(Editor’s note: The third episode recap will appear on December 28.)

How far can Squid game get by without the games?

That question is anything but academic for “Halloween Party,” an episode that reduces the already slow-burn tension of the show’s second season premiere to “simply icy.” I can and will say that Squid game is much cleverer than the simplistic murder games that Netflix’s own treatment of the series so often amounts to. But it does need She: Needs the sense of stakes and structure they provide, the brutal cleverness and, above all, the terrifying, rising tension of people who know they are one mistake away from death. Without them, what we get is, well, this: a few compelling character moments on the sidelines and lots of guys running around in predictable ways while we all wait for the real drama to begin.

Where “Halloween Party” works is from two perspectives. One of them is the story of newcomer No-eul, who is clearly positioned in a parallel to Kang Sae-byeok from the first season: both are defectors from North Korea who are desperately looking for the people they left behind – and even the same ones Hire realtors to find them – and both have a tough exterior that hides a deeper kindness. (No-eul, played by Park Gyu-young, works as a costumed mascot for an amusement park and has a soft spot for a colleague’s terminally ill child.) But while Sae-byeok tried to find her parents, No-eul is on the hunt after her own abandoned child, tying into her recurring interest in motherhood, the “Bread And Lottery” with its insights into the pregnant future contestant Jun-hee triggered. And while Sae-byeok has been prepared to take part in the games as a player, the truly excellent twist of “Halloween Party” reveals that former soldier No-eul is recruited as one of the organization’s masked guards. (And possibly not for the first time, if her familiarity with the proceedings and her lack of surprise at being offered a card are anything to go by.) Squid game hinted that the premiere may see a closer look at the game organizers’ foot soldiers, with a focus on the recruiter (himself a former security guard). It’s a natural result of the show’s interest in the way the game is changing all at their service, providing endless justifications for monstrous acts, and it’s a thread I’m keen to follow as the show continues.

Our other bright spot is, unsurprisingly, Seong Gi-hun, who we quickly learn has become a bit paramilitary in his two-year pursuit of the Games organizers. The biggest laugh of the episode – despite the sometimes irritating efforts of surviving henchman Choi Woo-seok – comes when Gi-hun leads his new team (which includes a quickly won over Jun-ho) through the run-down motel-turned-Batcave was converted. These include Gi-hun’s huge pile of money, his rather large arsenal, and the live-fire course he built from several unused rooms. But despite his newfound stoicism and descent into obsession, Lee Jung-jae hasn’t lost touch with Gi-hun’s innate humanity. We get hints of this throughout, including the depiction that he served the memories of his two finalists by arranging for Sae-byeok’s little brother to be happily adopted by Park Hae-soo’s mother, thereby doing the same to all of his surviving relatives Friends right. And the frontman isn’t just fooling around when he tells his opponent that he’s found new eloquence by fending off the Games’ self-serving rhetoric when the two (almost) come face to face at the episode’s climax. But Lee’s best work comes just before Gi-hun embarks on his (to be honest, very stupid) plan to force a confrontation with the organizers, when he calls his estranged daughter and realizes he’s incapable to speak. For the first time since the show’s return, we see the stone-faced, tough personality disappear and get a real look at the scared, sweet guy we so easily empathized with Squid gameThe first electric run.

Aside from those two bright lights, however, “Halloween Party” is mostly just, well, plot bullshit: We invested a lot of time and energy into a plan knowledge won’t work so the show can get Gi-hun to volunteer for another game again. It’s interesting to compare this episode to “Hell,” the all-important second episode of the series First Season that ends much the same way: There, the sense of inevitability that surrounded everything only added to the fear as the world’s system effortlessly pushed players back into the waiting arms of the games. But there’s a strange softening of the series’ world here that takes the bite out of the whole thing, as loan sharks and brokers go out of their way to do right by Gi-hun. (It’s possible that this is meant as a satire on how our hero is naturally treated better by the universe now that he’s rich, but in both this and the previous episode we see striking scenes where former… shady characters nobly refuse to pay excess money.) The genius of “Hell” was in making seemingly authentic arguments for the games better as the outside world; Sure, the odds of dying were 455/456, but at least the chance was slim, supposedly decided fairly. “Halloween Party” doesn’t have that hook to hang on to, nor the evil edge of desperation that made its characters’ nihilistic choices make dark sense: it just has Gi-hun’s borderline, suicidal need to create things right. And though I’m not immune to the heroism of his sacrifice here – or the way he summons the tiny beam of light the first time Squid game decided for itself in its final moments – the episodes still lack the satirical bite that this series can muster at its best.

And of course, there are no games – not even the makeshift ones the recruiter was messing around with in the last episode. There were no deadly contests in “Hell” either, but this absence was used to make the real world seem duller and more boring, thereby serving the episode’s larger goals. The episode was the Rosetta Stone, which gave meaning to the rest of the series; Most of the time it feels like it’s a pointless pastime that forces us all to sit around before the show Strictly speaking Registered to watch, it can finally start.

Crazy observations

• • Despite a rocky start, the Gi-hun-Jun-ho alliance comes together surprisingly quickly – although Jun-ho still holds back that he knows exactly who the frontman is.
• • Despite spending freely in pursuit of his revenge, Gi-hun has done little to dent his winnings.
• • Choi is mostly just a little irritating, but he gets to the point when Gi-hun considers teaming up with Jun-ho: “You can’t trust the police.”
• • A really funny moment where all of the costumed theme park employees immediately jump into character when a child walks into their changing room – contrasted with the darkness when the little girl notices No-eul’s scarred wrists.
• • We learned backstory about Jun-ho and In-ho’s relationship and the way both he and his mother are still wracked with guilt over In-ho’s disappearance.
• • A small dose of visceral horror as Gi-hun has a bloody tooth ripped out so he can replace it with a tracking device.
• • I refuse to care about the members of Gi-hun’s silly private army until the series convinces me, and the series hasn’t done it yet.
• • The conversation between Gi-hun and the frontman is easily the most compelling part of the episode, but it still goes pretty deep into Just Spelling Out The Subtext Territory in places: “The game won’t end unless the world changes .”
• • “Have you seen? The Matrix?” is a transition I really wasn’t expecting from this show.