contain spoilers for squid Game season 2 make a mistake in the title competition of squid game and you may lose your life failing to catch some of the references and nods to the previous season while watching the show has much lower Stakes sure but you don't want to miss anything do you in season 1 it quickly becomes apparent that gu hun owes money to a lone shark played by Kim paé it's also clear that his lone shark coincidentally named Mr Kim is none too happy with him when he and three of his goons leave guihan
bleeding in a b bathroom while things aren't looking too good for guun at this point after winning the top prize in the games 45.6 billion W things change in Squid Game season 2 not only does guihan pay off the lone shark he also hires him to look for the man who recruited him into the games the show doesn't particularly underline the fact that Kim was originally guan's lone shark the topic comes up in a conversation between the lone shark's guys about whether or not guun is delusional they've been looking for the salesman for 2 years
to know a so everyone's begun to doubt guihan but Mr Kim says he believes him because he's had people who owe him money disappear recently plus guihan is his only client who has ever paid him back this version of the lone shark is a lot nicer than the version we saw in the previous season he even sacrifices himself for his recently married friend woo so it goes to show we all contain multitudes in season 1 of squid game K Boke goes to a broker about getting her parents over to South Korea from China the agent
isn't isn't very helpful in fact he tells her that it will cost her 40 million W to bring them to South Korea in response she douses him with hot coffee and holds a knife to his throat she's clearly not happy but she agrees to get the money and she enters the games to do so but dies before she can fulfill her promise 3 years later guihan has taken up her cause in season 2 guihan sees the same broker about bringing seok's mother over the fascinating thing is that right after guihan leaves his office no Yu
the woman who works in an amusement park and becomes a soldier in the games shows up she is using him to locate the infant daughter she left behind in North Korea sadly he's reached his limit and tells her to forget about her daughter as she can't be found the baby was 1y old how could she survive in North Korea without her parents even though the agent is nicer this time it's clearly still a tough business guan's Hired Hands led by his former lone shark finally find the man who recruited guihan into the games and that's
when things go south the salesman brings a bound and gag Mr Kim and wo so back to his place and has them play a deadly game for his own Amusement then he plays a game of Russian roulette with gun during these two games the salesman plays Opera the first game is accompanied by Nason Dorma from the Final Act of pini's Opera turendot which is about a game in which The Suitor Calif challenges princess turendot to guess his name if she can do it she can execute him but if she can't she has to marry him
the themes are fitting and the song is also marked by cff saying vinetto meaning I will win in the salesman's mind it's the perfect backdrop to Mr Kim and Wok's game the second piece of music K Paro is played to accompany the salesman and gun's game of Russian Roulette in G Hun's Pink hotel the literal translation of the title is I will leave with you though it's known in English As Time to Say Goodbye although it has a more overtly romantic air to it than Nessun Dorma it nonetheless still gets across its message for those
paying attention who cares about rules the only thing you'd have to do now is pull that trigger once the actors for many of the characters in Squid game have become internationally known because of their involvement in the series but there were a couple that were already famous even before the release of the show The Man Who plays the salesman and the man who plays the frontman the salesman is portrayed by gong Yu he has a small but memorable part in Squid game but he's even better known for his starring role as so Wu in 2016's
train to Busan the Korean movie about a zombie virus that runs rampant on a train between soul and bu song even better known is the actor who portrays The elusive frontman Lee bangan Lee has had a slew of roles in English language films including as honcho by in 2013's Red 2 opposite Bruce Willis as a T1000 opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2015's Terminator Genesis and as Billy rocks in the 2016 remake of The Magnificent 7 opposite Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington but Lee might be best known for his work as Storm Shadow in 2009's GI Joe
the Rise of Cobra and its 2013 sequel gii Joe retaliation in addition according to the Korea times Lee is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and was the first Korean person to present at the Oscars when he gave out an award in 2016 when we finally make it to the games in Squid gam second season we learn that a friend of guans has been recruited to the games as well the friend is named Jun Bay the same friend that guihan goes with to bet on horse racing in the first episode
