‘Squid Game’ season 2 review: How much squid is too much squid?
Summary
If the first season was about income inequality and sadness, this season is about the problem with democracy itself
How do you get blood out of white keds?
The question that came frequently to my mind while watching the new season of Squid Game on Netflix, where players routinely walk on the remains of vanquished players, rubber soles squelching against blood and hardwood. How do their white shoes stay spotless? Or are the players simply given a fresh batch of canvas sneakers before each game? This is not implausible, given how the satire—where debt-ridden contestants put lives on the line in the vain hope of earning millions—seems to be budgeted, but I didn’t think about cleaning canvas at all in season 1. I didn’t have the time.
In 2021, Squid Game conquered our screens and our imaginations. For many audiences, this was the first time they had watched a Korean series—but that didn’t matter. The universality of the show’s appeal could not be overstated. We were collectively hooked to creator Hyang Dong-hyuk’s absurdly compelling vision of poor people betting their lives on playing children’s games. We couldn’t stop watching (and recommending) the gore, in many ways mirroring the evil rich capitalists within the series—sitting back and watching the bloodshed staged for their entertainment.
A new Squid Game was always going to be a tall order. How do you tell that story all over again? One way is to make it about a new set of characters going through the original structure—like, say, in The White Lotus, where new clients come to new resorts each season—and have different players doing the games this time, which is a reliable mechanism but lacks novelty. Alternately, you follow the player who outlasted the games the first time and see his life after that, which is potentially more interesting but lacks the games itself. The Squid Game creator chose to do a bit of both: therefore, we have the winner of the first season Seong Gi-Hun (Lee Jung-jae) back in a dark green tracksuit all over again.
Now a billionaire, Gi-Hun is tormented by the bloodiness of his money and feels the need to bring down the entire system that preys on innocents. He wants to bring down the system but despite years of searching, can’t find his way back to the games—except as a player. He is, therefore, back in the breach but optimistic, feeling that since he knows what is to come, he can help others from losing their lives. He guides many through the now iconic Red Light Green Light game, for instance, and then keeps insisting that the games be stopped.
The first season had one instance of voting where the contestants voted whether or not to stop the entire tournament and share the prize pot, but season 2—which is actually telling only half a story, with the rest to come in another season next year (this year?)—is literally all about the voting, with contestants who want the game to stop marked with an X and those voting for the games to continue marked with an O. If the first season was about income inequality and sadness, this season is about the problem with democracy itself. Over multiple rounds of voting—shown to us in too much detail—the Xs and Os keep cancelling each other out.
Unfortunately, tic-tac-toe isn’t the best spectator sport. (This may be why I kept wondering about the shoes.)
With Gi-Hun as a wildcard—player #456 out of 456 players—trying his best to help the others to survive, the game’s mechanics are altered, not to mention the gameplay and the voting. The only thing to do then is stack the deck, and along with Gi-Hun comes his opposite number Hwang In-Ho (Lee Byung-hun) who is the sinister masked man who runs the game and—this time—decides to also join in as an active participant. Now the deuces are wild. Now the deck is crazy.
This is an intriguing twist (and it happens early enough on within seasons 2 and 3 to count more as premise than spoiler, I assure you) and I do believe the series still has things to say—about democracy and intent and making a difference—but it’s taking too damn long. This season has fewer games and more grumbling, with audiences introduced to many contestants and their wretched lives over and over again. It’s cumbersome storytelling, and this series that we couldn’t look away from has now become a series best watched at 1.25x speed.
The children’s games within the show themselves are still macabre and unpredictable and exciting, but the candied aesthetic—pop-art/MC Escher/plastic—doesn’t feel so new, and the show makes us either wait interminably long between games or stretches the games across too long. We are the captive audience, and instead of being the obscene fatcats watching losers bleed, we are now the betting contestants, forking over more of our time and attention in the hope that the show will hit a narrative lottery and make us all winners.
Maybe it will. We’re still watching. This new and less exciting Squid Game demonstrates how democracy has become about doubling down on wrong decisions—and not really having a reason to believe. Voters change and consensus is hard. The first episode entitled ‘Bread and Lottery’ sees homeless people offered loaves and lottery cards and most of them going for the card. It doesn’t make sense, but it does; 12 angry men are one thing, but try dealing with 456 hungry people. We loved Squid Game and another has been made to appease us, even though the creator didn’t really want to make one. This is not a real story. It’s squid pro quo.
Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen.
