Top 20 Most Shocking Moments in Squid Game

It was the first game and the first time that we realized the true stakes of the competition. After accepting a mysterious offer from a well-dressed stranger, indebted chauffeur Seong Gi-hun is brought unconscious to a prison-like dormitory, where masked men await. The rules seem simple enough: win six games and win billions in prize money. Despite the cloak-and-dagger actions, nobody seems to realize what they’ve gotten into. Even the blood trickling from the first “eliminated” player seems unreal. It takes the massacre of nearly half the contestants to make the horror come to life. This is the preamble for what lies ahead and the first glimpse of what our characters will do when death is on the line.

One year after the contest’s conclusion, Gi-hun seems to have put the experience behind him, and is heading to Los Angeles to visit his daughter. That is until he spots two men on a train platform, playing a familiar game. When he intervenes and finds a business card that he knows all-too-well, Gi-hun confirms his fear that another round of the macabre contest is about to begin. He calls the number on the card and receives a warning to stay away, but a red haired and rejuvenated Gi-hun is no longer a race horse. Though no “Season 2” has been confirmed, this moment makes it clear that the game, and Gi-Hun’s story, still has more to come.

In season two, 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[a] 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.

Some of Squid Game’s best surprises teach us that common conundrums can possess uncommon solutions. For example, season one’s player 001 teaches that tug-of-war isn’t about which side is the strongest, but rather which team knows best how best to USE its strength, via timing and placement. His teammates gain advantage by positioning themselves strategically and pulling at just the right time. Ultimately, though, it’s Cho Sang-woo’s idea to step towards the other team that saves them. The move causes the opposition to flounder, and Sang-woo’s team heaves the rope to victory. It seems the brain is truly the body’s strongest muscle.

Season two 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.

This is getting your lunch money stolen taken to the extreme. The players wait in line for pop and a hard boiled egg, but Deok-su decides one portion isn’t enough. He cuts the line for seconds, resulting in too little food to go around. When a player calls Deok-su out for his unfair behavior, Deok-su beats the man to death. The guards do nothing and the deceased man’s prize money is added to the jackpot. Watching this, the players learn that not only will murder go unpunished, it will actually benefit their standings in the contest. It’s a ghastly display that teaches everyone the primal depths of morality they’re capable of descending to.

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.

Just as a gun in act one of a play must go off in act two, a man with a mask must have a secret. Filling that role in “Squid Game” is Front Man, the leader of the disguised guards who operate the deadly trials. His identity remains shrouded for most of the season, until Hwang Jun-ho, a police detective infiltrating the unknown organization, uncovers the truth. He learns that Front Man is his missing brother, In-ho, who previously won the games in 2015. In-ho’s survival raises unsettling questions: including the reason a man would abandon his family for an operation that puts human lives at stake. We hope that a second season will tell us more.

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.

Never was a story of more woe than that of the unhinged woman and her homicidal beau. Gangster Jang Deok-su and the manipulative Han Mi-nyeo seem to possess cockroach-like survival abilities. They form an alliance, although Mi-nyeo warns Deok-su of severe consequences should he betray her. It doesn’t take long for Deok-su to do so, but not until penultimate Game Five does Mi-nyeo get her bloodthirsty revenge. Crossing a glass bridge that could shatter beneath her at any time, My-nyeo abandons any desire for victory or survival. With madness in her eyes and satisfaction in her smile, she throws herself from the bridge, pulling Deok-su with her.

Gi-hun correctly deduces in season two 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.

There’s a couple of heart-stoppers in this entry. You may have guessed the final winner of season one, but it’s how we finally get there that makes this moment so memorable. It’s jarring how quickly Gi-hun shifts from anger to compassion, when he can’t bring himself to murder Sang-woo. And it’s absolutely gut-wrenching when Sang-woo takes his own life, begging only that Gi-hun take the winnings to help his mother. In one moment, everything else between them washes away and only life, death, and the prize at the finish line, remain. Gi-hun might win, but he’ll never be the same again.

This entry takes us from one man-behind-the-curtain to the next. Contest winner Gi-hun receives an invitation from his “gganbu,” the old man that he’d befriended in the games. He discovers that Player 001, whom he had thought executed, is still alive. Furthermore, the old man appears to have been behind the games all along. “Why,” is the best question Gi-hun musters. Reliving childhood; relieving boredom; searching for virtue in a society wracked with inequality…the answer seems to be all these things. Arguably more haunting is the revelation that the man who seemed the most kind-hearted of anyone could craft such an artificial hell. Perhaps it’s the show’s way of asking us: which life is the real ‘hell,’ anyway?

You might not be inclined to think highly of a pickpocket who stole your money. Despite this being Gi-hun’s introduction to Sae-byeok, he becomes her teammate. Eventually, Gi-hun recognizes Sae-byeok’s resourcefulness and the bravery with which she faces adversity. She becomes a beacon of goodness in the moral abattoir that Gi-hun has found himself in. After Sae-byeok sustains mortal injury, Gi-hun pleads through the walls for medical help. When his back is turned, Sang-woo takes the opportunity to end Sae-byeok’s life. The shock, disbelief, and sorrow is plain on Gi-hun’s face, and we felt it right alongside him.

Our new resident bad guy of season two is Thanos, a rapper who models himself after the famous Marvel villain. He makes it his mission to antagonize Myung-gi[c], 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.

This sixty minutes had us reeling. Where to begin? There’s the twist that players would actually be matched against their selected partners. Then there’s Gi-hun using Player 001’s (supposedly) deteriorating memory against him. There’s also Sang-woo’s betrayal of Ali, and Deok-su’s incredibly lucky victory. That’s all before we even mention Ji-yeong’s brief friendship with Kang Sae-byeok, followed by the heartbreaking sacrifice that left our throats dry. Every conflict and Earth-shattering resolution encompasses the elaborate morality and dizzying storytelling of the show. This is an hour of television that deserves a list of its own, and if you haven’t leapt from your seat, check your pulse.

Which scene shocked you the most? Let us know in the comments below!

[b]s02e02 ~31:20
[c]myung-GHEE s02e03 ~11:17