'Squid Game 2': The Reviews Are In - Find Out What Critics Are Saying
Squid Game 2 is officially out on Netflix!
The highly anticipated sequel season to the massively popular South Korean series arrived on the streamer on Thursday (December 26). All 7 episodes were be added at 3am ET / 12am PT!
Lee Jung-jae returns as player 456 in Season 2. Here’s a season two synopsis: “Three years after winning Squid Game, Player 456 gave up going to the states and comes back with a new resolution in his mind. Gi-hun once again dives into the mysterious survival game, starting another life-or-death game with new participants gathered to win the prize of 456 billion won.”
Critics are already beginning to weigh in with their reviews of Season 2.
Find out what critics are saying…
Variety said: “Squid Game Season 2 is a worthy follow-up expanding on the ominous themes of its predecessor…boasting several mind-blowing twists, these seven episodes advance the story to what will undoubtedly be an electric conclusion when Season 3 debuts in 2025.”
The Wrap said the show’s second season is “more brutal, haunting and entertaining than ever,” and that the new episodes “make the Korean drama’s established formula feel violently new.”
THR says: “What was primally exciting about the series’ premise hasn’t been lost entirely (the juice generated by the sixth episode confirms that); the style remains intact, if stagnating; and Lee’s performance remains sturdy, if less entertaining than what attracted audiences in the first place. It’s not a fundamental level on which Squid Game is broken, but season two simply doesn’t work.”
The Daily Beast said: ” So long as it fixates on the lethal children’s games that are its bread-and-butter, writer/director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s South Korean hit remains an entertaining sci-fi thriller. Too often, though, it forgets what makes it tick—and, just as frustratingly, fails to resolve its many storylines by the conclusion of its too-short seven-episode run.”
Observer writes: “It’s an interesting moral conundrum, gambling your life and ensuring that others die to get a few more dollars in your pocket, but despite this complication the shock decisions and betrayals don’t hit as hard as they did in Season 1. All to say that Season 2 feels more like a ‘part one’ than its own story, and that’s partially by design. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk says he ‘originally envisioned Seasons 2 and 3 as a single story,’ but he found that it resulted in too many episodes; he decided to split the story across two seasons instead. As a result, this batch of seven episodes is almost all set up and no payoff—Season 2 is a means to an end that we have yet to see.”
South China Morning Post says: “The allegories are more powerful, the character work feels richer, and the already terrific production values are even more immersive.”
See 20 Squid Game clues you might have missed from Season 1!
Find out why the show’s creator did a second season.