After years of waiting, Squid Game Season 2 is finally here, although it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Netflix is dropping Season 3 sometime in 2025, but, for now, here are the Squid Game mysteries keeping us up at night.
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00:00After years of waiting, Squid Game Season 2 is finally here, although it leaves a lot
00:05of unanswered questions.
00:06Netflix is dropping Season 3 sometime in 2025, but for now, here are the Squid Game mysteries
00:11keeping us up at night.
00:12Song Gi-hun
00:13Song Gi-hun doesn't die at the end of Squid Game Season 2, but things don't look great
00:17for him.
00:18The frontman and the guards have kept him alive while killing almost everyone who took
00:22part in his rebellion.
00:23He's been openly trying to stop the games from the beginning of the season, so why keep
00:27him alive?
00:28What's in store for him once Season 3 rolls around?
00:30What is Gi-hun going to do now that he has lost everything and failed all of his attempts?
00:36How is he going to carry on?
00:38It's possible the frontman wants Gi-hun to suffer a fate worse than death.
00:42Maybe he'll have him re-enter the games to torture him a little longer.
00:45Or maybe the frontman has something more nefarious in mind.
00:48The frontman, aka Hwang In-ho, is Player 001 in the Season 2 competition.
00:53In-ho actually won the games previously, before taking on the role of the frontman, and is
00:58It's possible he wants Gi-hun to come around to his point of view, that no good people
01:02actually exist.
01:03Maybe In-ho wants Gi-hun to become the new frontman and oversee the games after he steps
01:07down.
01:08Gi-hun dying seems at first like the most tragic ending possible for Squid Game, but
01:11Gi-hun losing his soul and continuing the games himself may be even more devastating.
01:17One of the most intriguing additions to Squid Game Season 2 is Kong Noelle, who becomes
01:21Guard 11 in the games.
01:23She's a defector from North Korea who's trying to find her child, who's still in the North.
01:27In the games themselves, she's a ruthless sniper who actively works against the organ-harvesting
01:31operation.
01:32Some of the guards keep the eliminated players alive to take their organs later, but Guard
01:3611 makes sure to kill the intended victims, leaving their organs non-viable and earning
01:40the hatred of her fellow guards.
01:42I told you not to kill them.
01:43We need them breathing if we want anything good.
01:45It's unclear why she does this.
01:47Maybe she just has a stronger moral code than the other soldiers, but her morality could
01:51be tested when she realizes Park Gong-seok, the father of the little girl Noelle bonded
01:55with when she worked in the amusement park, has been killed during the rebellion.
01:59Gong-seok's daughter was sick, so it's likely he entered the games to pay her medical bills.
02:03Noelle knows this, and his murder may turn her into more of a menace when Season 3 rolls
02:08around.
02:10Every time we answer one question about the Frontman, two more raise.
02:12He was an enigmatic figure throughout the first season.
02:15What's interesting is that in Season 2, the Frontman actually competes in the games as
02:19Player One, the same number Oh Il-nam, the game's creator, wore in Season 1.
02:23Hwang In-ho is Officer Hwang Jun-ho's stepbrother, and when In-ho befriends Gi-hun, he mentions
02:28having a sick wife as his reason for entering the games.
02:31This tracks.
02:32We know the Frontman donated a kidney to Jun-ho years ago, which is why he couldn't sell one
02:36of his kidneys when his wife got sick.
02:38There are shades of the truth in what In-ho tells Gi-hun, but given the nature of Squid
02:42Game, there's always more to the story.
02:44One of the most significant lines in Season 2 comes early on, when the Frontman taunts
02:48Gi-hun in the limo.
02:49Did you really think you could end the game like this?
02:52With one little gun?"
02:53Maybe Gi-hun's got it wrong, and violence is the wrong way to end the game.
02:57If there's another solution, it likely begins with figuring out what makes the Frontman
03:00tick.
03:02It wouldn't be Squid Game without red-light-green-light and its creepy murder doll.
