Squid Game, Season 2 (Part 2)

Speaker 1 Hello, welcome back to the Preston's TV podcast feed. I'm Jonah Robinson.

Speaker 2 I'm Rob Mahoney.

Speaker 1 Happy New Year, Rob.

Speaker 2 Happy New Year to you, Joe. How are you doing?

Speaker 1 I'm doing great. How are you?

Speaker 2 Well, we're moving. We're getting after it.

Speaker 1 Are you ready to get after it, Rob?

Speaker 2 I'm ready to get after it.

Speaker 2 Listeners will will be delighted to know i just explained the context to joe of what it means to check ball up top because we're checking ball up top in 2025

Speaker 1 at least hopefully that's the goal um we do our best here at the fresh city tv podcast feed i just want to let folks know a few sort of programming vague details to tell you first of all first and foremost this is you checking ball up top right here we're getting into the pit are we not raw money we're getting so into it we got one of those uh very famous uh bill simmons texts that said, hey, what about the pit?

Speaker 1 And we're going to do some pit coverage. So the pit is an HBO Max show.

Speaker 1 So if you want to watch along with us, we'll have a check-in on, I believe it's a double premiere somewhere in the middle of this week.

Speaker 1 We will be checking in on that, which is a sort of like spiritual ER

Speaker 1 sequel

Speaker 1 from some of the same creative minds. And also, Noah Wiley of ER Fame is here.

Speaker 1 And it's 15 episodes, which what seasons of television are 15 episodes these days the pit is 15 episodes uh 15 hours in the night of a shift uh in the pit in a hospital so uh we will be checking in with that we also are very excited to be checking in on severance yeah a show i love that aired a hundred million years ago season one and we're here for season two um

Speaker 1 Rob, what are your, like, what are your, what's your severance season two level of hype? Where are you on that?

Speaker 2 Level of hype quite high. Level of familiarity with the exact events of season one quite low.
So I'm going to need the refresher course before we officially jump back into it.

Speaker 1 Classic rewatch time for us because it's been a long time. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Okay, and then

Speaker 1 last but not least, we will certainly be checking in with the agency for its finale.

Speaker 1 So that is what's going on with us. I think Severance, our plan, our hope, our dream is to cover that week to week.

Speaker 1 So if you're looking for the more regular Rob and Joanna week by week coverage, look to Severance for that.

Speaker 1 Anything else? Sort of big, big ideas for the Prestige feed sort of stuff?

Speaker 1 Well, actually, I have an answer to that, which is two things we're going to do up top before we get into like the back half of Squid Game, which is...

Speaker 1 allegedly the reason we are gathered here today um on this podcast feed. We uh Rob and I are going to do a sort of what we watched over the holiday break

Speaker 1 other than Rob watching a lot of basketball for his job. And

Speaker 1 And then also, we're just going to do the briefest of glancing blows at the Golden Globes just to talk about some of the TV stuff that happened there

Speaker 1 and whether or not it means anything for the larger TV landscape.

Speaker 2 And then we will talk about. Well, let me preempt you right there.
Like, Taranobu Asano winning does mean something for the larger TV landscape, which is that we all win.

Speaker 1 It means something for us personally. Do you want to start with the Globes?

Speaker 2 Let's start with the Globes. I just want to seed it and then we'll come back to it.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Rob Mahoney,

Speaker 1 what did you watch over your negligible holiday break that you had uh between basketball coverage well how deep do you want to get into this like are we just going tv offerings do film offerings count am i going through like everything i watched on youtube like where where does the line end okay we will not pull a chris ryan so we're going to take youtube off the off the plate this is the prestige tv podcast feed not the big pick so we're going to take films unless there's a film you specifically want to mention and you're excited to talk about, we can do that.

Speaker 1 Is there a film you want to talk about particularly?

Speaker 2 No, we can save those for later. I think on the TV side, I mostly watched one thing that is near and dear to both of our hearts, Joe, which is Landman.

Speaker 2 Would you like to tell the people how you're feeling about Landman these days?

Speaker 1 Well, if they want to tune into House of R, they'll hear me talk to Mallory Ruin about Landman for a long time. Actually, I kind of wanted to...
So how much of Landman did you wind up getting through?

Speaker 2 Just a couple. I think I've only seen four episodes.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've seen all nine that are available i believe it is uh there's still the finale yet to air um i will be talking about my landman feelings with mallory on house of our mallory is the reason i watched landman um i did not enjoy landman personally but this is shocking to me i'm a good friend rob rob before i started watching rob was like i'm pretty sure you're gonna hate it uh and rob you know me pretty well um as a texan is there anything specifically you want to say about landman rob mahoney

Speaker 2 uh i think there's some good Texas stuff in it overall. I am not immune to the charms of a wide, long-horizoned Texan vista.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, maybe some oil derricks in the distance. Maybe just some like, honestly, even like phone poles against a sunset.
Like, I'm not immune to the charms of these things.

Speaker 2 What I am immune to, Joe, is...

Speaker 2 Someone who clearly has never lived in Texas before and certainly never been to a Whataburger before, telling me that you can go to a Whataburger and order an animal-style style, literally anything, I am insulted.

Speaker 2 That's an in-n-people are insulted. That's an in-and-out feature.

Speaker 1 You can't do that at a Whataburger.

Speaker 2 Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 And I know, I understand that part of the conceit of this gag is perhaps that this young woman is so alluring, she's getting Whataburger employees to break code and go into In-N-Out territory, but it simply cannot and would not happen.

Speaker 1 The thing that I could tell you about Whataburger is,

Speaker 1 having only had it a few times in Texas, is that

Speaker 1 I can't remember what I ordered, but it was that classic Texas thing where whatever it is I ordered, I don't think it was a burger, but whatever it is I ordered came with just like an extra piece of white bread, which is just often the case with like a Texas meal.

Speaker 1 There's just an extra piece of white bread in the box. So the idea, the very idea that there would be less bread than

Speaker 1 no, no, no, extra bread is what you're doing.

Speaker 2 That's not what we do here.

Speaker 1 That's not what we do. On the sort of like watching things to get along with the office culture of the ringer,

Speaker 1 I will tell you that there's basically two TV things I got into or tried to get into over the holiday break. The one that was more successful for me is in order to, as you know, I don't watch sports.

Speaker 1 It can sometimes be a barrier when trying, as we discovered right before we started recording, try to relate to my ringer pals and cherished colleagues.

Speaker 2 I think you do a good job of faking it for the record.

Speaker 2 You name some guys, you name some teams, you get through it.

Speaker 1 I smile and nod.

Speaker 1 I have a basic understanding of sports and I don't have, it's not like I don't like sports. I just am not invested.
Anyway, point being. Another sort of sports adjace

Speaker 1 property that a lot of people, ringer people are into is survivor. So I watched a bunch of seasons of Survivor randomly

Speaker 1 over holiday break. I was never a survivor person, but I just like once, and it felt like a a very turn your brain off for the holiday sort of thing to watch.

Speaker 1 So I was just like got into some seasons of survivor and had a really good time with it. So,

Speaker 1 you know, not not breaking any territory here to say survivor, it is sometimes good, but survivor, it's sometimes good.

Speaker 2 Let me ask you this about your approach because you have the benefit in jumping into survivor now of picking and choosing between, I would guess, no fewer than 134 seasons of television.

Speaker 1 47, but very close.

Speaker 2 So, did you go with a very curated, like, okay, I'm going to season 47, then I'm going to season 62?

Speaker 2 Like, did you jump to the greatest hit specifically, or did you just pick a spot in the middle and run with it?

