Small Details You Missed In Squid Game Season 2

Contains spoilers for "Squid Game" Season 2

When it came out in 2021, "Squid Game" quickly became a worldwide phenomenon, smashing Netflix records and becoming the streaming giant's number one show of all time. The series follows the hapless Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) as he signs up for a series of games after being told he can win some money. As a man who loves betting on the ponies, that's music to Gi-hun's ears. That is, until they play the first game, red light, green light: Anyone who moves when the giant doll is facing the players is gunned down. This is not what Gi-hun or anyone else signed up for.

Despite his initial shock, Gi-hun goes on to win the games. In fact, he's the only person among the 456 players to live. To say he has survivor's guilt would be an understatement. When we left him at the end of "Squid Game" Season 1, he had decided not to board a plane to America to visit his daughter. Instead, he decided to look for the people who put on the games in the hopes of bringing the whole operation down. By the time we catch up with him in the second season, he has been looking for three years. Needless to say, it's only a matter of time before Gi-hun gets himself thrown back into the games, where a whole new set of individuals have come to play for their lives.

There's a lot to unpack in "Squid Game" Season 2, including several small things you may have overlooked. Here are ten small details you may have missed in the second season of Netflix's "Squid Game."

In Season 1, it quickly becomes apparent that Gi-hun owes money to a loan shark. It's also clear that his loan shark (Kim Pub-lae) is none too happy with him when he and three of his goons leave Gi-hun bleeding in a bathroom. While things aren't looking too good for Gi-hun at this point, after winning the top prize in the games — 45.6 billion won — things change. In "Squid Game" Season 2, not only does Gi-hun pay off the loan shark (who would've taken a kidney and an eye otherwise), he also hires him to look for the man who recruited him into the games.

The show doesn't particularly underline the fact that Mr. Kim was originally Gi-hun's loan shark. The topic comes up in a conversation between the loan shark's guys about whether or not Gi-hun is delusional. They've been looking for the Salesman (Gong Yoo) for two years and have seen neither hide nor hair of him, so everyone's begun to doubt Gi-hun. But Mr. Kim says he believes him because he's had people who owe him money disappear recently, plus Gi-hun is his only client who has ever paid him back.

This version of Mr. Kim is a lot nicer than the version we saw in the previous season. He even sacrifices himself for his recently married friend Woo-seok — a far cry from the person who would have taken Gi-hun's organs if he hadn't paid him off. It goes to show we all contain multitudes.

In Season 1 of "Squid Game," Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon) goes to a broker about getting her parents over to South Korea from China. The agent isn't very helpful. In fact, he tells her that it will cost her 40 million won to bring them to South Korea. In response, she douses him with hot coffee and holds a knife to his throat. She's clearly not happy, but she agrees to get the money, and she enters the games to do so. However, she dies before she can fulfill her promise. Three years later, Gi-hun has taken up her cause: In Season 2, Gi-hun sees the same broker about bringing Sae-byeok's mother over.

This time, the broker is conciliatory. Not only has he found Sae-byeok's mother, he's planning to get her to South Korea as soon as possible. He even says he feels bad about the way things went the last time he and Sae-byeok met. The fascinating thing is that right after Gi-hun leaves his office, No-eul (Park Gyu-young) — the woman who works in an amusement park and becomes a soldier in the games — shows up. She is using him to locate the infant daughter she left behind in North Korea. Sadly, he's reached his limit and tells her to forget about her daughter, as she can't be found. Even though the agent is nicer this time, it's clearly still a tough business.

Gi-hun's hired hands, led by his former loan shark, finally find the man who recruited Gi-hun into the games, and that's when things go south. The Salesman brings a bound and gagged Mr. Kim and Woo-seok back to his place and has them play a deadly game for his own amusement. Then he plays a game of Russian roulette with Gi-hun. During these two games, the Salesman plays opera. It seems that he likes the dramatic, stirring vibe that opera brings to his demented games. Moreover, each of his opera song choices are significant to the present situation.

