Squid Game 2: Episode 1 (First Impressions)

by DaebakGrits

Netflix’s record-breaking Korean drama Squid Game returns for a second season. While its first episode has a slow start, it gains momentum in the second half and sets a predictably violent tone for the rest of the story, which is part revenge and part money grab social commentary.

 
EPISODE 1

Squid Game 2 picks up exactly where Season 1 left off: with SUNG KI-HOON (Lee Jung-jae) at Incheon Airport — sporting a criminally bad dye job and on the receiving end of a threatening phone call from a modulated voice (the Front Man) telling him to get on his flight and forget all about the traumatizing experience he’d just gone through. Although Ki-hoon’s first instinct was to get the hell out of South Korea, something about the phone call incites a heroic need to topple the system, and instead of turning tail, he takes a taxi back to Seoul, where he cuts out the tracking device he realizes is embedded behind his ear.

Ki-hoon spends the next couple of years hiding out in a seedy love motel and paying his former creditor MR. KIM (Kim Bup-rae) and his men to be his eyes and ears. Ki-hoon’s main objective is to hunt down THE SALESMAN (Gong Yoo) and then… well, who knows?

Honestly, at this point, it’s not clear if Ki-hoon has a plan. And if he does have one, I’m not sure that I trust that it’s thorough enough to take down a well-financed syndicate — one that he knows little-to-nothing about, save for his own experiences as a pawn in their life-or-death games. Then again, bumbling through life and danger without a plan is textbook Ki-hoon, but his newfound bravado and dark heroism? Well, I find these additions to his personality to be an abrupt — if not entirely unnatural — progression for the anti-hero we saw in Season 1.

The Ki-hoon introduced in Season 2 has obviously been hardened by his participation in the games, and if his nightmares are any indication, he’s suffering from some major PTSD. But, in my mind at least, he’s never been a character who would sprint towards danger. His heart has always been in the right place, but his sense of self-preservation was usually stronger than his ability to sacrifice himself for others. While playing the death games, he was the one who tried the hardest to convince the other players to work together in order to buck the system, but he was never the person demonstrating that he was willing to risk his life in order to save another.

Regardless of my original impressions of his characterization, the Ki-hoon we’re introduced to this season is ready to eat the rich, and he throws duffle bags of his own blood money at Mr. Kim and his right-hand man CHOI WOOK-SEOK (Jeon Suk-ho) so they and their fellow loan sharks will canvas the subway lines, looking for the elusive ddakji player and Ki-hoon’s only lead.

But the loan sharks have very little information to go on, a fact that’s made apparent by the laughably inaccurate dummy they use as a reference to help them identify The Salesman. Luckily for the men trying to hunt him down, The Salesman’s most defining trait — his slap-tastic ddakji games — is easily recognizable without ever having seen him. So when Mr. Kim and Wook-seok hear the tell-tale sound of slaps coming from across the subway platform and spot the well-dressed ddakji player, they know they’ve found their man.

After calling Ki-hoon to update him, the loan shark duo tail The Salesman, following him as he detours to purchase 100 buns and 100 lottery tickets on his way to a park with a high concentration of homeless and impoverished people. Mr. Kim and Wook-seok then watch, baffled, as The Salesman approaches each homeless person, one-by-one, with the same offer: bun or lottery ticket. The overwhelming majority chooses the lottery ticket, and each time The Salesman politely hands them a 10 won coin to facilitate their scratch off.

If you thought Gong Yoo’s acting talent was wasted in Season 1 on such a minor (but extremely memorable and meme-able) character, then you’ll be happy to know he gets to show off more of his range — and his character’s sadistic side — in this first episode. You see, after every lottery card turns out to be a loser, The Salesman puts out his hand and asks for his coin back, silently reveling in each loss. When he’s finished making his rounds, he stands in the middle of the park and dumps the mostly full bag of buns on the ground.

To the horror of every starving man watching him, he makes a production out of stomping on the bread and telling the homeless people that they are the ones who threw the food away when they picked an unguaranteed lottery win over tangible food. I initially thought his twisted actions were a means of sussing out potential players for the next round of games, but no. The Salesman did it for shits and giggles, and Gong Yoo acted the hell out of this scene.

Mr. Kim and Wook-seok follow The Salesman from the park and into an alley, not realizing they’ve already been made. The loan sharks underestimate their opponent and are easily cornered and overpowered in the alley, and when Ki-hoon finally arrives at their last known location, the loan sharks are nowhere to be found. It’s too bad Ki-hoon didn’t arrive earlier, but in his haste to meet up with his hired loan sharks, he broke the speed limit, and was pulled over by a pair of traffic cops — one of which was HWANG JUN-HO (Wie Ha-joon), the poster-boy for heroism who miraculously survived his bullet wound and backwards plummet into the ocean.

