Squid Game Season 2's Front Man Twist Feels Like Déjà Vu In The Worst Way

Contains spoilers for "Squid Game" Season 2

The second season of Netflix's global phenomenon "Squid Game" has finally arrived. But while following Seong Gi-hun's (Player 456, played by Lee Jung-jae) journey back into the titular contest of fatal playground games retains some of its initial spectacle, the story itself feels robbed of the bite it flashed during its astounding inaugural season. This is due in large part to Season 2's central twist concerning Hwang In-ho — the villainous, blackclad and diamond-masked overseer played by Lee Byung-hun. Though series writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk admirably seemed intent on using him in an unexpected and potentially subversive way for this second outing, it can't help but feel like a plodding remix of the first season's reveal. If you have yet to watch "Squid Game 2," be warned — we're about to drop some massive spoilers from here on out.

As fans of the show will remember, Season 1 ended with two major twists — one, that In-Ho, the long-lost brother of police officer Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), was not only alive but running the island's deadly games for wealthy VIPs; and two, that Gi-hun's in-game companion, mentor, and confidant Oh Il-nam (Player 001, played by O Yeong-su) was actually the game's creator. In the second season, when Gi-hun reenters the game, the new Player 001 is yet again quickly revealed to be a powerful inside man — none other than the Front Man himself, In-ho.

Credit where credit is due, the initial reveal that Hwang In-ho has entered the game is handled beautifully. His re-introduction as the tie-breaking vote to continue the games not only cleverly mirrors Oh Il-nam's vote from the first seasons and helps establish a subplot that (at least on paper) could lead the series down new, even darker paths, but boldly underlines the season's core theme of the illusion of choice in exploitative systems. It also takes advantage of both the audience's prior knowledge and Seong Gi-hun's lack of awareness of the Front Man's true identity. When the camera finally shows who will don the fated green jacket of Player 001, Season 2 arguably reaches its peak.

From that point on, however, Hwang Dong-hyuk and the rest of the "Squid Game" crew fail to use this early twist to change the status quo in a meaningful way. Like Il-nam, In-ho — adopting a similarly punny alias ("il" is a Korean word for the number one) — quickly comes to serve as Gi-hun's closest ally. At first, it seems as though In-ho will differ at least slightly by trying to undermine Gi-hun's chances at winning the game or his attempts to rally the other players to save themselves. But for the near entirety of the season, he never tries to act against Gi-hun or even keep the games going. When the survivors have their final vote before Gi-hun leads them in an ill-fated insurrection against their pink captors, In-ho casts a "no" vote that maintains a tie, when a "yes" would have decisively sent everyone back into bloody competition. One could certainly argue that this was all part of In-ho's master plan — though the series is entirely uninterested in giving us any clues as to what that might be.

Throughout Season 2 of "Squid Game," Hwang In-ho is nigh-on indecipherable as a character. Seong Gi-hun returned to the games in Season 1 because he wanted to save his mother's life and gain some hope for the future — in Season 2, he risked getting dragged back into the games because he couldn't live with the fact that the games would continue to slaughter the most vulnerable people in society while he himself lived in luxury thanks to their deaths. Like any good character, his motivations are always clear.

What does In-ho want or hope to gain by anything he does in "Squid Game 2?" The only clue we get comes in his final words to Gi-hun at the end of the season — a taunt about Gi-hun wanting to play the hero. Was his subterfuge and long-delayed betrayal simply a means of psychologically torturing someone who dared not accept their own victory? Maybe. It seems like a vague and grossly convoluted explanation, but it's the only one we get.

There are points early in the season where it seems like Hwang Dong-hyuk is prepared to pay off In-ho's turn in a more disruptive way. During the six-legged race, for example, he suddenly stalls the team's progress by failing to succeed in his minigame several times. For a moment, the audience — knowing that In-ho, like Oh Il-nam, would surely be spared from execution — could reasonably expect him to be sabotaging Gi-hun to end his enemy while the other contestants are all already dead or cleared. Instead, he merely succeeds after a few more tries, and even gives Gi-hun a helping foot during his own minigame. This is just one of many perplexing wasted opportunities to use this Front Man twist as a means of shocking the audience rather than boring them with the same story they've already seen.