The first game is accompanied by "Nessun Dorma," from the final act of Puccini's opera "Turandot," most famously sung by Luciano Pavarotti. The opera is, fittingly enough, about a game in which the suitor Calaf challenges Princess Turandot to guess his name. If she can do it, she can execute him, but if she can't, she has to marry him. "Nessun Dorma" means "None shall sleep," and that's what Turnadot demands — nobody in her kingdom can rest until Calaf's name is discovered, and if not one of her subjects can discover his name, they will all be executed. The themes are fitting, and the song is also marked by Calaf saying "Vincerò," meaning "I will win." In the Salesman's mind, it's the perfect backdrop to Mr. Kim and Woo-seok's game.

The second piece of music, "Con te partirò," is played to accompany the Salesman and Gi-hun's game of Russian roulette in Gi-hun's Pink Hotel. "Con te partirò" is sung by Andrea Bocelli and was written by Francesco Sartori and Lucio Quarantotto. The literal translation of the title is "I will leave with you," though it's known in English as "Time to say goodbye." Although it has a more overtly romantic air to it than "Nessun Dorma," it nonetheless still gets across its message for those paying attention.

The actors for many of the characters in "Squid Game" have become internationally known because of their involvement in the series. But there are a couple who were already famous even before the release of the show; the man who plays the Salesman and the man who plays the Front Man. The Salesman is portrayed by Gong Yoo. He has a small but memorable part in "Squid Game," but he's even better known for his starring role as Seok-woo in 2016's "Train to Busan," the Korean movie about a zombie virus that runs rampant on a train between Seoul and Busan.

Even better known is the actor who portrays the elusive Front Man, Lee Byung-hun. Lee has had a slew of roles in English-language films, including as Han Cho Bai in 2013's "RED 2" opposite Bruce Willis, as a T-1000 opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2015's "Terminator Genisys," and as Billy Rocks in the 2016 remake of "The Magnificent Seven" opposite Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington. You may also know him from his role as Storm Shadow in 2009's "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and its 2013 sequel, "G.I. Joe: Retaliation." In addition, Lee is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was the first Korean person to present at the Oscars when he gave out an award in 2016.

When we finally make it to the games in the second season of "Squid Game," we learn that a friend of Gi-hun's has been recruited to the games as well. That friend is Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan), and what you may not have noticed is that he is the same friend that Gi-hun bets on horse racing with in the first episode of Season 1.

Jung-bae's part in the first season is very small. He eggs Gi-hun on at an ATM where Gi-hun is using his mother's card to get cash ,and then he goes to bet on the horses with him, but it's clear that the focus is on Gi-hun and minimal attention is paid to Jung-bae. Besides, when Jung-bae finally shows up in the second season, he not only looks older, but the context has changed. He apparently hasn't seen Gi-hun in three years, during which time he's gotten divorced, and his child is with his ex-wife. While it's not good for Jung-bae that he's in the games, it's a great callback to Season 1 if you catch it.

One of the new players in "Squid Game" Season 2 is a rapper named Thanos. He's played by Choi Seung-hyun, who is better known as T.O.P., his stage name. In the show, Thanos was a runner-up in Battle of the Bands, but he's not as successful as the man playing him: T.O.P. is very well-known in South Korea, though these days he's mostly associated with controversy. He's a former member of the K-pop group Big Bang, one of the most influential South Korean music acts when it comes to the spread of K-pop overseas. In 2017, T.O.P. was fined 10 million won and received a suspended prison sentence of 10 months due to marijuana charges. Because of this scandal, T.O.P. stepped away from his high-profile work and officially confirmed he was withdrawing from Big Bang in 2022.

With "Squid Game," he's stepped back into the spotlight, but his casting has caused waves in South Korea: Many fans of the series were disappointed when they learned that T.O.P. had been cast, on account of his drug charges. Director Hwang Dong-hyuk has been vocal in his defense of T.O.P., though. Hwang said that he is the "most suitable choice" for his character and he has a "strong commitment" to the role in an interview with South Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper (via Hindustan Times). While the controversy is still roiling, and Choi has reportedly been excluded from promotional activities associated with the show as a result, he plays a great character. Hopefully people will give him a chance when "Squid Game" Season 2 debuts.

