Squid Game, Season 2 (Part 2)

hello welcome back to the prestige tv podcast feed i'm joda robinson i'm rob mahoney uh happy new year rob happy new year to you joe how are you doing i'm doing great how are you well we're moving we're getting after it you're ready to get after it rob i'm ready to get after it.

Listeners will happy new year to you joe how are you doing i'm doing great how are you well we're moving we're

getting after it you're ready to get after it i'm ready to get after it uh listeners 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 at least hopefully that's the goal um we do our best here at the first ctv 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 rob mahoney 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 and we're gonna do some some pit coverage so the pit is an hbo max show um so if you want to watch along with us we'll have a check-in on i believe it's a double premiere uh somewhere in the middle of this week we will be checking in on that which is a sort of like spiritual er sequel uh from some of the same creative uh minds and also noah wiley of is here. And it's 15 episodes, which what seasons of television are 15 episodes these days? The Pit is 15 episodes, 15 hours in the night of a shift in the pit in a hospital.
So 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 100 million years ago, season one, and we're here for season two.
Rob, what's your Severance season two level of hype? Where are you on that? 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. Classic rewatch time for us because it's been a long time.
Okay. And then last but not least, we will certainly be checking in with the agency for its finale.
So that is what's going on with us. I think Severance, our plan, our hope, our dream is to cover cover that week to week so if you're looking for the more regular Rob and Joanna week by week coverage look to severance for that um anything else sort of big big ideas for the prestige feed sort of stuff well actually I have an answer to that which is two things we're gonna do up top before we get into like the back half of squid game which is 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 um other than rob watching a lot of basketball for his job and um 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 and whether or not it means anything for the larger TV landscape.
And then we will talk about it. Well, let me preempt you right there.
Like, Tadonobu Asano winning does mean something for the larger TV landscape, which is that we all win. It means something for us personally.
Do you want to start with the Globes? Let's start with the Glo globes i just want to seed it and then we'll come back to it okay rob mahoney 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 um is there a film you want to talk about pretty good no we can 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 would you like to tell the people how you're feeling about landman these days um well if they want to tune into house of our they'll hear me talk to mallory about landman for a long time actually i kind of wanted to so how much of landman did you wind up getting through just a couple i think i've only seen four episodes yeah um 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 land man feelings with mallory on house of r mallory is the reason i watched land man um i did not enjoy land man personally but this is shocking to me. I'm a good friend.
Rob, before I started watching, Rob was like, I'm pretty sure you're going to hate it. And Rob, you know me pretty well.
As a Texan, is there anything specifically you want to say about Landman, Rob Mahoney? I think there's some good Texas stuff in it overall. I am not immune to the charms of a wide long horizon texan vista yeah uh you know maybe 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 what i am immune to joe is someone who clearly has never lived in texas before and certainly never been to a what before.
Telling me that you can go to a Whataburger and order an animal style literally anything, I am insulted. My people are insulted.
That's an In-N-Out feature. You can't do that at a Whataburger.
Absolutely not. And I understand that part of the conceit of this gag is perhaps that this young woman is so alluring.
She's getting Whataburger employees break code and go into in and out territory but it simply cannot and would not happen the thing that i could tell you about whataburger is uh having only had it a few times in texas is that 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 it's just an extra piece of white bread in the box so the idea the very idea that there would be less bread than uh i don't know no extra bread is what you that's not what we do here it's not what we do on the sort of like watching things to to get along with the office culture of the ringer um i will tell you that the there's basically two things two tv things i i got into or tried to get into over the holiday break the one that i was more successful for me is in order to, as you know, I don't watch sports. 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.
I think you do a good job of faking it for the record. You name some guys, you name some teams, you get through it.
I smile and nod. 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 adjacent property that a lot of people, Ringer people are into is Survivor.
So I watched a bunch of seasons of Survivor randomly over holiday break. I was never was never a survivor person but i just like once and and it felt like a very turn your brain off for the holiday sort of thing to watch so i just like got into some seasons of survivor and had a really good time with it so uh you know not not breaking any territory here to say survivor it is sometimes good but survivor it's sometimes good um 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 47 but very close so did you go with a very curated like okay i'm going to season 47 then i'm going to season 62 like did you jump to the greatest hit specifically or did you just pick a spot in the middle and run with it no i went i you know i consulted many curated lists of like what the best seasons are what the best order to watch in one of the survivor alums stephen fishback who is i believe like a ringer listener uh 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 and if you're interested in this this is wow you should watch that's incredible uh so that was and then and then mallory had her own sort of ideas about which seasons i should watch 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 and so and mike white was literally on survivor as a as a contestant that season rules so uh yeah i just kind of wanted to understand the lore um and then outside of survivor um i i was like let's let's really try to take to heart the message that we got from our listeners about sort of what we missed.
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 and I see what people see in it. I think my problem with shrinking 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.
Jason Segel 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? 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 just 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 i wouldn't say i'm like put off by him i think he's better in smaller doses is what i think i think more of a freaks and geeks yeah he's a'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.

