He manages to get Sae-byeok to spill her intel and guesses what the game is right before it starts. But Sang-woo refuses to look back and instead focuses his energy on the game. Gi-hun bonds with the old man, grows nostalgic over the ephemera of childhood, and praises Sang-woo as the town prodigy. However, they spend the downtime before the next game very differently.
From the moment they reunite in the facility, they band together and bring Ali (199) and the old man (001) into the group. Mi-nyeo is the type to scream and shout until she gets what she wants, while Sae-byeok will sit back and sneak in after Mi-nyeo at the last minute (of course, they would find each other annoying).īut the most complicated relationship is between the two players who knew each other before the game: Gi-hun and Sang-woo. Sae-byeok plans to go at it alone, since her whole thing is that she only trusts herself. Mi-nyeo tries to win people over through over-familiarization (calling players “unnie” and “oppa”) and tries to use her allies to get what she wants. They both don’t give a crap about anyone’s opinions and are good game strategists. Hear me out: I see Sae-byeok and Mi-nyeo as two sides of the same coin. Even if she’s the comic relief, she’s good enough at strategy to stick around for a while. The lighter she smuggles initially plays for a quick gag but ends up helping her crush the honeycomb challenge and earn a spot on Deok-su’s team. After she’s promised intel, she covers for Sae-byeok in the air vents. She figures out the guards’ hierarchy and demands to speak to a square-masked guard about bathroom privileges. She knows that she should get the strongest player (Deok-su) to protect her. She’s loud, abrasive, shameless, and curses a lot, so Sae-byeok and Deok-su write her off as an ally. We also get to spend some time with Han Mi-nyeo (212), the woman who claimed she had a child waiting to be named but also voted to continue the game after finding out how much money was up for grabs. She really is the most effective player this round, besides the doctor (111) who gets an elicit hint. (Is triangle the easiest, or is the circle? I vote triangle). Since she’s from North Korea, she doesn’t recognize the game, but when Sang-woo identifies it must be dalgona (honeycomb cookie) based on the melted sugar, she follows him to the easiest honeycomb. Between the Terminator-esque ability to stay awake through reintroduction to stash away a knife and her air vent recon, Sae-byeok gets a clue for what the next round has in store. Are the guards prisoners themselves? Are they getting paid? Were they recruited similarly to the game? It’s fascinating stuff to theorize about, but also a lot of lore to fit into nine episodes.Īs for the players, Sae-byeok is the episode’s MVP. Finding out that there are humans behind the guards’ masks opens up a whole new field of questions about how the game is run. And there’s the authoritarian mandate to stay anonymous, sealed with a bullet to the head, as is the case of the square-masked guard when his face is revealed. Outside of interacting with the players, the guards’ existence has a very high-tech prison feel, with scanned masks, no-nonsense gray walls, and solitary cells. He even grabs a square guard mask, so hopefully, he’ll be able to move more freely. Despite several close calls, Jun-ho manages not to get caught, and figures out the hierarchy of the guards: Circle guards are the lowest ranking, followed by triangles, and square guards are the highest.
Before entering the game, Jun-ho texts his chief a super casual note, like he’s just calling out rather than infiltrating a colossal operation where he could probably use some backup. The episode starts where the last left off: Detective Jun-ho sneaks into the car carrier ship and incapacitates a guard with a circle symbol on his mask, steals his uniform, plants his own police ID on him, and dumps his body into the sea. Despite all the horror of the first round, this game can get much, much worse. However, I feel like the players still make their “voluntary decision” to play with not enough information. Now that everyone’s back in the facility for good, the exposition has melted away, and the games are the focus. Despite the financial and personal struggles of the main characters that we saw in “ Hell,” the fact that many people returned and embraced the chance that they may die is notable. That’s the percentage of players who returned to the game.
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