Very close to a worthy sequel

It’s finally here. The three-year wait has been totally worth it. Season 2 of Play octopusconsisting of seven episodes of around an hour each, takes up quite a bit, with protagonist Lee Jung-jae slipping into a steely, personal mission-mode avatar that presents a stark contrast to the more laid-back persona he was in early stages of the first season.

Certain highlights of Season 1 prove difficult to replicate. Don’t expect anything as nail-bitingly tense as the tug-of-war sequences. Nor is there anything here as emotionally charged as the memorable game of marbles that defined the spirit of Play octopus like nothing else could.

Not that Season 2 isn’t without its share of explosions and bust-ups, but those flashpoints may pale just a bit in comparison if the memories of what players first encountered are still fresh in your mind.

But there is every reason to watch Squid game season 2 even if you’re late to the party. The process of discovering the world in which the show takes place, the people in it on both sides of the class divide, and the concerns it expresses will be well worth your time.

Few web shows have transcended cultural and geographic boundaries like the Netflix series created by South Korean writer and TV producer Hwang Dong-hyuk has. It was always going to be a tough act to follow. Squid game season 2 comes very close to being a worthy sequel. It gets pretty much everything right.

Rooted in a specific ethos and time, yet addressing globally resonant and timeless themes, Play octopus uses a host of children’s games as a means of commenting on adults struggling with class differences that are perpetuated and exploited by those who control the levers of power and will not let them go.

Within the narrative framework of the series are victims and perpetrators of financial fraud, gambling and loan rackets, ill-fated business plans and the increasing pressure of individual and family needs that push people into the abyss of crippling debt.

Season 2 maintains the refreshing spin put on Battle of the Gardens — remember the VIPs the frontman hosted with great fanfare in Season 1, men donning fancy, shiny masks — and those who have none , the Shakespearean “flies to frivolous boys”.

The game into which these people are lured is projected by its creator as an opportunity for them to escape their lot, but is in reality a dead end. They end up as fodder for an evil business that thrives on people’s misery and cultivates their organs for profit.

In his study of economic inequality, human greed, the brutality of unfettered power, and the moral strength and frailty of people dangling between life and death, Season 2 doesn’t add anything fresh to the discourse — it doesn’t need to — but a bunch of new characters, not least a rapper who serves as a bully pretty much in the mold of season 1’s Deok-su, spice up the show.

The new season expands on the threads developed masterfully in the series’ previous nine episodes. New friendships are forged, old ones sought to be renewed, connections made and damaged, teams created and disbanded, bitter rivalries nurtured and survival strategies devised, even as the fear of impending doom hangs over players who seem to have nothing to lose.

The latest survival game, which more than 450 players are thrown into, sees a number of interesting participants – a former shaman who still thinks she has it in her to control things, a pregnant girl hiding her baby bump, a sexagenarian woman who follows her son into the deadly arena, a trans woman who needs money to fund her gender reassignment surgery, a cryptocurrency scammer on the run from her immediate past and a rapper deep in the red, i.a.

As in Season 1, a female North Korean defector finds a place in the plot. She has made the trip across the border without her child. Driven by the desire to be reunited with her offspring, she infiltrates, as Jun-ho did earlier, the Frontman’s strictly stratified workforce of leaders, gunners and foot soldiers, whose job it is to enforce the rules of engagement and ‘eliminate’ the losers without mercy.

But predictably, the focus is entirely on Ssangmum-dong resident Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a former winner (and survivor) of the deadly game devised for the human waste of a callous society. He returns to the game with a plan. Last time he was in it purely for the money. This time he is on a bigger mission. Lee Jung-jae breathes life into the character he had already made his own.

Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), continuing his search for his missing brother, teams up with the once-innocent gambling addict, now sitting on a pile of liquid cash, planning an attack on the evil of the mysterious masked frontman. empire.

After seeing firsthand what the ruthless creator of the game is capable of, Gi-hun intends to put an end to the sinister exploitation of those already down and out. But is it even possible? “The game doesn’t stop until the world changes,” the frontman tells him. It only strengthens Gi-hun’s resolve to go through with her plan.

Players are tasked with playing six games over six days with a chance to win a jackpot – the money that accumulates as more and more players are eliminated. In a ‘democratic process’ designed as a tool for repression and discontent, participants are allowed to vote after each round to decide whether the game should continue or end.

The practice splits the players down the middle, creating chaos and free-for-all – a reflection of the levels to which cornered people will sink to climb out of the holes they find themselves in. Episode 1 ends with a bang – the hero is drawn into a game of Russian roulette with a recruiter who has already demonstrated that he means business. The edgy face-off sets the tone for the remaining six episodes.

The finale is explosive. Beating any of the carnage the game’s enforcers may have done in the past on the island Jun-ho is desperate to find is a bloodbath. While much of the action takes place inside the underground venue, Jun-ho’s search, part of Gi-Hun’s mission, takes place on a sailboat.

While the back-and-forth rhythm gives the show momentum, what unfolds in Front Man’s hidden lair is the crux of the show. That’s where most of the appetizing action is. Will it leave Squid Game fans begging for more?

There is certainly more to come. The open cancellation keeps the door open for a third season. It is reportedly already in post-production. Rejoice, it will not be years, but a few months that will separate Season 2 and last act.