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?

So that's,

that's sort of,

you've forgotten forget Sarah Marshall.

I've done my best.

It's a,

it's a bad Muppet movie.

What can I say?

So this is just a me problem.

And I understand the appeal of shrinking. It's just, I think, not for me.
But I did try based on our listeners' recommendations. 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? Oh, honestly, nothing in particular. It's been a lot of, honestly, press junket stuff lately.
There's a lot of good press tours happening. The Nosferatu tour.
The Nosferatu one is great. Timmy Chalamet has been out there doing great work.
Doing everything. Clearly, the Wicked one will live in infamy for as long as human beings are doing these things.
I've been enjoying living vicariously through the various press tours. Speaking of Wicked and among other things, let's talk about the golden globes really quickly uh so yes todd nobo asano uh who played yabushige on shogun uh 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 and he won 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 they always know what they're doing have never made a misstep yeah exactly uh shogun uh showed up did really well colin farrell won for the penguin exciting genuinely he's shocking perhaps uh i don't know they love colin farrell at the globes they if we all love colin farrell yes but if they can find an excuse to give colin farrell a golden globes they're gonna do it so uh do what they did so colin farrell uh and then jodie foster which we have some maybe questions mixed feelings about how do we feel about that not my favorite category for this particular field right like i i honestly thought it would just go to Cate Blanchett 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.
But when you look at the field for performance in an anthology series or limited series, I just wasn't that moved by a lot of the actresses this year. I know you're a christy miliotti fan so i feel like if you watched the penguin you would you would be into it no i'm no i'm sure i would i like it's it's no slight uh but like i also thought of the things that happened in true detective night country i did like jodie foster's performance quite a bit 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, it's not that kind of character per se.
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, they didn't really stand a chance up against your hacks, your shoguns, your baby reindeers, et cetera. Anything anything else i think that might have been the only surprise for me was baby reindeer showing up the way that it did um it's a it's a phenomenon that similar to jason siegel i don't understand but here we are people love that show so um just just slot over slot baby reindeer over ripley is not something that i can realistically support.
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.
Anything else I want to say about the Globes or anything else before we get into ostensibly the actual reason we're here today? 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.

Okay.

Was there, like, a film win that you were most excited about?

I think to me, honestly.

To me, getting it for The Substance. 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.

I have no... I mean, she's definitely getting nominated at this point, I think.
Look, I don't take anything for granted, especially when it comes to a movie like that. I think after that speech, she's definitely getting nominated and might even win.
She's really created a moment for herself at the Globes and good for her. From your lips to the Academy voters' ears, Joe.
Okay. business taxes