Speaker 1 No, I went to, I, you know, I consulted many curated lists of like what the best seasons are, what the best order to watch in.

Speaker 1 One of the survivor alums, Stephen Fishback, who is, I believe, like a ringer listener,

Speaker 1 sent me like a spreadsheet, a very complicated spreadsheet he had of like, this is, if you were interested in this, these are the seasons you should watch.

Speaker 1 And And if you're interested in this, this is

Speaker 2 the seasons you should watch.

Speaker 1 That's incredible.

Speaker 1 So that was, and then, and then Mallory had her own sort of ideas about which seasons I should watch.

Speaker 1 I had watched a few sort of around White Lotus season one because of Mike White, and Mike White is really into Survivor, and like Survivor is partially inspirational for White Lotus.

Speaker 1 And so, and Mike White was literally on Survivor as a contestant that season rules. So, yeah, I just kind of wanted to understand the lore.

Speaker 1 And then,

Speaker 1 outside of Survivor,

Speaker 1 I was like, let's really try to take to heart the message that we got from our listeners about sort of what we missed.

Speaker 1 And is there something I can sort of give the old college try to say, I hear you, I respect your opinion. So I really tried with shrinking season two.

Speaker 1 And I see what people see in it. I think my

Speaker 1 problem with shrinking

Speaker 1 and it's not, I don't think it's a bad show. I think it's a good show.
And Harrison Ford's delightful, and there's a lot to love.

Speaker 1 Jason Siegel is not, I think, I am not as charmed and won over by him as other people. And I think without that, then what are we even doing here? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 And so, I'm just like, I think I'm ready to say it's just simply not for me, but I understand its appeal. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 Just to drill down on that, is that a broader Jason Siegel issue for you, or is it most, or is it him in this particular show?

Speaker 1 I wouldn't say I'm like put off by him. I think he's better in smaller doses, is what I think.

Speaker 2 I think more of a freaks and geeks perspective.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's a great, like, supporting player. And there was an era of, you know, in the film realm where he was allegedly a leading man.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I'm not, I'm not sure I'm ready to forget Sarah Marshall that way. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 So that's that's sort of you've forgotten Forget Sarah Marshall.

Speaker 1 I have. I've done my best.

Speaker 1 It's a bad, it's a bad Muppet movie. What can I say?

Speaker 1 So this is just a me problem.

Speaker 1 And I understand the appeal of shrinking. It's just, I think, not for me.
But I did try based on our listeners' recommendations.

Speaker 1 All right. Anything else you want to say about your activities over the break? I mean, is there a YouTube moment that you need to talk about, Rob, Mahoney?

Speaker 2 Oh, honestly, nothing in particular. It's been a lot of, honestly, like press junket stuff lately.
There's a lot of good press tours happening. The Nosferatu tour.

Speaker 2 You know, the Nosferatu one is great. Timmy Shalamay's been out there doing great work.
Doing everything.

Speaker 2 Clearly, the wicked one will live in infamy for as long as human beings are doing these things.

Speaker 2 I've been enjoying living vicariously through the the various press tours.

Speaker 1 Uh, speaking of uh, wicked and among other things, let's talk about the golden globes really quickly. Uh, so yes, Tadenobo Asano, uh, who played Yabushige on Shogun, uh,

Speaker 1 like cruelly snubbed at the Emmys, but won his Golden Globe. And it was you and Kai and I just lost our collective minds about this.
We were so excited. This is our guy, anyway.

Speaker 2 What a fucking triumph. I, I personally have never doubted the credibility of the golden globes, they get everything right as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 They always know what they're doing. Have never made a misstep.
Yeah, exactly. Shogun showed up, did really well.
Colin Farrell won for the Penguin. Exciting, genuinely.

Speaker 2 Shocking, perhaps.

Speaker 1 I don't know if this, they love Colin Farrell at the Globes.

Speaker 2 We all love Colin Farrell.

Speaker 1 Yes, but if they can find an excuse to give Colin Farrell a Golden Globes, they're going to do it. So do what they did.

Speaker 1 So Colin Farrell and then Jodi Foster, which we have some maybe questions, mixed feelings about. How do we feel about that?

Speaker 2 Not my favorite category for this particular field, right?

Speaker 2 Like, I honestly thought it would just go to Kate Blanchette based on star power, based on the overall imprint of Disclaimer, which ended up being kind of a big deal, even if it wasn't our favorite show.

Speaker 2 But when you look at the field for like performance in an anthology series or limited series, I just wasn't that moved by a lot of the actresses this year.

Speaker 1 I know you're a Christy Miliatti fan, so I feel like if you watched The Penguin, you would be into it. No?

Speaker 2 No, I'm sure I would.

Speaker 2 It's no slight. But I also thought of the things that happened in True Detective Night Country, I did like Jodi Foster's performance quite a bit.

Speaker 2 And I thought she was rock solid throughout, if not over-the-top exemplary in a way that you may want to like, for the winners that we champion, you know, the Yabushige types.

Speaker 2 It's not that kind of character per se.

Speaker 1 Anything else on the TV front? I mean, it was a lot of repeats from the Emmys, like nothing breaking terribly new ground, even though there were some new things nominated.

Speaker 1 They didn't really stand a chance up against your hacks, your Shoguns, your Baby Reindeers, etc. Anything else?

Speaker 2 I think that might have been the only surprise for me was Baby Reindeer showing up the way that it did.

Speaker 1 It's a phenomenon that, similar to Jason Siegel, I don't understand, but here we are. People love that show.

Speaker 2 Just just slot over slot, baby reindeer over Ripley is not something that I can realistically support.

Speaker 1 But at least you got to gaze upon your guy in a powder blue suit, like looking phenomenal at the globes. Always does.
Always does. All right.

Speaker 1 Anything else I want to say about the globes or anything else before we get into ostensibly the actual reason we're here today?

Speaker 2 Just that, again, they're always right, as we know. No comment on many of the film selections, but on TV, you know, they really nailed it.

Speaker 1 Okay. And was there like a film win that you were most excited about?

Speaker 2 I think to me, honestly. Demi getting it for the substance.

Speaker 2 I am of the camp that is quietly sitting in the corner making offerings to our substance gods that she may get the Oscar nomination.

Speaker 2 I have no.

Speaker 1 I mean, she's definitely getting nominated at this point.

Speaker 2 I think, look, I don't take anything for granted, especially when it comes to a movie like that.

Speaker 1 I think after that speech, she's definitely getting nominated and might even win. She's really like created a moment for herself at the Globes and good for her.

Speaker 2 From your lips to the Academy voters' ears, Joe. Okay.

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Speaker 1 All right. So, Squid Game Season 2.
We covered the first... few episodes.
So this is spoiler warning for Squid Game Season 2. We're going all the way through to the end.

Speaker 1 If you want to to call it the end of a season, because I would not. And that's where I want to start, which is

Speaker 1 I sort of floated this to you because I had already finished the episodes when we covered the first few episodes that like my biggest complaint about the season, which I liked better than I feared I would.

Speaker 1 I was worried I wasn't going to like it at all. And I did like it, is that it feels like a pretty shameless half a season.

Speaker 1 And just for people listening, you know, I'm sure a lot of people listening already know this, but just in case you don't, Netflix, among the streamers, is one one of the most shameless in terms of juicing content in order to maintain subscribers.

Speaker 1 So, that you've been seeing it over the past few past few years with big shows like Stranger Things or Ozark or whatever, where they will split a season and they will or Bridgerton and they will split the season across financial quarters.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 again, this is not like a TV business podcast necessarily, that's not usually what we do here. But if you ever heard people talk about like Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4,

Speaker 1 when they report to their investors, they want to show high subscription numbers.