03:05Gi-hun is the only player who knows what's about to happen, and tries to get everyone
03:09to form single-file lines to better avoid detection by the doll.
03:12However, there's a moment in the game that doesn't make sense.
03:15It could be a simple continuity error, or it may hint at something larger.
03:19The rules of red-light-green-light are simple.
03:21Players can move when the doll says, "'Green light!'", but they have to freeze when she
03:24yells, "'Red light!'
03:25Any player who moves a muscle is immediately shot.
03:28So when player 007, Park Young-sik, twitches violently as the guns start going off, he
03:33should trigger the doll, but somehow he makes it through the game unscathed.
03:36It's possible that, with so many terrified people running for the exit, he slips by undetected
03:41in the chaos.
03:42However, there's a far-fetched fan theory out there.
03:44What if Young-sik's mother, Chang Joon-cha, aka Player 149, is Oh Il-nam's wife?
03:50This could make Young-sik his son, and put him under the game's protection.
03:53Intriguing, but it seems like a stretch.
03:57With so many soldiers at the game's disposal, it's a long shot that Gi-hun's rebellion can
04:01succeed.
04:02But they're not really lost until Kang Dae-ho goes back to the main room for more ammunition
04:06and doesn't return.
04:07Instead, he stays behind and cowers, which doesn't really track for a former Marine who
04:10should have plenty of military training.
04:12There's a chance Dae-ho suffers from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder, and when the
04:16guards start firing at them, he shuts down.
04:18"'Dae-ho!
04:19What's going on?'
04:22"'I'm sorry.
04:24I'm sorry.'"
04:26On the other hand, he may just be a liar.
04:28Yes, he and Marine Jung-bae compare matching tattoos, but you can probably get anyone to
04:32ink a Marine insignia on your arm if you pay them.
04:35Another curious aspect of Dae-ho's backstory is that he's an expert at Geon-gi, a Korean
04:39game typically associated with women.
04:42"'A Marine who knows Geon-gi?'
04:43"'Uh, yeah, growing up I had, uh, four older sisters, and that meant lots of Geon-gi with
04:48them at home, so I learned how to play.'"
04:50Seeing as he's one of the few rebels left alive, we should learn more about his history
04:54once Season 3 comes around.
04:56While Gi-hun is back in the games, Hwang Jeon-ho and a team of mercenaries are on a boat trying
05:01to find the island where the games take place, which winds up being the most disappointing
05:04storyline of Season 2.
05:06No matter what they do, the people running the game always seem to be one step ahead
05:10of them, and the season finale hints that Jeon-ho's efforts have been foiled right from
05:13the beginning by someone he thought he could trust.
05:16In Episode 7, Friend or Foe, one of the mercenaries discovers Captain Park sabotaging the equipment
05:21they're using to look for the island.
05:23"'That's my drone, isn't it?''
05:25Park then stabs the man and tosses him overboard.
05:27Captain Park must be in cahoots with the game makers to an extent, but what role does he
05:31play?
05:32Park's willingness to help Jeon-ho find the island always seems too good to be true.
05:36"'Where the hell are you, mystery island?''
05:38At the beginning of the season, he claims that he found Jeon-ho after In-ho shot him
05:42and he fell into the ocean.
05:43He's since sailed him around to numerous islands over several years.
05:46That's a big commitment to make for a guy he just fished out of the water.
05:50But it's possible he's doing it to keep Jeon-ho away from the actual location.
05:54But have the games always had a random sailor on the payroll?
05:57One possibility is that he ferries the harvested organs to the mainland, which would explain
06:01his part in the scheme.
06:02Whatever the reason, fans are going into Season 3 knowing not to trust Captain Park.
06:07Single is a brutal game.
06:09Players stand on a rotating platform, then race towards rooms with the appropriate number
06:12of people for each round.
06:14It forces players to make brutal decisions, demonstrating their true loyalties.
