SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from the “Squid Game” Season 2 premiere, now streaming on Netflix.
The second season of Netflix’s hit Korean drama “Squid Game” opens with a literal bang — quite a few of them, actually. But by far the most shocking is the one in the final few moments of the episode, titled “Bread and Lottery,” when Squid Game winner Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) unnecessarily risks his life in a game of Russian Roulette with The Recruiter (Gong Yoo) working for the games.
While Gi-hun could instead just shoot The Recruiter when he has the gun in hand, he decides to keep going with the odds quite clearly in no ones favor as they start to reload each time before they pull the trigger. The decision is risky when Gi-hun’s goal is not to die, but to live and obtain the information The Recruiter has on who is behind the Squid Game and where to find them so that Gi-hun can finally try to take them down three years after winning the deadly battle royale.
Lee and “Squid Game” creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk broke down Gi-hun’s choice in the Season 2 premiere for Variety, as well as giving more insight into The Recruiter’s backstory and what Gi-hun’s plans are heading into the rest of the second season.
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What prompted you to bring back The Recruiter for Season 2 and what did you want to show about who he is as a person outside of his job to bring new people into the Squid Game each year?
This Recruiter character, he’s someone who goes out recruiting new players, probably only about for two months or so in a year. Then I got to thinking, what would he do on his free time when he’s not working and out there to recruit people? I was envisioning this character as someone who was extremely distorted and broken and hurt inside due to all of the terrible memories that he held with him. And on a daily basis, I felt that he was someone who had to do something in order to believe that what he was doing to the weak and vulnerable was justifiable, and he needed to do something that allowed him to truly believe that these people are worthy of being treated as if they were trash. In order to do that, he would go about approaching these people, making fun of them, ridiculing them and showing a lot of contempt for them.
And that was what I wanted to express with that bread versus lottery ticket — food that you can consume immediately versus that yearning for hitting a jackpot. And by doing so, he was able to convince himself that he was right all along: that people were trash, that these people who didn’t have money to buy a meal that day, their greed would still drive them to choose a lottery. And that would allow him to give himself determination and justification for what he did as a living. I almost saw that as some kind of game he would play on his own, or almost a ritual that he would do.
Why does Gi-hun even entertain The Recruiter’s proposal to play Russian Roulette to win the information The Recruiter has about the people behind the Squid Game? Why doesn’t Gi-hun just choose to shoot him, obtain the details in his pocket and go hunt the games down as he plans to, and not risk his life at all in a competition with very deadly odds?
Hwang: Gi-hun is a character who has a sense of righteousness and who is just. He’s just, at the end of the day, also a guy who enjoys a good game. You see him in Season 1 when he’s at the race tracks how elated he is as he’s taking part in that bet and game. And I see him as someone who is addicted to the act of playing a game, addicted to winning. A lot of addicts who actually go and gamble, they’re not addicted to the cash prize, but they’re addicted to that game and playing that game. Gi-hun came out of Squid Game being the sole winner of the games. I saw him as someone who was innately addicted to winning; something inside and had been broken and damaged in that way.
And so rather than taking the more reasonable route and holding the gun up to The Recruiter and ending it all there, I see him as someone who wishes to make The Recruiter submissive by winning him in a good round of a game. And that’s why I wanted him to entertain, as you put it, what The Recruiter was initiating. And I also saw that round as almost a game or a clash or a competition between the personal values and principles of the two — wanting to prove to the other person that, I am right and you’re wrong, wanting to prove to The Recruiter that, I’m a better human being than you are.
Lee: I think what Gi-hun was thinking was that, if he doesn’t go along with what The Recruiter wants to do, he will have no chance to find the guys behind the games. He has to go along with whatever The Recruiter says, in order to get back into the game or get to see one of the people behind the game. So I think that’s why he wanted to do the Russian Roulette, despite knowing that he might get killed, that he was that desperate to find that opportunity.
In that scene, they had this dialogue, and The Recruiter says to Gi-hun, “You’re nothing out of the ordinary and you can’t stop us.” And Gi-hun says back, “Well, you’re nothing out of the ordinary either, and you’re just like a watchdog of the people behind the games. And I want to talk to your owner.” They have this very intense dialogue during the game, which makes Gi-hun want even more to win the game. The way it was written, it was just so flawless; director Hwang was such a genius in writing that scene.
Now that he’s killed The Recruiter and got the information he needs to move forward in finding the Squid Game again, what is Gi-hun’s plan from here for the rest of Season 2?
Lee: The first plan on his mind is to stop the game, and the second is to save more lives, and the third is to punish the host behind the game. So I think what is going to be really fun for the viewers to see is whether he is going to be able to reach and achieve all of these goals throughout the episodes. These are some of the questions that really drive the narrative of Season 2, and what makes it all the more intriguing.
These interviews have been edited and condensed.