Squid Game Season 2 Just Repeated Season 1’s Greatest Twist
The 2024 games have another man on the inside.
Squid Game Season 1 was full of twists. We were just as shocked as everyone else when players were fatally shot during Red Light Green Light, and with each following reveal, we found more ways to have the rug pulled out from under us. But one of the biggest twists was the reveal that one of those apparently deceased players actually survived. Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su), the old man Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) condemned to his demise after a game of marbles, was actually the billionaire creator of the games who wanted to play them one last time before dying.
Il-nam was player 001, while G-hun was player 456: two different players on different ends of the roster and different ends of the moral spectrum. Now, in Season 2, the 2024 games are taking a similar tactic with Player 001, but with far greater implications.
The voting mechanic makes the 2024 Games much more interesting.
In Episode 3, when the second games finally begin, we learn how this tournament differs from the ones before: Instead of the players electing to leave the games empty-handed, now players vote after every game on whether or not to divide the accumulated prize money amongst themselves or play again.
Much like in Season 1, the vote after the first game, Red Light Green Light, is especially close. Voting starts with Player 456, Seong Gi-hun, and continues down the list, so Gi-hun watches in horror as half his fellow players vote to stay. Again, just like in Season 1, the vote is tied by the time it reaches Player 001. We see him walk up to the podium and vote to stay before we see his face, and that’s because it’s a familiar one. Player 001 is Hwang In-ho, also known as the Front Man.
In-ho is undercover in the Games, but he’s not in disguise. The reason why he can play the games without being caught is because the only person who has seen him without his mask is his brother Jun-ho, who is still on the outside looking for the hidden location of the Squid Game venue.
In-ho’s true identity as the Front Man is hidden from everyone except his own brother.
Introducing another plant into the gameplay may feel like a repeat of Season 2, but it’s actually completely different. Il-nam’s true identity was a last-minute twist we didn’t learn about until the final episode. Now, there’s dramatic irony involved: we as the audience know Player 001 is Gi-hun’s sworn enemy, but he’s acting as a fellow player. In-ho is a ticking time bomb, promising a heartbreaking betrayal at some point in the story, but leaving just when that will happen up in the air.
Gi-hun is looking to take down the Games themselves, and he knows the Front Man is the key to all of this. He’s trying to make this a fight of the players against the Games, instead of the players against each other, but that’s impossible to do when one of the players is behind the geometric mask at the center of the Games.
