Squid Game Recap: Season 2, Episode 3 Unleashed the Series’ Best Twist Yet
The following contains spoilers from the first three episodes of Squid Game Season 2, now streaming on Netflix.
More than three years and three months after the launch of what would become Netflix’s most popular series ever, Squid Game has returned with its seven-episode Season 2.
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Did the new batch’s third episode reveal the franchise’s best twist thus far?
EPISODE 1
Squid Game Season 2 opened with an extension of the final sequence from the Season 1 finale, with Gi-hun (played by LeeJung-jae) on the phone with the Front Man (aka In-ho, played by Lee Byung-hun), vowing to “find him” and end his operation once and for all. Gi-hun thus returned to Seoul, and used a carpet knife to remove the microchip from his neck.
Meanwhile, police detective Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) is shown in a hospital bed, confirmed to have to survived being shot, in the shoulder at close range, by his brother aka the Front Man.
Two years pass… and we see that Gi-hun has been throwing lots of money (because he has all of the money) at an ongoing effort to find the Recruiter who lures heavily indebted people into the game with a few rounds of ddakji. On the latest anniversary of his recruitment, Gi-hun quadruples down on his efforts and has Mr. Kim, the man he owed money to, dispatch underlings to monitor every subway station. It takes a long while, but the Recruiter is spotted by Mr. Kim and a helper named Woo-seok, and Gi-hun has the men tail him while he himself races to that part of the city. By the time Gi-hun finds the men’s phones, they are disappeared from an alleyway, having been jumped by the Recruiter.
In a room at the dingy hotel Gi-hun runs, The Recruiter has the men play a version of Russian Roulette, using “Rock, Paper, Scissors Minus One” to determine whose turn it is to pull the trigger each time. Mr. Kim winds up losing, his life. Gi-hun and the Recruiter then come face-to-face when the latter is caught snooping around the former’s hotel room. A game of regular Russian Roulette ensues, until the Recruiter introduces a variation featuring just one empty chamber. Gi-hun goes first, and survives, sealing the Recruiter’s fate.
EPISODE 2
Just as Gi-hun fishes from the dead Recruiter’s pocket promised information on the Front Man’s whereabouts, Jun-ho shows up and holds him at gunpoint, but Woo-seok comes up from behind and KOs the cop.
When Jun-ho comes to, he and Gi-hun realize their shared goal, and they form a small army to find the island on which the game compound is situated, and infiltrate it. First, Gi-hun and two others scope out the night club listed on the card found inside the Recruiter’s pocket. Uniformed/masked Squid Game soldiers also show up, deftly neutralizing Gi-hun’s associates. Gi-hun himself is lured to a limo outside, where he converses with the Front Man over a piggy bank-shaped speakerphone. After reiterating his resolve to end the game, the limo fills with gas, knocking out Gi-hun.
Elsewhere, we meet No-eul (Park Gyu-young),a young woman who defected from North Korea and has been nagging a private investigator about finding the daughter she left behind, though he maintains that every effort has come up empty. Living out of her car, she is approached one night with a business cards like the ones that invite players into the game — though at episode’s end, we realize that she has been recruited to be one of the masked soldiers!
EPISODE 3
Gi-hun, once again wearing No. 456, comes to in the familiar dormitory room, where he bumps into old friend Jung-bae (390). New players we meet include the young and semi-secretly pregnant Jun-hee (222), disgraced crypto bro/Jun-hee’s baby daddy Myung-gi aka MG Coin, Yong-sik and his mother Geum-ja, and Choi Su-bong AKA the rapper Thanos.
When the first game is revealed to be “Red Light, Green Light,” Gi-hun steps in front of the lined-up hundreds to try to explain the deadly punishment for moving, but many write him off as a lunatic. Some, though, pay him mind — especially after a female influencer is shot in the head after flinching when the music stops. Gi-hun relays some other hacks, including to hide behind others/out of view of the doll’s camera lenses, and as a result, a significant amount of players survive.
The game play wrinkle for Season 2 is that after each round, the surviving players vote to keep playing (“O”), or to stop (“X”) and divvy up the prize money pool accumulated thus far. Having realized that the tracker buried inside his dental implant was removed before he was delivered to the compound — meaning, Jun-ho & Co. will have. dickens of a time finding him/the island! — Gi-hun urges everyone to vote X. Alas, since so many survived “Red Light, Green Light,” each player’s share is measly, especially for those who are most heavily indebted in the outside world. As a result, the vote is close. It was a tie, in fact, ahead of the final vote to be cast, by Player 001.
We see 001 march up the aisle between the warring X and O factions, and after a moment, he votes to keep playing.
Player 001 then turns around, and we see that it is the Front Man aka In-ho — a previous winner of the game, remember! And Gi-hun, of course, is none the wiser about the agenda-driven ringer now in his midst….
What did you think of Squid Game Season 2’s first three episodes, and the Player 001 reveal?
Want scoop on Squid Game Season 3, or for any other TV show ? Shoot an email to [email protected], and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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