This was a cash grab.

I rooted for Hyun-ju, Young-mi, and the halmeoni and no one else. While I appreciated that the show took out the really unnecessary sex scenes in the first season, that was the only improvement over the first season I noticed in s2. The plots all felt recycled, the character profiles felt like copies of the first season and, worst of all, there were several points where I felt like the writers were treating the viewers like they were stupid. Having seen that Netflix is trying to put out more content that allows for it's viewers to consume media without fully paying attention to it, this tracks with some of the shows they've released this year. A season 2 for this show was wholly unnecessary.

This only got somewhat interesting for me on the very last episode. The first episode was the most boring opener I've watched in a kdrama this year. This needed a very, very strong edit, but I fear, if they took out everything that didn't need to be here, the season would be 3 episodes long. The drawn out voting scenes when we know they're going to continue on, the tedious cuts to the detective searching for the island, etc. I also laughed at the concept of this many people treating Gi-hun like some sort of war general. I also hated the hive mind mentality the other players outside of the main cast had because they were indignant to the point of idiocy and it made them feel like NPCs.

I enjoyed Hyun-ju, Young-mi, and the halmeoni's story. While annoying at times, I thought the TOP character brought some life where there was way less levity this time around. The 001 character was an interesting addition this time around with the viewer knowing there was an inside man this time around. However, overall, Squid Game s1 was like a 7.5-8 for me and s2 was just an unnecessary addition.