Squid Game Season 2 Theories So Good They Just Might Be True

The idea of a "Squid Game" Season 2 has long been controversial. Many argued that the first season was so perfect and self-contained that it needed no continuation at all. At the same time, the mythology introduced by Season 1 was so fascinating that further exploration seemed like a great idea to a lot of fans. Regardless of which camp you stood on, "Squid Game" was the kind of massive TV success that couldn't not get a follow-up, and, three years later, that follow-up is finally here, with Season 2 set to arrive all in one swoop to the homes of Netflix subscribers on December 26, 2024.

Set after a three-year gap, the new season will continue to follow Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) as he re-enters the Squid Games to participate in their 36th edition, once again facing off against 455 financially desperate contestants in a series of deadly challenges. This time, however, it looks like Gi-hun's motivations, the game's dynamic, and the overarching plot will be a lot different, and fans have long since started venturing guesses about what shape the season will take. Trailers have already confirmed the popular fan theory that Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), who suffered one of the most notable non-player deaths on "Squid Game" Season 1, actually survived, and is continuing to investigate the games; other guesses, meanwhile, remain to be confirmed or debunked. Here are a few of the most interesting theories about "Squid Game" Season 2 that have been floating around.

Arguably, the character with the biggest impact-to-screentime ratio in the first season of "Squid Game" is the salesman who recruits Gi-hun into the Games — and then recruits another man in the season finale. Very little is revealed about this character, who is positioned as a cryptic, mysterious, unnamed figure without an explained background; all we know, per writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk himself, is that he's a former Game staff member who was given a promotion. But the fact that he's played by superstar Gong Yoo, coupled with his appearance on the Season 2 promotional stills, has made some fans wonder if he's set for a bigger role on the second season.

On the level of industry economics, it would make a lot more sense to cast Gong Yoo in such a small role if there was an intention to flesh out his character later on. But even leaving that aside, the reason a bigger role for the recruiter is such an exciting theory for Season 2 of "Squid Game" is that he is a walking embodiment of everything perplexing and intriguing about the Games — a piece of the puzzle that presents itself to us without any context or further details about how he's connected to the larger whole. If he's in more of the new season, we could find out whether he's the only recruiter, how his lack of anonymity somehow isn't a liability, why he's so chipper about his job, and other crucial world-building details.

Very little is yet known about the plot specifics of Season 2 of "Squid Game," but we know that Gi-hun will re-enter the Games following his bloody, hard-won victory on Season 1, and that, per the trailer unveiled this week by Netflix, he will do it at least partly of his own accord — a reveal that thwarted years of fan theories about whether the new season might take place primarily in the outside world and chart his revenge against the Games' makers. Instead, Gi-hun will apparently try to take down the Games from the inside, rallying the other players against it and trying to protect them from its cruel mechanics. But some fans of "Squid Game" are still speculating that there's more in store for Gi-hun than simply being a pawn in the game one more time.

Ever since it was revealed in Season 1 that Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hyun) a.k.a. the Front Man was the 2015 winner of the Games, one popular theory has been that the show's narrative arc would eventually lead to Gi-hun being invited to be the new Front Man. Some figured this might have happened in the three-year time jump between the two seasons, but, even now that we know this not to be the case, it's still possible that Gi-hun might get that indecent proposal at some point during his new, righteous bow as a contestant — perhaps even on the season finale.

Generally speaking, since the end of Season 1 of "Squid Game" hinted that the new season would be centered around Gi-hun's vendetta against the Games' organizers, it has been widely speculated that, if he were to ever re-join the Games, it would be with subversive intentions. This hypothesis was corroborated by the trailers, which depict Gi-hun asking to re-enter and seemingly attempting to instigate rebellion and disobedience. But some fans of the show have floated a wild alternate theory: What if, instead of an unwanted opposing force, Gi-hun's destabilizing presence in the new edition of the Games is actually part of their design?