Speaker 1 And if you subscribe just to watch Squid Game and then unsubscribe, then they don't get to count your numbers in the other three queues of the year.

Speaker 1 What they've done here is actually somewhat diabolical because we were all like a little curious about why they were dropping Squid Game

Speaker 1 so late in December. Like, surely people will be, I mean, maybe Home for the Holidays is a good time to binge a popular show.

Speaker 1 They dropped it so close to the end of the year that the numbers, the juicy numbers that they're getting from Squid Game, and it is a very popular show, Squid Game Season 2 for them, is going to count for Q4

Speaker 1 and Q1, right? It's going to bleed over into the beginning of Q1, which is January, February, March.

Speaker 1 And then season 3, which is already done, because it's basically season 2, part 2, is dropping at the end of June, which is the end of Q2. So they're going to get those numbers for Q2 and Q3.

Speaker 1 So they're juicing the end of Squid Game for four full quarters of subscription numbers for the years.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, that was like way too much data and TV business for this podcast, usually, but I think it's worth observing because it dramatically affects, I think, the storytelling of this season.

Speaker 1 What do you want to say about that, Rob?

Speaker 2 Yeah, at the point where the finances are driving creative decisions, that's when it is incumbent upon us to talk about it.

Speaker 2 And there is just no excuse from a storytelling perspective to stop the season here. No.

Speaker 1 And also, I would argue, I wouldn't say that the season felt like overly padded out,

Speaker 1 but it felt a little padded out in order to call it a full season of television. Like you really could have condensed this down to the first half of a single season and given us the full story.

Speaker 2 Or more, honestly. I would have been fine in either direction.

Speaker 2 Either give us significantly more investment in these characters, including some that I think get killed off in, in some cases, very dramatic fashion, in ways that just didn't land for me.

Speaker 2 And it's like, why is that happening? If you're going to break this up into two seasons, that feels inexplicable.

Speaker 1 Right. Like, you didn't give us enough time to really feel for this character before you,

Speaker 1 let's say, killed her while the carousel was going full-tilt outside of a store. Is that what you're talking about?

Speaker 2 I would actually go in the opposite direction. I thought that was one of the more impactful deaths for me.

Speaker 2 For me, it's like, if you're going to build up to this climactic finish of part one of this season, effectively, with Jungbei's death,

Speaker 2 I just don't really have a relationship to that character that makes that feel like a gut punch to me.

Speaker 2 And if you want to end this in a powerful, gut-punchy way, power to you, and that may make more sense in like a to-be-continued sort of season setup. I just, it didn't really land for me at all.

Speaker 1 That's so interesting. I would say that I don't know that the death itself landed for me, but the death as representative of

Speaker 1 Kihun.

Speaker 1 We are doing our best to pronounce things.

Speaker 1 We got some pronunciation corrections that Rob and I actually don't think are quite correct, but I will acknowledge that my Western tongue is not like nailing this pronunciation.

Speaker 1 Anyway, that our main character,

Speaker 1 that his rebellion has failed. utterly.
And this is what happens. This is what happens when you play hero.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 we don't get a dramatic reveal,

Speaker 1 you know, of the front man, Inho, like, revealing himself or anything like that. But the death means you have failed so utterly, you have even gotten your longtime friend here killed.

Speaker 1 Um, and also as a payoff for Jungbei being the only character to have seen Inho, the front man, like do something horrible and not say anything about it,

Speaker 1 that sort of paid off for me as well, um, as something that felt kind of weighty. But as a person, I would agree.
I'm not emotionally invested in him the way I am.

Speaker 1 And actually a number of other characters that we met the season. I want to ask you, unless there's more you want to say about that specifically, I want to ask you

Speaker 1 if you had a character.

Speaker 1 either new or returning that at the end of these episodes. I'm not even going to call it a season.
At the end of these episodes, you're like...

Speaker 2 Collection of

Speaker 2 assemblage of storylines that you're going to say was your favorite that you felt most invested in oh man i actually think it's pretty competitive i think a lot of the new characters they introduced are quite good and to what we we talked about on the part one version of this podcast like the existing relationships between some of these people coming in yeah i think really juiced some of the storylines like i was really invested in jun hee and myunggi's like uh baby drama slash more importantly

Speaker 2 her kind of constant reevaluation of like, can I literally trust this guy to do anything or with anything? And the kind of slow turns of his manipulations of her as the story kind of progresses.

Speaker 2 Like, I was really into everything that was happening with them.

Speaker 2 I was really into everything that was happening with Yongsuk and Goomja, like the mother-son dynamic there, and like them getting torn apart, and

Speaker 2 him trying to join the strike team and her, like, pulling him back. Like, all that stuff really worked for me.
But if you're going to pick an MVP, I think Hyunju's arc

Speaker 2 overall, uh, in basically becoming the de facto captain of this operation in a lot of ways by the end.

Speaker 2 And for me, more importantly and emotionally, to what you tipped off earlier about the carousel, like Hyunjoo and Young Mi's relationship actually really, really worked on me.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 that was where I felt like my heartstrings were maybe pulled the most.

Speaker 1 I love that. I think for me,

Speaker 1 Young-sick's mother and Hyunjoo, like that relationship going from his mother saying, like, who, who is that? What is, is that a man? Is that a woman? Like, sort of, and then their connection.

Speaker 1 That really worked for me. And, like, Hyunju as a character,

Speaker 1 as a character, is the most appealing and

Speaker 1 I feel the most invested in.

Speaker 1 Relationship or sort of just sort of like captivating, captivation-wise.

Speaker 1 I would say, Inho, the front man, like in his sort of undercover guys,

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 and the the relationship that is developing between him and gihun is yes i think

Speaker 1 my favorite thing that i watch this season and then i would say

Speaker 1 uh you know to your point young six uh

Speaker 1 are

Speaker 1 as a character on an arc as a character that i am rooting to make better decisions

Speaker 1 like his is the arc that i am most he his is the like sort of moral improvement i am most invested in yeah you know because like Hyunjoo doesn't doesn't have, like, is a rock-solid person from the moment we meet her.

Speaker 1 Um, and then Inho, it's

Speaker 2 well, let me step you there.

Speaker 2 I would say yes and no, like, rock-solid in some aspects, but as far as the overall tribalism of the game, is someone who votes a couple of times to continue playing, even though it's going to mean other people are going to die.

Speaker 1 She does vote. I think she votes the wrong way only once.
I could be wrong, but I think it's only the first time. You think it's it multiple times?

Speaker 2 I think it's the second one because you get that sort of moment where her whole team has decided that they're gonna stop after the second game okay and she votes to continue and they have they have to kind of confront that as a team you're right you're right um

Speaker 1 but she is the person who helps kihun save someone during red light green light which is sort of our indication from the beginning that this is a person like

Speaker 1 who could step into a heroic leader uh role. But you're right, you're right.

Speaker 1 The vote is part of it. And then I wanted to...
So character-wise, and I and I kind of want to come back to Inho, the front man, and sort of

Speaker 1 what moments are real for him and what moments of performance for him, because I think there's some ambiguity there,

Speaker 1 which I love. And I really think that Lee Byung-hun is wonderful.
And did you, did you see the

Speaker 1 Magnificent 7 remake? that came out. I actually did not.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 1 he's in it.

Speaker 1 I hadn't realized that he was in it. He's done done like several American movies and like, and obviously a shit ton of stuff in Korea, but

Speaker 1 he has this like,

Speaker 1 I was like, he's got this interesting relationship.

