Squid Game Season 2 Predictions: Before I Watch

 Okay. Here are a few thoughts before I start watching Squid Game Season 2:

First, on the scale from "Sequels that made the orignal better" to "Sequels that were either unnecessary, or disappointing" (also known as the T2-Matrix 2 scale) I give it... 75-25 odds that it will be a Matrix 2, not a Terminator 2.

So, because I'm Rob, we've got to overthink things, so here are some recipes for a good sequel (reboots, spinoffs, continuing chapters of series' that were always intended to have a sequel and afterthought prequels are not being considered here, with apologies to Mad Max: Fury Road, Lightyear, Dune Part Two: It's Dunin' Time and Exorcist: When Pazuzu met Father Merrin.

1. The T2 template.

We saw a little of a world, but the film didn't explain everything, and at the end of the first movie, We Still Had Questions.

Make a sequel that fleshes things out, and answers questions, and looks at the same/similar issues from a slightly different angle. It might introduce new themes, probably fills in gaps, but everything is still of a piece with the original

Successful examples: Terminator 2 and Empire Strikes Back are the high points of this template. John Wick 2 fits here.  

Less successful attempts at this template: The Matrix 2 -- you forget how much exposition Matrix 1 had, because the pacing was so good, and the concept was so fresh, but The Matrix 2 was really, really talky, too much even for peak Monica Bellucci overcome (noble attempt, though). Were Avatar: The Way Of Water and Terminator 3 different enough from the first one that we really feel like we learned more about the world, or the main characters? Did they expand on the themes of the original enough to feel satisfying and unique, or introduce new themes that fit the original? 

2. The Godfather 2 template.

Take a world that gave us a character we liked, and put that character into a new or different situation that reveals something new about the character, and/or about the world, and/or deepens the ideas or themes or characterizations. It might even question the initial premise of the series, forcing us to reexamine its themes.

Successful examples: Godfather 2 put Michael Corleone into a very different situation than Godfather, and the film puts the themes it established in the first film: family, loyalty, ambition and power, to the test. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade took that same great Indiana Jones character... and gave him an impossible-to-please father. Suddenly the confident swashbuckling hero is just another kid trying to win his father's approval. Different look at a great character... but still the same package: it's very much an Indiana Jones film. Spider-Man 2 (Tobey Maguire, 2004) had Spider-Man asking if it was worth being Spider-man when it put his loved ones in danger and complicated his life.

Iron Man 3 gave an interesting version of this when it gave us Tony Stark dealing with PTSD after saving the world -- we'd been accepting the idea of superheroes stepping up to save the world for a long time by then without being asked, "Would a person who became a superhero... be okay?"

3. The Aliens template

Take a world we've seen, where we know the basics of how it works, and offer us more of everything. This is similar to the T2 template, but taken further. More characters, more settings, more action, more things the protagonist or antagonist can do. On rare occasions, this type of sequel can even be a whole different genre: Alien is a slasher/horror film, and Aliens is a military propaganda shoot-em-up '80s action movie.

A lot of superhero and fantasy sequels do this one, with varying levels of success. Iron Man invents a  suit that does more stuff. The Chosen One character studies under a mentor and masters the five point exploding palm technique. Thor unlocks new powers and goes to a whole new planet. 

1 and 3 are both on the "take the original premise further" spectrum, and this is the tightrope many sequels must walk: take the original premise too much further, and it might not even be recognizable as part of the same world (Gremlins 2... though some argue that film is a work of genius); don't take it far enough, and the sequel is just a rehash, stale leftovers that add nothing. (Taken 2-11, Austin Powers 3: The Spy Who Repeats Gags, all the Home Alone sequels, and Jurassic Park: I Lost Interest.)

4. The Die Harder Faster and More Furious Forever Template

Just keep cranking out copies of the original. Make the chases more expensive, make the explosions bigger, make the technobabble more bewildering, and keep relocating the action into new settings and adding new characters, and a certain kind of audience seems like they'll never ever get sick of it.