Apart from Gi-hun's context-free request to be put back in, we have not yet seen the decisions or discussions between him and the organization that led to his return to the island. In other words, the extent to which it was Gi-hun's, the Front Man's, or the organization's desire remains up in the air. It could very well be that Gi-hun was somehow pressured to get back into the Games, or that he believes he's forcing the organization's hand while actually playing right into their plan — and, in either case, we can't yet rule out the possibility that the Games want a player who stirs chaos and disorder, as part of their intended narrative for this particular edition. Willingly or not, Gi-hun could have a more complex role than it appears this season.

The revelation that Player 001 aka Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su) was actually the man responsible for the creation of Games was one of the big gut punches of "Squid Game" Season 1, turning a character who was already one of the most charismatic and compelling members of the ensemble into a keystone of the show's mythology. Naturally, the reveal also made Il-nam a mystery unto himself, leading many fans of the show to speculate wildly about his connection to the rest of the ensemble — and to specifically wonder whether he could be Gi-hun's father.

This Il-nam theory, which could completely change "Squid Game" if true, gained traction not just due to the connection between the two men throughout the season, which had significant father-son echoes in itself, but because of small details like the fact that Gi-hun is unable to digest milk much like Il-nam's son. Additionally, some have even gone so far as to speculate that the salesman could be Il-nam's son, either instead of or along with Gi-hun, with the latter camp positing that Gi-hun and the salesman are brothers.

That parentage theory would dovetail well with the idea of Gi-hun ascending to the post of Front Man. That said, we can only hope that should the show choose to go down that path, it will handle the twist gracefully, lest it fall prey to "The Rise of Skywalker" syndrome and reduce its entire universe to the story of a couple of families.

The casting announcement for "Squid Game" Season 2 that sparked the most headlines was Choi Seung-hyun, a.k.a. T.O.P of BigBang. An experienced and accomplished actor aside from his work as a musician, T.O.P has played his share of sympathetic characters in films like "19-Nineteen," "71: Into the Fire," and "Commitment." By the looks of it, however, "Squid Game" will find him stretching his acting muscles to play a kind of character he hasn't yet: a deranged, psychotic villain.

The purple-haired Player 230, T.O.P's character on "Squid Game" Season 2, is still mostly an unknown quantity as far as backstory and role in the plot go, but we can already tell just by his appearance in the trailers that he's going to be a nasty piece of work. Following Gi-hun's effort to get everybody to hold still during the Red Light, Green Light game, Player 230 is the one who instigates panic and chaos by getting a fellow player (Song Ji-woo) to move and causing her to get shot. The final trailer even features an enormously creepy shot of Player 230 smiling and saying "Bye" after pushing an entire line of players during the game and presumably causing their deaths.

Fans of both "Squid Game" and T.O.P are already predicting that he's going to be Season 2's response to Jang Deok-su (Heo Sung-tae), the resident maniac and bully of Season 1, with some speculating that he might prove even more cruel and unhinged than Deok-su.

One of the big unexplained elements of the "Squid Game" mythology so far are the guards in pink suits and black masks who keep watch over the Games' facilities, promptly shooting down any players who go against the rules or survive losing any of the games. The first season revealed very little about the guards and how they came to fill their positions; all we really got to see was the physical appearance of the few guards who were unmasked for one reason or another, all of whom were men. Naturally, several theories have sprouted out from the simultaneous omnipresence and opaqueness of the guards, and it could well be the case that Season 2 will either confirm or disprove some of them.

The theory that guards are selected from people who pick the red envelope during the game of ddakji with the salesman, while those who pick blue are recruited as players, has already been debunked. But several other fan-floated possibilities are still very much on the table. One of those possibilities, routinely cited in "Squid Game" fan communities, would be that the guards are South Korean prison inmates being given a chance to shorten their sentences; another one is that becoming a guard is a way for young men to avoid being conscripted into mandatory military service. Whatever the case, one would imagine that there's a great chance a new batch of episodes will wade into the question of guards' recruitment at some point.

The character of In-ho, the Games' current Front Man, is shown to be a complex one on Season 1: Despite his ruthlessness in dealing with the players and disposing of disgraced guards, he is very strict about making the competition as fair and even as possible. Several fans have theorized that In-ho is more than just a villain with a moral code, though: There are several hints that he could be an enemy of the Games, working to take them down from the inside.

