Squid Game season 2 premiered about three years after the fist season, on Dec. 26, 2024, and brought in a new cast of players — including Big Bang’s T.O.P, Kang Aesim, The Glory‘s Park Sunghoon, Jo Yuri, Yim Siwan, and more — new games, and even more intense action scenes.
How did Squid Game season 2 end?
Before we get into Squid Game season 3, it’s important to note where we landed at the end of season 2, which released seven anxiety-inducing episodes at the end of 2024.
Season 2 brings Seong Gihun (Lee Jungjae) voluntarily back into the games, as he seeks to destroy them and their infrastructure (and the mysterious Front Man) from the inside. That mission takes him back to the island, with 455 new fellow competitors — and a familiar face, as his longtime best friend Junbae (Lee Seohwan) has also joined the games out of debt desperation. Gihun enters the games feeling confident; he’s recently beaten the Salesman (Gong Yoo) at his own game, resulting in his death.
Noh Ju Han
But while Gihun has experience with the games, it’s not as easy as he might have expected; his fellow players don’t trust him, even after he says he’s done it before. “Why the hell would you come crawling back?” someone asks after the revelation. And though they do play Red Light, Green Light, the ensuing childhood games aren’t not the same ones we saw in season 1. His authority is questioned, and he isn’t able to successfully persuade the competitors to vote to end the games.
Enter: drastic measures. Gihun stages a coup led by a group of allies that kill soldiers on their quest to the Front Man. (They also sustain losses, as the Front Man kills Jungbae during the battle.) Gihun doesn’t know yet that he actually knows the Front Man in the games — he’s been playing as Gihun’s important ally Player 001, under the fake name Youngil, and staged his death in the battle so he could resume the Front Man identity.
No Ju-han/Netflix