we're stressing about all the time

and all the money From your lips to the end. Um, if you want to call it the end of a season because I would not and that's where i want to start which is nor would i sort of floated this to you and 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 i was worried i wasn't gonna like it at all and i did like it uh is that it it feels like a pretty shameless half a season um and just for people listening you know i'm sure a lot of people listening already know this uh but just in case you don't netflix uh among the streamers is one of the most shameless in terms of juicing content in order to maintain subscribers 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.
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, when they report to their investors, they want to show high subscription numbers. 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 Qs of the year.
What they've done here is actually somewhat diabolical because we were all like a little curious about why they were dropping Squid game 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 they dropped it so closely in 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 two for them uh is going to count for q4 and q1 right it? It's going to bleed over into the beginning of Q1, which is January, February, March. And then season three, which is already done because it's basically season two, part two, 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. So they're juicing the end of good game for four full quarters of subscription numbers for the years.
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.
What do you want to say about that, Rob? Yeah, at the point where the finances are driving creative decisions, that's when it is incumbent upon us to talk about it. And there is just no excuse from a storytelling perspective to stop the season here.

No. And also, I would argue, I wouldn't say the season felt like overly padded out.

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 or more honestly I would have been fine in either direction either give us significantly more investment in these characters including some that I think it killed off off in some cases, very dramatic fashion in ways that like just didn't land for me. And it's like, why is that happening? If you're going to break this up into two seasons, that feels inexplicable.
Right. Like you didn't give us enough time to really feel for this character before you, let's say, killed her while the carousel was going full tilt outside of a door.
is that what you're talking about i would actually go in the opposite direction i thought that was one of the more impactful deaths for me for me it's like if you're gonna build up to this like climactic finish of part one of this season effectively with jungbei's death i just don't really have a relationship to that character that makes that feel like a gut punch to me. 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. 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 Gi-hunhun we are doing our best to pronounce things we got some pronunciation corrections that rob and i actually don't think are quite correct uh but i will acknowledge that my western tongue is not like nailing this pronunciation anyway that our main character that his rebellion has failed utterly and this is what happens this is what happens when you play hero uh so we don't get a dramatic reveal um you know of the front man uh you know 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 um and also as a payoff for jungbei being the only character to have seen you know the front man like do something horrible and not say anything about it true that sort of paid off for me uh as well as as 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 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 uh if you had a character either new or returning that at the end of these uh episodes I'm not even going to call it a season. At the end of these episodes, you're like- This collection of the smattering of episodes.
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 talked about on the part one version of this podcast, like the existing relationships between some of these people coming in, I think really juice some of the storylines. Like I was really invested in Joonhee and Myunghee's like baby drama slash more importantly, her kind of constant reevaluation of like, can I literally trust this guy to do anything anything or with anything and the kind of slow turns of his manipulations of her as as the story kind of progresses like i was really into everything that was happening with them i was really into everything that was happening with youngsuk and gumja like the the mother-son dynamic there like them getting torn apart and uh 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 gonna pick an mvp i think hyunju's arc overall uh in in basically becoming the de facto captain of this operation in a lot of ways by the end and for me more importantly and emotionally uh to what you tipped off earlier about the carousel like hyunju and youngmi's relationship actually really really worked on me and that was where I felt like my heartstrings were maybe pulled the most I love that I think for me Youngsik's mother and Hyunju like that relationship going from his mother saying like who is that what is is that that a man is that a like sort of and then their connection that really worked for me and like Hyunju as a character as a character is the most appealing and uh and I feel the most invested in relationship or sort of just sort of like captivating

captivation wise I would say in Ho the front man like in his sort of undercover guys was and the the relationship that is developing between him and Gi-hun is yes I think my favorite thing that I watched this season.

And then I would say uh you know to your point young six uh are as a character on an arc as a character that i am rooting to make better decisions like his is the arc that i am most his is the like sort of moral improvement i am most invested in yeah Yeah. You know, because like Hyun Joo doesn't doesn't have like is is a rock solid person from the moment we meet her.
And then, you know, it's. Well, let me stop you there.
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? She does vote.
I think she votes the wrong way only once. It could be wrong.
But I think it's only the first time. Is it multiple times? I think it's the second one because you get that sort of moment where her whole team has decided that they're going to stop after the second game.
And she votes to continue. And they have to kind of confront that as a team.
You're right. You're right.

