“The Squid Game” Season 2 Episode 6 Recap: “OX”

By the time you finish this season of Squid gameyou will have witnessed hundreds of murders. Hundreds! It is baked right on the premises. Outside of shows involving actual war, this kind of body count is simply unprecedented. It is certainly unique in that, in almost all cases, the victims of the crime are unarmed and helpless, and are killed because they messed up while playing a children’s game.

The question I ask myself when I look at things like this is simply, Why? Why am I watching something where human lives are thrown away like garbage, in graphic on-screen deaths so numerous you need the show to watch them for yourself? Is it a high-value action movie that uses crime the way roller coasters use downhill slopes – to shock your system and give you a thrill? Does the violence carry weight, does it cause emotional pain, does it speak to something bigger than “watch out for gunmen in pink overalls”? In short, what does the violence communicate and is it a message worth hearing?

I face this question, I admit. That’s because I think it’s very obvious Squid game he really has something to say. The cartoonish mess with which the premise is stated – poor and indebted people are pitted against each other in sadistic games for a chance to earn enough money to become solvent again, in a simulated quasi-democracy overseen by the richest people of the world – tricks the mind into thinking it is simplistic.

But read that premise again and tell me how it differs from the conditions on the ground right here and now. friends, the real world it’s simplistic at this point. Just as lethal games are designed to evoke fun childhood pastimes, Squid game it merely renders the cruel absurdity of the real world in caricature form.

There is, however, such a thing as diminishing returns. With only one episode left in this short season and a longer one behind us, it’s fair to wonder what this the pile of several hundred green-suited corpses tells us that we haven’t learned from the previous pile.

As the Mingle game progressed and the survivors watched from behind closed doors as the stragglers were mercilessly machine gunned to death – or close to death if they were unlucky enough to become part of the organ harvesting black market – I was horrified, as I was meant to be. I was impressed by the continued boldness of writer, director, and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk’s vision, a vast and colorful carnival of innocent slaughter that you’ll see on any show that doesn’t involve. dragons. I was alternately fascinated by each attempt by our main characters to team up with the correct number of players to get to a safe room and survive the round, and horrified when bad luck or human interference caused them to be separate or, worse, die. outright.

I was impressed by how the gentle team of mother-son duo Geum-ja and Yong-sik and their friends Hyun-ju and Young-mi instinctively kicked the unstable shaman out of their group when the required number of players was only four instead of five, and how that came back to bite her when she started rallying the henchmen to her side for the post-match vote. I was glad to see player 246, the carnival cartoonist with the sick daughter, with the rest of the familiar faces. I was constantly surprised by the actions of “Young-il”, secretly The Game’s Front Man – how at times he seemed genuinely willing to sacrifice himself for others, but also didn’t hesitate to kill a man with his bare hands to could ensure his and Jung-bae’s continued survival. I was devastated with Hyun-ju when her friend Young-Mi was trapped outside a room and shot – and I was convinced by Myung-gi, who stood in for her, that she did it to save the lives of those who it stayed because there was no chance of saving it and no chance of having the right number of people otherwise.

That’s what it’s about Squid game: Gets me every time. As skeptical as I am of the need for a second season – and I’m very skeptical, even though I like the results… well, I like the results, don’t I? This is, quite simply, fantastically well-made television – riveting, thrilling, challenging, sad, funny, bizarre, gorgeous to look at and rooted in games as well-executed as any competition I can remember watching . It’s like the entire Star Wars series was built on podracing, but the Sandmen blew the driver’s heads off at routine intervals. It’s so fast, so addictive and so violent.

And the violence continues after the game is over and the vote is tied. Hostilities begin when Thanos and his servant Nam-gyu bully the timid Min-su, who has changed his vote from Yes to No, and Myung-gi, who supports him despite knowing that Thanos already has him in the crypto-flop time it has. promoted. But just when it looks like Thanos is going to strangle Myung-gi to death (oh, and he’s trying to patch things up with his pregnant ex, Jun-hee!), Myung-gi stabs Thanos in the neck with one of the forks on which the Game-master strategically released to the players with dinner.

That said, I suspect more and more that we get half of a Squid game this season. We only got through three out of six games. Even if we wanted to jump right into Game #4, we’ll have to wait until the inevitable after-hours conflict between the two sides, Team X and Team O, resolves itself, however violently that may entail . Maybe enough people will die that one more game is needed, but that would feel like a bit of a cheat on the show’s part. Furthermore, Jun-ho and Woo-seok’s search and rescue team, almost certainly being undermined by a traitorous Captain Park, has yet to arrive on the island. And most tellingly, season 3 has already been given the green light. Even so, there’s a lot to cram into the final 60 minutes. Aren’t you having fun? I am, God help me.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Timesand anywhere that will have itindeed. He and his family live on Long Island.