More than three years after becoming a global sensation on Netflix, Squid game The series finally returned for the second season on December 26th. Did this anticipation pay off? According to many critics, yes. But not all reviewers are thrilled with the return to the game.

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As of Thursday, the Korean drama series, about a deadly game of fortune, has a generally positive Metacritic score of 61 based on 23 reviews. Of these, 11 are positive, 11 are mixed and one is negative. Over at Rotten Tomatoes, where reviews are simply classified as positive or negative, as opposed to Metacritic’s sliding scale of 0 to 100, Season 2 is rated at 89 percent Fresh based on 19 reviews. This discrepancy between reviews suggests that most reactions are positive, but behind the first season: 69 percent on Metacritic and 95 percent fresh on Metacritic.

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However, some television journalists are effusive in their praise. Michael Ordona (San Francisco Chronicle) says, “It doesn’t disappoint. Season 2 is clever, provocative and twisted. It deepens the characters, increases the action and advances the story while maintaining the dark absurdity of the first season.” Aramid Tinubu (diversity) argues that the second season “mostly counteracts repetition by finding new angles to examine what seemingly ails contemporary Korea: capitalist exploitation, the erosion of morality, and class inequalities.” And Meghan O’Keefe (Decider) calls the new episodes “stunning, shocking, heartbreaking and even exhilarating,” but admits that “is not the case.” quite as good as the spectacular first season.”

SEESquid Game Season 2 Trailer: “Welcome Back to the Game”

Ben Travers (IndieWire) has a more mixed opinion: “Squid game Season 2 definitely feels like the standard sequel to a Hollywood blockbuster… but the tedious repetition and drawn-out storylines are also fun.” Rebecca Nicholson (The Guardian) says: “In the first three of these seven new episodes, it’s hard to find purpose. …For all its bumps, particularly during the build-up to the actual plot, there is one major twist that really works, although it is unclear whether it is sufficiently different from what happens in the first series.” Alan Sepinwall (Rolling Stone) says: “Lee Jung-jae“The performances are as powerful and charismatic as before, as is the production design,” but the new season “doesn’t have much new to say on the subject of income inequality, which is the point of this macabre story.”

Judy Berman (Time) is less friendly: “The Squid game-Industrial complex has been undermined Squid game the work of political art, in a way that is both tangential to (creator Hwang Dong-hyuk)s storytelling and is inherent to it. … One cannot separate this excess of narratives from the abundance of narratives Squid game Derivatives that we have sold in the last three years.” And James Poniewozik (The New York Times) claims: “There is far more suffering than joy as the season takes us back to the games, repeating the bloody spectacle with new twists but the same crab-in-a-barrel personal dynamic.”

SEE“Squid Game” Season 2 Is Inspired by “The Matrix,” Says Hwang Dong-hyuk

But there is a good chance Squid game will be criticism-proof. The first season of Squid game was a worldwide phenomenon and became Netflix’s “biggest series ever at launch,” according to the streamer. And at the Emmys, it broke new ground, earning a nomination for best drama series and collecting six trophies, a revolutionary achievement for a program made entirely in a language other than English, a feat comparable to the Korean-made film parasite Awarded Best Film at the Oscars. However, time can be a disadvantage: three years is a long time to wait for new episodes, so the initial thrill may have worn off. And the feeling expressed in some reviews that it’s happened before may not bode well Squid gameProspects for awards.

We’ve actually seen some declines in early awards results for the new one Squid game episodes. For example, the show was nominated again for Best Drama Series at the Golden Globes, but Lee was left out of the running for Best TV Drama Actor. Likewise, the series once again won Best Foreign Language Series at the Critics Choice Awards, but this time it was rejected for Best Drama Series. However, these nominations were announced before the new episodes were available to the public.

That said, the Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores for Season 2 are not The a far cry from Season 1. Let’s not forget that it wasn’t the critics who drove the series’ rise in the first place, so some dissatisfaction among television reviewers may not have an impact on the show’s reception. And if the series manages to capture the zeitgeist again as it did in the first season, the enthusiasm of the award voters could be greater at the beginning of the Emmy season.

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