When the South Korean drama Squid Game hit Netflix in 2021, the show became a bona fide cultural phenomenon. The story of people in debt competing to the death for a massive cash prize looked like nothing else on television, juxtaposing candy-colored children's games with horrifying hyper-violence. Squid Game soon turned forest-green tracksuits into a trendy Halloween costume. It helped enter the word dalgona'the sugary treat used in one of the contests'into the pop-culture lexicon. It was parodied on Saturday Night Live. For weeks after I watched, I couldn't get the murder doll's song during the first contest, Red Light, Green Light, out of my head. The second season, now streaming, begins where the first ended: with the game's latest winner, Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae), choosing not to board the plane out of South Korea that would have reunited him with his family. Instead, he threatens Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun), the tournament's supervisor known as the 'Front Man,'...
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