The Only 4 Returning Characters In Netflix's Squid Game Season 2

If it feels like a lifetime since "Squid Game" season 1 came out, that's probably because we've all collectively forgotten how to process the passage of time since 2020. (Seriously, did you know 2025 is just over two months away from the time of writing? What even is time anymore?!) In the three years since Hwang Dong-hyuk's harrowing Netflix survival thriller series took the planet by storm, the real world has only continued to validate Hwang's larger critiques of capitalism. In a darkly ironic turn befitting of the show itself, Netflix might be the biggest culprit in that respect, launching the highly-controversial reality competition series "Squid Game: The Challenge" (you can read /Film's review here — spoiler, it's not flattering) and proving there is, in fact, nothing the twisted capitalist machine can't exploit as a way of making money.

Suffice it to say, with season 2 arriving just in time to round out the winter holidays and usher in the new year, Hwang should have plenty of fresh material to mine for inspiration. The second season of "Squid Game" (check out the trailer) will also look substantially different from season 1 when it comes to the cast, what with so many fan-favorite characters having tragically perished over the course of playing extremely deadly versions of kids' games — all in a last-ditch effort to resolve their financial straits — the last time we visited this universe. 

As such, it's no surprise to learn that Hwang told Entertainment Weekly that "Squid Game" season 2 features a whopping four returning characters from the previous go-round. That includes Lee Jung-jae as the last man standing in the original games, Seong Gi-hun, Lee Byung-hun as the games' enigmatic Front Man, and Gong Yoo as the equally mysterious (and perhaps even more sinister, given his habit of smiling while leading economically-strapped people to their doom) Recruiter for the games. Also back for more is Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), who had a brush with death himself after discovering his missing brother is the masked leader of the games, only for his sibling to shoot him and leave him for dead.

Calling Gi-hun the "winner" of "Squid Game" season 1 kind of implies that all those folks who died playing them are "losers" who got what they deserved, so let's merely refer to him as the lone survivor instead. On top of being traumatized by all the horrors he was forced to witness, Gi-hun made it out of the games alive only to learn that his loving mother had died while he was gone and his ex-wife and daughter are leaving him and South Korea behind for the U.S. It was enough to inspire Gi-Hun to get his hair dyed red in a move right out of the Britta Perry school of thought, albeit one that isn't permanent (and probably for the best). "The red hair is no more," as Hwang assured EW with a laugh.

Also gone is the almost childishly selfish and irresponsible Gi-hun we met at the start of season 1. Having realized it's up to him to actually try and stop the games (a lesson that crystalized for Gi-hun after meeting the games' creator on his deathbed at the end of last season), this darker but also more selfless and driven Gi-hun is what Hwang has described as "a different person" entirely. "In season 2, you will not be getting the foolish and clumsy or childish at times Gi-hun that you saw in the beginning," Hwang told EW. "You will get to see a much heavier, darker side of Gi-hun." Season 2 will also pick up in real-time, with Gi-hun having spent the last three years dealing with what Lee simply summed up as a "huge amount of survivor's guilt" while plotting to take the games down from within. If you've any doubt that Lee is up to the challenge of playing someone tormented by the events of their past yet driven to do the right thing, now's the time to finally check him out in the gone-too-soon "Star Wars" series "The Acolyte."

The games will resume when "Squid Game" season 2 premieres December 26, 2024, on Netflix.