The award-winning Korean Drama Squid Game released its second season on December 26, 2024. The Korean Drama, or K-Drama for short, is directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, and first aired in the United States in 2021 on Netflix with 10 episodes. The new season included 7 new episodes starring the main actor Lee Jung-jae, who is also the main actor in Season One. Since the show includes graphic scenery, it’s best made for a mature audience.
The K-Drama is a dystopian thriller that stars the main character, Seong Gi-hun. To summarize Season One, Gi-hun was in crippling debt to a group of loan sharks. When at a train station, he ran into a recruiter that informed him about the Squid Game after playing ddakji. After learning that his daughter, Ga-yeong, was moving to the United States, and in hopes to earn money for his mother’s treatments, he accepted the recruiter’s offer. He was then sent to the island where the Squid Game would be held. There he would play and survive seven games: Red Light, Green Light, Sugar Honeycombs, Special Game, Tug of War, Marbles, Glass Stepping Stones, and the Squid Game. For being the last person alive, he was awarded 45.6 billion won and was sent back to Seoul, Korea. Due to the trauma caused by the horrific games, he didn’t touch the money for an entire year. After gaining some stability, he decided to fly to the United States until he found the same recruiter trying to recruit another person. He runs for the recruiter, but he sees the same card he was given and calls the number. This is where Season Two picks up at.
In Season Two, our main character is not as light-hearted as he was in the first season. He uses the money he won to pay searchers to find the recruiter in hopes of stopping naive people looking for a “second chance.” Furthermore, this season introduces a subplot that does receive some screen time, but hopefully is shown more in Season Three, which is supposed to be released on Netflix this year around late July/early August. This season only covers half of the Squid Game, so the other half will be shown in Season Three.
The main cast of Season Two is Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun, Wi Ha-joon as Hwang Jun ho, Gong Yoo as the the Salesman/recruiter, Lee Byung-hun as the Frontman, Park Sung-hoon as Cho Hyun-ju, Jo Yu-ri as Kim Jun-hee, Kang Ae-sim as Jang Geum-ja, Yang Dong-geun as Bak Yong-sik, Kang Ha-neul as Kan Dae-ho, and Lee Seo-hwan as Park Jung-bae.
Like any show, it’s always best to watch the first season before moving on to the second season. It is originally in Korean, so it can be watched with subtitles or you can turn on the English Dub.
Lastly, have your favorite snack and drink with you and enjoy the show.
