Squid Game 2 is an Unstoppable Follow-up
One of the most well-known facts about the first season of Squid Game was how long the series took to get picked up. Originally conceived as a film by director Hwang Dong-hyuk, the original concept for Squid Game was being shopped around to numerous production and distribution companies over a decade before its eventual release on Netflix. As long as it had been shopped, however, the core ideas and story of the series were set in stone as one continuous story from start to finish. So when it was announced Squid Game would receive two follow-ups in the form of two more seasons, fans of the initial batch were immediately skeptical of the impact this would have on the series’ legacy. The first season felt like an uncompromised vision that came out at exactly the right time that everyone was able to both see and talk about the show. Viewership obviously wouldn’t be as high, but what of the story? Would Dong-hyuk be able to expand that much upon something he was satisfied with the conclusion of for so long?
It’s up for debate whether the new angles the second season took worked to its benefit or not. There are fresh takes on familiar concepts explored in the first season, and familiar faces to back up the exploration of plotlines both new and old that we thought we’d seen wrapped up. Personally, I thought all the new storylines explored with Seong Gi-hun and Hwang Jun-ho (Lee Jung-jae and Wi Ha-joon respectively) were fascinating and piqued my interest the majority of the time they were elaborated on.
However, I felt Jun-ho’s journey to discover the island and find the Front Man behind the game didn’t get nearly enough screen time. To the director’s credit, it’s not like Jun-ho’s main arc in the first season got an enormous amount of screen time, but the lesser amount shown there actually worked to its benefit in how it kept the mystery going at the same rate at the game. In the second season, this feels a lot more like a search than an investigation, and it doesn’t land nearly as well as it did previously. On top of that, with Gi-hun and Jun-ho meeting and planning to blow the whole case wide open so early on, it was implied the Jun-ho would play a much larger role than it felt he did by the end of the season.
On the other end of the spectrum, let’s talk about the new characters. There are over 400, after all—though veterans to the series understand only a portion of them get a focus in the grand scheme of things. Fortunately, Dong-hyuk still knows how to sell us on new players years later. There are still too many to go through all of them, but we can’t move on without giving a little bit of spotlight to Choi Su-bong, better known as Thanos.
Despite his presence in the game as a generally antagonistic force who sows chaos and deceit, Thanos is pretty funny throughout the bulk of his screen time. Viewers of the series’ English dub will miss one of his main quirks, being his constant switching between speaking Korean and English. The character’s pompous bravado is a point of contention when it comes to how many viewers see him, but the reason I think it works is how well Thanos’ actor plays that portion of the role. Thanos may look familiar to those with greater knowledge on the South Korean entertainment industry, which is due to his portrayal by K-pop singer-songwriter T.O.P., a casting decision many viewers have praised. There’s an art to antagonistic characters who always seem to be up to something when they’re on screen, and the way Thanos dances around the series’ tone while doing his own thing brings a double header of comedic relief and tension to the mix.
Everyone’s standards are different, and Squid Game 2 might not hit some of its viewers the same way its initial 9-episode run did back in late 2021. However, I feel it’s definitely worth checking out for anyone who watched the first season. The director clearly still has a vision left for the series, and I’ll be seated for the final conclusion later this year (allegedly, this summer).
Squid Game 2 is now streaming on Netflix.