of season 1 hold on it'll block your card if you get her wrong again you really got to think about this one Jung B's part in the first season is very small he eggs guihan on at an ATM where guihan is using his mother's card to get cash and then goes to bed on the horses with him but it's clear that the focus is on gun and minimal attention is paid to Jung B besides when Jung B finally shows up in the second season he not only looks older but the context has changed he apparently
hasn't seen guihan in 3 years during which time he's gotten divorced and his child is with his ex-wife while it's not good for Jun Bay that he's in the games it's a great call back to season 1 one of the new players is a rapper named Thanos played by chessum Yan but he's better known by his stage name top while Thanos was known for being a runner up in the battle of the bands in real life top has been a successful artist and rapper for around 20 years having premiered with the band Big Bang in
2007 as one of two rappers in the group however in 2017 top was fined 10 million W and received a suspended prison sentence of 10 months due to marijuana use because of this Scandal top confir confirmed he was withdrawing from big bang in 2022 with Squid game he stepped back into the spotlight but his casting has been controversial many fans of the series were disappointed that he was cast when he had drug related charges on his record director Wan donon yuk has been vocal in his defensive top though telling Korean reporters that he's demonstrated a
strong commitment to the role while the controversy is still roiling top has reportedly been excluded from promotional activities associated with the show newu is a soldier in the games who takes out the players who have lost with a big gun but there's one player she may have a hard time shooting number 246 that's because player 246 is Gak the father of Na Yun the little girl that has cancer no you'll got to know naay Yun at the amusement park that both she and gak worked at before the games she was a costumed character who won
his daughter over by offering her a lollipop during a parade and he was a cartoonist while one of no yul's last acts outside the games was to return the little girl's hat to her when she went into the hospital she also heard gak telling the doctors that he would figure out how to pay for his daughter's treatment somehow Noel sees him in the first game and realizes what's happened it seems like she'll try to preserve his life even though she's been coldblooded about everyone else that is until he dies at the end of season 2
throughout the show there are several pop culture references that you may have missed first is a joke about Thanos the name of player 230 when he asks Samy to partner with him on the second game and tells her his name is Thanos she asks him if he's gotten all the Infinity Stones yet Marvel fans know that Thanos was once the big bad of the Marvel Universe and that his objective was to get all six Infinity Stones so we could snap half of the universe out of existence don't even need to snap kill half the universe
with a WP the fifth episode of the second season has interesting references as well first de ho references Kim Pang hun when he's referring to Jung B's successful performance in the second game Kim Pang hun was a successful Korean pitcher who played for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Boston Red Sox notably he was on the Diamond Back when they won the World Series in 2001 making him the first Korean player to win a World Series one more deep cut the first name of player 149 Juma is the same as the main character in park Chan
wuko's lady Vengeance both characters are in their current situations because of someone else player 149 wants to get her son out of debt and the gium cha of Lady vengeance is taking the fall for someone else's crimes though it's not clear that this is a deliberate reference the similarity is striking in the first season we disced that the man who runs the games known as the front man is hongju Ho's brother inho right before inho shoots junho and sends him into a coma in season 2 we get to know the front man better because he
becomes player number one and to his friends in the games he's known by the name Young ill he says that his wife has therosis and needs a liver transplant plus she's pregnant and determined to give birth none of that is true at least not now ino's wife died years ago and while inho did win the games that didn't save her junho mentions to his mother in episode 2 of the second season that inho was caught taking bribes inho explains the situation to guihan two episodes later saying that his vendor offered to help with his wife's
situation and his employer incorrectly assumed it was a bribe and fired him this is how he ended up in the games Jun ho and his mother also don't appear to know anything about the child it's possible only inho and his wife knew about the child and when she died the child died as well or it's possible there never was a child the fact remains that in is currently running the games without a wife or a child and one way or another something happened that made him less merciful to his fellow contestants [Music]
