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WHen The squid game first hit our screens in September 2021, it quickly took the world by storm. In just four weeks, the blood-soaked dystopian survival series has amassed 1.65 billion viewing hours, surpassing Bridgerton as the most watched show in Netflix history.
since then, The squid game has spawned several spin-offs, including a reality competition show The Squid Game: The Challenge and a video game, Squid Game: Unleashed. With the second season of the Korean thriller now airing, here’s everything you need to remember about the stunning first season that took the world by storm.
When The squid game begins, we are introduced to Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a divorced chauffeur and gambling addict with huge debts.
One day while riding the subway in Seoul, a well-dressed man invites Gi-hun to play ddakji, a traditional Korean children’s game played with folded paper. They play for money, and the man continues to offer them the opportunity to play more games for higher stakes. When he accepts, Gi-hun is sedated and ends up waking up in a dormitory with 455 other contestants, all identified only by the numbers on their matching green tracksuits.
Masked guards in pink jumpsuits arrive and inform the players that they will win a whopping 45.6 billion won (about $31 million or £24 million) if they are successful in the next six games. The competition is overseen by the Front Man, who is also masked and dressed in black.
The first game is Red Light, Green Light, a traditional children’s game in which players move toward a goal unless a “red light” is called, at which point they must stop. The twist is that in this game, anyone caught moving is killed instantly. The discovery of the deadly consequences causes panic, and many contestants are massacred. With the help of other contestants, including his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo), Seong survives.
After more than half of the initial 456 contestants are killed in the first game alone, many of the survivors demand to be released. They were told to hold a vote and decided by a narrow majority to cancel the games. Back in Seoul, Gi-hun goes to the police, but his strange story is dismissed by everyone except Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), whose brother disappeared after receiving an invitation to the games. When the players are invited to rejoin the games, Gi-hun – whose mother is ill and needs expensive surgery – decides to return. Jun-ho follows him, disguising himself as a masked security guard, and learns that the games are taking place on a remote island.
The second game is Ppopgi, a delicate challenge where players must remove a stamped shape (triangle, star, circle or umbrella) within 10 minutes from dalgona, honeycomb sweets and popular Korean street food. Gi-hun chooses the most difficult form, the umbrella, but manages to finish the game by licking the back of the honeycomb.
One of the contestants, a gangster named Jang Deok-su (Heo Sung-tae), kills another player after being accused of stealing extra food. When the guards don’t react and the prize money increases, Deok-su and his gang realize they are immune to killing other players. They start a riot where they kill more players and the prize pool increases again. A woman named Han Mi-nyeo (Kim Joo-ryoung) has sex with Deok-su, thinking that she will gain his protection.
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The third game is tug of war. Deok-su picks a strong team, excluding Mi-nye, having learned the nature of the game beforehand from player 111, who secretly extracts organs from dead players in exchange for secret games. Gi-hun’s group also survives. Detective Jun-ho breaks into Front Man’s office, where he learns that the game has been going on for over 30 years. His brother won the competition in 2015. Player 111’s organ harvesting scheme was discovered and he and his accomplices were killed.
The fourth game is marbles. Players are paired up and must capture all of their game partner’s marbles of their choice in order to survive. Gi-hun is paired with player 001, Oh Il-nam (Oh Yeong-su), an old man with a brain tumor who he has become close to. Gi-hun thinks he’s used his friend’s dementia to win, but in fact the old man is aware of the trick and seems to be tacitly agreeing to be killed. In a private back room, Jun-ho witnesses masked foreign VIPs, who bet on the matches, arrive to watch the final rounds.
The fifth game involves crossing a glass bridge, where some of the glass cannot support the player’s weight. Mi-nyeo grabs onto the stumbling Deok-su in revenge for his betrayal, and both fall to their deaths. Only three players cross the bridge: Gi-hun, his childhood friend Sang-woo, and Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon).
When it is learned that Sae-byeok was seriously injured while crossing the glass bridge, Gi-hun tries to help her. While he’s away, Sang-woo kills her. After returning, Gi-hun tries to attack Sang-woo, but is restrained by the guards. Backstage, Jun-ho meets the frontman and is stunned to learn that he is his brother. After Jun-ho refuses to join him, Front Man shoots him and he falls into the sea.
The sixth and final game is the squid game, which takes place on a playground that looks like a squid. Gi-hun beats Sang-woo, but begs him to end the game. Instead, Sang-woo kills himself and asks Gi-hun to take care of his mother.
Gi-hun is brought back to Seoul and given a bank card that will allow him to claim the prize money. He finds out that his own mother died, and a year later he still hasn’t touched the money out of guilt. After receiving a mysterious invitation, he finds his old friend Oh Il-nama, who he thought died in a marble game, now on his deathbed in the outside world. To his shock, Gi-hun learns that Oh Il-nam is actually the original creator of Squid Game. He explains that he organized the games to entertain boring, rich people like himself.
He finally makes a bet with Gi-hun about the fate of the man lying unconscious in the street, and dies soon after. Gi-hun gives part of the prize money to Sae-byeok’s brother and asks him to take care of Sang-woo’s mother. He decides to travel to Los Angeles to reunite with his estranged daughter, but before boarding his flight, he sees the same well-dressed man playing ddakji with an unsuspecting player. He picks up one of his invitations and dials the number. Front Man invites him to fly to LA, leave the game behind and let it all go. Instead, Gi-hun decides to turn around and go back.
The second season will pick up the story from there, and should follow Gi-hun as he returns to the game along with new participants. It remains to be seen whether he can bring down the game from within – but don’t expect too much of a final resolution in the next seven episodes. The third season of The squid game is already in production.
‘Squid Game Season 2 will be available to stream on Netflix from December 26’