How Squid Game Season 2’s Big Cliffhanger Sets Up Season 3

Proceed with caution; Spoilers for the end of “Squid Game” season 2 await us.

The second season of writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s acclaimed and incredibly popular Netflix series “Squid Game” is officially here, and the third season, according to Hwang, its premiere will take place in 2025. Based on the season finale, “Friend or Foe,” what can viewers expect…and what’s next? massive a cliffhanger?

Let’s go back for a moment. At the start of Season 2, the winner of the games seen on screen in Season 1, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), remains in South Korea despite the game’s leader, Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung -hun), urging him to decamp to America and leave his time in the game behind him. This is not the case – and as the series fast forwards two years, we learn that Gi-hun has spent all his time trying to discover the Front Man and stop the games once and for all (because of all murders involved). After his plan involving a GPS tracker inside a fake tooth goes awry, Gi-hun is just stuck in the games, but has an advantage: he already did this.

Just like in Season 1, there’s a lot of petty bickering between the 456 contestants over the huge amount of prize money, but in the midst of this, Gi-hun is able to bring together a small, loyal group of players to as they revolt against the guards and, in the process, the Front Man himself. As the players divide into two factions – those who want to continue playing and those who want the game to end – Gi-hun and a few others think they have gotten past a handful of guards, but the entire mission ends in total disaster . . So where does Gi-hun end up, and how does that set up the show’s third season?

At the end of season 2 of “Squid Game” — which includes seven episodes — chaos breaks out in the players’ neighborhoods between the “X” faction (which wants to leave the game and which includes Gi-hun) and the “O” faction, who wants to stay and finish… and here, “pandemonium” means let them all start fighting to the death. (Partly out of pure rage and partly because each The player knows that as you reduce the number of participants, the prize pool increases.) Gi-hun and his small army all hide under the bunks and let the other players fight, while waiting for the guards to come in and break. the massive fight. When the guards arrive, Gi-hun and his friends subdue a few guards and steal their weapons, opening fire on the masked oppressors in pink suits.

There is one massive problem with this plan, unbeknownst to Gi-hun. One of his “allies”, who poses as player 001, is actually In-ho, also known as Front Man. (Squid Game fans will remember that the show did the exact same thing in Season 1, so that’s… nice.) Throughout the fight, In-ho acts like he’s from Gi-hun’s side, but when he parts ways with Gi-hun, In-ho fakes his own death, puts his mask back on, and kills Gi-hun’s closest friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) just in front Gi-hun. The series then cuts to black (aside from a post-credits scene), so it’s relatively safe to assume that Season 3 will pick up where Season 2 left off.

It’s pretty reasonable to assume that as “Squid Game” Season 3 picks up, Gi-hun will learn that Front Man is actually the guy who was his ally in the game itself until here. That would be pretty directly mimics the twist from Season 1 (although the show has already repeated said twist verbatim, so anything goes, apparently), but it certainly feels like Season 2 was building up to this big reveal. On the other hand, maybe Front Man finds a different way to punish Gi-hun and keep him in the dark about his identity – aside from Jung-bae, Gi-hun’s other friends in the game are still alive (as far as we know). know) – so that the Front Man can remain masked, not reveal that he is actually Hwang In-ho, and simply eliminate the rest of Gi-hun’s allies. (That would be really cruel to the audience, but this is “Squid Game,” so it wouldn’t really be unprecedented.)

There is also the case of In-ho’s brother, Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), a detective who is looking for In-ho and the precise location of the games. He doesn’t exactly get anywhere, but hopefully his lackluster storyline will get him back into action in Season 3. At this point, one thing seems somewhat certain: Gi-hun won’t join the games by chance as a new player for a while. third time, and the series really feels like it’s going to shift its conflict to a showdown between Gi-hun and Front Man.

“Squid Game” season 2 is streaming on Netflix now.