This article contains the main ones spoilers for The Squid Game Season 2.

The end of The Squid Game Season 1 makes it plentiful that the show is Seven episodes season 2 will feature the wealthy and revitalized Seong Gi-hoon (Lee Jung-jae), who is on a quest to bring down the title game once and for all. Unfortunately, the mission struggles even after a two-year hiatus, and he eventually decides to personally re-enter the deadly game.

Even more unfortunate, Gi-hoon seriously underestimates Front Man (Lee Byung-hoon), who seems to have the highest authority over the Squid Game after the death of Oh Il-nam (Oh Jeong-soo). This time, the masked supervisor—whose real identity is police officer Hwang Joon-ho (Wi Ha-joon) In-ho's stepfather—isn't content with his usual cephalopod-themed social inequality killing spree. Instead, he's either fascinated by Gi-hoon's fight or adamant about personally sabotaging it, so he decides to play the game himself after the main character declares his intention to wear the emerald tracksuit once more. The team-up of the two former Squid Game winners lasts for several episodes and culminates in a violent player revolt against the Guardians... which ultimately fails. and earned a bullet in the head of Gi-hoon's poor friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan).

With the stakes ever-higher in season two and the cliffhanger finale, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk is pushing the pedal so close to the metal that it's easy to see why The Squid Game is ending with its third season; there is no plausible way to raise the stakes further without reaching endgame territory. So what happens at the end of The Squid Game Season 2 and how does poor Gi-hoon fare in the carnage? Let's take a moment to analyze Netflix's biggest and bloodiest game.

Gi-hoon is off to a strong start to "The Squid Game" in season two. In episode 1, "Bread and the Lottery", we find that he finds a tracking device that the organizers planted on him. He also used his wealth to organize a chase after the Recruiter (Gong Yoo) and ended up defeating the grinning Squid Game Recruiter in a game of Russian Roulette. After joining forces with fellow Season 1 survivor Joon-ho, he follows breadcrumbs to a Halloween-themed party, has a tense talk-back with the frontman, and decides to get back in the game—armed with a secret implant for following his own, no less.

Unfortunately, the house is not used to losing. When Gi-hoon reawakens as player 456 in episode 3, "001," his tracker has been removed and his team on the outside has no reliable way to find him. Unbeknownst to Gi-hoon, the new Player 001 is the Front Man himself, who will soon enter the main character's inner circle. The games after "Red Light, Green Light" are also different from the ones Gi-hoon played, which undermines his credibility. Despite all this, the main character manages to gain a following, and the struggle between his "X" fans who leave the game and the "O" players who vote to stay comes to symbolize the philosophical tug of war between him. and the front man.

The main players are joined by a robust cast of new Squid Game contestants, marching towards almost certain doom in hopes of a life-changing victory. Notably, the season also devotes a lot of time to the people who work for the game, from North Korean security guard No-Eul (Park Gyu-Young) to the undercover officer (Park Hee-Soon) who runs the organ-smuggling bodyguard network — and of course , the duplicitous Captain Park, who secretly sabotages Joon-ho's mission to find the island.

If you watched The Squid Game Season 1 and wondered why the players never try to overpower the Guardians, the Season 2 finale, "Friend or Foe," addresses your concerns. Episode 6, "OX," features a wild game of Mingle and a brawl that kills several players, including rapper Thanos (Choi Seung-Hyun). "Friend or Foe" continues the mayhem by bringing the season's voting theme closer to a variation on season one's dorm room "special game" — this time with the two voting groups specifically designed to attack each other in the middle of the night. Gi-hoon, who expected another deadly battle in the dorm, finally gets what he's been bracing for and forms a very different plan of attack than the organizers expected.

Instead of fighting the other players, he and his crew pretend to be dead as a result of the inevitable chaos and attack the armed guards when they approach. This leads to a surprisingly effective mutiny, where Gi-hoon's freshly armed faction battles the guards at famous squid game locations. Unfortunately, however, they ran out of both bullets and luck.

The rebellion forces Front Man to abandon his disguise as Player 001 and fake his death before resuming his familiar role as mastermind. It's clear that he's not exactly thrilled with the way things are going, as he punishes Gi-hoon by personally shooting his best friend, Jung-bae. However, the game organizer seems to be coming out on top despite the turbulence. The many deaths in the episode suggest that the "abandon" faction is now clearly in the minority and that the game is destined to be played out in its entirety... and thanks to Captain Park actively sabotaging Joon-ho and Gi-hoon's mercenaries as they try to locate them on the island, help seems very distant.

To fully appreciate the end of The Squid Game Season 2, we must first think back to the Season 1 finale, "One Lucky Day." In that episode, Gi-hoon's older friend Oh Il-nam—the season's supposedly dead Player 001—turns out to be the game's ultra-wealthy creator, and the pair's conversation on Il-nam's deathbed establishes their contrasting views of humanity. . Gi-hoon's optimism prevails over the rich thrill-seeker's nihilistic views when the protagonist wins their final bet on whether bystanders will help a man in need, but Il-nam collapses before any real skills can be learned or used. a lesson.

As Il-nam's protégé, Front Man shares his negative view of humanity and easily handles the old man's duties—both as the leader of the Squid Game and as the new, secretly evil Player 001. What's more, he shares a personal connection with Gi-hoon as a fellow Squid Game winner, and there are even hints of Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) from the first season as a capable but opportunistic and duplicitous ally. Aside from Gi-hoon, Frontline Man also has a complicated history with Joon-ho, thanks to their familial relationship and opposing sides in the larger conflict of the Squid Game.

Unless a new threat emerges, or the VIPs from season one return and up their game significantly, Front Man seems destined to serve as the show's ultimate adversary. However, many unanswered questions remain, as many parts of his history remain shrouded in mystery and he often seems to be genuinely struggling to survive - in particular, he broke the neck of a fellow contestant in his desperation to survive the Mingle game. . Expect the character to continue his role as the emotional center of the show in Season 3, which will hopefully finally reveal his whole deal.

Where The Squid Game Season 1 focused on the game itself and the downtrodden people trying to survive it, much of Season 2 revolves around two winners of The Squid Game and their diametrically opposed philosophies. However, that doesn't mean the game doesn't take place on many other fronts as well... and thanks to the fact that the season ends on a cliffhanger after the Human Front and the Guardians subdue Gi-hoon's rebellion, most of these plot threads are left hanging in a way that makes it very clear that a third season is on the way.

Aside from the game's main story and her rebellion on the cliff, No-Eul's story about the organ harvester with the Masked Officer and his associates falls by the wayside with the implication that she's being bullied into submission. Also, Joon-ho's protracted quest to find the game's island doesn't really go anywhere, though it gets a promising last-minute boost when a mercenary learns that Captain Park is a saboteur and gets knifed and thrown into the sea. for his troubles. Both plots will likely get their payoffs during Season 3 — and in the case of Front Man's surprise third-act redemption arc, they might even give the show some handy back-up villains.

Despite the relatively abrupt end to the season, fans have no reason to be frustrated. The third season of The Squid Game is set to drop in 2025, so the wait to see how things play out won't be excruciatingly long. For now, viewers can console themselves with the scene after the loan of the new, even scarier Red Light, Green Light game featuring two creepy giant puppets and an original traffic light. After all, it indicates that the final season of The Squid Game intends to pull out all the stops ... and then some.