For starters, despite having nabbed the billion-won prize in 2015, In-ho seems to live an average, unglamorous life in a small apartment, suggesting that he, like Gi-hun, may be a guilt-ridden or morally repulsed winner who refuses to touch the prize money. Additionally, he is uncharacteristically sloppy in hiding his trails, leaving behind enough conspicuous clues to lead Jun-ho straight to him, which would make a lot more sense if he wanted his brother to find him and uncover the truth — especially given that, when he confronts Jun-ho, In-ho doesn't go for the head, giving Jun-ho a chance to survive the shot. 

A once-kind man who even donated a kidney to Jun-ho, In-ho could easily be carrying out a long-term plan to destroy the Games, which would make him an absolutely fascinating element in the show's dynamic going forward. It's no wonder a poll of over 600 people found that 21% wanted "Squid Game" Season 2 to focus on this character.

Season 1 of "Squid Game" introduced two characters who brought ready-made pathos and tragedy to the proceedings: Player 069 (Kim Yun-tae) and Player 070 (Lee Ji-ha), the husband-and-wife team who joined the Games together to try to get out of debt, but ended up pitted against one another in the game of Marbles. As if their story hadn't been heartbreaking enough to watch unfold, Season 2 will seemingly up the ante with another family duo, this time made up of a mother and a son — respectively, Player 149 (Kang Ae-shim) and Player 007 (Yang Dong-geun).

The presence of the two characters in the trailers and on the posters has been a big talking point, with Player 007 seemingly making an effort to protect and support his elderly mother through the competition. Fans are already dreading the emotional devastation that might be wreaked by their storyline, with many betting that their participation in the Games is likely to lead to a situation in which only one of them can live — while others have noted that the show could be hinting at such a plot as misdirection, while actually holding a different card up its sleeve this time. Some are even wondering if the dynamic between 149 and 007 will mirror the one between Leann Wilcox and Trey Plutnicki, a.k.a. Players 302 and 301, who were at the center of one of the most devastating eliminations on "Squid Game: The Challenge," in which they were also forced to play Marbles against each other.

The reveal that Season 2 of "Squid Game" will follow a new edition of the Games, with Gi-hun once again thrown into the fold as a player, has prompted a lot of fan curiosity about what the individual games will look like this time. We know that Red Light, Green Light, the most disturbing game in "Squid Game" Season 1, will once again be the opening round, with Young-hee the robot doll once more keeping tabs on the players' moves. But, by the looks of it, there will also be several new games in this edition — and, naturally, people are already taking guesses as to what those games might be.

Attentive viewers have already caught on to the fact that a wall of the new dormitory displays illustrations of people swinging on ropes from what appears to be a spiked ceiling, suggesting that a variation of monkey bars might be in store for the Games' competitors. This theory is corroborated by the fact that a promotional image features a card with a rainbow over a cloud depicted on it; in Korean, "guleumdali" or "cloud bridge" is a common name for monkey bars. Another game that's looking likely, based on the trailers' imagery of doors, a carousel, and a round room, is a variation of musical chairs in which players will be spun around for some time and then released to reach a limited number of doors to safety before being killed.

The theory that the new season might eschew the Games and focus on the outside world has been disproved. But, even though the trailers have been focused on the Games and Gi-hun's new participation in them, some are theorizing that this narrative focus won't stick until the end of the season.

Instead, there's still a non-negligible possibility that the new season will take a page from "The Hunger Games" franchise and depict the new Games only as a gateway to a revolution plot — which would square with the trailer quote about how "the game will not end unless the world changes." Some fans are noting that the Games could end halfway through the season, either being played to completion or interrupted in some fashion. A rebellion on the players' part, for instance, would explain the trailer shots of guards aggressively firing their guns in non-game facilities.

A deviation from the Games-centric plot would certainly be a welcome change of pace for the show. Sticking to the exact same structure as Season 1 is definitely one of the things that needs to be avoided in "Squid Game" Season 2; a straightforward retread of the same game dynamics would stifle the urgency of Gi-hun's arc, rendering his choice to stay in South Korea and fight the Games' makers weightless, so a new plot with less emphasis on the Games seems all but necessary to make Season 2 of "Squid Game" as good and surprising as the first.