Red Light, Green Light
Netflix has been accused of disrupting the traditional television distribution model, as audiences have come to expect easily bingeable shows that have more interest in being “extended films” than taking advantage of an episodic format. Nonetheless, one irrefutable achievement is viewers’ increased willingness to watch programming with subtitles. Despite the fact that international cinema rarely makes a significant dent at the American box office, it’s not unusual for a wide variety of international drama, comedy, reality, and genre shows to pop up in Netflix’s curated most watched programs list.
The groundbreaking success of Squid Game was unprecedented. A project from creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game had been classified as “in the works” for over a decade before it finally debuted on Netflix at the end of 2021. Recent events had panned out in the show’s favor; the success of Parasite initiated a greater interest in Korean-language content, the pandemic made audiences more susceptible to “binge” releases, and the heightened concerns about the economy generated greater interest in a satirical show aimed at criticizing the instruments of capitalism. The extent to which Squid Game became a “hot button” subject of interest hadn’t been seen in television since the days of Lost or ER, and surpassed Wednesday and Stranger Things to become the most watched show in the history of Netflix.
The brilliance of Squid Game was its synthesis of unambiguous satire, easily identifiable characters, and episodic spontaneity. Set within a version of reality not dissimilar to the present, Squid Game’s initial season was centered on the gambling addict Seong Gi-hun, played in a breakout performance by Lee Jung-jae. Upon recognition that his low economic status will never grant him social mobility, Gi-hun takes an offer from a mysterious organization to participate in a series of children’s games which would result in a massive cash award. Gi-hun, along with the several other participants, take part in dehumanizing tasks in which the consequences are deadly; the quantity of players dwindles with each passing level, with the survivors expected to take a larger portion of the cash prize.
The notion of a futuristic game show held by a totalitarian state to hold the lower class in control is nothing new; Stephen King first toyed around with the idea in The Running Man, Battle Royale became a rare crossover hit from Japan, and The Hunger Games inserted the concept into a young adult melodrama. Squid Game’s advantage was the unique nature of the tasks themselves; between a deadly game of rolling dice, a sinister bout of “tug of war,” and the now-infamously violent version of “red light, green light,” there was a darkly comic touch to each individual competition. The lack of ambiguity in the satire may have helped Squid Game resonate with an audience beyond those with first-hand knowledge of the economic infrastructure of South Korea; most Netflix subscribers could understand that corporations and the power elite are able to mask their cruel intentions through the suggestion that everything’s part of a game.
The economy within the first season of Squid Game was also novel, as the series was unafraid to dramatically kill off characters and change the stakes at particularly shocking moments in the narrative. This resulted in an achievement on Hwang’s part, but not one that was easily replicable. Despite his initial insistence that Squid Game was intended to be a concise “one and done” story, Hwang was convinced by the streamer to map out a second and third season. To his credit, the ethical debate he may have had comes across within the text of the series; at the beginning of the second season, Gi-hun is reluctantly returned to the games under the conviction that he might be able to destroy the system from the inside.
Squid Game’s second season isn’t a disaster in the vein of late-stage Game of Thrones or the current iteration of Dexter, but it's a frustratingly repetitive rendition of its greatest hits. Although a few early moments that featured Gi-hun’s mission to track down those responsible for his initial captivity suggested a transformation into an espionage thriller, Squid Game quickly returned him to the games in order to participate in more tasks, a majority of which have already gone viral thanks to Netflix’s robust marketing arm. If Gi-hun was intended to be Hwang’s self-insert character, then they have been met with the same uncomfortable revelation; Gi-hun’s faith in change once again turned him into a victim, and Hwang’s deal with Netflix forced him to simply “give the audience what they want.”
The most challenging component that any assessment of the second iteration of Squid Game has faced is that it’s not a complete story; with only a few games played and innumerable unresolved storylines introduced, it was evident that the second season of Squid Game was simply one-half of the story, which will presumably wrap up with its third iteration later this year. Perhaps, the final season will feature a “pantheon” finale in the vein of The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, which is able to justify all the peculiar hanging threads that may have seemed unusual at the time of their introduction. However, the downward trajectory of Squid Game has hinted that it may end up being a novel concept that didn’t require expansion beyond its initial season.
More frustrating than the narrative missteps in Squid Game’s second season is the manner in which Netflix has co-opted the show’s iconography. The streamer already launched the competition series Squid Game: The Challenge, debuted an in-universe video game on its platform, made plans with David Fincher to craft an English-language remake, and will reportedly feature recreations of the “games” in the in-development “Netflix house” interactive stations. Hwang may have managed to turn a transgressive, anti-authoritarian work of art into a global sensation, but his audience has remained just as frustratingly ignorant as they were before.