Speaker 1 His character in that movie is Billy Rocks, and Ethan Hawk's character is called Good Night. And

Speaker 1 they have this like very, very close relationship. And I was like...
I wonder if the internet cared enough about the film The Magnificent Seven that there are shipping videos for Ethan Hawk

Speaker 1 and Li Bung-Hyun in Magnificent 7, and there absolutely are. They're everywhere because it is a very like close relationship that they have that movie.
And I feel similar vibes. There's just

Speaker 1 vibes

Speaker 1 coming off of Gi-hun and the front man. So

Speaker 1 how did all of that play out for you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, at the risk of dating myself, Joe, I thought less like fan video or like shipping video. And I thought like this is very fanfic coded to me.

Speaker 2 This is very like I can absolutely see people spiraling off in all kinds of directions with every little glance with every sort of interaction and I think some of it speaks to the overall question of like what is the front man after and it's clear he wants to not just be in the game but to instigate and manipulate and maybe drive wedges between certain people or protect certain people for the sake of like a larger conflict.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of stuff that he's involved in, but overall the first part of his mission is like winning Gihun's trust, basically.

Speaker 2 And so, there's a lot of kind of fast-forwarded almost intimacy that has to happen between them. Yes.
And the game facilitates that. The danger facilitates that.

Speaker 2 But, like, these are two people who are building bonds in close proximity under very intense circumstances very, very quickly.

Speaker 2 And there's always going to be a read on that that reads as something more than just like two bros who are grabbing each other's hands and helping each other through the game.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 1 found his character so fascinating because to me, and it feels very clear in a scene that happens towards the end of this collection of episodes,

Speaker 1 when Gihun gets his crew together and says, this is the plan. The lights will go off.
We will hide. And then Inho is like, so you're going to sacrifice some of our own people for this? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he was like, yeah, for the greater good. And then this look comes over his face.

Speaker 2 The greater good.

Speaker 1 The greater good. Yeah, thank you.
But like that he is like, I...

Speaker 1 Correct. You're a bad person.
This is, you're pitching yourself as a hero and you're about to sacrifice a bunch of people on your own side for the quote-unquote greater good.

Speaker 1 But this is the kind of depravity in humanity that, like, the people who run this game believe is just inherently true.

Speaker 1 I was reading some sort of, you know, obviously, this good game is like such a, could not be a clear commentary on the class system, et cetera.

Speaker 1 Obviously, it's not even, it's just the text of the show, right?

Speaker 1 But this idea that the privileged class inside of this world and maybe in our world as well needs to prove the moral bankruptcy of the lower class in order to not cede any of the moral high ground to

Speaker 1 the people that they're subjugating. Like, not only are you, have you failed in life for some reason or another, the desperation that brings everyone to the squid game, but in the first place.

Speaker 1 But you're an inherently bad person. So it's okay that we're bad people too.
Everyone's bad and we're just more successful at being bad than you are.

Speaker 1 It's not a moral

Speaker 1 triumph for you that you are struggling in life. You're, you still are, are, you know, have moral feelings.
And so needing to prove that

Speaker 1 feels like his main, like crushing

Speaker 1 Gioon's spirit, not killing him, but proving something to him.

Speaker 1 And feels like he won a minor victory here in the middle of the final arc of episodes. And I presume that's not where we're going to land.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 If we're going to land on a cynical note or not inside of this game, does Gi-Hun become the new front man or something like that at the end of all things?

Speaker 1 I feel like it could go either way. This could have a super dark ending or not.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 And from that perspective, I think Gi-hun's overall trajectory and development as a character does grab me.

Speaker 2 Because this is someone who has softened in so many ways, who has become more empathetic in so many ways, versus the character we saw at the start of season one, who's come into this game to save people and to end the game.

Speaker 2 Like, that is his professed goal.

Speaker 2 At the same time, he is willing to sacrifice everybody

Speaker 2 when it comes time to execute his plan. And I think that that plan is worthy of some examination because I would say it's like pretty effective in terms of getting the guns.

Speaker 2 And everything after getting the guns is a total shit show and was going to be a total shit show. It's not good.

Speaker 2 But for the sake of executing what he believes to be the plan, he's willing to sacrifice all these people. And these are people who have basically

Speaker 2 trusted in him.

Speaker 2 I would say in some ways, this is even more cynical than what many of the players are doing within the game, which is they may play the game in their little silo, win or lose, and they don't really care if anybody else survives or not.

Speaker 2 And they want to see the piggy bank fill up. Gioon is choosing, we are not going to tell these people what we're doing.

Speaker 2 We are going to hide and they are going to die and we are going to be opportunistic and kind of channeling this towards something that to him feels progressive toward a cause.

Speaker 2 But it's just leading to so many of the characters,

Speaker 2 at least some of the characters we've seen, many of the people who die are red shirts. And

Speaker 2 if I had an argument about this particular portion of the story, it would be maybe have more characters dying who we actually have some kind of investment in to make that sting a little bit more.

Speaker 1 I'm certain that's coming in the actual back half of the season, which we will get in June.

Speaker 2 Yes, one would hope. I would say the one death along those lines that I thought was pretty effective was Semi.
And Minsu is like the kind of younger,

Speaker 2 kind of like nerdy guy who had latched onto her and betrayed her and ultimately found himself like could not help her in her time of like desperation.

Speaker 1 He didn't try as hard as he could have, but tried a little bit.

Speaker 2 He dropped something from the top bunk.

Speaker 1 But it was glass.

Speaker 2 It was glass.

Speaker 2 It was breakable. It was theoretically sharp.
Like, I don't know what he hoped to accomplish, but it wasn't going to be anything.

Speaker 2 I just wanted more characters like that to underscore the point that we're talking about here, which is this is a ruthless plan in action. And for fucking what?

Speaker 1 For what, exactly? Um,

Speaker 1 I agree with you entirely. I would now like to read for you an assemblage of fan fiction titles that I just looked up based on

Speaker 1 Gihun and Inho from Squid Game. Keep Me Warm is one.
Okay. Down Bad is another.

Speaker 1 Who Knew is another.

Speaker 1 The Front Men.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 2 No, I get. Oh.

Speaker 1 Fixations in Tiger's Claws. That's a really fun one, I think.

Speaker 1 I don't know that we're seeing our best work, but

Speaker 1 I haven't gone all the way in deep, but I just want to let you know that it is well represented.

Speaker 1 There are at least 449 works based on a cursory search on K03. So

Speaker 2 if you have have a theoretical fan fiction title for these two, please email us at prestige TV at spotify.com. I would love your fake fan fiction titles.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I think the development of that relationship, which was so key to

Speaker 1 tracking what's going on in this season or this part of a season, it works so much better than some of the other things that are clearly seeds that they're planting for the upcoming season.

Speaker 1 Like the plot with

Speaker 1 know,

Speaker 1 not fully killing people and,

Speaker 1 you know, selling their organs on the black market.

Speaker 2 What is happening with that?

Speaker 1 Well, I have to imagine,

Speaker 1 on the one hand, I have to imagine that Jun-ho, and again, the whole Jun-ho plot also feels very much like spinning and spinning and spinning and waiting to actually

Speaker 1 enter the main plot. They're just like really, they're circling, literally circling the island and also the drain of our interests.
But like, I have to imagine that the group of

Speaker 1 pink boiler-suited baddies who are going to be smuggling bodies out will encounter the Jin-ho contingent. But isn't that how he got in in the first place?

Speaker 1 Like, is that too similar to how he got in in season one? I don't know.

Speaker 1 But it feels like the group that is like, we need to meet with the boat, which is the baddies with the body parts, and our backup heroes who are out in the bay on a boat feels like those are headed for a collision course in season three.

