Be warned, spoilers for Netflix's Squid Game lie ahead.
Korean dystopia series Squid Game has been making some serious noise on Netflix. Since its release in mid-September, it has been consistently on the Top 10 and even recently usurped Bridgerton for the streaming platform’s biggest launch ever. A second season is a given but, before we end up in a Rege-Jean Page situation, the show’s lead star shares whether or not he would reprise his role again.
Among the many doomed characters at the heart of Squid Game, none are as central as Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung-jae). He's a gambler and, like all the rest, in serious debt. And even though he desperately needs the game’s prize money for himself and his family, it’s the way he shows his humanity in a dehumanized game that ties all the show’s lofty themes together. With expectation rising for a potential second season, the actor confirmed he would come back if asked, though it depends on factors outside his control. He told Entertainment Weekly:
Because I've received so much love and support from [viewers], of course I have to play him again if there is a season 2. But at this point I don't know anything about how the story is going to turn out, or how the characters are going to change, or if there is going to be any new characters adding to the series. I don't know anything right now. And I also don't know whether if Gi-hun's role was still be the main role or like a minor role on the side. But whatever it's going to be, of course I would have to say yes.
Lee Jung-jae might not know the particulars of Season 2, but it seems crazy to imagine the show continuing without his character. The first season's finale finished on a bit of a cliffhanger as far as Seong Gi-hun is concerned. The implication was that he chose to not board the airplane to his daughter in America and might even be going to track down and dismantle the killing games that had so destroyed his outlook on his fellow human beings. If the show doesn't pursue his story further even just a little bit, and simply has a bunch of new players for us to watch be brutalized, it would all but confirm some critiques that the gore outweighs the intentions.
There are in fact so many questions left lingering from Season 1, not just for Seong Gi-hun, that a Season 2 spent answering them all is very likely. The show's creator/writer/director spoke recently about a second season potential, and he already has some ideas concerning Front Man. And if that pans out, it wouldn't really make sense to leave out Seong Gi-hun if the masked figure is still in the picture.
A Squid Game Season 2, even if greenlit tomorrow, would still be a long ways off. In the meantime, I guess we'll all just have to practice our dalgona candy cutting skills like the rest of the show's cast.
