony. The audience knows that In-ho
01:25is the frontman, but Ji-hyun doesn't.
01:27You said that you'd been here before.
01:32You're the reason I ended up voting to stay.
01:34From that point on, however, this early twist fails to pay off in a meaningful way.
01:38Like Il-nam, In-ho quickly comes to serve as Ji-hyun's closest ally. At first, it seems as
01:43though In-ho will differ at least slightly by trying to undermine Ji-hyun's chances at winning
01:47the game, or his attempts to rally the other players to save themselves. But in practice,
01:51he never tries to act against Ji-hyun or even keep the games going.
01:54When the survivors have their final vote before Ji-hyun leads them in an ill-fated
01:58insurrection against their captors, In-ho casts a no vote that maintains a tie,
02:02when a yes would have decisively sent everyone back into bloody competition.
02:06One could certainly argue that this was all part of In-ho's master plan,
02:10though the series is entirely uninterested in giving any clues as to what that might be.
02:15Throughout the second season, In-ho is clearly indecipherable as a character.
02:19Ji-hyun risked getting dragged back into the games because he couldn't live with the fact
02:22that they would continue to slaughter the most vulnerable people in society while he
02:26himself lived in luxury thanks to their deaths. Like any good character, his motivations are clear.
02:31But what does In-ho want or hope to gain? The only clue he'd get comes in his final words to Ji-hyun.
02:36Did you have fun playing the hero? Now, witness the consequences of your little game.
02:45Was his long-delayed betrayal simply a means of psychologically torturing Ji-hyun?
02:49Maybe. It seems like a vague and convoluted explanation, but it's the only one we got.
02:54There are points early in the season where it seems like the writers are prepared to pay off
02:58In-ho's turn in a more disruptive way. During the six-legged race, for example,
03:02he suddenly stalls the team's progress by failing his minigame several times.
03:06For a moment, the audience — knowing that In-ho would surely be spared from execution — could
03:10reasonably expect him to be sabotaging Ji-hyun to end him while the other contestants are all
03:14already dead or cleared. Instead, he merely succeeds after a few more tries and even
03:19gives Ji-hyun a helping foot during his own minigame. This is just one of many perplexing,
03:24wasted opportunities. Instead of using the frontman twist as a means of doing something new,
03:29it bores with the same old story.
03:36you