SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from “Squid Game” Season 2 finale, now streaming on Netflix.
Facing betrayal from an inside man infiltrating the Squid Games is nothing new for Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) within the twisted “Squid Game” universe.
When the first season of the Korean drama released on Netflix in 2021, watching Player 001, the old man Oh Il-nam (Oh Yeong-su), be revealed as the creator of the games came as a total surprise for both Gi-hun and the viewer. But in “Squid Game” Season 2, which dropped Thursday, the unexpected involvement of head game guard The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), whose real name is In-ho, is handled quite differently when he joins the games as Player 001 upon Gi-hun’s reentry into the competition.
In-ho uses the fake name Young-il when he introduces himself to Gi-hun, who has returned to the games in “Squid Game” Season 2 to try to take them down from the inside, and conceals his real identity and motives while slowly attempting to gain Gi-hun’s trust and build a group of likeminded players.
“I think it’s kind of fun because only the audience knows that it’s him so it’s more tense for them to watch him in the game, forming this alliance with Gi-hun,” Lee Jung-jae tells Variety. “I think all the viewers will be thinking about is when Gi-hun will finally realize that he is The Front Man, or what game he can go until without revealing his identity.”
When Lee Byung-hun first met with “Squid Game” creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk to discuss possible directions for Season 2, they casually speculated over drinks about In-ho’s backstory. While Season 2 ultimately doesn’t show his past — choosing instead to give details through dialogue about In-ho’s late wife who died of illness when they were destitute — Lee Byung-hun kept thinking about how his character entered the Squid Game the first time he played and, like Gi-hun after him, won the competition, and how his spirit has changed since.
“He’s really seen kind of the bottom pit of humanity and in the midst of the violence and desperation of Squid Game, his hope for humanity and the world has really dwindled,” Lee Byung-hun explains. “He has this very pessimistic view of the people in the world around him.”
Another one of the returning “Squid Game” characters is detective Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), who teams up with Gi-hun at the beginning of Season 2 to try and find the Squid Game island again. Jun-ho made his way there in Season 1 searching for his missing brother, In-ho, later finding out that his brother has gone from a former competitor in the games to becoming The Front Man himself. Jun-ho was shot by his brother upon this revelation in Season 1 and barely survived falling off the cliffs of the Squid Game island. When he teams up with Gi-hun to try to get back to the island again and end the games in Season 2, he decides not to tell Gi-hun that The Front Man is his brother.
Showing In-ho playing the games alongside Gi-hun, who still fights to believe in the best in people and humanity — despite the cruelty of the Squid Game — pits two opposing characters together. Lee Byung-hun was tasked to act out much of this subtly as In-ho (who watched Gi-hun from behind a mask in Season 1) studies Gi-hun through the various games while forming a bond with him and not letting his true thoughts out.
Lee Byung-hun describes how “when [In-ho] meets Gi-hun, who is still trying to break down the system, who returns to the games to be able to change something, because he still has hope for humanity — I think In-ho really wants to break Gi-hun’s spirit, and that’s why you see him observing him throughout the games and very meticulously making a plan to dismantle a lot of what he is doing.”
“Squid Game” Season 2 comes with a new set of violent games that test the alliances formed with a largely new cast of players. But it all starts off with the same “Red Light, Green Light” competition that kicked off the first season. While Lee Jung-jae says it was a difficult five-day shoot, he found it to be the most fun of the Season 2 games to film.
Lee Jung-jae explains: “It’s very different because this time around, Gi-hun’s goal is to save as many people as possible. The ‘Red Light, Green Light’ game gave a big shock to fans in Season 1 but now, it has a totally different atmosphere.”
Lee Byung-hun says that for In-ho, while he is participating in the games as Young-il, “you do find him almost momentarily enjoying the situation.” “And I think this is just a very small glimpse of his past self,” he added.
The most challenging part of the season from an emotional standpoint for Lee Jung-jae was the rebellion scene in the Season 2 finale. In the final episode, Gi-hun watches his close friend, Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan), die at the hands of The Front Man, marking the end of any hope for the rising rebellion. The Front Man puts his mask back on out of sight, so Gi-hun does not know it is In-ho/Young-Il, who Gi-hun actually thinks has already been killed during this fight.
Lee Byung-hun explains why In-ho makes the choice to kill Jung-bae in front of Gi-hun after going out of his way to save his life earlier during the bloody musical-chairs-esque Mingle game, where he killed another man with his bare hands to keep Jung-bae alive.
“I would say that until the Mingle game, In-ho is still a participant or a member of this very tight-knit group with Jung-bae and Gi-hyun,” Lee Byung-hun said. “So despite the fact that he shows Jung-bae this very violent side of him by killing someone within the room, he still needs to maintain this air that he is one team with Gi-hun and Jung-bae. At the very end of Season 2, I really thought about, what is he feeling when he has to kill Jung-bae because at the end of the day, he’s still a human being, and he goes through the games together, and there has to be at least some kind of emotional bond that’s built between him and Gi-hun and Jung-bae. However, I do understand that him killing Jung-bae is a tool to be able to awaken Gi-hun to the reality of what is happening. And a conversation I had with director Hwang was, how does In-ho, or The Front Man, feel when he is killing Jung-bae? And I think it is a feeling of kind of bitterness, however, I think the way In-ho understands it is that he’s giving up something small for a bigger message to Gi-hun.”
The Front Man’s actions (a betrayal that has yet to fully reveal itself to Gi-hun until he knows In-ho is the one behind the mask) sting even more as Gi-hun and his crew of friends come so close to pulling off the rebellion and escaping the games for good.
“I think the finale did a good job maximizing the emotions for viewers so it feels like they are on an emotional roller coaster ride,” Lee Jung-jae says. “They’re left at the very peak.”
Lee Byung-hun feels that In-ho’s betrayal confirms that “in the process of these really grueling and violent games, his feelings faded.” “Feelings of hope and joy are long gone in the In-ho you meet in Season 2,” he said.
With “Squid Game” Season 2 only consisting of seven episodes versus the first season’s nine, and the major cliffhanger that the second-season story ends on, Lee Jung-jae isn’t sure how viewers will receive it. “Maybe they will curse us for stopping there at the finale,” he wonders with a laugh.
While Season 2 leaves many questions unanswered, the installment was filmed back-to-back with the show’s third and final season, which is confirmed for a 2025 release. So fans won’t need to be cursing the team for too long before finding out how this showdown between Gi-hun and In-ho comes to an end. And it’s looking like it will be a very dark conclusion indeed, if In-ho has his way.
“In-ho is a character that no longer has belief or hope in the outside world,” Lee Byung-hun says. “So it’s almost like he has nowhere to go, because that is not really a world that he feels like he’s a part of anymore. So it’s less so the fact that he wants to protect the world of Squid Game, it’s more so that he feels that it’s completely hopeless outside. All these people are going to die in a really kind of pathetic way anyway, so why not play the games, and why not give at least one person a new life and a sense of opportunity? Because he has this very pessimistic view of the world, he does feel like the world of Squid Game at least makes more sense than the world outside of it.”