Top 10 Most Shocking Moments in Squid Game Season 2

Top 10 Most Shocking Moments in Squid Game Season 2 

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most shocking, unpredictable, and upsetting scenes throughout the second season of “Squid Game.” Warning, there will be major spoilers to follow! 

Gi-hun recruits his old loan shark Mr. Kim and his goons to hunt down The Recruiter. It, uh, does not go very well. Staying one step ahead of his pursuers, The Recruiter captures Kim and Woo-seok, ties them up, and forces them to play a depraved game of rock, paper, scissors mixed with Russian roulette. It’s a brilliantly tense sequence, with each click of the empty chamber sending our hearts racing. It’s also wonderfully acted by everyone involved, mixing the utter terror of Kim and Woo-seok with the joyful glee of The Recruiter. Add in a fantastic song choice and you’ve got yourself one of seasons two’s most captivating sequences.

And speaking of The Recruiter, he goes out like a boss while playing Russian roulette with Gi-hun. He tracks the winner down using Woo-seok and surprises him at his empty hotel. We learn a little bit about him, like the fact that he was once a guard in the games and that he murdered his own father without remorse, before the roulette begins. And what a tense game it is. We obviously know that Gi-hun isn’t going to die, but the acting helps keep the scene tense, with Gong Yoo proving especially captivating. The Recruiter ultimately loses the game and dies, becoming the season’s first big death.

The second season introduces us to No-eul, a woman who escaped from North Korea and is now working as a guard in the games. As we later learn, she isn’t especially popular with her co-workers, as she seems to be going rogue in an effort to sabotage the organ harvesting operation. This is revealed in startling fashion when she kills Player 444. One of the guards shoots him in the leg during Red Light, Green Light, but he successfully passes the line with the help of Gi-hun and Hyun-ju. He is then murdered in cold blood by No-eul, who shoots him while he’s recuperating in the safety zone. It’s a very cold introduction to her role as a guard.

While he had a very brief role in season one, Jung-bae becomes a major character in the second, having entered the games after getting a divorce and losing lots of money. He remains close to Gi-hun throughout and even helps him lead the uprising against the guards. He fights bravely and valiantly, but the season needs to end with a major death, and the sacrifice is Jung-bae. The Front Man betrays the group and returns to his office to don the iconic black outfit. He then re-emerges in front of the captured Gi-hun and Jung-bae, killing the latter in order to teach Gi-hun a lesson in playing the hero. At least he went down fighting for the cause.

The show does a very clever thing in setting up No-eul, and it pays off with one of the season’s most memorable endings. The second episode delves into her backstory, depicting her as a North Korean defector who is looking for her missing daughter. On the verge of utter hopelessness, she hears a knock on her car window and is given an invitation to the Squid Games. And when she arrives at the provided destination, we discover that she is not a player, but a guard. It’s an eye-popping plot twist, providing a fun new spin on the games and humanizing one of its faceless pink jumpsuits.

Before her time in the games, No-eul worked as a mascot in an amusement park. One of her co-workers was an artist named Gyeong-seok, who has a daughter with cancer. Gyeong-seok enters the games to pay for her treatment, much to the attention, and shock, of No-eul. Gyeong-seok participates in the climactic uprising but ultimately surrenders when he runs out of bullets. And in comes who is implied to be No-eul, who coldly shoots Gyeong-seok after he pleads for his life. It’s not confirmed whether he lives or dies, but either way, that gunshot is enough to leave our mouths hanging open in terror. Let’s just hope No-eul has a plan here…

Season two introduces a fun new element - after every game, the surviving players vote whether to leave with the accumulated winnings or play another game in the hopes of accruing more. Naturally, this divides the players right down the middle, with the Xs and Os becoming very factional and antagonistic with each other. It culminates in a brutal night time assault when the Os attack the Xs in an effort to dwindle their numbers. Something similar happened in the first season, but this one is far more brutal, with massive stunts and grotesque murders, including that of poor Se-mi.

Gi-hun correctly deduces that it is not each other they should be fighting, but the guards and The Front Man. So, he instigates an uprising that covers much of the final episode. The good guys fake their deaths and pounce on the guards when they come to scan their bodies, stealing their machine guns and killing them with their own weapons. The battle that follows is absolutely spectacular, with much of the action taking place on the Escher-esque staircase. While they take out a few guards and cameras, it ultimately does not go well for our heroes, and they lose the battle thanks to poor strategy, a lack of ammo, and one painful betrayal.

Season two has some wicked endings, but the best has to be episode three’s. Following Red Light, Green Light, the survivors vote on whether to stay or leave, culminating in an even 50/50 split. The deciding vote lands on Player 001, who is given much fanfare as he makes his way to the podium. He votes to stay, and we see that it is none other than The Front Man. It’s a perfectly-engineered cliffhanger, and it leaves us desperate for more. Is it basically just a rehash of Il-nam infiltrating the games? Kind of. Is it still a rocking plot twist and an absolute banger of an ending? Hell yes.

Our new resident bad guy of the season is Thanos, a rapper who models himself after the famous Marvel villain. He makes it his mission to antagonize Myung-gi, a crypto YouTuber that he blames for a bad investment. He repeatedly threatens Myung-gi, and it culminates in a violent confrontation inside the washroom. Thanos pounces on his enemy and begins to strangle him, his face contorting in vicious anger and frustration. But the YouTuber gets the upper hand - literally - and stabs Thanos in the throat with a smuggled fork. And with that, the season’s biggest villain is eliminated from the game. What a way to go. Which scene shocked you the most? Let us know in the comments below!