Don’t get the title of this article twisted. I love Squid Game. It’s one of the most unique concepts for a show I’ve ever seen and it touches base on very real topics in today’s society. One of them, as the title suggests, is capitalism. Walk with me and I’ll explain.
The second season takes place three years after the events of the first; Gi-hun has spent this entire time trying to track down those involved with the games and bring them to a stop for good. When an old acquaintance makes an appearance (Jun-ho aka the very cute detective who’s searching for his missing brother), the two decide to team up and try to track down the Front Man. When Gi-hun willingly puts himself back into the games, he assumes the games are the same as last time but boy is he ever wrong about that.
I will say this to start: the characters this season are so good, especially Heon-ju (played by Park Sung-hoon), a trans woman competing in the games in hopes to use the money to complete her transition. It’s not an easy task being a cisgender individual playing a trans man/woman but Sung-hoon knocks it out of the park. He looks incredible and there’s an air of respect about him which translates beautifully on screen. It’s a long shot but I hope she wins and/or survives at the end. The rest of the cast are just as good and like I’ve mentioned many times before, if I hate your character then you’re doing an amazing acting job.
With only seven episodes compared to last season’s nine, it seems like a lot of story compacted into such a short amount of time. It’s obviously impossible to clue up the storyline with only seven episodes and here’s where a lot of people have qualms with the show: why not make it longer than seven? Why does there have to be another season? The cliffhanger made a lot of viewers angry (myself included) and the fact that we have to wait until sometime in 2025 to see the conclusion is frustrating to say the least. It could’ve easily finished with more episodes this season and a third wouldn’t even be necessary. But that’s where capitalism kicks in. Netflix sees money. Squid Game is a money making machine, ironically enough, and where it smashed its own viewing record, it only makes sense (at least to Netflix) to extend the remaining episodes into a third season. Personally I think they should’ve just put however many episodes are going to be in season three and put it in two and be done with it. Shows tend to go sour if they’re past their prime and I’d hate to see that happen to Squid Game.
I should probably also point out that we’re supposedly getting an English remake of the show. I’m both intrigued and disgusted with this because (1) it was mentioned on the show that there was an international ring worldwide that held games, not just in South Korea. So it’d be interesting to see different countries play different games (2) can we as English speakers just let SK have their moment? Not everything needs to be made into a westernized version. If captions on a screen bother you then perhaps you shouldn’t tune in. Or if dubs aren’t your cup of tea. Don’t tune in. It’s that simple. Americanized versions of foreign shows are getting tiresome and it feels lazy concept wise. It’s time to be original.
All in all, season two was pretty decent. Plenty of twists and turns and the new games were even more brutal than season one’s. Hopefully the cliffhanger is followed up by an incredible season and series finale. It’d be a shame if that potential was wasted by corporate greed.
Squid Game season two is available to stream now on Netflix.
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