‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Ends on a Devastating Cliffhanger—And Tees Up a Wild Final Season
CultureWe don't want to be alarmist here, but we're starting to worry that this game is not very safe.By Jack KingDecember 30, 2024Save this storySaveSave this storySaveThe following article contains major spoilers for season two of Squid Game, including its final episode.The new Squid Game is a pretty cautious season of television overall. But you can understand why: with the weight of expectation that comes with building on such a massive cultural behemoth, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk opts largely to replay the hits, taking us—and series hero Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae)—back into the game after an opening couple of episodes reacquainting us with Squid Game's characters. (We're introduced to a few new faces, too, who mostly end up as fodder for the world's deadliest gameshow.)But then again, what else could Squid Game be? It's in the title. And beyond the obligatory go at Red Light, Green Light, there's an array of new challenges to surprise everyone. It feels somewhat weird to describe the poor saps who are conned into taking part as “contestants,” but this season especially has the air of a fictional reality series, albeit one with mortal consequences: it has all the big personalities of a season of Big Brother, the tear-jerking personal stories and colourful, camera-ready sets. Moreso than the last this season feels like a direct parody of reality TV—both its charm and its harm.The main thrust of the plot of this season concerns the effort of Gi-hun and cop Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon)—who is revealed to have survived being shot at the end of season one—to bring down the game. An impossible task from the outside, given its shroud of secrecy; no one even knows where the island it takes place on is. This is why Gi-hun allows himself to be abducted into the game for a second time, once again taking the identifying number 456. But there's a big twist further to the revamp of the challenges themselves: the menacing Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) also places himself inside the game, taking the number 001, ostensibly to stop Gi-hun. Look, it's all very melodramatic and silly, but it adds a welcome wrinkle of intrigue to a season that might've otherwise felt like an empty redo.Some episodes worth of death-by-submachine-gun later, we come to the final episode, “Friend or Foe”, in which Gi-hun and the Front Man join up to lead a coup, fighting through hoards of mask-wearing, armed game enforcers with the aim of destroying the game once and for all. They almost reach the control room when the Front Man decides he has had enough; he puts an end to the uprising, and the episode finishes with Ji-hun pinned to the floor by the Front Man's lackeys and forced to watch as his friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) is executed. It's a dark, devastating cliffhanger that does away with the tidy resolution we might expect from a season of TV—but after you shake the feeling of anticlimax, it becomes pretty obvious that this is just part one of a multi-season story.The third season—reportedly shot back-to-back with season two and set to premiere in 2025—will be Squid Game's last. It seems apparent that we've got an Infinity War/Endgame sort of deal here, and we can probably expect the next season opener to pick up directly from where “Friend or Foe” finished. Hwang did not originally plan to expand Squid Game beyond its first season before the series' incredible success put the kibosh on that—but the creator did not want to leave the show running indefinitely. “I think that the story I wanted to tell came to a full closure at the end of season three,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “The story that I both wanted to tell and that I am capable of telling through Gi-hun, it has been told with season three.” So yes, that means a little bit of a wait to find out how the Squid Game saga will conclude—but we will find out.This story originally appeared in British GQ.
The following article contains major spoilers for season two of Squid Game, including its final episode.
The new Squid Game is a pretty cautious season of television overall. But you can understand why: with the weight of expectation that comes with building on such a massive cultural behemoth, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk opts largely to replay the hits, taking us—and series hero Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae)—back into the game after an opening couple of episodes reacquainting us with Squid Game's characters. (We're introduced to a few new faces, too, who mostly end up as fodder for the world's deadliest gameshow.)
But then again, what else could Squid Game be? It's in the title. And beyond the obligatory go at Red Light, Green Light, there's an array of new challenges to surprise everyone. It feels somewhat weird to describe the poor saps who are conned into taking part as “contestants,” but this season especially has the air of a fictional reality series, albeit one with mortal consequences: it has all the big personalities of a season of Big Brother, the tear-jerking personal stories and colourful, camera-ready sets. Moreso than the last this season feels like a direct parody of reality TV—both its charm and its harm.
The main thrust of the plot of this season concerns the effort of Gi-hun and cop Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon)—who is revealed to have survived being shot at the end of season one—to bring down the game. An impossible task from the outside, given its shroud of secrecy; no one even knows where the island it takes place on is. This is why Gi-hun allows himself to be abducted into the game for a second time, once again taking the identifying number 456. But there's a big twist further to the revamp of the challenges themselves: the menacing Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) also places himself inside the game, taking the number 001, ostensibly to stop Gi-hun. Look, it's all very melodramatic and silly, but it adds a welcome wrinkle of intrigue to a season that might've otherwise felt like an empty redo.
Some episodes worth of death-by-submachine-gun later, we come to the final episode, “Friend or Foe”, in which Gi-hun and the Front Man join up to lead a coup, fighting through hoards of mask-wearing, armed game enforcers with the aim of destroying the game once and for all. They almost reach the control room when the Front Man decides he has had enough; he puts an end to the uprising, and the episode finishes with Ji-hun pinned to the floor by the Front Man's lackeys and forced to watch as his friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) is executed. It's a dark, devastating cliffhanger that does away with the tidy resolution we might expect from a season of TV—but after you shake the feeling of anticlimax, it becomes pretty obvious that this is just part one of a multi-season story.
The third season—reportedly shot back-to-back with season two and set to premiere in 2025—will be Squid Game's last. It seems apparent that we've got an Infinity War/Endgame sort of deal here, and we can probably expect the next season opener to pick up directly from where “Friend or Foe” finished. Hwang did not originally plan to expand Squid Game beyond its first season before the series' incredible success put the kibosh on that—but the creator did not want to leave the show running indefinitely. “I think that the story I wanted to tell came to a full closure at the end of season three,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “The story that I both wanted to tell and that I am capable of telling through Gi-hun, it has been told with season three.” So yes, that means a little bit of a wait to find out how the Squid Game saga will conclude—but we will find out.
This story originally appeared in British GQ.
