If the South Korean drama Squid game When the series appeared on Netflix in 2021, it became a real cultural phenomenon. The story of indebted people vying to the death for a massive cash prize looked like nothing else on television, contrasting candy-colored children’s games with horrific hyper-violence. Squid game He soon transformed forest green tracksuits into a trendy Halloween costume. It helped to type the word Dalgona– the sugary treat used in one of the contests – into the pop culture lexicon. It continued to be parodied Saturday Night Live. For weeks after I watched, I couldn’t get the murder doll’s song in the first competition, “Red Light, Green Light,” out of my head.

The second season, streaming now, begins where the first ended: with the game’s most recent winner, Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae), choosing not to board the plane from South Korea, that would have reunited him with his family. Instead, he threatens Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun), the tournament director known as the “front man,” via telephone. As he calls a taxi, Gi-hun warns In-ho that he will find him and stop the games – but In-ho is undeterred. “You will regret your decision,” he replies coolly.

Over the course of the second season, I started to regret it myself. For the most part, Gi-hun’s quest for revenge is the opposite of exciting. The show’s lengthy opening hours portray him as a recluse who has hired a collection of incompetent men to find the games’ slap-in-the-mouth recruiter (Gong Yoo). They monitor every subway station in Seoul in hopes of encountering him, but none of Gi-hun’s associates know exactly what their target is. Gi-hun isn’t a reliable boss either; He is too paranoid to visit the stations himself. Even teaming up with Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), the police detective who discovered last season that the frontman is his own brother, to track down the island where the competition took place results in a monotonous search. Without the sadistic games, the show lacks momentum.

Read: On Netflix Squid gameDebt is a double-edged sword

And then – and this is just a spoiler if you haven’t seen a single trailer – Gi-hun ends up in that tracksuit again, reliving his worst nightmare. It’s a great trick: Season 2 holds back the deadly events just long enough for viewers to long for their return and wonder if they’re actually on the protagonist’s side. When the games actually start, the mood is even more restless than before. Season 1 portrayed the tournament as a direct allegory for the punishing trap of financial hardship, making even the greediest characters somewhat sympathetic. Season 2 isn’t as totalistic; it further blurs the lines between the series’ victims and perpetrators. This time the series shows a meaner, more critical attitude towards the financially poor contestants. It emphasizes how much the capitalist system pushes people to do rash things for money, but the players themselves work to uphold these values. More delicate questions arise: Is it possible to overcome cruelty, stinginess and selfishness? And if not, do the players actually deserve to live?

For Gi-hun, the answer to both questions is a resounding “yes” – but the series seems to enjoy countering his perspective whenever it can. Even before this season’s competition begins, Squid game argues that individuals are primarily seeking financial gain with an endless scene in which the games’ recruiter taunts uninhabited people for choosing lottery tickets over food. Gi-hun reenters the competition to dismantle it from within and rescue his fellow players, but the show immediately underscores the futility of his attempt with a new, brutal round of Red Light, Green Light. In-ho also plays on Gi-hun’s belief in the goodness of humanity by ordering the players to vote at the end of each trial on whether to end the carnage; When they do, they walk away with much less money than they would have if they continued, because each death increases their chances of hitting the jackpot. These deliberations happen over and over again, and they’re not particularly fun to watch: Gi-hun sees every election as an opportunity to convince players that together they can overcome the temptation of both the prize money and the game makers. He fails every time.

Still, the latest series of trials allows the show to get back into shape. Each competition is more diabolical and fascinating than what Gi-hun experienced in his first round. The violence is more exaggerated, the images more absurd. And unlike Season 1’s bouncy glass bridge and cookie-carving challenge, which relied heavily on a person’s individual luck, Season 2’s decisions rely more heavily on interpersonal skills from the start, allowing players to immediately form alliances and… have to enter into rivalries. As such, the competitions themselves help expand the new characters beyond their initial archetypal traits: the pregnant player proves to be an asset. The wallflower bullied by the obnoxious rapper has a callous side. One of the ubiquitous soldiers in pink suits could even take care of the competitors. In Squid gameIn desperation, people tend to reveal who they really are.

Read: What happens when real people play? Squid game?

In-ho seems to hope that by playing the games again, Gi-hun will also discover a surprising side to himself – and that this will break his spirit. The series shines most when the two share scenes because they are diametrically opposed in their worldviews: In-ho is convinced that people are heartless by nature, while Gi-hun insists that they can choose to be fine to be.

However, as the season finale ended on another cliffhanger, I found myself wondering if the story had progressed at all. Squid game was supposed to be a limited series; The ambiguous ending of the first season merely underscored Gi-hun’s Pyrrhic victory. These new episodes only underscore the folly of his courage and force him – and a host of other players I’ve rooted for – to once again undergo torturous trials. The bleakness of the series was always torturous, even if I couldn’t help but keep watching. But in Season 2, the darkness isn’t just due to the violence. It’s the show’s overindulgence in proving its own protagonist wrong.