Squid Game Season 2 Episode 1's Big Death Will Make Your Jaw Drop
Contains spoilers for "Squid Game" Season 2
The most brutal scenes on "Squid Game" Season 1 seared their way into viewers' minds. With hundreds of players dying throughout the first season, it's only natural for Season 2 to continue a streak of violence, and it certainly didn't pull any punches in the very first episode.
Season 2, Episode 1 — "Bread and Lottery" — opens with Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) and some allies trying to track down the Salesman (Gong Yoo), the man who recruited him for the games in the first season after playing a game of ddakji. While two men find him, he gains the upper hand and makes them play rock paper scissors, killing one of them. This leads to a final confrontation between Gi-hun and the Salesman where they play Russian roulette. The final chamber falls on The Salesman, and even though Gi-hun admits The Salesman could easily pull the gun on him to save his own life, The Salesman points the gun at himself and pulls the trigger.
It's a shocking death, made all the more palpable by the psychotic look on the Salesman's face right before he dies. The games have begun to bleed into the real world, and Gi-hun, for better and worse, has just dealt a blow to the game makers' armor. If the Salesman can die, then theoretically, the rest could follow suit.
The Salesman encapsulates the themes of Squid Game Season 2
The Salesman bookends "Squid Game" Season 1. He gets Gi-hun into this new world, and Gi-hun sees him right before leaving for the United States trying to recruit someone else. Despite the small role, he instantly became one of the most popular characters on "Squid Game." He's a symbol that even though Gi-hun could be safe, the games and subsequent exploitation of the poor will continue. Over the next three years, Gi-hun tries to track the Salesman down, and when we first see him, he's once again playing ddakji. However, there's a new wrinkle as he goes around buying bread and lottery tickets to hand out to unhoused people.
He gives them the choice of bread (something to nourish them now) or a lottery ticket (the unlikely promise of great fortune). Almost all of them choose the lottery ticket. In a way, this scene mirrors what happens later in the season when the new batch of players can vote on whether to leave the games with a little money each or stay and try to win a lot more. Save for the two guys tailing him, the Salesman gives people a choice, and just like within the titular squid game, people are given a choice to stay and keep playing or leave with a little money.
However, this "choice" that keeps coming up is a false one. People didn't choose to be born and exist within an exploitative system that makes it seem like these deadly games are their only way to live a decent life. The Salesman also has a choice to break the rules of Russian roulette and kill Gi-hun or follow through. And it's clear that to him, there's only one move to make.
Gong Yoo's Salesman on Squid Game was originally written as a joke
One of the more popular "Squid Game" Season 2 theories prior to the new episodes coming out was that the Salesman would have a larger role this time around. That's technically true, as he gets a bit more to do than just recruit new players, and we delve deeper into his psyche, but outside of potential flashbacks, his time is done. Still, Gong Yoo wound up with a meatier role than he initially intended.
Before "Squid Game" Season 2 came out, Gong spoke with Elle Korea (via Mashable) about how his part came to be. "My appearance began just as a joke when I and Hwang Dong-hyuk [director] used to meet privately," he explained. "I was originally supposed to do a special cameo, and the show was actually a light project for me."
On the one hand, it's shocking to kill a character played by an actor of such pedigree, with Gong having starred in "Train to Busan." It also demonstrates how the series isn't afraid to kill off popular characters and ones who seemed "safe" beforehand. The Salesman was someone so driven by the ideology that people deserve to die due to their own choices that he took his own life. He may be gone, but the image of the final round of Russian roulette remains one of the most memorable of the entire season.
"Squid Game" Season 2 is now available on Netflix.