David Bridges
Netflix’s ugly, ratings-smashing (fictional) competitors will quickly be again in play, and as this new poster for Squid Sport season two teases, “the sport won’t cease.” Its gamers, in fact, are continuously stopped—eternally, and in hideous methods—after they fail in no matter twisted problem will get thrown at them.
Season one’s Participant 392 met his finish after failing to carve the correct form from his honeycomb throughout “The Man With the Umbrella” episode; whoever wears the quantity this spherical appears to be like to be assembly his personal grim elimination. First-look photos from season two counsel that Lee Jung-jae’s successful protagonist, Seong Gi-hun, will as soon as once more be Participant 456 when he returns to the battlefield.
Right here’s the official synopsis of season two, which is tantalizingly obscure: “Three years after successful Squid Sport, Participant 456 gave up going to the states and comes again with a brand new decision in his thoughts. Gi-hun as soon as once more dives into the mysterious survival recreation, beginning one other life-or-death recreation with new contributors gathered to win the prize of 456 billion received.”
Given the brutal nature of what went down in season one, there’ll be an nearly solely new forged working below director-writer-producer Hwang Dong-hyuk—however there shall be a couple of acquainted faces alongside Lee as Gi-hun: Lee Byung-hun because the sinister Entrance Man, Wi Ha-jun as decided police detective Hwang Jun-ho (who additionally occurs to be the Entrance Man’s brother), and Gong Yoo because the slippery Salesman.
New forged members embrace Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Park Gyu-young, Lee Jin-uk, Park Sung-hoon, Yang Dong-geun, Kang Ae-sim, Lee David, Choi Seung-hyun, Roh Jae-won, Jo Yu-ri, and Gained Ji-an. Don’t get too connected to anybody!
Not solely was the primary Squid Sport a rankings smash for Netflix—the streamer reported the present notched “over 1.65 billion viewing hours in 28 days, and reached 111 million accounts, changing into Netflix’s first collection to surpass 100 million members at launch”—it took on a cultural lifetime of its personal, spawning a spin-off actuality collection (additionally on Netflix), Halloween costumes, a latest Futurama homage, and extra. It additionally made historical past on the Emmys with 14 nominations and 6 wins; it was the primary non-English language present to earn an Excellent Drama Collection nom, and Hwang (who received for greatest directing for a drama collection) and Lee (greatest actor in a drama collection) have been “the primary Asians and the primary South Koreans to win of their respective classes, and the primary ones to take action with a non-English language collection,” based on Netflix.
Will all that history-making repeat itself when season two arrives on Netflix December 26? A 3rd and ultimate season has already been introduced as arriving in 2025.
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Daniel Mercer
