Squid Game season 2 is even more disturbing for a tragic reason-Sabrina Barr-Entertainment – Metro

The horrors continue as the Netflix phenomenon makes a gripping return (Picture: Netflix/Getty)

No one could have anticipated the impact that Squid Game would have on the world when it first premiered three years ago.

Not just as a TV series that left millions of people gripped, becoming one of Netflix’s most watched and critically-acclaimed shows ever.

But also as a cultural phenomenon – a piece of art that prompted people to take a good hard look at themselves and the society they live in, and to question what they would do if they faced life-or-death situations as surreal as those that make up the plot of the drama.

Finally, season 2 has arrived in time for Boxing Day with seven new episodes to binge in one go… and it’s even more tragic than the first for a disturbing reason.

Squid Game inevitably now has less of a shock factor than it did the first time around, given it previously introduced a brand new concept for a TV series that left viewers in a mixed state of horror and awe.

Nonetheless, the second season still manages to find an innovative way for lead character Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) to re-enter the game, this time as a former winner who bagged an enormous fortune and is now dead set on seeking revenge for all of the lives lost.

When viewers first met Gi-hun, he was a hapless individual who was down on his luck financially and unable to tear himself away from his gambling obsession, in the hope that he would one day win a life-changing sum.

But when that day finally arrives, and he earns the jackpot prize of ₩45.6 billion (£24.8 million) in Squid Game, he doesn’t relish in his winnings.

Instead, his traumatic experience has left him hardened and fixated on exacting revenge on the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), the mysterious figure who’s in charge of the game and who he holds responsible for the deaths of hundreds of other players.

After teaming up with police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), who viewers discovered at the end of season one is the Front Man’s younger brother, Gi-hun successfully gets back into the game… but then the real challenge begins.

This challenge reveals an utterly tragic truth about human nature.

Gi-hun is on a mission to bring down the game from the inside when he enters for a second time (Picture: No Ju-han/Netflix)

Hwang Jun-ho is back after surviving being shot in season one and finding out his brother is in charge of the game (Picture: No Ju-han/Netflix)

That even when Gi-hun reveals what he went through to the other players – that he had to witness hundreds of others die before he was crowned the victor, that they cannot all make it out alive, that it’s impossible for them to imagine the horrors that lay before them by staying in the game, that the players will inevitably unleash their primal violent instincts on each other – many of them still want to stay in the process on the off chance that the jackpot prize could end up in their bank accounts.

A lot of the players have valid reasons for wanting and needing a huge cash payout, including settling enormous debts, and even one participant who’s pregnant and hopes to be able to support their baby when they give birth.

But one would think that everything Gi-hun’s endured would be enough to convince them that their lives are too valuable to be put at risk for the sake of winning money.

Alas, given the state of a world that treats them unfairly and revolves around cash, this sadly isn’t the case. But then again, if it was, we wouldn’t have a series to watch.

The Front Man is back to inflict even more horror on the financially-struggling players he’s invited to the game (Picture: No Ju-han/Netflix)

The mysterious figure was unmasked at the end of the first season (Picture: No Ju-han/Netflix)

One of the biggest questions that fans will be wondering is what games are going to be played this season.

Of course, Red Light Green Light makes a return, with that same creepy oversized doll scanning to check which players have moved when it’s turned around, and having them shot to death if they do.

But after that, the challenges featured in season two are all brand new – still inspired by childhood games, and still as chilling as hell.

One of the biggest standout performances in Squid Game season two is by Park Sung-hoon as new character Cho Hyun-ju, a transgender woman who’s a former special forces soldier and is taking part in the game so that she can afford gender-affirming surgery.

This casting choice has sparked controversy, given it is yet another example of a cisgender man playing a transgender woman.

This is a common pattern in the film and TV industry that has been heavily criticised for many years, as it not only means that trans actors are missing out on high-profile roles, but it also can perpetuate a harmful image of trans people, as outlined in the Netflix documentary Disclosure.

Cho Hyun-ju is one of the most significant roles in season two (Picture: No Ju-han/Netflix)

The casting of cisgender man Park Sung-hoon as a trans woman has received some criticism (Picture: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

In the documentary, writer Jen Richards says: ‘Having cis men play trans women, in my mind, is a direct link to the violence against trans women.

‘In my mind, part of the reason that men end up killing, out of fear that other men will think that they’re gay for having been with trans women, is that the friends – the men whose judgement they fear of – only know trans women from media, and the people playing trans women are the men that they know. This doesn’t happen when a trans woman plays a trans woman.’

Squid Game’s creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has defended casting Sung-hoon in the role, telling TV Guide: ‘I did anticipate such discussions to arise from the first moment I began creating the character Hyun-ju. In the beginning we were doing our research, and I was thinking of doing an authentic casting of a trans actor.

‘When we researched in Korea, there are close to no actors that are openly trans, let alone openly gay, because unfortunately in the Korean society currently the LGBTQ community is rather still marginalised and more neglected, which is heartbreaking.’

While the criticism of Sung-hoon’s casting is warranted and essential to acknowledge, it feels as though Hyun-ju’s storyline is handled with care in the second season of Squid Game, especially given the discrimination that many trans people face in South Korea, as outlined by Dong-hyuk.

The character is one of the most endearing among the newcomers to the series, and plays a pivotal role in the direction of the story as Gi-hun concocts his plan to bring down the game once and for all.

South Korean rapper Choi Seung-hyun, best-known as T.O.P,plays the arrogant Thanos in the latest season (Picture: No Ju-han/Netflix)

Mother-and-son duo Park Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun) and Jang Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim) will pull on the heart strings (Picture: No Ju-han/Netflix)

After three years of waiting for new Squid Game episodes, the second outing is certainly worth the wait.

However, the cliffhanger in the final episode makes it feel like the end of a part one – a midway point – rather than the conclusion to an entire season.

Fans will be on tenterhooks eagerly wanting to know what’ll happen next… and luckily, season three isn’t going to be too far away, landing at some point in 2025.

I have a sneaky suspicion that while season two has been brilliant with jaw-dropping twists and turns, Dong-hyuk is saving the best till last to go out with an almighty bang for the grand finale, hence my hesitancy to deliver a full house of five stars.

The sensation that Squid Game created when it first launched was far beyond anything that anyone could have predicted. And with season two, it will definitely blow audiences away once again.

Squid Game is available to watch on Netflix.

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