Speaker 1 But without that, we're just biding our times. And similarly with Noil,

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 new guard who we are tracking, that also feels just like a pretty minor

Speaker 1 like level setup for something that will come to a head in the final stretch of episodes. But the balance just feels off because of that, because it just feels like this,

Speaker 1 you know, cut off abortive sort of half of a season. Then I'm just sort of like, why did I bother investing in those things if I'm now going to have to wait? I mean, I could wait six months.

Speaker 1 I waited several years for this, but

Speaker 1 be more honest with what this is. I don't know.
It just feels a little funky to me.

Speaker 2 It does feel a little craven in that way, which I guess mission accomplished. Like, if your point is to prove the evil of human existence, it even applies to quarterly reports, it turns out.

Speaker 2 I just wish that, I wish that that balance was a little bit better because I do really still enjoy the actual games themselves and the human dynamics within them.

Speaker 2 It's like, it's, it's great, like television. It's a great product.
It's really fun to watch. It's really dangerous.
It's really heartbreaking in some spots.

Speaker 2 It's just all of this side stuff that is not working. And as you're saying, like, you're just juggling it to juggle so that eventually we can catch it.
And that doesn't work.

Speaker 2 If this is the length of time and the overall stretch of episodes you want to make over this many months, that doesn't work.

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Speaker 1 So when we recorded the first part of our coverage of Squid Game, they had

Speaker 1 really just done red light, green light. And the question was,

Speaker 1 are they just going to do the same games over again? You know, Geehon certainly thought so and was incorrect.

Speaker 1 So the two game set pieces we get afterwards are what they call the six-legged pentathlon um and then the mingle game which is the carousel uh set piece so i want to let's talk about the pentathlon for a second um which which uh there's a great sort of behind-the-scenes feature right on youtube about how they built the set and how they came up with the games and how they came up with the length of it and all the things that they had in mind and basically they were based on

Speaker 1 uh you know traditional Korean games and traditional sort of like sports day school sports day games and so the set is meant to look very like like an elementary school almost which is a a lot of the vibes we got off like the squid game itself in season one, etc.

Speaker 1 So meant to invoke this sinister, like childhood innocence,

Speaker 1 except we're just shooting people

Speaker 1 in the middle of the room. I thought this was so effective in terms of how they calibrated how many teams were losing.

Speaker 1 Going with, yes, a team of red shirts, but a team of red shirts that we were like, we had been invested with them for so many of these little games inside of this big game.

Speaker 1 And then for their their abruptive end was horrifying to

Speaker 1 get to

Speaker 1 our various characters that we're following and their personalities on their individual teams.

Speaker 1 And then the genuine thrill and celebration from I think genuine from Gihun when the other team that he's not on wins like right at the end at the last second.

Speaker 1 And in Ho as well, like it seems to me like he is genuinely swept up in this like ecstatic celebration while the blood is still pooled all over the floor from all the people who have died playing this game.

Speaker 2 And the urine. Don't forget the urine.

Speaker 1 I never could, Rob. I never could.
But thank you. Thank you for reminding me.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So how did all of this work for you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think the overall like spin on the squid game camaraderie was really effective of you're right. Like when they're in the room together, they're all cheering each other on.

Speaker 2 And then when you get a glimpse of back in kind of the bunk room as people are streaming in, it's like they hate everyone who passes through that door. Yeah, and like that stuff is really effective.

Speaker 2 And overall, just the

Speaker 2 way that these games are composed, and I think you nailed it as far as like lead us through these with the red shirt teams first, and you see how difficult they are, you see the stakes of them, you see what it costs you if you get stuck on one of these games and you're just like fetching a rock over and over and over.

Speaker 2 I thought all that stuff was really good. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then the um, I think the score is so fun, and it's this like big, synthy, triumphant, like it reminded me a lot of You're the best from the Karate Kid.

Speaker 2 This like any kind of big montagey moment music is a lot of what you're seeing as they go through these games. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Which of course screeches to a halt when the front man is just like tanking this thing spectacularly when it comes to the spinning top.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's a follow-up question I have for you, which is

Speaker 1 you've do you feel like he was taking it

Speaker 1 intentionally?

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's interesting. That seems to be the prevailing wisdom.
That seems to be what most people think. And it has, and it comes down to also, he's left-handed

Speaker 1 because we saw him use his left-hand to shoot the gun in season one, and probably presumably at the end of season two.

Speaker 1 But he's trying to spend the top right-handed.

Speaker 1 And the actor himself was talking about that. So I'm sure you're all right.
There were just moments where he looked genuinely scared to me.

Speaker 2 He's quite a good actor, even within an actor.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so maybe, maybe it's that.

Speaker 1 Someone also pointed out, I think, on the subreddit that I thought was interesting is like, unlike some of the games we got in season one, all of these games end with people being shot rather than like falling from something or something else that might happen during the game.

Speaker 1 And is that a fail-safe that the front man put into like, even if my team loses,

Speaker 1 I can't control this, even if my team loses or I somehow get locked out of a room in the, in the carousel mingle game, we can fake shoot me. You know, I'm not going to like for real die.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I thought that was an interesting observation.

Speaker 2 I think that's a good question, though, because I was kind of operating for much of this part of the season in particular with the assumption that the guards knew that the front man was in the game.

Speaker 2 That was just kind of like my baseline assumption based on nothing at all, just like I am assuming that.

Speaker 2 And then over the course of it, you see a couple of guards, especially towards the end, clock him. Like very consciously clock him, being like, what the fuck is that guy doing here?

Speaker 2 Which makes me think that basically no one I would assume other than I believe his code name is like the officer or something, the guy who's like now running the game, the front man, side man is now, I think, the only guy who actually knows.

Speaker 1 Maybe that's possible. There's definitely a hierarchy that I'm not sure I fully have a grasp on, but there's like the squares versus the circles versus the triangles.

Speaker 2 So, I feel like there's like a level, you don't even know squares versus circles versus triangles, Joe.

Speaker 1 Come on, do you even? Um, I think there's a level that knows, but not everyone knows was sort of my, but it's possible it was just that one guy.

Speaker 1 But I feel like you've got to inform some people in order to like, in order to avoid even more of what we saw, which was like, what are you doing here?

Speaker 1 Nearly blowing the operation to a certain degree.

Speaker 1 But yeah, sorry. What anything else you want to say about the pentathlon?

Speaker 1 Was it the spinning top?

Speaker 1 Which is the one that you felt was the most diabolical?

Speaker 2 The spinning top is absolutely diabolical. I will say

Speaker 2 the game that was almost like Jax adjacent,

Speaker 2 I think Gongi is the name of the game. That seems really hard.

Speaker 1 I couldn't do it. Simply couldn't.

Speaker 2 With shaky hands, well, I will say this. One reason that I really had a lot of admiration for the setup here.

Speaker 2 And I think, you know, think about this a lot with any kind of game show construction, but especially these ones that are meant to be diabolical.

Speaker 2 In some ways, the team that goes first is uniquely disadvantaged. Right.

Speaker 2 We see kind of our core characters as we kind of have split up into our, I would say like three point of view teams primarily, watching the games unfold. They're going, okay, like we should do this.

Speaker 2 We should practice this. When this comes, like walk backwards to save time.

Speaker 2 And so you would think the first team is uniquely disadvantaged, but the overall like anxiety bomb of watching all of these people die round after round after round and then having to successfully execute like five rounds of jacks in a row is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 And I don't know how any human being would do it, but our guy Dejo steps in and absolutely crushes it. Like he is a savant, clearly.

Speaker 1 I think that like what I, you know, it's, it's, it's surface level. It's not profoundly deep.