This is fine. It's fine. Nobody got mad at James Bond for offering... basically the same movie... twenty times in a row, resetting the premise like a sitcom episode, before Daniel Craig's Bond first demonstrated that he remembered what happened the film before.

And as long as Vin Diesel moans, "Family" enough times, and tosses people enough ice-cold bottles of Corona, people will keep showing up to watch Fast and Furious movies, even as they hit the ceiling of what you can do in car chase/heist movies, and had to turn into international spy movies just to justify ever-increasingly complex stunts, tech and quests.

But even offering the same themes, feelings, and characters again and again can still work, even artistically. Somehow the Toy Story series keeps adding installments, and each time we first think, "It's already perfect. No need for another!" but then we see the new one and decide it's essential. It's magic, what they do.

They know what their audience wants, their audience knows what they want, and everybody's happy to keep watching the same movie. It's fine.

5. The Rambo II Template

Grab a few working parts from the original, patch them together, and run with it. Sometimes filmmakers even tell their creative team NOT to read/watch/learn about the source material. Sometimes this works: Army Of Darkness turned a low-budget horror film and its high camp remake into a sublime supernatural time-travel horror-comedy. Rambo II had little connecting tissue with First Blood other than muscles and Sly, but people went to see it. Sometimes it doesn't work. Cars was a sports movie, Cars 2 was a spy movie, and other than the occasional "Kachow" and, you know, talking cars, they were so different I had whiplash. If you went into Gremlins: The New Batch expecting anything like what you got from the first Gremlins film, you didn't know what the hell you were watching. (You were watching a work of pure cinematic genius, that's what. The final embodiment of the slogan, 'Every idea is a good idea.')

So... before I start watching episodes of Season 2 of Squid Game (and yes, I know that a new season of a TV show might work differently than a sequel to a movie... but the limited play time, and the long period between original and follow-up make me feel more like I'm watching extended movies or mini-series' than straight-up TV shows), I'm going to predict a few things, and then see if I'm right.

First, I think Squid Game is in a difficult spot. The hardest sequel to make is for something that everybody loved because it was so fresh, so unique, so unlike anything we'd seen before. We'd seen "games to the death" shows and "making sport of human lives" shows before (Hunger Games, Battle Royale, The Hunt, The Running Man, Escape Room, many inspired by a famous short story titled, "The Most Dangerous Game" --these films have been coming out since the 1930s), but the cognitive dissonance of using children's games, bright colors, recorder music, and absolutely one-of-a-kind production design created a mood that nobody had seen before, a mood where the contrast between the silliness of the games and the dread of the consequences grabbed the audience and added all kinds of layers about how the elites are treating the desperate class. It arrived in the middle of the first pandemic year, when everyone was sitting at home, inequalities had just been given a big old boost, and a lot of people were feeling fed up with... just .... things in general, as well as feeling jerked around be elites who didn't understand or care about them. It was the perfect set of themes, packaged in the perfect way, at the perfect time, to an audience perfectly prepared for it. It really was lightning in a bottle.

But how do you offer season two of something everybody loved because it was unlike anything they'd seen before?

It's not unlike anything they've seen anymore: at the very least it's like, you know, season one. And that's the problem. 

You can't make a Squid Game season that will cause the sensation that Season 1 caused. We're not shut in on lockdown anymore. We're still jerked around by the elites, but we have different outlets for that feeling now, whether that's the rantings of this or that politician, or this or that angry podcaster, or constant refreshing for updates on that story about that guy who shot that other guy. We've seen the primary colors and the kindergarten shapes and the childish games with deadly consequences all before. We've rooted for characters only to see them die in gut-punch twists. Nothing will ever land like the gut-punch of episode 6, the marbles episode, because we already saw that one, so now we know the showrunners are willing to do... that to the characters we care about. Like killing Ned Stark in Game Of Thrones -- after the first one, you already know that anyone might be next, and that cat doesn't go back in the bag.

All that to say... for everyone expecting something as fresh and novel as Squid Game season one was... this season has its work cut out for it.

So which template should Season 2 follow?

