[To the tune of “In da Club”] Go, Gi-hun, it’s your birthday!
In case you forgot, our main protagonist was born on October 31. And you can, in fact, find him in the club on his birthday … but not because he’s celebrating getting older. He’s there because he wants to get to the Squid Game higher-ups and the invitation in the Recruiter’s pocket said to be at Club HDH at midnight on Halloween. Gi-hun doesn’t acknowledge the personal significance of the date, which makes sense to me. Birthdays naturally make you think about the passage of time, and they can be weird and sad days if you’re not satisfied with how your life is going. Plus, Gi-hun has a revenge mission to focus on. I don’t expect him to be drinking birthday soup and blowing out candles. But it’s still wild to see how different he is from the slightly goofy man-child who first entered the game. So far in season two, I don’t think we’ve seen him smile once.
While this exposition-heavy episode still doesn’t get Gi-hun back to the game, it lays the final groundwork. First, he needs a team. He’s initially a little wary of Jun-ho and Woo-seok — the former runs into his motel and tries to arrest him for murder, and he’s never met the latter in person — but they both manage to convince him that they’re personally invested in shutting the game down. Gi-hun trusts them enough to show them his “blood money” stash and his impressive collection of guns. After Woo-seok recruits people with experience serving in elite military forces, we’ve got the final group of people who will serve as Gi-hun’s back up in the club. In order to share his live location with them, he has also removed one of his teeth (without anesthesia, which seems a bit masochistic) and hidden a tracker in his mouth.
Jun-ho still hasn’t told anyone that In-ho is the Front Man. We learn that they’re actually stepbrothers and that if In-ho hadn’t already donated his kidney to save Jun-ho, he could have sold it to save his sick wife’s life. Jun-ho raises his voice while trying to assure his mom (and maybe himself?) that In-ho doesn’t resent them for not helping more. He insists In-ho is the only one responsible for ultimately accepting bribes to get the money he needed.
Before joining forces with Gi-hun, Jun-ho asks if he intends to kill the Front Man. I’m curious how he would have reacted if the answer were “yes,” but Gi-hun shakes his head. He thinks killing the Front Man won’t stop the game and brings up game creator Oh Il-nam’s VIP clients. Does he think killing them would stop the game? Or does he want to go even further and somehow try to kill the very idea that poor people are disposable? His exact strategy isn’t super-clear.
But whatever he’s planning, Gi-hun seems sure it’ll be dangerous. Before Halloween, he checks up on all the people he cares about. He verifies from a distance that Sang-woo’s mom and Sae-byeok’s little brother, Cheol, are happy and healthy. He then visits the broker whom he’s paying to help Cheol’s mom get out of North Korea, passing on contact information in case he’s not around. Finally, he calls his daughter, who answers in English but switches to Korean to ask if he’s the silent caller on the other end of the line. Basically, he’s acting like someone who thinks he may be about to die.
You know who’s not concerned, though? Woo-seok. Maybe he’s repressing his emotions, but on the surface level, he has recovered remarkably quickly from losing his boss-BFF. He’s now functioning as a kinda bumbling side character who provides comic relief, is overly confident that nothing will go wrong, and disses cops every now and again. For some reason, Woo-seok’s the one who accompanies Gi-hun into the packed Club HDH in a horse mask (coincidentally, the animal Gi-hun wants to stop being seen as), but he isn’t much help. By the time Jun-ho uses his gun to force his way into the club, one pink soldier has tased Woo-seok and another has escorted Gi-hun into the same limo that took him home from his last game.
Jun-ho and the backup team follow the limo in their own cars while Gi-hun angrily confronts the Front Man via a golden piggy-bank speaker. When Gi-hun demands that the game be stopped, the Front Man says participants are all there by choice, implying — in an echo of the Recruiter’s rhetoric from the previous episode — that they are responsible for the consequences. He further suggests that the game is a reflection of the real world and, therefore, won’t end unless the world changes. How do you stop people who see themselves as horse owners from not only holding races but owning any horses at all? It’s a question worth asking, but there’s no time for Gi-hun to answer because snipers are firing at the tires of his backup team’s vans. A small explosive in Jun-ho’s car detonates and also stops his pursuit. The Front Man dryly asks if Gi-hun was hoping to kidnap him.
