What We Want To See In Squid Game Season 2

Running parallel to the games themselves during the first season of "Squid Game" is the story of Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-Joon), a police officer whose search for his missing brother led him to the mysterious games. Jun-ho proves an effective spy, managing to infiltrate the game compound and take up residence by impersonating one of the enigmatic red-clad workers. While there, he discovers a treasure trove of files detailing past games and contestants, and is shocked to learn that his missing brother, In-ho (Lee Byung-hun), actually won the games in 2015. Later, the other shoe drops when we learn that Jun-ho's brother is actually the mysterious masked Front Man who has been running the games behind the scenes since the first episode.

How In-ho went from winning the games in 2015 to being the second in command to the game master by 2021 is left entirely to the viewers' imaginations. However, that leaves plenty of room in Season 2 to explore In-ho's backstory, perhaps even getting a glimpse of how he won the games in 2015. Exploring the circumstances that led to him going from lowly contestant to high-ranking insider, and learning more about who In-ho is as a person, would be a great way to carry over one of the most intriguing storylines of Season 1 while also expanding the world of "Squid Game."

Sadly, with the exception of Gi-hun and possibly Jun-ho, none of the major characters from Season 1 survive, which rules out the possibility of fan-favorite contestants popping up again in new arcs. However, characters such as Sae-byeok (Jung Hoyeon), Ali (Anupam Tripathi), and Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) all left behind family members that they cared deeply about in the regular world outside the games. Season 1 saw Gi-hun give a large portion of his winnings to Sang-woo's mother and Sae-byeok's younger brother, his way of trying to make things right for the people he had considered friends while trapped in the games. But of course, there is no true justice for them or their families, not least because they'll never know how their loved ones died.

Season 2 could see Gi-hun return to some of his former competitors' families to help care for them, tell them the truth, or both. Many characters were competing in order to try to make a better life for their loved ones, so it would be nice, if bittersweet, to check in on what those loved ones are doing now without them. Season 2 could also utilize flashbacks to allow us to glimpse some of our favorite characters in a new and much more normal way, away from the pastel walls and green jumpsuits of the games. Obviously the casualties of Season 1 can't be the focus of Season 2, but revisiting their families would be a good way to make clear that the lucrative and deadly games carry with them a devastating real world cost.

Largely through Jun-ho's surreptitious sneaking, Season 1 of "Squid Game" leaves viewers with the strong impression that the workers in red, with their geometrically patterned facial coverings, aren't exactly there voluntarily, any more than the players are. While the workers do have a bit more freedom than the contestants, the rules they have to follow are still extremely strict. The workers all stay at the gaming compound in tiny cell-like rooms which they aren't permitted to leave for reasons other than to perform their work duties, they aren't allowed to talk to each other, and the only time they're allowed to remove their masks is when they're in their rooms.

The workers double as soldiers, drawing a clear parallel between them and militaristic organizations, but it still raises the question of just how exactly they came to their unique employment situation and what's keeping them there. After all, once it becomes clear that the workers are just as expendable as the players, it doesn't seem like a job that anyone would willingly take on unless they had to. It would be fascinating in Season 2 to follow the games not from the perspective of more players, but of the workers who are forced to facilitate, drawing back the curtain on how the island's literal silent majority lives.

In Season 1 of "Squid Game," Jun-ho is the sole outsider who learns about the games and also takes that knowledge seriously. We don't yet know if his attempt to alert the police — and thus, the rest of the outside world — about the nature of the games was successful, but even if his texts never went through, it's clear that the storyline was leaning toward eventual exposure, even if it never quite got there. So it seems to follow that in Season 2, someone else should find out — or better yet, a lot of people.

There are a few ways this could happen. Of course, if Jun-ho is still alive, this could still be his mission, although he may change tactics now that he knows his brother is the Front Man. Gi-hun could also work to expose them, especially now that he knows who was behind them. We don't know where he was going when he walked away from that plane; maybe it was straight to the nearest newspaper office. And then there's the factor of Il-nam, who finally passed away from his brain tumor in the Season 1 finale. We don't know exactly what will happen to the games or his fortune upon his death. Maybe he could have set things up for the games to stop after his death, so that he would never miss out on any of the fun, by exposing the games to the world himself. The games have been operating in secret for decades by Season 1, so it would be interesting to see what happens when that secret becomes public knowledge.

Since "Squid Game" is told mostly from the perspective of the contestants, specifically Gi-hun, we never really learn much about how the players are selected in the first place. Sure, we know that each player is in a significant amount of debt, which they are unable to repay, but there has to be more to it than that. After all, the Front Man is shown to possess files on each of them, listing their family and work history, relevant skills, and any other information that could help them construct the games. Somewhere along the line, significant research is done on these contestants before they're ever brought to the island.

We'd be fascinated to see in Season 2 just how the players are selected and vetted, and how common it is for the mysterious Salesman (Gong Yoo) to get turned down. (Hwang Dong-hyuk has already hinted that he's interested in revisiting the Salesman character again down the road.) Especially now that we know Oh Il-nam was the creator of the games, and loved them so much his dying wish was to participate in them himself, we're sure there was more to how he picked his players beyond simply the balance of their bank accounts.

In the seventh episode of Season 1, a group of masked "VIP" guests arrives at the gaming compound, excited to indulge in any and every desire while gambling on the outcome of the last few games. These VIPs — who, though masked, seem to be mostly English-speaking white men, a distinct difference from the otherwise entirely Korean cast — watch the last couple of games from a luxuriously decorated room, safely tucked away behind walls of glass. As the players desperately work to usurp each other, knowing they can't all possibly win, the VIPs look on in comfort and safety, with no care at all for the players' humanity.

As a viewer, it's tragically ironic to see the players fighting amongst themselves rather than turning on the rich VIPs who have more power than any of the players will ever have. None of the players ever seem to really realize this, leaving the status quo mostly untouched despite Gi-hun's large leap in wealth by the end of the season. Season 2 could potentially see Gi-hun or other players finally realizing that they will never change anything by turning on each other, and that it's the VIPs who can actually prompt change ... if they're properly motivated.

The first season of "Squid Game" ends mostly how it began from a macro perspective. The games go on, a winner is selected, he's paid his winnings, and everything moves on as it always has. That works for a one-season miniseries, but if "Squid Game" is going to return for a second season, the story can't just continue to chug along without any real change. Seeing a group of characters go through the games once was interesting when we were learning everything alongside the contestants; now, it will just be redundant unless they're significantly different.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Gi-hun will bring an end to the games in a single season. He's just one person with significant PTSD and no real social capital up against an unknown number of extremely powerful and wealthy men with no desire to change. It would be unrealistic (even more unrealistic than the games themselves) for him to upend the whole thing all by himself. But that doesn't mean that the status quo needs to remain unchallenged. Maybe we won't see the squid games end overnight (and really, they probably shouldn't), but we hope that we do see a shift in how they're handled, what they mean, and the power they wield by the end of Season 2. We're not sure what that shift might look like, but if Season 1 is any indication, we're sure it will be entertaining, thought-provoking, and more than a little horrifying.