Squid Game Season 2: A Jumble of Thoughts
***As usual minor spoilers ahead***
As a rule unplanned sequels are seldom able to reuse the ingredients that make the originals the commercial or even critical successes that they are. Streaming platforms and production companies are in the business of making money out of their intellectual properties and when the first installment emerged as a worldwide sensation, there’s little doubt in my mind that the money men were rubbing their hands in glee.
To be honest I didn’t love Squid Game the original as many did. The hype came as a surprise. That people would think that it is one of the best Korean dramas out there is still baffling. No doubt it had interesting ideas but the concept itself is not exactly new. References to gladiatorial games have been around for a very long time. But I get the appeal of a battle royale taking place on a mysterious island and the offer of an insane amount of prize money to override the fight-flight impulse.
Season 2, has more in common with George Orwell’s 1984 rather than with its predecessor. The world inhabited by these people is a dystopian universe. It is no longer about the game and the contestants but about breaking the conspiracy of the “elites”. But what exactly is this conspiracy? To provide a perverse form of entertainment for the fabulously wealthy who have exhausted all avenues of hedonism? Or is there something more sinister afoot — The implementation of a “survival of the fittest” paradigm to weed out the dregs of society? Assuming of course that these people have any kind of ideological compass motivating their thinking. Some of those speculations on my part comes from watching Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jang-jae) transform himself as a some kind of freedom fighter with the loot he gained as the last man standing. There’s also Wi Ha-joon’s Hwang Jun-ho who has been actively looking for the island for the past 2 years when he’s not handing out speeding tickets. Even with his near-death experience Jun-ho can’t get anyone to believe what he saw on the island.
There are things to appreciate about Season 2. I think the writer-director does have salient things to say about the current state of the world. At least for someone who thought the first season was watchable. There’s a new kind of unpredictability largely because the variables have changed as a result of Gi-hun’s return. Also about half the contestants are eager to leave but are repeatedly thwarted in their attempts to do so. Hence, there seems to be an unstated ideological battle at play. Gi-hun wants to change hearts and minds but that’s an uphill battle. On some level it feels like a simple good vs evil tug-of-war but it also begs the question of what “good” is exactly. Because there’s a room full of people who all believe that they are acting for their own good and are continuously redefining “good” in that “every man for himself” environment. All in the name of survival as the highest good. As was the case in the first season, everyone has a sob story… a reason to be in the game. But does it qualify them or give them the right to decide on the life and death of someone else?
Gi-hun hates all the blood-letting he witnessed last time so his goal is to save lives. At the end of Season 1, he is glad to make it out in one piece with the spoils but his conscience gets the better of him. But why does he want to save lives? Why not live it up with all that moolah? And in that vein, are the games really an abomination? Everyone who joins the game chooses to be there, right? Well, it’s not that simple. Especially if you have no idea what’s involved in the first place. That thing called “informed consent” is unheard of. No one who jumps on board really knows what they are signing up for.
The masked leader (Lee Byung-hoon) claimed in Season 1 that the games were designed to give participants an equal opportunity to make it to the finishing line that they weren’t able to get outside. However it becomes increasingly obvious that the games are deliberately set-up to eliminate contestants by appealing to the worst of human nature. It’s not much better on the island at all because there’s really no escaping to anywhere if you don’t really know where you are to begin with. Or where the exits are.
As someone who believes that human beings are made in the image of God, I am intrigued by Gi-hun’s well-intentioned gesture to put an end to the game and save lives. Why should he care? Particularly if the self-selecting participants are rather unpleasant to begin with. The self-named rapper Thanos most notably. His choice of appellation is suggestive. Moreover many make that choice to stay because of that arguably delusional belief that they can game the system. They aren’t working from the same operational manual ie. same set of values. When people don’t believe in God, they don’t just believe in anything, they create their own gods. Worse still, they set themselves up as gods that others must bow down to..
Elections in a democracy means the majority wins. Of course it’s no guarantee that the majority are right and the rest will have to live with that decision. The thinking though is that the consequences will soon play out and in due course the correction will come unless the game is rigged.
In Season 2 it becomes increasingly obvious that the game is rigged. In gambling terms, the house always wins. I doubt the allusion to casinos are accidental. “Just one more game” is the mantra of those who vote to stay. They are addicts to what is possible whenever the plastic piggy bank gets recharged. Like the tontines of old, their share increases with the death of fellow participants.
It then raises that age old philosophical conundrum: do humans really have free will? I don’t imagine the debate will be settled by the workings of a single drama or even a blog post. Are human beings actually free at all? Some would posit that we are slaves to our passions and those who purport to be our “betters” tap into those same passions to gain mastery over others. Whether it be selfish desires or fear, for instance. In Season 1, members of the international cabal behind the Korean games were driven to satisfy their sadistic perversions by setting up themselves as spectators of the terrible things men and women do to each other.
Against even his own limited capacity for judgment Gi-hun goes in defiant but blind and in so doing places himself at the mercy of others. It was always a losing proposition to think a simple coup would put an end to everything. Gi-hun is no saviour that will save the participants from themselves.
Nevertheless it’s not all bad. Despite the display of human depravity there are random acts of kindness. People do operate on self-interest but occasionally they might care enough about their neighbour to go their extra mile. So what exactly is animating Gi-hun and his band of merry fellows? Guilt? Love for humanity? Or just an anti-authoritarian libertarian impulse?
Motivations are complex as always. But watching people die helplessly in front of you can be quite life-changing.