Squid Game – Season 2 Episode 5 Recap & Review

One More Game

Episode 5 of Squid Game season 2 begins with the next set of players continuing their minigames. Hyun-ju’s team manages to progress, with her working as a cheerleader and defacto leader for the misfits. Each of the players use their own motivations and reasons to progress, and despite the Spinning Top game looking like a lost cause, they do manage to win.

The games eventually continue all the way through to the final teams, which happen to be Gi-hun’s and a bunch of randoms. I wonder who will progress? Anyway, the group eventually reconvene back in the dorms, where we get some dialogue over how Hyun-ju is still pre-op and needs the money to help fund this. At the same time, Thanos intends to keep his tight-knit team in check and work out how to get the upper hand against the others.

Meanwhile, No-eul is grabbed by a couple of soldiers and thrown into her room by these crooks. No-eul does her best to fight them off, but they threaten her with a knife, calling her a commie and forcing her into submission.

Back to the games though, and with 110 players down, and many surviving, those left behind are split into camps of those who are grateful, and those who are disappointed that more haven’t passed to raise the prize funds. Well, the teams are once more given the vote to stay or go, starting with player 001 and working up.

Among those who choose to stay are Min-ho (who’s forced into it by his teammates), Jung-bae (who explains he has big debts), Yong-sik (again, extra debts due to loan sharks), and Hyun-ju. Jeong-dae unfortunately manages to push the people into chanting “one more game” and it becomes pretty unanimous from here on out that another game will take place.

There are ripples of distrust and disappointment among the many players after the inevitable result, as everybody is split into different camps. In the midst of this, Myung-gi is reprimanded for choosing to quit by Thanos and the thugs. Gi-hun though, knows what’s next and prepares for the night-time strikes. Once it’s lights out, he tells his teammates they need to take it in turns and keep watch.

Funnily enough, Yong-sik’s mum actually has a blade she’s hidden in her hair, which could come in handy later on down the line. 

In the morning, the third game is about to begin. As it does, Jun-hee launches his latest mission to set out and try to find Gi-hun. This coincides nicely with No-eul, sporting a nasty cut across her cheek, prepared to head out with the other soldiers for the next game.

So what is the third game? Well, it’s something called Mingle. The rules of this game include the middle platform rotating and when they hear a number, they have to form groups of that size and go into rooms. The door will close within 30 seconds so there’s not much of a strategy to be honest. Gi-hun, In-ho and the other defacto leaders all tell their respective teams they need to stay strong and not panic, as the game begins.

The Episode Review

Despite being the longest episode in the series, this is easily the slowest and to be honest, there isn’t a whole lot going on despite getting some backstory over the different characters. This time though, we kinda know what’s coming, especially if the marble game shows up, so the allure and mystery doesn’t quite hit in the same way.

The issues plaguing each of these characters is still a nice way of adding stakes to this, but similarly, we’ve also seen other plot threads take a backseat. Jun-ho and Woo-seok haven’t been featured much, although we do see them head out on a big operation to try and track down the island, so hopefully this bears some dramatic fruit.

However, the drama involving those players feels eerily similar to that from the first season. We get the thugs and the old woman (who’s like Il-nam) while we also get other outsiders like Hyun-ju, who’s ostracised from society just like Ali was.

Finally, we get Gi-hun and his friend. Sure, this time there’s Gi-hun wiser to what’s happening and more mature, but it just feels way too similar to season 1. Thankfully, the games are now slightly different, which helps, but we’ll have to wait and see exactly who will make it out in one piece here. So far, this hasn’t been as good as season 1.