But she is the person who helps Gi-hun save someone during Red Light, Green Light, which is sort of our indication from the beginning that this is a person like who could step into a heroic leader role. But you're right.
You're right. The vote.
The vote is part of it. And then I wanted to, character wise and i and i kind of want to come back to you know the front man and sort of what moments are real for him and what moments are performance for him because i think there's some ambiguity there um which i i love and i i really think that uh lee byung-hun is wonderful Did you did you see the um uh magnificent seven remake that came out i actually did not no was he in that he's in it i i hadn't realized that he was in it he's done like several american movies and like and obviously a shit ton of stuff in korea but um he has this like i was like he's got this interesting relationship uh his character in that movie is billy rocks and ethan hawk's character is called good night and um 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 uh and leaving you in in magnificent seven and there absolutely are they're everywhere because it is a very like close relationship they have that movie and i i feel similar vibes there's just vibes uh uh coming off of gihun and the front man so what what do you how did all of that play out for you yeah at the risk of dating myself joe i thought less like fan video or like uh shipping video and i thought like this is very fanfic coded to me 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 um 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 and so there's a lot of stuff that he's involved in, but overall the first part of his mission is like winning Gi-hun's trust, basically.

And so there's a lot of kind of fast-forwarded,

almost intimacy that has to happen between them.

And the game facilitates that.

The danger facilitates that.

But like, these are two people who are building bonds in close proximity

under very intense circumstances very, very quickly.

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 the i i 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 um when gihun like gets his crew together and says this is the plan the lights will go off we will hide and then you know is like so you're gonna sacrifice our own people for this yeah and he was like yeah for the greater good and then this look comes over his face like the greater good the greater good yeah thank you but like that he is like i 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 for the quote-unquote greater good but this is the kind of depravity in humanity that like the people who run this game believe is just inherently true i was reading some sort of you know obviously squid game is like such a could not be a clear commentary on the class system etc obviously it's not it's not even it's just the text of the show. 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, you know 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 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 um it's not a moral 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 uh feels like his main like crushing again spirit not killing him but proving something him.
And, 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 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? I, feel like it could go either way this could have a super dark ending or not I don't know and from that perspective I think Gi-hun's overall like trajectory and development as a character does grab me 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 like that is his like professed goal at the same time he is willing to sacrifice everybody when it 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 and everything after getting the guns is a total shit show and was going to be a total shit it's not good uh but he 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 in they trusted in him i 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, and they want to see the piggy bank fill up.
Gi-Hun is choosing, we are not going to tell these people what we're doing. 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.
But it's just leading to so many of the characters that at least some of the characters we've seen. Many of the people who die are red shirts.
And 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 i'm certain that's coming in the actual back half of the season which we'll get in june yes one would hope i would say the one death along those lines that i thought was pretty effective uh was semi and and minsu was like the kind of younger uh kind of like nerdy guy who had latched on to her and betrayed her and ultimately found himself like could not help her in her time of like desperation and didn't try as hard as he could have but tried a little bit dropped something from the top bunk but it was glass it was glass 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 i 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 for what exactly um 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 uh gihun and inho uh from squid game uh keep me warm is one okay down bad is another who knew is another the front men oh i like it oh um fixations in tiger's claws that's a really fun one i think um i don't know that we're seeing our best work but i haven't i haven't i haven't gone all the way in deep but i just want to let you know that is well represented um there are at least 449 works uh based on a cursory search on a03 so and you know what If you have a theoretical fan fiction title for these two, please email us at prestigetv at spotify.com. I would love your fake fan fiction titles.
But I think the development of that relationship, which was so key to tracking what's going on in this season or this part of a uh it works so much better than some of the other things that are clearly seeds that they're planting for the upcoming season like the the plot with uh you know not fully killing people and and you know selling their organs on the black market what's happening with that well i have to imagine on the one hand i have to imagine that junho and again the whole junho plot also feels very much like spinning and spinning and spinning and waiting to actually i'm snoozing during every one of those sequences to enter the main plot they're just like really they're circling literally circling the island and also the drain of our interest but like i have to imagine that the group of pink boiler suited baddies who are going to be smuggling bodies out will encounter the junho contingent but isn't that how he got in in the first place something like is that too similar to how he got in in season one i don't know 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 but without that we're just biding our times and similarly with noel uh the the new guard who we are tracking that also feels just like a pretty minor like level setup for something that will come to a head in, in the final stretch of episodes.

