With Squid Game season 2 finally on its way, here’s a recap of all the major events from season 1 of the Netflix Korean drama.
Written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game season 1 is a brilliant critique of inequality and greed. The story follows protagonist Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae) and 455 other debt-ridden players who are forced to play a series of children’s games, at the risk of death, to entertain the wealthy.
A game changer for the Korean entertainment industry, season 1 successfully pierced the cultural zeitgeist and recorded a total of 2.8 billion viewing hours and 330 million views on Netflix. Not just that. According to Variety (via content analytics firm Vobile), Squid Game-related content — a spectrum of long and short-form videos — totaled over 17 billion views on YouTube surpassing HBO’s cult hit Game of Thrones.
Apart from being a global commercial hit and a relatable meme across the internet, the show also gained extensive critical acclaim. It won six Primetime Emmy Awards in 2022, including Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for Hwang Dong-hyuk and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Lee Jung-jae.
Talking to CBS News about the success of the show, director Hwang said, “I was always hoping to make something very popular in the States, so I was surprised.” He further added that while it was a dream come true, “But that level of success [was] just beyond my expectations.”
Squid Game season 1 recap: Meet the cast
- Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun
- Wi Ha-joon as Hwang Jun-ho
- Gong Yoo as the Salesman
- Park Hae-soo as Cho Sang-woo
- Jung Ho-yeon as Kang Sae-byeok
- Lee Byung-hun as Front Man Hwang In-ho
- Lee Seo-hwan as Jung-bae
- O Yeong-su as Oh Il-nam
- Anupam Tripathi as Ali Abdul
- Yoo Sung-joo as Byeong-gi
Squid Game season 1 recap: It all starts with Ddakji
The show opens with a black-and-white sequence of children playing Squid Game and a voice-over explaining the rules of the game. The playing area, revealed to be the shape of a squid’s head, foreshadows the brutal contest ahead that is designed to challenge, endanger and kill people.
Elsewhere, viewers meet protagonist Seong Gi-hun, an emotionally fraught and viscerally lonely father making desperate attempts to pay off debts under the constant looming threat of loan sharks. From stealing his mother’s debit card to buy a birthday gift for his daughter to accepting money from the husband of his ex-wife to treat his mother’s diabetes, Gi-hun is introduced as a man on the brink of financial ruin.
However, a few rounds of Ddakji (a Korean children’s game) with a mysterious salesman, introduces a glimmer of hope for Gi-hun. Soon, he is invited to a remote island to be the 456th player in a series of survival “childhood” games to win 45.6 billion won.
The audiences also meet Hwang Jun-ho, a police officer who disguises himself as a guard in a pink jumpsuit to find his missing brother on the island.
Red Light Green Light
The first game that Gi-hun plays with 455 other players is Red Light, Green Light. In this, a giant, creepy doll chants “The Hibiscus flower has bloomed” and lets them move towards a finish line when her head is turned to face a big tree. When the doll stops and turns to face the players, anyone who moves is shot dead.
While multiple players die in the first game, Gi-hun somehow makes it to the finish line and survives. He then realises that if you fail to complete any of the games on the island, you straight-up die.
Later, he decides to team up with other notable players in the game. These include Kang Sae-byeok aka Player 067, a fearless woman from North Korea fighting to get her family across the border; Cho Sang-woo aka Player 218, Gi-hun’s childhood friend who is on the run after losing his clients’ money to bad investments; Oh Il-nam aka Player 001, a demented old man with a brain tumor who has no fear of death; and Abdul Ali aka player 199, a Pakistani immigrant struggling to make it big in South Korea.
Ppopgi
The next game is Ppopgi, in which Gi-hun must remove a specific shape (triangle, star, circle, or umbrella) from dalgona — a honeycomb candy and traditional Korean street food.
While Gi-hun gets the toughest shape, which is the umbrella, he manages to remove it and successfully survives Ppopgi.
Tug of War
In this game of the Netflix thriller, players pull on a thick rope to make the opposing team fall past the center mark to their eventual death.
Gi-hun and his team decide to take the experienced Il-nam’s advice into account for this game. They wait for the opponents to get tired before using all their strength, place team members on different sides of the rope and use their full body weight to finally win the round.
Elsewhere, Jun-ho discovers that some of the workers are trafficking organs from the deceased players and selling them with the help of player 111, Byeong-gi, a doctor, who conducts surgery in exchange of info regarding the next games.
