Squid Game, season 2: same anxiety, same fascination (review)

While keeping the sordid essence of his series, Hwang Dong-hyeok manages to breathe new energy into it. The game is worth it.

A new part of the squid game, what do you think? Three years after involving the whole world and hitting the jackpot, Squid Game returns today to Netflix with an ambitious season 2, which attempts the impossible: making lightning strike a second time in the same place! How to transcend its status as a phenomenon? How can you meet enormous expectations when you have this heavy, glittering medal around your neck: “Biggest Netflix Series of All Time”?

Hwang Dong-hyeok, creator, screenwriter and director, took the time to ask himself the question. Knowing full well that he could no longer count on the element of surprise, he imagined a sequel which explores in more depth the mythology of the game and the backstory of his masked grand master, while redrawing the contours of his hero, who went from bewildered loser to tortured hero.

SO Squid Game 2 doesn't send us back into the arena right away. You have to wait for episode 3 to find the island, its famous colorful decor, the guards with circles and squares, and the murders that ensue. The first two hours are spent tracking down Gi-hun. Former number 456 does everything possible to get his hands on the recruiter of the Squid Game while Jun-ho, the policeman, desperately tries to locate the island where his brother left him for dead. Both will end up pooling their efforts. But quickly, we understand that the villains in charge of the massacre game will not let themselves be caught like that. They have resources (lots of resources). And the only way for Gi-hun will be to go back to the game…

Here again, Hwang Dong-hyeok innovates. He puts in place new spicy rules (participants can vote after each event and decide to stop to share the money collected or stay to try to win more) which further weigh down the unhealthy atmosphere of this dormitory. looks like a funeral chamber. Who will give in to the temptation of squid? Who will choose to live? Hwang once again populated his game with unlikely candidates. A multitude of zany characters with disparate personalities try to survive the game and each other. A grotesque gallery with which it is difficult to identify… which allows, in fact, to maintain a certain distance, thus making the thing watchable.

Because Squid Gameit’s still anxiety.

Seeing poor fellows being murdered in packs of twelve from your sofa, watching summary executions while eating popcorn, shuddering at the terror of an unfortunate candidate who knows he is going to die… All this under the varnish of a Bigdil which would have gone wrong. It's chilling. The concept of Squid Game – obviously inspired by Battle Royale Japanese imagined in Kōshun Takami's novel (1999) – is still going strong. Still so disturbing. Still fascinating.

While he holds up this unglamorous mirror to the society that worships him and to the entertainment industry that he questions, Hwang Dong-hyeok still manages to ratchet up the tension dramatically. The denunciation of the social divide – wherever it is – is always as scathing. There's almost something literally visceral about it, an intensity that grips the guts and leaves your stomach in knots. Each ordeal, even the most anecdotal, generates total anguish in the characters which is also echoed in the viewer. Without a doubt, Squid Game is a great suspense series. You can go there, the squid is always fresh!

Squid Game, season 2, in 7 episodes, to watch on Netflix on December 26.