Spoiler alert! The following contains details from the Season 2 finale of “Squid Game.”
How is Gi-hun going to get out of this one?
The final moments of the second season of Netflix’s smash hit “Squid Game” are some of the most brutal and upsetting of the entire season, and they end with quite a bang. After leading some of his fellow players in an uprising against the games, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) sees his rebellion instantly squashed. The man he thought was an ally in the game was actually the villainous Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who dons his mask just in time to kill Gi-hun’s best friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) in front of him. And then the credits roll.
Now more people are dead, the Front Man has won, the games can go on unabated and Gi-hun’s life is in danger. Where do we go from here? And why end on such a big cliffhanger?
Recap:‘Squid Game’ Season 2 arrives Thursday: Catch up on where we left off
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“Gi-hun has a huge sense of loss, defeat and guilt weighing on him,” says Hwang Dong-hyukthe series’ director and creator. “When he is just filled with complete, utter loss and guilt after all of his attempts (to stop the games) fail, I thought that was the adequate ending to give closure to the second season.”
It’s an abrupt and shocking finale that leaves much to be answered in the series’ third season, due in 2025. Hwang and actor Lee Jung-jae spoke to USA TODAY through translators to break down the shocking and brutally violent final episode, and what fans can expect from Season 3. Spoiler alert: Those odiously rich VIPs will reappear.
The Front-Man was playing Gi-hun for the entire season
“It is really a showdown between Front Man and Gi-hun that’s at the heart of the plot,” Hwang said of the second season’s theme. The Front Man “wants to make sure he brings down all of Gi-hun’s purpose,” and completely obliterate the man and crush his spirit.
Review:‘Squid Game 2’ is still violent, but more disappointing than shocking
Lee didn’t mince words about Gi-hun’s position at the end of the season: “The Front Man totally played Gi-hun, and just made use of him in every possible way.”
“The Front Man decided that he will allow the players to cast a vote after each round is because he believes … they’re still not going to want to leave, because of their greed,” Hwang said. “At the end of the day, the story reflects the capitalist society and how it drives people to this competition. There is no opportunity for losers. The winner takes all and the losers are driven to lose their humanity.”
Where did Gi-hun’s rebellion come from?
Gi-hun did everything he could to stop the games, Hwang and Lee say, and when he couldn’t think of anything else, he took up arms and was willing to kill for it. He and his allies plot to overpower the pink-jumpsuited “soldiers” running the games and mount an armed insurrection aimed at overthrowing the facility’s overlords.
“He chooses violence,” Hwang said. “He chooses to physically fight the system and overthrow the system, which fails again. The price that he has to pay for that is losing his best friend Jung-bae.”
Lee says the character he plays in Season 2 is a “totally different man” than the flaky, silly gambler Gi-hun started out as in Season 1. “He is full of vengeance, and he doesn’t want any more.”
He sees echoes of current political unrest in the “Squid” storylines (in Lee’s home country of South Korea, massive political protests have recently taken place amid a constitutional crisis).
“I think it really mirrors our society,” Lee said. “I think the ‘Squid Game’ arena is actually a miniature of our society. When you find that your political system is unfair, or if there’s a dictatorship or there’s just an unfair society, then there might be a coup. People will take it to the streets, or there will be people who would want to append a system in some way. We see this all the time in the news, and I think it was a great metaphor that we see in the last episode of ‘Squid Game.'”
What about the VIPs?
Season 1 of “Squid Game” included “VIPs,” wealthy spectators who enjoyed watching the poor peasants fight and die as they bet millions on the outcome. They don’t show up at all in Season 2, but Hwang promises they are not gone.
“You will get to see the VIPs in the third season,” he says. “They’re coming. They’re on the way. Their chopper is flying over the island now.”