Having heard all the chaos through an earpiece, Gi-hun pulls out a gun and shoots at the limo’s partition. It’s bulletproof, so he switches tactics and volunteers/demands to be put back in the game. His reasoning is that the rich VIPs will want to see him return (which, hey, Netflix did). When the Front Man doesn’t immediately agree, Gi-hun goads him by suggesting that he’s scared to be proven wrong, the same way Oh Il-nam refused up until his dying breath to acknowledge that he had lost his bet that nobody would help someone passed out on the street.
There’s a red light on half of Gi-hun’s face during most of this scene, just as there was in his game of Russian roulette with the Recruiter. I feel vindicated in my theory that this is a nod to The Matrix; the Front Man name-drops the movie and claims it’s better to take the blue pill and live happily. But if Gi-hun really thinks he’s a red-pilled hero who can change the world, then he’ll let him try. After knockout gas fills the limo, the partition drops to reveal that the Front Man is riding shotgun. “Player 456. Welcome back to the game,” he says. Jun-ho, still watching Gi-hun’s tracker move, instructs the backup team to initiate plan B.
This episode also weaves in a secondary plot that introduces us to No-eul, a North Korean defector who is sleeping in her car and working as a bunny mascot at an amusement park. She earns the affection of an adorable little girl in a strawberry hat — let’s call her Strawbaby — who has cancer and ends up being rushed to the hospital. Strawbaby (real name Na-yeon) seems to remind No-eul of the 1-year-old daughter she left behind in North Korea. Gi-hun’s broker is the only one left willing to search for the girl, but even he has finally reached a point where he refuses No-eul’s money and tells her to give up. After quitting her job, she receives a Squid Game card. There’s no slapping involved, which suggests she’s not a player. She calls the number, then burns the card along with a drawing from Strawbaby.
In the closing scene, No-eul boards a truck full of people and changes into her second costume of this Halloween episode: a pink soldier uniform. To people who knew her as a standoffish co-worker, No-eul appeared capable of more kindness when dressed as a bunny. Will she be capable of more cruelty now that she has a triangle over her face? Guess we’ll find out soon. Let the deadly childhood games begin.
Parting Shots
• Is Club HDH named in homage to Hwang Dong-hyuk? Cute if so … just as long as it doesn’t lead to his starring as an overly indulgent self-insert character in his own show. (Looking at you and your cowboy hat, Taylor Sheridan.)
• Gi-hun’s motel isn’t fully soundproof; Jun-ho hears a single gunshot while parked outside in the rain. But even though the target-practice area appeared to be closed off only by a bathroom door and a shower curtain, no one complains when all those shots were being fired? Wow, that neighborhood sure knows how to mind its business.
• For a dark thriller, Squid Game has pretty funny moments. I particularly enjoyed the wordless panic when Strawbaby wanders into the amusement park’s dressing room.
• Winner of the episode: Hmm … maybe the health-insurance industry? Insurance rarely has to foot the bill for lifesaving treatments in this show. For characters from In-ho to Strawbaby’s dad, the price of taking care of a loved one is often too high.
• Loser of the episode: Gi-hun’s backup team. Sorry, but given how much their combat experience was hyped, I expected them to be more helpful. Google tells me there are tires built to resist gunfire and/or keep rolling for miles after being punctured. Why not ask Gi-hun to buy some if the main plan depends on cars? I’m not saying Front Man couldn’t still have stopped them somehow. My point is just that it feels as if more precautions could have been taken. These guys were presented as the cream of the military crop, but this operation left room for someone to sneak in and plant an explosive without anyone noticing in real time or checking the vehicle afterward. Hopefully, they’ll redeem themselves with whatever plan B is.