Speaker 1 But what has been enjoyable in both seasons for me is the moments when you have to pick teams and the inherent value we place on certain people.

Speaker 1 And as has been the case both seasons, like the older people are not,

Speaker 1 people don't want the older people or people don't want women on their team or, you know, whatever the case may be. And then there are often twists to the game of like, actually,

Speaker 1 if you're a woman or if you're older, you might have, you know, institutional knowledge of an older game.

Speaker 1 There is value in you that sort of the pack might have disregarded.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, that was true in season one and it is true here

Speaker 1 and with

Speaker 1 Young Six Mom. And I just,

Speaker 1 yeah, the games work. They really do.
They're really good. I thought the Mingle game, I would say the Mingle Mingle game, the Carousel game sequence was by far my favorite of the whole season.

Speaker 1 The absolute drama that they milked out of, it just takes like almost a mathematical, a mathemat, a mathematical mind and then like a diabolical heart to what are the number configurations that we can put together to cause maximum drama or maximum

Speaker 1 disappointment in us the viewers and certain people and the choices that they make um

Speaker 1 or terror for certain people.

Speaker 1 I just thought that was perfectly done. I loved that whole thing.

Speaker 2 Masterful stuff. And I think overall, the sort of you construct people into these initial teams from the first game.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And they're building really strong alliances from making it through that pentathlon alive.

Speaker 2 And I would say this is one of those things, too, that if that strains like credulity for you at all, I would really recommend people who love Squid Game to watch this other Korean competition show on Netflix, Devil's Plan.

Speaker 2 Are you you familiar with devil's plan what is it phenomenal show it's just like a game like mental logic game competitive show and everyone is competing for themselves ostensibly but this is a light spoiler for that show if you're really sensitive to those things the first game they play is like basically a game of mafia and it's amazing how the entire season all of the alliances basically stem back to like what their teams were in mafia like the fact that they have to lie to each other out of the gate puts people into two very distinct camps and they almost almost never leave those camps and like the way you can be bonded together with someone so quickly on something just just even a little bit manipulative much less life or death manipulative as it is in the case of squid game i think is really really profound and so you start from that place and then you say okay now split your team in half okay now take one person out of your team of three like the the numbers game of mingle is so so good and then once you start incorporating the element of okay now even if you can successfully and quickly figure out who you want to bring into the room with you can you beat these other people to the room in time?

Speaker 2 Can you make it to the room, or will someone throw you down and try to take your place? I just think it's so well conceived, it's so well executed.

Speaker 2 It makes me feel terrible watching it, which is, I think, the point of most, much of Squid game. Yeah, uh, and it just like it wrung me out.

Speaker 1 And visually, it looks amazing. Like, uh, again, both of all of the set pieces for the games, as was the case with season one, just like look incredible.
Um,

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 think, um,

Speaker 1 because there's like an over, a few overhead shots of them scattering.

Speaker 1 And, uh, you know, the, the director's commentary was something like, we wanted them to look like, I think it was like organisms in a cell or something like that.

Speaker 1 Like they're a cohesive group and then they're just like disparate and this idea of like,

Speaker 1 yeah, when are you with the team? When are you with a group? When is that going to help you? And when is every man for himself going to help you make it through? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And to be honest with you, to go back to a segment at the beginning of this podcast, me watching Survivor helped me understand a lot of this better in terms of like, honestly, alliances and when the game is a group game and when the game trans like mutes into a every man for themselves kind of game, you can't get through the game without alliances, but it, but also you can't get through the game without betraying those alliances at some point.

Speaker 1 And so.

Speaker 1 In 47 seasons of Survivor, that's just a truth of the game. And so that has to be a truth of human existence to a certain degree in these extreme circumstances, let's say.

Speaker 2 Well, life imitates survivor, as we know. As we know.

Speaker 1 We're always just playing for another bag of rice. And

Speaker 1 so,

Speaker 1 yeah, I just found all of that really, really incredibly emotional and

Speaker 1 incredible to watch. The fact that

Speaker 1 Jung Sik betrays his mother and then she refuses to like

Speaker 1 throw him under the bus that she covers for him

Speaker 1 in a similar way that Junbei like does does not rat out Inho

Speaker 1 for different reasons. But like what are the reasons that we sort of cover for people? And is it again self-interest or genuine like, you know, heartfelt empathy for them or

Speaker 1 desire that they'll be better next time? Or we get something like Young Sick who

Speaker 1 throws someone out to protect his

Speaker 1 partner who is or is not his partner at the time. But like

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 What would you do in that scenario like i know it's a horrible thing he does but oh you're talking about myunggi when he oh sorry yes yes yes yeah exactly when he jumps in at the last second yeah and it's just sort of like it's

Speaker 1 what yeah what would you do like i don't know what would you do it's one of those where

Speaker 2 like he's i think ultimately he is right as as junii even says like she doesn't want him to be right she basically wants nothing to do with this guy anymore who ghosted her after she got pregnant for it sounds like months if not years like i guess it's months it can't be years six it sounded like six months yeah six months yeah cold cold no contact from this guy he shows up she does not want to play with him she does not want to trust him but in that moment he is it seems like he's right that their last person was not going to make it into the room yeah

Speaker 2 and i think the the young sick one is tough with his mom because it's like he does fight pretty hard to try to get back to her for like three seconds for a bit and then he just kind of like goes with the he goes with the tide.

Speaker 2 And it's, it's so hard to watch because you can see the shame on his face as he does it. And again, it's like the way this stuff is captured and shot, I think, is, is just really affecting.

Speaker 1 And then the shame compounded when she covers for him. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 I want to, so I want to follow from that sequence, following with Thanos, a character we haven't talked about yet in this iteration, into the bathroom,

Speaker 1 like the riot in the bathroom, which was another sequence I thought was incredible in terms of like you know chekhov's fork but also just like

Speaker 1 it it was all it's what they wanted is what the game run you know the people running the game wanted obviously by giving them these utensils etc but it's just like the specific again moral twists of like who's gonna break and for what reason to cause absolute bloody pandemonium and then them having to walk back in just like covered in blood uh from from this uh slaughter in the bathroom i thought was really well done i loved it uh i mean i didn't love it people died but i i loved it also we kind of love it when people die on these things sometimes it's part of it's part of the package yeah but yeah i i think overall like myungi as a character is someone who at from the outset you are conditioned and basically taught to hate and taught to think that this guy is just a scammer, that he is this person who took advantage of so many people by like recommending this bum crypto.

Speaker 2 And yet,

Speaker 2 I don't think he's a good person. And maybe this is where his arc so far and his story so far is maybe even more interesting than Hyonju's.

Speaker 2 Hyunju is interesting and compelling in part because you get a sense of decency there. And you get a sense of sticking up for other people and protecting the members of her team.

Speaker 2 And the overall rise to prominence and ultimately military efficacy is a really satisfying thing to watch.

Speaker 2 Myungi is someone I don't like. I don't like that character.
And if anything, most of the time, he's being like really manipulative and really cruel.

Speaker 2 Like specifically to Junhi in a way that is just like, you can't do that and be a good person on TV. I don't know.
But I love watching him. I love watching him weasel through things.

Speaker 1 Actually, I mean, my characterization of him is like a little, maybe naively a bit more generous than that in that like he isn't someone I like.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I don't know that he's always manipulating. And I think there is like genuine

Speaker 1 desire to be better, but then there is like the nature inside of him of like, what's my next gambit? Uh, you know, that so disappoints her, obviously, as well.

Speaker 1 Uh, you know, and she's convinced that the reason he wants to like sort of pair up with her is because he needs their combined money. And I think it's like not not that, but not the.

