Squid Game – Season 2 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Six Legs

Episode 4 of Squid Game season 2 begins grimly, with the workers carting the coffins of the deceased over for the organ harvesting and, subsequently, the incinerator.

Meanwhile, all the players enjoy the food and drink given out… except for Gi-hun. He knows he’s back in these games again properly, and he may not be so lucky this time. Well, with 001 playing the mole, he approaches Gi-hun and asks for his help. Gi-hun brings up the games played before, with the next one obviously Dalgona. Gi-hun promises to tell everybody what he knows if this game is picked, but of course In-ho is going to disrupt this.

Gi-hun doesn’t even realize that he’s talking to the Front Man, and the pair trade ideologies about the games and the morality of pressing the X or the O to continue or stop the games. Alongside Gi-hun, there’s Kang Dae-ho who used to be in the marines. Funnily enough, so was Jung-bae too and the pair have a little comedic moment together.

Upping the stakes, Yong-sik’s mum has helped a number of women given birth in the past, and she knows that one of the women – Jun-hee – is actually pregnant. We saw her earlier in the show leave her meeting with a doctor after getting nowhere with her deadbeat partner.

Meanwhile, Thanos and Nam-gyu continue to give Myung-gi grief after losing their fortune. In-ho breaks this up though, easily dispatching both kids, and rallying the people to his side.

In the middle of the night, In-ho and Gi-hun talk. In-ho brings up his story, around how his wife is sick and the tragic spiral that ensued from there. In-ho claims the games are his last chance and while he understands what the money represents, he’s desperate for it all the same in order to help his wife and their child. Whether this story has any semblance of truth, or if it’s a way to sway Gi-hun’s conviction is up for debate.

Meanwhile, the organ harvesters are struggling to get parts from the dead bodies. A lot of them have been deemed as “unsalvageable” because, for some reason, they’ve been shot numerous times. It would appear the workers also have a loose cannon, and they suspect it’s No-eul given she defected from North Korea and there’s hostility toward her from the other soldiers.

That night, No-eul is brought to the Masked Officer (at least that’s what the subtitles call him). He brings up how they’ve known each other for about 7 years and he’s unclear why she’s defying him now. No-eul obviously has her own agenda and keeps her cards close to her chest and despite wanting to find her kid, she doesn’t give anything up.

Meanwhile, Jun-ho returns to the Seoul station and futilely asks for help. Of course, they need evidence so he gets nowhere, and tries to find an alternate route to get help.

Back at the games, Jun-hee speaks to Myung-gi, who happens to be the father of her child. It seems everybody is more connected than we thought, and he’s pretty shocked that she’s going to keep her child.

Their conversation is cut short though, as the second game begins. This time though, it’s not Dalgona. Instead, this is a team game and Gi-hun is joined with In-ho, Dae-ho and Jung-bae. They need one more person and somehow find another ex-Marine – and Jun-hee.

Six-legged Pentathlon is the game, and with their legs tied together, each member takes turns playing a mini-game at every ten-meter mark. If you win, the team can move onto the next. There are 10 minigames in total and after choosing which ones they’ll play, the games start.

Those who go first are studied by others, trying to work out which games take longer and the best strategies to take. In the midst of this, they notice that one of the Soldiers are actually actively shooting those in the coffins.

In the midst of this, after the first set of people die, the games look set to continue and the different leaders rally their respective teams up as best they can.

The Episode Review

So we have a brand new game and it seems like In-ho is setting out to sabotage Gi-hun as best he can. Whether our protagonist will cotton on that he’s actually playing with him and messing the game up – especially given Oh Il-Nam’s inclusion in the game – is anyone’s guess, but it definitely sets things up for a dramatic spike in tension to ensue.

As for the rest of the players, we get to meet a fair few of them now and there are some decent people in this line-up… that also feel very similar to those from season 1.

Thanos feels like a poor man’s Deok-soo, the shaman is basically a wilder version of Mi-nyeo, and we even have a similar friend to Gi-hun too. In a way, the show hasn’t really done enough to differentiate itself from the first season, and we’re also seeing less of Jun-ho now too, now that the games have begun properly.

However, everything is set up for some big drama to ensue from here on out ,and with the longest episode up next, we’ll have to wait and see what happens next!