A fisherman found Jun-ho floating in the ocean, and since awakening from a brief coma, he has been demoted to a humble traffic cop. Although he pretends to have no recollection of what happened to him on the island — or the fact that his own brother shot him — he spends his weekends with the fisherman who rescued him. Together they systematically visit the islands near where he was recovered, looking for the site of games. Needless to say, he mentally kicks himself for letting his rookie partner handle the traffic stop when he realizes that Ki-hoon was in the driver’s seat. So while Ki-hoon is trying to hunt down Mr. Kim and Wook-seok, Jun-ho is trying to find him.

Unfortunately for Mr. Kim and Wook-seok, The Salesman is as much a fan of games as his master, so he forces the two men to compete in a version of rock-paper-scissors that has a deadly Russian roulette twist. Wook-seok draws the final losing hand, but the rules of the game permit Mr. Kim to sacrifice himself and take the bullet in Woo-seok’s place. As the winner, Wook-seok is allowed to live… as long as he gives up Ki-hoon’s location.

Cut to the outside of Ki-hoon’s dingy love hotel. Ki-hoon immediately knows his location has been compromised because the neon business sign he intentionally kept off to discourage potential patrons from seeking a room at his hotel was brightly lit upon his return. The Salesman is waiting for him, but he doesn’t immediately resort to violence the way he did with Mr. Kim and Wook-seok. He has some level of respect for Ki-hoon, as demonstrated by his willingness to sit across from him and divulge his extensive history with the organization behind the games. Although the unprompted monologue about how he worked his way through the system and committed patricide to demonstrate his loyalty feels more like trauma dumping, The Salesman’s matter-of-fact retelling of his backstory is his way of telling Ki-hoon that he will not willingly give him the information he seeks.

In true Squid Game fashion, Ki-hoon will have to put his life on the line to earn the business card in The Salesman’s pocket, and so begins another round of Russian roulette. This time, it’s Ki-hoon against The Salesman, who delights in Ki-hoon’s stoic discomfort and the overall thrill of the high-stakes game. To drag out the time between shots and to toy with Ki-hoon, The Salesman tries to bait Ki-hoon into getting emotional and act impulsively, but this hardened Season 2 Ki-hoon remains unemotional and follows the rules The Salesman set forth — even when it’s pointed out to him that, with two shots left, he could easily aim the gun at The Salesman and kill him with one or two pulls of the trigger.

Instead, Ki-hoon points the gun at his head, pulls the trigger, and… nothing. The last shot, the one that 100% has the bullet and will be deadly, goes to The Salesman. There’s a flash of surprise on his face — either because he didn’t expect Ki-hoon to take the 50-50 risk on himself or because he thought divine intervention would eliminate a “piece of trash” like Ki-hoon — but either way The Salesman accepts the gun and, following the rules of the game, unalives himself.

Hands down, the highlight of this first episode was Gong Yoo’s portrayal of The Salesman, and even though it was extremely shocking and dramatic for the episode to end with his death, it makes sense. He’s a scene stealer, and if we’re supposed to give a shit about any other characters in this show — particularly the villains who aren’t going to be able to match Gong Yoo’s energy — The Salesman had to go. There were moments where his face twisted into expressions that made him nearly unrecognizable as the actor who portrayed everyone’s favorite goblin. I was captivated by his lawfully evil ways and his warped hatred for people he deemed “trash.” He was compelling even when he was at his most disgusting.

And then there was Lee Jung-jae, who is undeniably a terrific actor, too, but I ironically like his portrayal of Ki-hoon less now that he’s got more of a backbone. As I stated earlier, I find his new assertiveness incongruous with his earlier portrayal, especially since he never demonstrated strong leadership qualities or intelligence. He, quite literally, bumbled and lucked his way through winning the games. Games that, lest we forget, were intentionally chosen to even the playing field so that someone, such as Ki-hoon, could come out as a winner in an otherwise unjust society where the odds were always stacked against him.

Then again, as of writing this, I’ve only watched Episode 1, so maybe additional episodes will help fill in the gaps that I’m perceiving in his personality. Either way, it’s clear that when he inevitably gets pulled back into the games a second time, he will be playing not only with a different objective but a different mindset. And, I suspect, a new-but-familiar ally: Jun-ho.

It’s only a matter of time before Jun-ho tracks Ki-hoon down, and ignoring the fact that Jun-ho’s brother is the Front Man (Lee Byung-heon), these two, more or less, have aligned objectives. And while Jun-ho doesn’t have much going for him beyond his hero-cop personality, there’s no denying that Ki-hoon will need to utilize his brains and skills if he wants to do something more meaningful beyond surviving the next round of games.

 
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