Squid Game: Season 2 (2024) Cre: Hwang Dong-hyuk
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This second season to the wildly successful and popular South Korean series, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, has been highly anticipated globally. The first season broke records when it arrived on Netflix, and this second season set a new record for viewership on the streaming service in its first two weeks.
Visually speaking, the season maintained the quirky and vividly colourful set design, which was so captivating the first time around. I think the show owes a fair amount of success to its unique sets, particularly those used during the various games that take place. It certainly made for some memorable scenes.
There were some excellent individual episodes throughout this season, especially episode one, which, in my opinion, was one of the best season-opening pieces of TV I've seen in a long time. This strong start set the tone for for what amounted to being a very good season, on the whole.
I liked the character relationships a lot, they felt well-rounded, ever-developing, and undeniably interesting. Furthermore, the show's in-world rules mean there was always a real sense of threat to the characters, which created a lot of unpredictability and drama. The season finale was particularly shocking, and provided a great cliffhanger ending.
Lee Jung-jae returned with another excellent series of performances in the show's leading role. Some of his acting, particularly in the earlier episodes, was immense. He was very good at coming across as both believable and unique - I've enjoyed him a lot in this show, thus far. On a minor note, I was so relieved that he got rid of the red hair - I know that was not his decision, but he looked far better with his natural hair.
Of the rather extensive cast, there were many standouts, but the ones who stood above the rest, at least as far as I was concerned, were Choi Seung-hyun (T.O.P.), Kang Ae Shim, Yang Dong-geun, Park Sung-hoon, and Jo Yu-ri. These actors exhibited the most consistent and compelling acting of the supporting cast, particularly Seung-hyun and Yu-ri.
I also thought that the likes of Lee Byung-hun, Lee Seo-hwan, Kang Ha-neul, and Im Si-wan, deserved plenty of credit for their roles too, though to a slightly lesser degree. Others who deserved at least a mention include Yim Si Wan, Roh Jae-won, Lee David, Wi Ha-joon, Park Gyu-young, Chae Kook-hee, and Won Ji-an. I also want to give a special mention to the brief, but truly excellent, appearance of Gong Yoo.
Overall, this was another very good season of television, which continued to break streaming records and excite its expansive fan base. This has been one of the few shows that has deserved the majority of the hype it has received, at least in my opinion. It's exciting, it's different, and it has a lot of high stakes for its characters to battle against. I can't wait for the third season, it should be good.
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