The T2 template: add more, fill in more background, add new characters maybe, and expand on existing themes.

Well, I'd say that the final episode of Season 1 already filled in what background we needed. The conversation with the guy who invented the Squid Games basically made the statement the showrunners wanted to make about human nature. I don't see that adding backstory or depth would really add much to the characters here. The characters in competition already had nuance and depth, and most of them died. The characters who weren't in competition -- The Salesman, and Front Man, and the guards and the VIPs -- work better if they are cardboard cutouts, I think: defining the parameters where the deadly games occur, and the basic inequality on which the games are premised. The cop who was undercover already revealed who he is, and dedicating an episode to his backstory isn't going to add much to the role he is playing in the story. The VIPs work better if they're cartoon caricature villains, mustache twirling bad guys with brazen vices and idiotic concerns. I don't care which of them has a backstory that makes me pity his emotional vapidity... it doesn't strengthen the story for me to know that.

Can they expand the story into new settings and situations? Not really -- at least, not without Squid Game starting to look like other shows and films. Send them into nature and you've got Battle Royale. Send them into a booby-trapped nature or urban setting and you've got The Hunger Games. Send them into the city again (which they already did in Season 1, when everybody came back) and you run the risk of reminding viewers that... the desperation the characters felt in real life is the desperation we all feel already, and ... then Squid Game is a bummer, and yet another "life is hard" drama, instead of a fresh new view of that frustration and exploitation.

It's really hard to think of ways for them to do something new within the premise, other than the totally, TOTALLY expected move of having the inmates revolt and try to blow up the games... just like they did in Hunger Games 2. Just like almost every hero in a "Humans hunting humans" story turn the tables on their hunters in the end. How else can you expand the premise?

I guess we'll see.

The Godfather 2 Template

Is there a place where there's room to subvert some of the characters or themes of season one? Not a whole lot, because most of the interesting characters died -- including the most interesting one, constestant #1, the old man. I'm not wild about the idea of dedicating part of a season to the motivations of a character who's gone. Maybe Front Man and his cop brother would have something interesting to add... maybe... but the themes of frustration, desperation and inequality? How do you poke at those or subvert them? The only way is by pointing out that we are watching these characters suffer just like the VIPs are... so why are we feeling empathy, or identifying with the contestants, comfortable in our living rooms with netflix on? ...there is some room for that, if the show finds a way to get that meta without being heavy handed, and even with very strong themes, Season 1 never struck me as being preachy, moralistic or heavy handed.

Who would have second thoughts, anyway? One of the guards? How would that play out? The idea of seeing the games undermined... that could create some strong rooting interests. The theme of fair play -- "at least in these games, everybody has an actual shot" did run through last season, and breaking that trust might be interesting -- in Season 1, the doctor who was cheating suffered the consequences, reinforcing the feeling that fair play mattered. Also, that feeling of "That's not fair!" "He was cheated!" outrage... we HAVE already felt that in episode 1, at least once, and maybe more.

Other than that, which of the themes would bear being subverted? Your desperation isn't really that desparate? This inequality isn't really that exploitative? Nah. Those aren't working for me. I doubt I'll see that. Packaging similar themes in new, poignant ways is probably the best way for this season to run, and that will come down to bringing us a new set of characters we care about as much as we cared about the contestants in season 1.

The Aliens template

This could be interesting -- offering more Squid Games, in bigger, broader and more impressive ways, and a lot of it could be achieved simply with which games they choose to play this time around, what contestants are asked to do. Maybe the compound where the contestants are kept can be shown, explained, and expanded. Maybe we can learn more about the guards... though that would take a lot of doing, a guard revolt could reveal interesting things about how the games work, except that it's pretty clear stepping out of line equals a bullet in the head for guards. A police raid? That would puncture the sense that this whole thing is enabled by collusion of the powerful. That wouldn't fit the themes at all. An escape attempt? Now we're getting warmer. That is my best bet for ways to expand and explain the Squid Games world while keeping its premise and main themes intact. Another would be further adventures of Hwang Jun-ho, the undercover police officer, perhaps exploring the compound and/or making contact with some of the contestants. That might be an interesting wrinkle, especially if his brother, Front Man's loyalties are put to the test. 