But the balance just feels off because of that,

because it just feels like this,

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.

I waited several years for this,

but,

but be more honest with what this is.

I don't know.

It just,

it just feels a little funky to me.

It does feel a little craven in that.

I'll let you know. wait six months i waited several years for this but but be more honest with what this is i don't know it just it just feels a little funky to me 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 i just wish that i wish that that balance was a little bit better because i do really still enjoy the actual games themselves yes and the human dynamics within them 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 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 if this is the 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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Visit HawaiianAirlines.com to book your next dream vacation today. So when we recorded the first part of our coverage of squid game they had really just done red light green light and i think so and the question was uh are they just going to do the same games over again you know gihun certainly thought so and was incorrect uh 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 what 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 they had in mind and basically And basically they were based on, 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 lot of the vibes we got off like the squid game itself in season one, et cetera. So meant to invoke this sinister, like childhood innocence, except we're just shooting people uh in in the middle of the room i thought this was so effective in terms of how they calibrated how many teams were losing 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.
And then for their abruptive end, uh, was horrifying to get to our various characters that were following in their personalities on their individual teams. Um, and then the genuine thrill and celebration from, I think genuine from Gi-hun when the other team that he's not on wins like right at the end, at the last second.
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.
And the urine. Don the urine i never could rob i never could but thank you thank you for reminding me um yeah so how did how did all of this work for you yeah i think the overall like spin on the squid game camaraderie was really effective of your eye like when they're in the room together they're all cheering each other on 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 and overall just the the way that these games are composed and i think you 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 i thought all that stuff was really good yeah and then the um i think the the score is so fun and it's this like big synthy triumphant like it reminded me a lot of uh you're the best from the karate kid this like any kind of like big montage moment music is a lot of what you're seeing as they go through these games 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 okay that's a follow-up question i have for you which is you do you feel like he was taking it uh intentionally a hundred percent okay it'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 uh because we saw him use his left hand to shoot the gun in season one uh and probably presumably at the end of season two um but he's trying to spend the top right-handed uh and uh 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 he's quite a good actor even within an actor yeah so maybe maybe it's that 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 and is that a fail safe that the front man put into like even if my team loses i'm 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 to like for real die.
I don't know. I thought that was an interesting observation.
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. That was just kind of like my baseline assumption based on nothing at all.
Just like I am assuming that. And then over course of it you see a couple of guards especially towards the end clock him yeah like very consciously clock him being like what the fuck is that guy doing here uh which makes me think that basically no one i would assume other than i believe his 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 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 so i i feel like there's like you don't even know squares versus circles versus triangles joe 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 yeah 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 uh nearly blowing the operation to a certain degree um but yeah sorry what anything else you want to say about the pentathlon um was it the spinning top which is the which is the one that you felt was the most diabolical the spinning top is absolutely diabolical i will say um the the game that was almost like jacks adjacent um i think gongi is the name of the game that seems really hard.
I couldn i couldn't do it simply couldn't with with shaky hands well i will say this one reason that i really had a lot of admiration for the setup here 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 in some ways the team that goes first is uniquely disadvantaged right we see kind of our core characters 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.
We should practice this. When this comes, like walk backwards to save time.
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 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 i think that like what i you know it's it's it's surface level. It's not profoundly deep.
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. And as has been the case both seasons, like the older people are not 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 they're often twists to the game of like, actually, if you're a woman or if you're older, you might have, you know, institutional knowledge of an older game. You, there is, there is value in you that sort of the pack might have disregarded.
And so, you know, that was true in season one and it is true here uh and with with a young six mom and i just yeah the games work they really do they're really good i thought the mingle game i would say the mingle game the carousel game sequence was by far my favorite of of the whole season the absolute drama that they milked out of it just takes like almost a mathematical a mathematical a mathematical mathematical mind and then like a diabolical heart to what are the number configurations uh that we can put together to cause maximum drama or maximum disappointment in us the viewers and certain people and the choices that they make um or terror for certain people um i just thought that was perfectly done i loved that whole thing masterful stuff and i think overall the sort of you construct people into these initial teams from the first game yeah and they're building really strong alliances from making it through that pentathlon alive and i would say this is is one of those things, too, that if that strains 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. Are you filming with Devil's Plan, Joe? 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 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.
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? 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. It makes me feel terrible watching it, which is, I think, the point of much of Squid Game.
Yeah. And it just, like, it wrung me out.
And visually looks amazing. Like, again, all of the set pieces for the games, as was the case of season one, just, like, look incredible.
I think, because there's, like over a few overhead shots of them scattering 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 like they're a cohesive group and then they're just like disparate and this idea of like yeah when are you with the team when 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. 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.
Honestly, alliances and when the game is a group game and when the game transmutes into an every man for themselves kind of game you can't get through the game without alliances but but also you can't get through the game without betraying those alliances at some point and so yeah um 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.

