After more than three years of waiting, today the new season of Squid Game is finally on Netflix for our masochistic viewing pleasure. After season one ended with Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), also known as Player 456, choosing to search for the people behind the game instead of boarding a flight to Los Angeles to reconnect with his daughter, we catch up with him two years later as he’s contracted a group of people to search for The Salesman (Gong Yoo), the man who recruits people into the game. The formerly naive Gi-hun is now a radicalized vigilante with a makeshift shooting range and illegal guns in his hotel room.
But, that’s not the only change this season. Over seven episodes, Squid Game introduces its first transgender character, shows us someone being recruited to be a guard, and turns more children’s games into chaos creators. It’s not all good, as some of the second season’s changes left us yearning for more.
But one thing is for sure: these changes make it abundantly clear that we are entering the final episodes of Squid Game as a series. Let’s cherish them while we can. The central tension of the show has always been rooted in the deadly consequences of playing the show’s twisted versions of children’s games.
In the past, Squid Game has turned Red Light, Green Light into a massacre machine, throwing marbles into a breeding ground for lethal deception, and literally put lives in people’s hands with Tug of War. The new season gives still more traditionall.