[SPOILERS FOR SQUID GAME SEASONS 1 AND 2]
Seong Gi-hun
I’ve been wondering why in the past five days, I’ve obsessively watched Season 2 of Squid Game twice, then rewatched Season 1 (some episodes multiple times), then watched Season 2 a third time, plus watched several YouTube videos analyzing it. It hit me during my rewatching of Season 2 last night: it’s the aloneness of most of the players that draws me.
It stands to reason that the most destitute and desperate members of society would be the ones without family or community, but it took me a while to realize that’s why I identify so strongly with this story. I have limited family relationships, often feel alone in the world, and work hard to build friendships.
Abdul Ali
The way we all feel isolated to some extent is undoubtedly part of what connects millions of us to this show. Every Squid Game player whose backstory we learn is either all alone in the world or has exactly one family member.
Kim Jun-hee
Gi-hun and Sae-byeok in Season 1, and No-eul (Soldier 011) and Player 246 in Season 2 each have one person they need money to help, either medically or to bring over from North Korea. That’s also why In-ho played before he became the Front man.
Ji-yeong (S1) and Jun-hee (S2) have no family at all, Hyun-ju (S2) has no family after coming out as a trans woman, and Jung-bae (S2)
No-eul
Player 246
is divorced with no children. Abdul Ali (S1) stands out as someone who has not only a wife but a child he’s playing to support, but this distinction might be consistent with his character who’s different because he’s a Pakistani national who came to South Korea for a job.
The isolation the players live in makes them vulnerable to the Recruiter’s pitch and makes the bonds they form in the Game particularly important. For the majority of
Park Jung-bae
them, their friendship-making skills are limited, although a few seem charismatic enough to form the shallow relationships that get them in trouble. It’s only the extreme danger of the Game that gets them to form alliances, but even more interesting than watching them become team mates is watching them become real friends.
Many (all?) Squid Game fans believe S1 was superior to S2, and part of that is how much deeper the new relationships go in S1. Unlike in S2
Jang Geum-ja
Bak Yong-sik
where Jang Geum-ja and Bak Yong-sik (mother and son), and Jun-hee and Mr. MG Coin (exes) have standing relationships, in S1 all the main players start as strangers. Maybe because of their loneliness, they get very close quickly.
And that sets up the most emotional of all the games in both seasons: marbles. By the time they play marbles, all our main players have awakened their hearts and let each other in. But now they’re required to end not only their friendships but each other’s lives (there’s a similar game in the Squid Game: The Challenge and it’s almost as cruel).
Ji-yeong
Kang Sae-byeok
It’s heartbreaking to watch Gi-hun choose to let the old man die, and infuriating to see Sang-woo trick Abdul out of his proper win, but the hardest pair to watch is Sae-byeok and Ji-yeong. It’s possible Ji-yeong is ready to give up from the beginning: she makes no effort to join any team, maintains a baffling level of detachment, and says she received her Game invitation when she got out of prison and came because she had nowhere else to go. Arguably Ji-yeong isn’t making an incredible move for a friend, but running a cold calculation about resources.
Even so, what ripped my heart out is the reason Ji-yeong gives for letting her marble hit the ground listlessly. Ji-yeong sacrifices herself after hearing Sae-byeok say she’s playing for her brother. Ji-yeong explains that she has no one, but if Sae-byeok has family to care for, then Sae-byeok is the one who should survive.
It’s an incredible sacrifice, especially for someone she just met, but it makes sense. Many times I’ve wondered about all the people who die every day, leaving behind families and fiancés, while I go on and on. Some lives do make more difference than others.
Childhood is when making friends feels easy. Seeing adults re-learning how to make friends shouldn’t have been diminished.
I support the criticism that Season 2 lacks a lot of what Season 1 had. Maybe the writers thought things would be more interesting if they featured family members in the Game together or the drama of a young woman and her baby daddy, but those subplots actually remove a critical part of the dynamic. The characters never mention this, but childhood is when making friends feels easy, and the basis of friendship is playing games together. Those games move the Squid Game plot forward, but adults re-learning how to make friends is the heart of the story. That process shouldn’t have been diminished.
Kim Young-mi
Cho Hyun-ju
One of few S2 friendships born of the Games is the one that forms between Young-mi and Hyun-ju. I wish we could have seen more of that relationship, but we just have to accept that Young-mi seems to recognize Hyun-ju as an outsider like her and that’s enough to bring them together.
Se-mi
Similarly, we get only a truncated version of Min-su and Se-mi becoming friends, and only glimpses of the affection that causes the Young-mi and Hyun-ju group to talk about meeting for dinner afterwards.
It’s almost as if the showrunner wanted this season to mirror the first one, but backwards, with main bonds that are false: Gi-hun and “Young-il”; Jung-bae and Dae-ho, who isn’t an ex-Marine; Jun-hee and MG Coin; and Thanos and the mess he surrounds himself with.
Regardless of the intention, the S2 alliances definitely make the Game an even worse dystopia than in S1. Unfortunately, they also gut the heart of the show.
Thanks for the comment, Vanessa. If impending death forces people to become friends, I don’t think it matters if those friendships last. The Squid Game friendships only have to last until the people die.
I didn’t mean the shallower relationships are calculated to make season two more hopeless. I think it’s just worse writing.
I havent watched season 2 but I can’t wait to watch it especially if it really does become a worse dystopia than the first season.
I read a review about Squid Game’s new season covering why Korea is so hyped about the show gaining so much fame and hoping they will be able to carry the show forward for a few more seasons. It sounds like character development is needed if the show gets renewed. Personally, I thought impending death forces people to come together (aka “friends”) but I never trusted those friendships would last. Definitely, the marbles game was cruel at a different level, I hadn’t fully digested what you say that should be obvious: we have this assumption that a person with a family has a higher value than a solitary person. But is that actually true? The old “would you save the old man over the family, or the family over the old man.” Great write Regina! I’ll need to come back after I watch S2.