Well, life imitates survivor, as we know. As we know.
We're always just playing for another bag of rice. And so, yeah, I just found all of that really, really incredibly emotional and incredible to watch.
The fact that Jung-sik betrays his mother and then she refuses to like throw him under the bus that she covers for him uh in a similar way that jungbei like does not rat out in ho yes 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 desire that they'll be better next time? Or we get something like Young Sick who throws someone out to protect his partner who is or is not his partner at the time. But i don't know what would you do in that scenario

like i know it's a horrible thing he does but oh you're talking about myungi when he oh sorry yes yes yeah exactly when he jumps in at the last second yeah and it's just sort of like it's what yeah what would you do like i don't know what would you do it's one of those where like he's i think ultimately he is right as as juni 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 yes 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 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 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 in shot i think is is just really affecting and then the shame compounded when she covers for him oh my god um i want to so i want to follow from that sequence following with thanos a character we haven't talked about yet uh in this iteration into the bathroom uh the like the right in the bathroom which was another sequence i thought was incredible in terms of like you know check off fork but also just like it it was oh it's what they wanted is what's what the game runner, you know, the people running the game wanted, obviously by giving them these utensils, et cetera. But it's just like the specific, again, moral twists of like who's going to 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 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 somebody 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. And yet, 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 Hyunju's. who that like Hyun Joo is interesting and compelling in part because like you you get a sense of decency there and you get a sense of like sticking up for other people and protecting the members of her team and like the overall rise to prominence and like military efficacy is like a really satisfying thing to watch uh 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 like specifically to joonhee in a way that it's just like you you can't do that and be a good person on tv no but i love watching him i love watching him weasel through things actually i mean my my characterization of him is like a little maybe naively a bit more generous than that in that, like he he isn't someone I like.
Yeah. But I don't know that he's always manipulating.
And I think there is like genuine. I don't think so.
Desire to be better. But then there is like the nature inside of him of like, what's my next gambit? You know, that so disappoints her, obviously, as well 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 oh see i read that as like being that okay i feel like it's not only that 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 like it's not only that, 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.

Yeah.

No,

I,

I,

I agree with you that I think there are times where that character isn't

exactly sure.

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?

Sure.