Speaker 2 Oh, see, I read that as like being that.

Speaker 1 Okay, I feel like it's not only that,

Speaker 1 but again, maybe I'm giving him too much credit. And sometimes I do that in shows.
But I think that, like, I think it's more interesting if it's kind of both.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 No, I agree with you that I think there are times where that character isn't exactly sure.

Speaker 2 I just think when it comes to push and shove, it's for him, it's usually like, how do I get myself out of this?

Speaker 1 Sure. And so, but watching this character on an arc, presumably,

Speaker 1 we don't have to spend too much time theorizing about what's going to happen in season three.

Speaker 1 But if I had to bet anything in the world, it would be that young gi is gonna sacrifice himself for her uh at some point see i don't think so sure okay i wouldn't be so sure but there is a larger question that's where he's headed his like slow incremental growth towards something you know if you believe this to be a show that's about that You know, I think there are obviously different paths for people within the game once they get there.

Speaker 2 There are the people who become better people and they're the people who become so much worse by virtue of like being in this environment. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he's someone who, to our point, like has kind of straddled that line. I do think for a show where the conceit is that anyone can die at any time,

Speaker 2 I'm pretty convinced that Gihun is not going to die until at least the very, very, very end of this season. If that,

Speaker 2 it just doesn't narratively make sense for him to die. Like if

Speaker 2 everything to this point.

Speaker 2 is based off of the front man's like fixation on him basically in terms of the way the season has evolved yeah he can't die the other person who feels like they might have have plot armor is Junhee, and that's because I'm just wondering: does this show have the guts to kill a pregnant woman in these games?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a great question.

Speaker 2 I'm not suggesting they should. I just, I feel like, generally speaking, she seems pretty safe.

Speaker 1 On the like, sort of...

Speaker 1 Inho fascination AO3, archive of our own fanfiction front, we did get an email from Chrissy who wanted to yes and me sort of calling Lee Byung-hun the sort of Korean Mads Mickelson because she was invoking Hannibal

Speaker 1 in which Mads

Speaker 1 is famous.

Speaker 2 The ship that launched a thousand families.

Speaker 1 Exactly. One of the most popular ships of all time.

Speaker 1 So I like thinking about that. And then we also get an email from a listener about, we had sort of touched on this a little bit,

Speaker 1 this idea that the actor, the performer playing Thanos

Speaker 1 is a real-life musician

Speaker 1 who had some controversies, what I said, and then has since been clarified to me that controversy in Korea is different from controversy in

Speaker 2 controversy in K-pop specifically is also an entirely different threshold.

Speaker 1 But that he was a member of the K-pop group Bang Bang, and he was either sort of pushed out or phased out or quit or whatever.

Speaker 1 But the main source of the scandal seems to be a light dabbling in drugs the lightest of dabbling in drugs uh which is just like there's a zero tolerance uh policy uh in in korea about this and so um

Speaker 1 to westerners it seems like what

Speaker 2 why are we stressed about this

Speaker 1 that is not the case necessarily back home and so i think it's interesting to have him come in as like the drug-addicted singer.

Speaker 1 So far. And I thought he worked really well like throughout.
I thought he was always fun. And, you know,

Speaker 1 it's right that he didn't make it much further than he made it. But I thought I had a great time watching him while he was here.
So, you know.

Speaker 2 Yeah. He's a great act one villain.
Yeah. And then at some point, the bigger, you know, the real big bads kind of take their cloaks and take center stage.
And we're in that transition point now.

Speaker 2 But I really enjoyed him. I enjoyed him and his henchmen kind of doci-doughing on the carousel.
Like, they're given big hammy stuff to do, especially when they're high. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But also, like, stealth MVP moment for me is when uh, Semi, who's like the girl with the nose ring, yes, is asking him if he still has his infinity stones, and he does because it's his nails.

Speaker 2 Incredible shit, like, just the mania on this guy is off the charts, and I just have to salute him.

Speaker 1 Um, to circle back to Inho for a second, the front man, as he is diabolically infiltrating and trying to get um, Gihun's um affections,

Speaker 1 someone pointed out on the subreddit that he has styled his hair like Sang Wu,

Speaker 1 Gihun's friend from season one, and it is like identical. And that is nasty.
That's so nasty.

Speaker 2 That's nasty work. That's so nasty.
We can't support it.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 But to go back to, and we talked about this a little bit in the first half of the season, but to watch it flourish in the back half was so satisfying.

Speaker 1 is the difference between having Inho, the front man, in the game and we know who he is versus player number one in season one, which was supposed to be this big shocking twist and surprise.

Speaker 1 So it's that old, and we've talked about this in the context of other shows because one of my favorite things to talk about: this idea of suspense versus surprise.

Speaker 1 And I always pick suspense over surprise. And that was what was delivered here because the quote-unquote surprise twist of player number one being who he is in season one, uh,

Speaker 1 whether or not it was something I saw coming, which I

Speaker 1 did a little early on, but like,

Speaker 1 even if you didn't, as a surprise, it's sort of like, okay, whatever.

Speaker 1 But full-on knowing and watching Gihun fall for Inho's stuff throughout this episode and watch the slow corrosion and the manipulation was so fun

Speaker 1 for me

Speaker 1 in these episodes. I just thought it was an incredible choice.

Speaker 2 Well, Anda's something that I think in terms of the momentum of the show and the energy of the show works in a totally opposite way.

Speaker 2 Like, I mentioned this on the last pod, but I would go as far as to say that that reveal in season one wasn't just a whatever plot turn for me or a whatever surprise.

Speaker 2 Like, it actively disrupted my enjoyment of the show because I felt like some of the biggest emotional punches had now been pulled and didn't actually mean anything.

Speaker 2 Which, look, in a show that can be as nihilistic as this one, maybe that's part of the intent. Maybe, maybe they're trying to discourage us from caring about other human beings or their fates.

Speaker 2 Fair enough.

Speaker 2 But in this case, especially with this split season construction, we have yet to see Gihu learn this information.

Speaker 2 And so, yeah, we've gotten to live with all the suspense so far, but now we're building forward with something rather than retroactively taking the legs out from under the show.

Speaker 2 Like there's, there's more to look forward to in some ways, knowing that that reveal hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 1 I know, exactly. And like, I, you know, again, once again, perusing the subreddit as I was,

Speaker 1 as I want to do with a show like Sweet Game.

Speaker 1 There was this whole thread about like how cool would it have been if we had never seen the front man's face in season one so we were surprised blah blah and I was like no no I really disagree.

Speaker 1 I just really disagree with that. I think it is so much better that we know exactly who he is and what game he's running here.

Speaker 1 And watching him, again, I think have genuine moments of camaraderie with these people, even as he's actively trying to destroy them from inside. I think that is a brilliant storytelling device.

Speaker 1 And I'm really excited for season two, part two, that we're getting in June because I'm excited.

Speaker 2 Coming at the end of Q2, 2025.

Speaker 1 Straddling Q2, Q3

Speaker 1 in 2025, because I think that

Speaker 1 I think this,

Speaker 1 I'm curious if we're going back in the game. It seems like we might be.
I'm curious if we're going to get a flashback backstory to Inho in season three, or do we already know enough from the

Speaker 1 biographical data that we got and we can sort of connect the dots on our own.

Speaker 1 And I'm really emotionally invested in a lot of the characters that are still around. So like as frustrated as I am with this,

Speaker 1 with yeah, this

Speaker 1 craven

Speaker 1 sort of packaging packaging of this as a season two when it's really just a season two part one.