No-eul (Park Gyu-young) is a soldier in the games. She takes out the players who have lost with a big gun. But there's one player she may have a hard time shooting: number 246. That's because player 246 is Gyeong-seok (Lee Jin-wook), the father of Na-yeon, the little girl that has cancer. No-eul got to know Na-yeon at the amusement park that both she and Gyeong-seok worked at. She was a costumed character who won his daughter over by offering her a lollipop during a parade, and he was a cartoonist. However, they both quit the amusement park to come to the games.

One of No-eul's last acts outside the games was to return the little girl's hat to her when she went into the hospital, and she heard Gyeong-seok telling the doctors that he would figure out how to pay for his daughter's treatment somehow. Clearly, a salesperson got wind of his desperation and recruited him to the games. No-eul sees him in the first game — red light, green light — and realizes what's happened. In fact, it seems like she'll try to preserve his life even though she's been cold-blooded about everyone else's deaths. This isn't a major plot point of "Squid Game," but it's an interesting dynamic that you may not have picked up on.

In the Front Man's office, where he watches the games, there is an automaton band. In the first season, this band's music plays over the first episode's round of red light, green light and at the end of Episode 8, when Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon) dies and is cremated. The song they play is "Fly Me to the Moon." In the second season, these automatons make a comeback: They can be heard over part of red light, green light again, which takes place in the third episode this time.

In this scene, you can see that the Front Man controls them with a remote and that the automatons occupy a specific tableau. They're set up at an American jazz club, and each of the automatons plays an instrument (or, in the case of the woman automaton, sings). What may have escaped your notice is that they play the same song as they did in the first season ("Fly Me to the Moon"), as this time the song has more modern instrumentation. That is, until the Front Man abandons his position in his office and the song stops.

Throughout the show, there are several pop culture references that you may have missed. First is a joke about Thanos (Choi Seung-hyun), the name the rapper goes by. When he asks Se-mi (Won Ji-an) to partner with him on the second game and tells her his name is Thanos, she asks him if he's gotten all the Infinity Stones yet. This is a reference to the comic book villain Thanos, who was portrayed by Josh Brolin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the films, he uses the Infinity Stones to snap half of all life in the universe out of existence.

There are a few references in the fifth episode of the show. First, Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul) references Kim Byung-hyun when he's referring to Jong-bae's successful performance in the second game: Kim Byung-hyun was a successful Korean pitcher who played for the American baseball teams the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Boston Red Sox. He was with the Diamondbacks when they won the World Series in 2001, making him the first Korean player to win a World Series. He's been retired for years, but Dae-ho's reference is still potent because Jong-bae was like an expert pitcher in the second game.

The first name of Player 149 also appears to be a reference to Park Chan-Wook's "Lady Vengeance," which is part of a trilogy with "Oldboy." The old woman Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim) shares a name with the main character of the film, which is telling, because they are both in their current situations due to someone else. Player 149 is trying to get her son out of debt, and the Geum-ja in Park's movie is taking the fall for Mr. Baek's crimes. Though it's not clear that this is a deliberate reference in "Squid Game," the similarity is striking.

In the first season of "Squid Game," we discover that the guy who runs the games, known as the Front Man, is Hwang Jun-ho's (Wi Ha-joon) brother In-ho — right before In-ho shoots Jun-ho and sends him into a coma. In Season 2, we get to know the Front Man better, because he becomes one of the players himself. He is number 001, and to his friends in the games, he's known by the name Young-il. He says that he's in the games as his wife has cirrhosis and needs a liver transplant, plus she's pregnant and determined to give birth. The thing is, though, that while this helps us know him better, it isn't true — at least, not anymore.

The truth is that In-ho's wife died years ago, and while In-ho did participate in the games — and won — that didn't save her. Moreover, Jun-ho mentions to his mother in Episode 2 of the second season that In-ho was caught taking bribes, but In-ho (in explaining the situation to Gi-hun in the fourth episode of Season 2) says his vendor offered to help with his wife's situation. His employer incorrectly assumed it was a bribe and fired him, which landed him in the games. Also, while In-ho mentions a child, Jun-ho and his mother don't appear to know anything about that. Therefore, it's possible only In-ho and his wife knew about the child, and when she died, the child died as well. Of course, it's possible that there was no child at all. One way or another, something happened that made In-ho less merciful.