And so,

but watching this character on an arc, presumably, we don't have to spend too much time theorizing about what's going to happen in season three. But if I had to bet anything in the world, it would be that Young Gi is going to sacrifice himself for her at some point.
You don't think so? I wouldn't be so sure. Okay.
I wouldn't be so sure. But there is 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 there are the people who become better people and they're the people become so much worse by virtue of like being in this environment yeah 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 i'm pretty convinced that gihun is not gonna die until at least the very very very end of this season if that yeah um it just doesn't narratively make sense for him to die like if if everything to this point is based off of the front man's like fixation on him basically in terms of the way this season has evolved yeah he can't die the other person who feels like they might have plot armor is jun he and that's because i'm just wondering like does this show have the guts to kill a pregnant woman in these games yeah it's a great question i'm not i'm not suggesting they should i just i i i feel like generally speaking she seems pretty safe um on the like sort of you know fascination a03 uh archive of everyone fan fiction uh front we did get an email from chrissy who uh wanted to yes and me sort of calling uh Lee Byung-hun uh the sort of Korean Mads Mikkelsen because she was invoking Hannibal uh in which Mads is famously the ship that launched a thousand fanfics exactly one of the most popular ships of all time uh so I like thinking about that then we also get an email from a

listener about we had sort of touched on this a little bit um this idea that the actor the

performer playing thanos uh is is a real life musician uh who had some controversies what i

said and then has since been like clarified to me that controversy in korea is different

controversy in k-pop specifically is also an entirely different threshold

I don't know. since been like clarified to me that controversy in korea is different from controversy in k-pop specifically is also an entirely different threshold um but that uh he was a member of of the k-pop group uh bang bang and he was either sort of pushed out or phased out or uh quit or whatever but the the main source of the scandal seems to be a light dabbling in drugs, the lightest of dabbling in drugs, which is just like there's a zero tolerance policy in Korea about this.
And so to Westerners, it seems like, what? Why are we stressed about this?

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.
So fun. And I thought he worked really well, like throughout.
I thought he was always fun and you know, it's, it's right. 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, yeah, he's a great act one villain.

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,

we're in that transition point now,

but I really enjoyed him.

I enjoyed him and his henchmen kind of do-si-do-ing on the carousel.

Like they're given big hammy stuff to do,

especially when they're high.

Yeah.

But also like stealth MVP moment for me is when a semi who's like the 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 incredible shit like just the the manny on this guy is off the charts and i i just have to salute him um to circle back to in ho for a second the front man as he is diabolically infiltrating and trying to get, um, Gi-hun's, um,

affection. salute him um to circle back to in ho for a second the front man as he is diabolically infiltrating and trying to get um gihun's um affections someone pointed out on the subreddit that he has styled his hair like sangwoo uh gihun's friend from season one and it is like identical and that is nasty that's some nasty that's nasty work we can't support it no um but but to go back to and we talked about this a little bit in the first half of the season but to to watch it flourish in the back half was so satisfying is the difference between having in ho 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 so it's that old and we've talked about this in in the context of other shows because one of my favorite things to talk about this idea of suspense versus surprise 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 whether or not it was something i saw coming which i i did a little early on but like even if you didn't as a surprise it's sort of like okay whatever but full-on knowing and watching gihun fall for inho's stuff throughout this episode watch the slow corrosion and and and the manipulation was so fun uh for me in in in these episodes i just thought it was an incredible choice well and it'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 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 whatever surprise 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 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.
Fair enough. But in this case, especially with this split season construction, we have yet to see Gihu learn this information.
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. Like there's more to look forward forward to in some ways knowing that that reveal hasn't happened yet i know exactly and like i you know again once again perusing the subreddit as i was um as i want to do with the show like sweet game um 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 i was like no no i really disagree 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 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 and i'm really excited for

season two part two that we're getting in june because i'm excited coming in coming at the end