The Die Harder Faster and More Furious Forever Template

This might happen. We might see another well-crafted season of engaging characters, devious games, stomach-punch twists and devastating conclusions with unsatisfying answers to existential questions... leaving us ready for a third season of the same. And... I think I'd be okay with that, if the story unfurls beautifully. Sure. Give me another season of that. And another.

The Rambo II Template

No thank you. Could they make Season 2 the story of Gi-Hun, now with his hair dyed cherry red, training himself into a killing machine, tracking down and hunting the VIPs and the guards and every person involved with making the Squid Games possible, spouting 80s movie catchphrases and perhaps even walking away from some explosions? Oh, they could. And it might even be satisfying. But it wouldn't be devious and gut-churning the way season one was. It would be hard to offer a new cast of characters we cared about and identified with as much as we did with the contestants in season one, rooting for them to live or die, if instead we're watching Gi-Hun running through his Kill List like The Bride in Kill Bill. Could they find other ways for Season 2 to completely eschew Season 1's themes, genre and tone? Sure they could. But it wouldn't be the same show, so I'm not going to go into the possiblities here, because, I mean, if it's not going to stay the same show, anything could happen, so I'm rooting for aliens.

I think formally, the franchise Squid Game resembles the most is the Alien films, with primary colors and kids' games instead of shadows and spaceships -- most of the characters are just scenery for the monster to chew, except here the monster is The Game + human avarice + desperation + exploitation of the powerful instead of a black beast that hides in walls and spits acid. At most you can have a tiny handful of characters appear from one film/season to the next -- maybe Gi-hun, maybe a VIP or two, and a Front Man here and there, like the recurring androids in Alien, who mostly function to set the stage and set up the themes and conflicts. Then, if the writing's good, we care about a set of characters, and hate a different set of characters, and aren't sure whether to hate, pity or love two or three characters, as they figure out what will help them get through the Squid Games and win the top prize. And if it's done well, it'll be another season of compelling, sinfully watchable drama, and I'll be ready for season three as soon as I finish season 2.

Anyway, that's what I expect to see before I have started watching. Do I expect it to be popcorn-candy watchable? Hell yeah. Do I expect a few good characters and a few stomach punch twists? Hell yeah. Do I expect the VIPs to be better cast with higher quality actors? Hell yeah, now that the first one made a billion dollars for Netflix. I would actually love to see some stunt casting here. Bring in... Meryl Streep acting like the President of the USA from Don't Look Up, or Leonardo DiCaprio as a version of his evil plantation owner from Django Unchained, or... one of those groups of comedians who are always in each other's shows and movies, the Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, David Cross, Ed Helms, Jason Sudekis set, or the Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Danny Green, Bill Hader set. Go bananas here!  

I think they'll try to take bigger swings, but season one was such a big swing it's going to be hard to follow-up, much less top, while still seeming like the same thing it was in season 1.

But... to impress me? To make me feel like they really did top Season one? that'd take something risky... not just 'We're going to have aliens or other twists that make no story sense' but 'we're really going to bring the satire home now' risky. How to do that? 

Give me a set of VIPs who are deep-faked with the faces of our actual world's VIPs. Have them take off their masks, and it's ... Mark goddamn Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, and maybe a Vladimir Putin, and JD Vance or a Viktor Orban. Now THAT would take some brass ones, and really make sure the themes land, even for those who haven't been paying attention so far.

OK. Those are my thoughts and predictions about season 2 of Squid Game, without having watched or read a single thing about them, except season 1 and a few IMDB pages. I will definitely be watching it, and probably binging it, and honestly, I'm trying to keep my mind as open as I can for the show to impress me on its own terms, because that's how I enjoy TV. No spoilers in the comments, please, at least until... oh... February 2025, and if you don't want the show spoiled, and it isn't Feb. 2025 yet... don't read the comments.

I said what I said. Now off to actually watch them.