The premise of Squid game is simple and disturbing. Across contemporary South Korea, debtors are invited to participate in a series of children’s games and win a lottery-sized cash prize. However, if you lose a game – such as Red Light, Green Light – you are eliminated from the race with a bullet in the head or heart. Other possibilities: falling from a great height in a tug of war, falling from a great height in a game of hopscotch, or falling under the blade of a steak knife wielded by a fellow competitor.

In the first season of the Netflix hit, which debuted in 2021, the showrunners revealed an even darker facet of the competition midway through the games: It’s a show within a show. The 456 participants compete in a battle royal not only for 45.6 billion won (almost $31 million), but also to win 45.6 billion won (almost $31 million). Also to entertain a group of ultra-rich sadists who have traveled to the hidden island where the games take place to enjoy alcohol, sex and gambling. The debtors, who are almost forced to compete due to their living conditions, are bet on like horses.

But in the second season of Squid gamewhich Netflix released on Friday, the rich VIPs are nowhere to be found in both real life and the show’s plot after a three-year hiatus. It’s a disappointing absence. The season tackles the cruelties of debt and addiction and introduces new forms of fraud, including a cryptocurrency carpet train that leads a promoter and his victims into a new round of gambling. Arguably the most important characters in the game – the ones who drive demand for the titular horror films by watching and presumably financing them – remain unexplored.

Squid game is a drama with an absurd plot. But the games themselves reflect the dynamics of something we’re very familiar with: reality television. In these real-world games, participants also vie for real cash prizes – or the attention they can put into a career as an influencer or into selling things in general. In some cases, part of the reward is a lavish TV wedding, including a check for your services as a “talent.” In return, participants in these shows are often forced into extreme situations that, while not life-threatening, can be psychologically horrific. Colton Underwood famously jumped over a high fence to escape The Bachelor during his season as the romantic lead after his favorite suitor left the show. (After the cameras stopped rolling, things got even harder.) Moving on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake CityHer actress Lisa Barlow collapsed during a Hot Mic moment in which she lashed out at her friend and fellow cast member Meredith Marks, claiming she “slept with half of New York.” On CBS The summitIn which a group of participants hiked through the mountains, one player had to cut a suspension bridge with an ax while another participant, 52-year-old Bo Martin, crossed it. Even though Martin was wearing a seatbelt, the audience still saw slow-motion footage of him falling and clearly in shock.

To Squid gameThe masked VIPs watching contestants fight to the death force the seasoned viewer to confront the cruelty of their own participation in their favorite hate shows. Our shows also involve real people that we interact with for our entertainment. Yes, our voyeurism is twisted to a much lesser degree and the people on these shows know what they are getting into to some degree. But when we watch reality TV, we basically tune in to see how people are forced into unnatural shapes and how they endure humiliation and even a little cruelty.

Yes, reality TV is still delicious to watch, despite its moral cruelty. We are human. Why wouldn’t we want to fill our minds with examples of human weakness? Why shouldn’t we crave the comedies and tragedies of D-tier Instagram influencers and Hermès-clad housewives? Do We watch to enjoy their downfall – which is, after all, only humiliation and not death – or to see strange aspects of humanity reflected on us, to think about how we would behave in these extreme situations, and to even really commit ourselves to finding love and success?

I think it’s both, so to speak, and we shouldn’t let that stop us from thinking about the unsavory side of it. Through the VIPs in Squid gamewe are forced to confront our role on the demand side of this economy and the fact that our viewing is in and of itself complicit with everything on the screen that makes us shudder, pity or resent. Their absence makes this season less rich.

Luckily, these VIPs will be back for Season 3, which is set to release in 2025, according to creator Hwang Dong-hyuk. “They’re on the move,” he told USA Today. “Their helicopter is now flying over the island.” When they land on this island of nightmares, we will all be watching together.