Squid Game returns 3 years after the cosmic success of its season 1. The Netflix phenomenon made in Korea had conquered the world with its biting, violent and above all social aspect: what is this Season 2 worth?
The director-screenwriter Hwang Dong-yeok will have created a real phenomenon in 2021 with Squid Game ! Korean series number 1 in the world and now cult work from Netflix, this survival Battle Royale drew with great effectiveness from local folklore to create his universe. Indeed, a good number of South Korean films and series that have emerged over the last 25 years are rooted in the country’s high social disparities (the immense Parasite for example).
Led by Lee Jung-jae (Hunt), Squid Game highlights 456 people in debt or ruin finding themselves selected by an obscure organization to participate in a survival competition. 6 deadly games inspired by playground activities follow one another with a prize of 45 billion won (around 25 million euros) for the one who survives at the very end.
Because yes, every failure in any event means immediate death! Therefore, Squid Game displayed a program that was both deliciously perverse, but also nourished by its social dimension inspired. A true backbone of the story, the latter revolved around characters who were sometimes endearing, sometimes repulsive, making the premises of the Squid Game a metaphorical petri dish of social dynamics quickly shaken by everyone’s survivalist desire.
Oh shit, here we go again !
A hardcore Koh-Lanta, gory and gripping in a sensewhich concluded with the promise that Gi-hun wanted revenge on the organizers of the game, being the sole survivor (and therefore now a multi-millionaire). An ending which clearly announced the sequel in preparation, while this Season 2 starts almost immediately and then takes us a few years later.
Gi-hun hired a team at his own expense to locate the recruiter (Gong Yoo once again monstrous with charisma in an intense episode 1 having its place in the world of Korean thrillers) and finds himself again in a new edition of the game . Like any somewhat dull “episode 2”, Squid Game seems at first glance to opt for “we take the same formula and start again” and this from the first episodes reintroducing the story.
New gallery of characters, return of the famous “One, Two, Three Sun”..the pseudo-remake quickly rears its head halfway through. At least in appearance, because even if Squid Game 2 surprises less, it takes the form of season 1 to organize a more complicit remix. The viewer now knows the overall sequence, but this time the emphasis is placed on a plurality of points of view.
Suite that changes the cards of the game
Certainly, we are still interested in Gi-hun and his heroic vengeful side, while certain characters (whether related or not) create more or less empathy (we will note the character of Thanos, completely detestable but who (we love to see him as a self-proclaimed boss). But Hwang Dong-yeok has the good idea to vitiate the expected program by placing the excellent Lee Byung-hun (I met the Devil) as an undercover mastermind.
So, the spectator has a wider look behind the scenes of the Squid Gamepersonifying the figures behind the now famous anonymous masks. A spirit of rebellion therefore runs until the violent climax of episode 7, but it is in this progressive opening of points of view that the series hits again.
We will also appreciate social dynamics much more highlightedin particular concerning the choice given to players to vote against the continuation of the competition. A true allegory of Plato’s cave which once again proves to be cruelly enjoyable, offering another look at elements already present before.
Squid Game still exhilarating, minus the surprise
However, a few elements detract from a weaker Season 2, and hold up in a simple reality: this is half the story, which will conclude with Season 3 in 2025 ! We will therefore have to be content with a handful of challenges, fortunately still just as playful and twisted, while the crescendoing tension is swapped for a more unpredictable narrative in its finale (and its cliffhanger!).
The mercenary characters hired by Gi-hun may be treading water (literally) on the water, and some competitors may not have revealed all their cards…. difficult to deny the almost intact pleasure in the face of this return of Squid Game. Test point transformed after the very good first season, but this 2nd chapter turns out to be a great success. All that remains to be judged during the grand finale in 2025!
Squid Game is available on Netflix
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there will only be one left
Squid Game 2 surprises less than its illustrious first season. However, by remixing the expected passages of the competition, Hwang Dong-yeok gradually twists the program of the safe suite for an ever more in-depth exploration of social dynamics, in a game of perversion and violence that is always exhilarating. So we’re waiting for the rest (and end)!