06:18This means So-nyeo, a so-called shaman with a lot of anger, gets left in the lurch when
06:22her team shuts her out.
06:23But she manages to survive, and puts the chilling curse on Cho-shun-ju and the rest of her former
06:28alliance.
06:29"'Today I sat and pleaded, asking the gods of heaven and earth to help put an end to
06:34your existences.'"
06:36Squid Game isn't a supernatural show.
06:38There's no way So-nyeo is a legit shaman with mythic powers, but she is developing a cult
06:43of personality.
06:44Following Mingle, players can vote on whether to end the games, and some contestants appear
06:48to vote to keep playing under So-nyeo's influence.
06:50It's possible she could manifest her curse by manipulating her disciples into carrying
06:54out her whims and sabotaging others.
06:56"'You've bad karma, but I can help with that.'"
06:59In a life-or-death situation, it's understandable that some players resort to praying to higher
07:03powers to save them.
07:05So-nyeo is clearly taking advantage of that, and positioning herself as some all-powerful
07:09entity.
07:10But as tends to be the case with cults, it usually doesn't work out that well for the
07:14underlings.
07:15In Season 1, Jun-ho learns that the island where the games are played is booby-trapped
07:19with bombs designed to detonate if anyone gets too close.
07:22In Season 2, after his team opens a mysterious hatch, a bomb explodes, killing one man and
07:26injuring another.
07:27We don't get much more from the boat's storyline this season, so it remains to be seen if they've
07:32actually found the island or if the whole thing is a decoy.
07:34However, setting up the bomb storyline in Season 1 to have just one go off in Season
07:392 doesn't feel like enough payoff, and it's not like Squid Game to leave a major thread
07:43like that hanging — at least, not so far.
07:45Maybe Season 3 will see Jun-ho and his team continue to explore the island, with Captain
07:49Park working hard to throw them off the scent.
07:52The Rebellion certainly puts a damper on the games, leaving a lot more players dead.
07:56Gi-hun's fate hangs in the balance, as so does the future of the game.
07:59Dae-ho and Hyun-joo are still alive, although they actively participated in the Rebellion.
08:04It's possible the soldiers don't know that, since they'd make it back to the main room
08:07before Gi-hun is captured.
08:08As for everyone else, there are basically two options left on the table.
08:12First, the games continue as though nothing happened.
08:14The alternative would seem to be starting the games from scratch.
08:17We know the frontman is all about the players having an equal chance of winning the grand
08:21prize.
08:22These people suffered from inequality and discrimination out in the world, and we're
08:26giving them one last chance to fight fair and win.
08:29Maybe the frontman will bring in more players and have everyone start back on equal footing.
08:33More players and more death would be a fiendish way to torture Gi-hun, but if the frontman
08:37wants to break Gi-hun so he'll take over for him, it's a good plan.
08:41Let's wrap things up.
08:42This is new territory for the games, so whatever happens, we're looking at a new wrinkle for
08:46Season 3.
08:48At the very end of Season 2, we get a hint of what's to come.
08:51In a post-credits scene, we see players enter an arena with the girl doll from Red Light,
08:55Green Light, but now there's a boy doll in the arena with her.
08:57A popular online fan theory is that the remaining players will play Jack and Jill, which involves
09:02contestants rolling dice to determine how far up a hill they can go, with the winners
09:05getting there first.
09:06So far, however, all the games on Squid Game have borrowed from traditional Korean childhood
09:11games, and Jack and Jill isn't one of them.
09:13There's a chance the survivors need to play Red Light, Green Light yet again, but the
09:16show creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has said something that makes us doubt it.
09:20Hwang discussed the addition of the boy doll in an interview with Entertainment Weekly,
09:24mentioning how his game is the most exciting game in Season 3.
09:27We've already seen Red Light, Green Light twice now, so a variation on that doesn't
09:31sound at all exciting.
09:32Hopefully, the team behind Squid Game has saved a truly spectacular set piece for its
09:36next and final season.