Speaker 1 I am more excited for season three,

Speaker 1 especially knowing it's coming at least kind of soon, than I was for season two. Uh, how do you feel about that? Like, you know,

Speaker 2 I would agree with that. I think it is the level of investment in so many of these new characters.
There are parts of the show that, as we mentioned, I just don't really care about right now.

Speaker 2 And I'm sure we will be told to care about whether we like it or not by the end of things. That's all well and good.

Speaker 2 I would love to see some of these. You know, there's a lot of loose ends right now.
It's not just like who lived and who died and whether they continue the games or not.

Speaker 2 But, like, Noel's a great example of a character who she's like called into the principal's office basically for killing people too well.

Speaker 2 Uh, and but there's hints that like she and this officer have known each other for years in some capacity, which we don't really know yet. I also don't really understand like

Speaker 2 what her goals are in being here.

Speaker 1 Is it more money money to be able to put more resources towards finding her kid?

Speaker 2 That would make sense, but obviously, her path has been kind of complicated by running into the father of the sick girl here, who I think we should note among the many loose ends.

Speaker 2 I'll say this, from the point at which they get the guns and then mount the assault on Squid Game HQ, basically none of it works for me. I don't think it's very good.
I agree.

Speaker 2 There's a point at which it's basically like Gihun playing Time Crisis, like duck behind a wall in an arcade, pop out, shoot, shoot, shoot, duck behind the wall.

Speaker 2 It's like, I can only watch this for so long. I'm sorry.
This is very inert.

Speaker 1 It's 45 minutes. Like, it's so long.
It's, it's not interesting. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2 There was enough time for two separate people to do full-on sprints to go get the clips. That's too much time to be doing a shootout in the fake stairs.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But one of the people we see in that little like strike team is the sick girl's dad, aka Prince Charming, as he's referred to earlier in the the season. I guess just because he's hot.

Speaker 2 Again, power to him.

Speaker 1 I kind of like, they did a weird slow build with him where he wasn't like he was in the game, but not part of our core alliance until a little later on. I actually kind of liked that.

Speaker 1 That actually kind of worked for me.

Speaker 2 I do too.

Speaker 2 And I think the ways in which those sorts of characterizations can be really effective in a show like this, I feel like should have paid off more in the big like ambush, everyone is dying in the bunk room at night.

Speaker 2 Like, I would have loved a couple of more of those characters. But we see him get shot, and we see basically everyone else on that little strike team get executed.
But he's not like fatally shot.

Speaker 2 I don't think. I think it's like a, I think it's a shoulder.
I think it's probably Noel like dragging him into a hallway somewhere. Some, something will happen between the two of them.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 What? I don't really know.

Speaker 1 Well, I think that's okay. So here's, here's my assessment of that character as I understand it so far, which is like, she's taken this

Speaker 1 heinous job,

Speaker 1 but she has drawn her moral line somewhere where she's like, Everyone is here, has elected to be here. Everyone who is here is deciding every game whether or not to stay in the game.

Speaker 1 So, I am going to adhere by the rules and give them sort of like the death that they have signed up for. And for some reason, that's where her moral line is drawn.

Speaker 2 That's a weird line.

Speaker 1 I'm going to say anything beyond that is somehow in ignoble.

Speaker 1 And then she's just sort of like, you know, using them for spare parts, you know, using their organs or whatever is morally morally bankrupt. And so I think that, like, is sort of my take on her.

Speaker 1 And so my understanding is sort of like where the rubber is going to meet the road is going to be obviously with this guy.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the little girl with the strawberry hat. Who's taking care of her while her dad's in the game?

Speaker 2 I don't know how she's not enough people. Is she okay?

Speaker 2 She needs to be cared for at all costs. Is she okay?

Speaker 1 But yeah, that's a clear. Well, and then, but it takes the tension out of that because I was like, well, he's got to survive because he's

Speaker 1 key to like her. So I have a feeling that she's going to turn and then they're going to have like someone on the inside that's on the team good guy, whatever we want to qualify as good guy, right?

Speaker 1 Does that not seem like where that's going?

Speaker 2 It does seem very possible.

Speaker 2 I got to say, like, as we tease out some of the possibilities for the back half of the season,

Speaker 2 so many of the answers, at least at this point, point to the phenomena we discussed in part one of,

Speaker 2 oh, everything is an incredible cosmic coincidence because there's only like six people and three different objectives. And if you go fast enough, everything aligns very quickly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Anything else you want to say about Squid Game or Season 3 or

Speaker 1 Q 1 through 4 or anything else?

Speaker 2 I have very extensive thoughts on overall Netflix's business strategy.

Speaker 1 I feel like, yeah, here's what they've done, right? Squid Game is going to straddle Q4 and Q1. It's going to straddle Q2 and Q3.
And then Q4, the following Q4, they have Stranger Things.

Speaker 1 So that's what they've done. Yeah, I'd see.
I'm just.

Speaker 2 I should know not to expect better than that, but

Speaker 1 it's

Speaker 1 art and storytelling.

Speaker 2 I'll wash my hands of it. I feel dirtier talking about that than what's going on on screen in Squid Game.

Speaker 1 All right. So that has been our coverage of Squid Game.

Speaker 1 And we will probably be back in June. to talk to you more about Squid Game, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 Parts three and four of this season coming soon. Coming soon.

Speaker 1 And like we said, we'll be back to cover the pit a little bit later on this week. We're gearing up for severance.

Speaker 1 Prestige TV at spotify.com is how you can reach us. We've been getting your emails over the holiday break.
Thank you so much for sending them.

Speaker 1 If you have severance theories or questions, that's going to be a big email show, I think.

Speaker 1 If you have pit thoughts or questions, I don't know if that's going to be as much of a theory show, but we'll all tune tune in and find out.

Speaker 2 Well, maybe this is just me being pit-brained, Joe, but you know, you illuminated to me the existence of the squid game Yule Log.

Speaker 2 And of course, Netflix is no stranger to any spin-off they can get their hands on.

Speaker 2 Can we not get squid game med? Can we not follow one of these organs from the boat to a hospital?

Speaker 2 And I get to see, okay, look, this was, these are the eyes of a character I cared about, but they just went to go benefit

Speaker 2 this poor person who lost their vision.

Speaker 2 Let's complete the circle. Here's my question.

Speaker 1 For

Speaker 1 you're asking for Chicago med, but make it Squid Game Med is what you're saying.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I want the full Chicago suite of shows.

Speaker 1 Squid Game Fire. Okay.
Okay. Okay.
Great.

Speaker 1 Does Squid Game Med also star Noah Wiley is my question.

Speaker 2 Of course it does.

Speaker 1 Who else would be in it? There's no other doctor on TV.

Speaker 1 All right. So we'll be back for that.
We'll be back for severance.

Speaker 1 We will be keeping our eccentric email addresses. They will just all forward to Prestige TV at gmail or at spotify.com.
So if you have

Speaker 1 ideas for severance emails and that one, I mean, like waffle party at gmail.com. There's a lot of good, like this is maybe the most opportunity for an interesting email.

Speaker 2 An entire show made of ephemera.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 You can send those suggestions to us and we will see you soon. Thank you so much to Donnie Beacham for producing both of our squid game episodes.
Donnie's the best

Speaker 1 and I

Speaker 1 have on a whim decided to support the Detroit Lions for Donnie because I heard that all the barrier teams are out of contention. So why not?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's time.

Speaker 1 Mallory asked me to support the Ravens, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 I feel like... Why not support the Lions for Donnie, who's done us a solid over the holidays? So thanks, Donnie.
And we'll be back probably uh with some more Kai Grady goodness in the future.

Speaker 1 And we'll see you then. Um, bye.