Proceed with caution; The Squid Game Season 2 finale spoilers ahead.

The second season of writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk's acclaimed — and wildly popular — Netflix series The Squid Game is officially here, and the third season, according to Hwang, it will premiere sometime in 2025. Based on the season finale, "Friend or Foe," what viewers can expect ... and what about massive Cliffhanger?

Let's back up for a moment. At the start of season 2, the winner of the on-screen games in season 1, Seong Gi-hoon (Lee Jung-jae), remains in South Korea despite the game's frontman, Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hoon), urging him to decamp to America and leave his time in the game behind. He doesn't - and as the series jumps forward two years, we learn that Gi-hoon has spent the entire time trying to ditch Front Man and end the games once and for all (because of all the killing involved). After his plan to embed a GPS tracker in a fake tooth goes awry, Gi-hoon is simply stuck in the games, but he has one advantage: has done this before.

Just like in season 1, there are many petty squabbles among the 456 contestants over the huge amount of prize money, but beyond that, Gi-hoon is able to rally a small and loyal group of fellow players to rebel against the guards and in the process , the Front Man himself. As the players split into two factions—those who want to keep playing and those who want the game over—Gi-hoon and a few others think they've outrun a few guards, only for the entire mission to end in total disaster. So where does Gi-hoon end up, and how does this set up the show's third season?

At the end of season 2 of The Squid Game - consisting of seven episodes — pandemonium breaks out in the players' quarters between the "X" faction (which wants to leave the game and includes Gi-hoon) and the "O" faction, which wants to stay and finish ... and here, "pandemonium" means that they all begin to fight to the death. (This is partly out of sheer rage and partly because of that everyone the player knows that as you reduce the number of contestants, the prize pot grows.) Gi-hoon and his small army hide under the bunks and basically let the other players duke it out, all the while waiting for the guards to come in and break through to the mass struggle. When the guards arrive, Gi-hoon and his friends subdue several guards and steal their guns, opening fire on the pink-suited masked oppressors.

There is one massive a problem with this plan, unbeknownst to Gi-hoon. One of his "allies", masquerading as player 001, is actually In-ho, also known as the Man at the Front. (Squid Game fans will remember that the show basically did the same thing in Season 1, so it's ... neat.) Throughout the fight, In-ho acts like he's on Gi-hoon's side , but when he part ways with Gi-hoon, In-ho fakes his death, puts the mask back on, and kills Gi-hoon's best friend, Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) right in front of Gi-hoon. The show then cuts to black (aside from the post-credits scene), so it's relatively safe to assume that season 3 will pick up right where season 2 left off.

It's reasonable to assume that as the third season of The Squid Game begins, Gi-hoon will find out that the Man in Charge is actually the guy who up until this point has been his ally in the game itself. That would mimic the season 1 twist pretty directly (though the show already repeated said twist verbatim, so anything goes, obviously), but it certainly feels like season 2 is building on this big reveal. On the other hand, maybe Front Man is finding another way to punish Gi-hoon and keeping him in the dark about his identity—except for Jung-bae, Gi-hoon's other friends in the game are still alive (as far as we know)—for so that Front Man can remain in disguise, not reveal that he is actually Hwang In-Ho, and simply pick off the rest of Gi-Hoon's allies. (This would be really cruel to the audience, but this is The Squid Game, so it wouldn't exactly be unprecedented.)

There's also the work for In-ho's brother as Hwang Joon-ho (Wi Ha-joon), a detective looking for In-ho and the exact location of the games. He's not exactly getting anywhere, but hopefully his sparkling storyline will see him back in action in Season 3. At this point, one thing feels a little certain: Gi-hoon won't just randomly join the games as a new player for third time, and the show definitely feels like it's shifted its conflict into a showdown between Gi-hoon and the Man at the Front.

The Squid Game Season 2 now streaming on Netflix.