Squid Game Season 2 Ending Explained (& What Comes Next)

Squid Game Season 2 is now on Netflix, providing the pivotal middle-chapter of the planned trilogy. For better or worse, Squid Game Season 2 only tells the first part of a final story arc, leaving fans hanging on a massive cliffhanger. Below we will discuss what happens during Squid Game Season 2, reveal full spoilers on where the season ends, and analyze how it sets up Squid Game Season 3 to finish the story.

The story of Squid Game Season 2 sees Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) use his massive winnings from surviving the first game to launch a massive surveillance operation, trying to discover the powers that be behind the games. After two years Gi-hun and some local thugs find the recruiter from Season 1 (Gong Yoo), and through him Gi-hun is able to speak with the mysterious “Front Man” – aka Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun) – and re-enter the games. Gi-hun thinks he’s got the upper hand this time – he partners with cop Hwang Jun-ho (In-ho’s secret half-brother who survived Season 1) and plants a tracking chip in his tooth. Unfortunately, In-ho and the makers of the game were always a step ahead: Gi-hun ends up back in the games with no hope of rescue and is forced to wager his life, again, to save the other players.

Squid Game Season 2 Ending Explained

One of the big changes to the games of Squid Game Season 2 is that the contestants get to vote on whether or not to continue playing, after every game. If a majority votes to leave, they all split the money that’s been accumulated at that point and can return home with some money in their pockets. This rule became a rallying point for Gi-hun and the players he managed to draw to his side, proclaiming that human life is worth more than money. After three out of six games, it looks like Gi-hun’s “Team X” will have the numbers to secure a “no” vote on continuing. Of course, the opposing players on “Team O” want to sway the vote by killing off enough of Team X to take the majority.

Experience helps Gi-hun see what’s coming; he makes the dark choice to have his inner circle of friends use the rest of Team X as bait for a daring plan: when Team O comes stalking them after bedtime lights out, Gi-hun and co. hide until the guards eventually come in to quell the riot. They overpower the guards, take their guns, and start a rebellion, recruiting other brave players for a mission to storm the game master’s private suite.

The Rebellion is short-lived: some of Gi-hun’s comrades lose their nerve, others are killed, and his closest ally the whole time has actually been his biggest rival, In-ho The Frontman, who finally makes his traitorous move and kills off some of the rebels. In the end, Gi-hin and his best friend Park Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) are captured by In-ho, who has resumed his guise as the masked Front Man. The Front Man asks Gi-hun if his return and rebellion were worth it, before shooting Jung-bae in the head, leaving Gi-hun hysterically screaming.

[RELATED: Squid Game Season 2 Should’ve Never Killed Off THIS Character]

Squid Game: What Comes Next in Season 3?

Netflix already renewed Squid Game for Season 3, and is already advertising its arrival sometime in 2025.

The next season will likely be a continuation of the Season 2 storyline, picking up with the aftermath of the rebellion, while finally bringing the key characters together – and hopefully rounding off some of the more questionable subplots introduced in the second season.

It’s a conspicuous note that Season 2 of Squid Game only covered three out of six of the games in the competition: it’s easy to assume that Season 3 will pick up with the grim reality that the rebellion cost Team X the majority vote, and the remaining games will have to be played out. Outside the gaming arena: the final episode of Season 2 revealed that Sea Captain Park (Oh Dai-su) is also on the sinister side of things, as he murdered one of Jun-ho’s team and threw him overboard. It seems the makers of the game are three steps ahead of everything Gi-hun and Jun-ho are up to, and this is all just one big game being played.

The only real hope lies in personal connections between people, and the sacrifices they’ll be willing to make. Gi-hun learning that “Oh Yeong-il” is actually Hwang In-ho, the Front Man, is inevitable; as well as the deeply-complicated situation when Gi-hun has to learn that Jun-ho is In-ho’s half-brother – and that his cop ally played him from the start. Then there are the connections between the surviving players Gi-hun got close to – potential victims in the last games that will hit hard on an emotional level.

However, the biggest area of curiosity is the subplot unfolding within the “staff” ranks of the games. Triangle No. 11, Kang No-eul (Park Gyu-young) and her conflict with the black market smugglers harvesting organs from players needs some kind of major payoff that made the investment of time worth it.

Squid Game Season 3 will stream on Netflix in 2025.