Marbles
The fourth game proves to be the toughest one for Gi-hun. Each player is given a bag containing ten marbles and then they are all divided into pairs. Gi-hun is paired with his favourite Il-nam. The goal is to win every marble your opponent has. However, the player with no marbles from each pair dies at the end.
Sang-woo, who teams up with Ali for this round, tricks him into giving up his marbles and is killed. Sae-byeok’s partner Ji-yeong, aka Player 240 sacrifices herself so that the former can continue in the game and win the cash prize for her family.
Gi-hun, who is left with no choice, uses Il-nam’s dementia against him to win the marbles. But Il-nam later informs him that he knew about Gi-hun’s truck throughout but still let him win.
Hopscotch
Only a few players including Gi-hun survive to play the fifth game. Players have to jump their way along a glass bridge while making sure to avoid stepping on the wrong glass square that might break and lead to their death.
By the end of Hopscotch, Gi-hun, Sang-woo and a badly injured Sae-byeok survive to play the last game.
The final showdown: Squid Game
Before the sixth and final game starts, Gi-hun and Sae-byeok make a promise to help each other’s families if one of them doesn’t make it out of the game. The duo then ally and plan to kill Sang-woo.
But Sang-woo, who is a step ahead of Gi-hun, waits for the right opportunity and kills a weak and injured Sae-byeok when she is left alone in one of the island’s dorm rooms.
A heartbroken Gi-hun vows revenge and promises to win the last game, which is revealed as Squid Game. The two players have to draw a square, a triangle, and two circles on the ground (the recurring shapes seen throughout the series) and try to invade each other’s space while hopping on one foot in most areas. When Gi-hun is about to win the game, he decides to leave and spare Sang-woo’s life. However, a guilt-ridden Sang-woo killed himself, crowning Gi-hun as the official winner of the 33rd Squid Game.
Meanwhile, when a superior is executed by the Front Man, Jun-ho steals his mask to masquerade as a manager. He then enters the Front Man’s room and discovers the history of the deadly game, which dates back to the 1980s. He also finds out that his brother won the game in 2015.
Jun-ho then escapes from the facility using one of the dive packs. However, the Front Man locates him near a cliff and advises him to join him. When Jun-ho disagrees, the Front Man removes his mask and reveals himself as In-ho, Jun-ho’s missing brother. He then proceeds to shoot Jun-ho in the shoulder, causing him to fall off the cliff and into the ocean below.
Squid Game season 1 recap: What happens in the end?
One year later, Gi-hun visits a dying Il-nam in the Seoul Sky Tower and is furious to learn that the latter was the creator of the deadly games. Il-nam, a business tycoon, came up with the idea of the Squid Games along with his partners in 1988. The old man further reveals that the games were created as a source of amusement for the wealthy, who were the VIPs of the games and would place bets on the probable winners. Il-nam then takes his last breath in the presence of Gi-hun.
In the final moments of the Korean drama, Gi-hun locates Sae-byeok’s younger brother and takes him to Sang-woo’s mother. He also gives her a portion of his prize money. Gi-hun then plans to visit the US to reconnect with his daughter. However, before he can leave, he comes across the Salesman recruiting other contestants for another season of Squid Games. At the airport, he calls the game’s organisers once again and is warned to stay away. Despite the threat, Gi-hun calls off his journey to the US and decides to fight back to stop the deadly games once and for all.
What to expect from season 2 of Squid Game?
According to Netflix, in season 2 Gi-hun will once again dive “into the mysterious survival game, starting another life-or-death game with new participants gathered to win the prize of 45.6 billion won.”
Talking about the games of season 2, director Hwang said in an interview with Radio Times, “Much like season one, all of them are close to children’s games, where they have to be very simple and easy for everyone to instantly understand”.
Squid Game season 2 premieres worldwide on 26 December 2024 on Netflix.
(Hero and featured image credit: Netflix)
Frequently Asked Questions
The main characters of 'Squid Game' season 1 are protagonists Gi-hun, portrayed by Korean actor Lee Jung-jae, and Jun-ho, portrayed by Wi Ha-joon.
Season 1 ends with Gi-hun planning to return to the deadly games once again.
Season 1 of the series is available to stream worldwide on Netflix.
Season 2 premieres worldwide on Netflix on 26 December 2024.
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Written by
Sushmita Mahanta
Digital Writer (Growth) - Entertainment
Sushmita is a writer with a passion for crafting engaging and informative stories. An avid fan of K-pop and K-dramas, Sushmita mostly writes about Korean culture and entertainment. When not writing, you can find Sushmita dancing, reading, collecting books, learning about fashion, art, motion pictures, and appreciating BTS.