of q2 2025 straddling q2 q3 uh in in 2025 because i think that um i think this 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 in ho in in season three or do we already know enough from the you know biographical data that we got and we can sort of connect the dots on our own um and i'm really emotionally invested in a lot of the characters that are still around so like as as frustrated as i am with this with yeah this i yeah craven uh sort of packaging of this as a season two when it's really just a season two part one I am more excited for season three 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 I would agree with that yeah I think it is the level of investment in so many of these new characters there are parts parts of the show that, as we mentioned, I just don't really care about right now. 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. I would love to see some of these.
There's a lot of loose ends right now. It's not just who lived and who died and whether they continue the games or not.
But Noel is a great example of of a character who she's like called into the principal's office basically for killing people too well 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 what her goals are in being here is it more money to be able to put more resources towards finding her kid that would make sense but obviously her 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 uh 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 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 it's like i can only watch this for so long i'm sorry this is very inert 45 minutes like it's so long it's it's not interesting okay go ahead 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 uh 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 season i guess just because he's hot again power to him 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 that actually kind of worked for me i do too and i think the ways in which those sorts of characterizations can be really effective in a show like this i felt like should have paid off more in the big like ambush everyone is dying in the bunk room at night like i would have loved a couple 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 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 something will happen between the two of them yeah uh what i don't really know 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 heinous job um 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 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 that's a weird line i'm gonna say and anything beyond that is somehow in ignoble and then she's just sort of like you know using them for spare parts you know using their organs or whatever is uh morally bankrupt and so i think that like is is sort of my take on her and so my understanding is sort of like where the rubber is gonna meet the road is gonna be to be obviously with this guy. And the little girl with the strawberry hat.
Who's taking care of her while her dad's in the game? I don't know how she's doing. Not enough people.
Is she okay? She needs to be cared for at all costs. Is she okay? But yeah, that's a clear.
But it takes the tension out of that because I was like, well, he's got to survive because he's key to her.

So I have a feeling that she's going to turn and then they're going to have someone on the inside that's on the team good guy, whatever we want to qualify as good guy, right? Does that not seem like where that's going? It does seem very possible. I got to say, I guess we tease out some of the possibilities for the back half of the season.
So many of the answers,

at least at this point,

point to the phenomena we discussed in part one of,

Oh,

everything is a incredible cosmic coincidence. Cause there's only like six people and three different objectives.

And if you go fast enough,

everything aligns very quickly.

Yeah.

Anything else you want to say about good game or Season 3 or Q1 through 4 or anything else? They have very extensive thoughts on overall Netflix's business strategy. 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 the the following q4 they have stranger things so that's what they've done yeah i'd see i'm just i should i should know not to expect better than that but it's it's uh art and storytelling i'm gonna wash my hands of it i feel dirtier talking about that than what's going on on screen in squid game um all right.
So that has been our coverage of Squid Game. And we will probably be back in gym to talk to you more about Squid Game.
I'm sure. Parts three and four of this season coming soon.
Coming soon. And like we said, we'll be back to cover The Pit a little bit later on this week.
We're gearing for severance uh 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 uh if you have severance theories or questions that's going to be a big email a show i think um 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 in and find out. And maybe this is just me being pit brain, Joe, but you know, you, you illuminated to me the existence of the squid game.
You will log. And of course, Netflix is no stranger to any spinoff.
They can get their hands on. Can we not get squid game med? Can we not follow one of these organs from the boat to a hospital 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 this this poor this poor person who lost their vision like well let's complete the circle here's my question for for you're you're you're asking for chicago med but make it good game med is what you're saying yeah i want i want the full chicago suite of shows okay okay okay great does squid game med also star noah wiley is my question of course it does great who else would be in it there's no other doctor on tv um all right so we'll be back for that we'll be back for severance um we will be keeping our eccentric email addresses.
They'll just all forward to PrestigeTV at Spotify.com. So if you have ideas for severance emails, I mean like waffleparty at gmail.com.
There's a lot of good. Like this is maybe the most opportunity for an interesting email.

It's an entire show made of ephemera.

Exactly.

You can send those suggestions to us and we will see you soon.

Thank you so much to Donnie Beecham for producing both of our Squid Game episodes.

Donnie's the best.

And I 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?

I mean, it's a good time.

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

I feel like I feel like why not support the Lions for Donnie, who has done us a solid over the holidays.

So thanks, Donnie.

And we'll be back probably with some more Ky Grady So thanks Donnie. And we'll be back probably,

uh,

with some more Ky Grady goodness in the future and we'll see you then.

Um,

bye.