OOne of Hollywood’s many bad habits is the bloat that comes from splitting a story in half to double profits (cough, cough, Dune and Wicked). “Squid Game” has always been a perfect one-series story. Gambling addict Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) has become Player 456, a desperate man trying to pay off his debts by taking part in a twisted underground battle to the death. He beats the odds by surviving each of his potentially deadly playground games. When it first appeared, it was frightening, it was exciting, and its satirical edge – examining capitalism and class in South Korea – was clever and biting. The world took it up in large numbers.

The fact that it became one of the most successful and therefore most profitable series of all time put Netflix in a creative dilemma. Inevitably, the film was renewed for a second and then a third season, but even before that, its satirical edge was tested by Squid Game: The Challenge, a bona fide game show spin-off. This was far more entertaining than it had any right to be, but its win-big mentality tended to undermine the point of the original, which focused on the inherent injustice of an exploitative economic system.

But that was a distraction, and the many millions of viewers will be eager to see if “Squid Game” can recapture its magic, even with a return that seems, at least narratively, unnecessary. In the first three of these seven new episodes, it’s hard to find its purpose. It’s been three years since Gi-hun got away with the money, and he’s determined to get revenge on the super-rich puppeteers who staged the deadly spectacle. He hunts shadows and uses some of his vast cash reserves (or “blood money”) to fund a mercenary army. He teams up with former detective Hwang Jun-ho, still searching for his brother, to look for the salesman, the man in the suit who asks strangers to play ddakji with him before calling them out Players recruited. Months pass and the dead ends increase.

The first few episodes feel like a stalling tactic, and considering this is Squid Game, everything is pretty standard. There are car chases, car crashes and shootouts. The satirical element was replaced by a search for revenge. It’s entertaining enough, but it leads to an uncomfortable, bloodthirsty feeling that everyone is ready to return to sports day with a body count. Given that the final episode feels more like the halfway point of the story, which will continue with a final series next year, this delay is unnecessary.

It gets better. When Gi-hun finally becomes player 456 again – and this is revealed in the trailer, which seems to understand the need for the games and the structure they provide – it’s a welcome kick in the butt. This is where it starts, embracing the familiar and making enough changes to freshen everything up. It begins to delve deeper into the lives of the masked soldiers who enforce the rules. There are new players and therefore a whole new cast that you can either support or despise. The idea of ​​expensive healthcare and the fusion of wealth and health is at the forefront, which is contemporary. It introduces a mother and her son – as both Squid Game: The Challenge and the final season of The Traitors know, this dynamic is dramatic gold. In other cases, this makes the villains horrific in a cartoonish way. A rapper named Thanos is one of the most irritating characters to appear on television in recent times.

One of Squid Game’s main concerns is human nature. As a species, are we fundamentally decent and generous or are we cowardly, greedy and selfish? The salesman reminds us of the theme early on when he takes two shopping bags to a park populated mostly by homeless people and others down on their luck. He offers them a choice: bread or a scratch card? The certainty of a meal or the possibility of cash? Most people take the risk without knowing the outcome. Gi-hun already knows the outcome of the games, or at least he thinks he does. But whether he can convince the others what it actually means to play when the odds are against you is another story.

For all its bumps, particularly during the build-up to the actual plot, there is one big twist that really works, although it’s unclear whether it’s sufficiently different from what happens in the first series. And just when you think you know where it’s going, it turns away from its trajectory, ups the ante, and finds its feet again. It’s a shame it took so long to get there. A lot still needs to be cleaned up in the third season.