Squid Game became an overnight success and rose to become the most-viewed show on Netflix. Fans couldn’t get enough of the show’s brutal take on children’s games combined with class warfare, and Lee Jung-Jae’s portrayal of Prisoner 456 proved to the heart that the show needed. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk’s show reflected the world of 2021 – a post-pandemic world where the gap between the rich and poor was ever widening and catastrophe seemed to be around the corner – making Squid Game a visceral experience. When Netflix announced a second season, fans got very excited about what was going to come next from the show, and in an interview with Empire, Hwang talked about upping the ante on the show, making everything “scarier and more gruesome”.
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Hwang spoke about the pressures of the first season’s massive success and how to match it in the second season – “I try not to dwell on it,” – and talked about how the show had to change in Season Two. “I believe what we’ve created on Season 2 is a deeper, more advanced story. I feel it could even surpass Season 1. But physically, mentally, it was not easy. Some of the sequences we shot were the most challenging in my whole career. It was… hell.”
Hwang then spoke about how the changing world affected Season Two of the show, saying, “It’s not getting better out there — it’s getting worse. Worse climate change, more wars, more people dying. Compare the world [in 2021] and now — our lives are not improving. You know that!” Then the writer/director talked about the story of the second season, saying, “I even had some concerns because the story told in the second season is much crueler, scarier and more gruesome than the first. Honestly, I thought to myself… ‘Is this too much for people to handle?’”
Squid Game never flinched from the violence, so saying that Season Two is going to be more cruel and gruesome is definitely something. It’s been announced that Squid Game will end with its third season, so fans are very excited for Season Two and what it will set up. The success of Season One looms over the show, but Hwang was able to pull it off before, so there’s no reason he can’t again. Squid Game Season Two’s trailer showed how deadly the games have become, and that it is the middle chapter of the story has raised expectations for it.
Fans will have wait until Season Two’s December 26th, 2024 debut to found out what comes next in Squid Game.
