Squid Game Season 3 Episode 2 May Be The Best In The Whole Series

This article contains spoilers for "Squid Game" season 3, episode 2, "The Starry Night."

Whenever "Squid Game" introduces a new deadly playground game, viewers know to expect mayhem. Since the show is already in its third and final season, however, fans have started to become accustomed to its tricks. In my opinion, some of the games in "Squid Game" season 2 were fairly underwhelming, to the point that I started to suspect that "Squid Game" creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, who's admitted to being a bit sick of the series, may have run out of ideas. But then came "The Starry Night."

"Squid Game" season 3, episode 2 is the cue for me to eat my cynical words with a generous side order of crow. The team preparations and frantic pre-game bartering for the Hide and Seek game have already played out in episode 1, so "The Starry Night" has the luxury of diving right in. First, the blue team of key-wielding hiders enters the playing area, which is an eerie "starlit" maze littered with crude nursery rooms. Soon, the knife-wielding red seeker team follows, their lives depending on their ability to kill at least one blue player before the timer runs out.  

The first big game of season 3 is bloody and dramatic enough to blow just about every game that came before it out of the water. Just as importantly, its sweaty desperation and abject horror tap directly into the examination of social injustice and humanity's basest instincts that helped make "Squid Game" season 1 such a massive hit. With such building blocks at its disposal, it's no wonder that "The Starry Night" is "Squid Game" rejuvenated — a tour de force that might very well be the finest hour of television the South Korean survival show has to offer.

With some exceptions — notably, fraudulent shaman Seon-nyeo's (Chae Kook-hee) nascent cult and the outsider trio of Cho Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), the heavily pregnant Kim Jun-hee (Jo You-ri), and the elderly Jang Geum-ja (Kang Ae-shim) — most blues decide to ride it out on their own. This becomes a problem when they discover that the game requires cooperation. All blues carry one of the three different keys that open the various doors on the arena, and only Hyun-ju, Jun-hee, and Geum-ja luck out and start the game with a complete set. Of course, this advantage is immediately negated when the group sustains some injuries and Jun-hee goes into labor ... 

The red seeker team has its own troubles. Their ultimate "kill or be killed" scenario plays out in every shade of crimson, as some find out that they don't have what it takes to take a life. Others have their eyes on a very particular target, while others still discover the hard way that some desperate blues are extremely prepared to fight back. 

Apart from the fact that the game's bloody nature and hectic pace make the episode a true nail-biter, the Hide and Seek game is also a thrilling (if mentally exhausting) watch because it's absolutely packed with the socioeconomic disparity metaphors "Squid Game" is so fond of. From the disproportionate resources the players start the game with to every desperate ploy and stab in the back, you can pick just about any moment in the game, knowingly stroke your chin, and go, "Yes ... society." Like most other things in "Squid Game," it's heavy-handed — but the tension and sheer sensory barrage of "The Starry Night" are proof that when the show's big ideas work, they work.

Combined with the on-screen brutality, the episode's numerous emotional hooks allow it to craft an air of fear and insecurity where no one seems truly safe (which, of course, proves to be painfully correct). I'm not going to single out any individual shocking deaths or despicable deeds here. If you've seen the episode, you know how good it is at tugging the viewers' heartstrings by teasing redemption and offering death instead, so to describe all of the Hide and Seek game's pivotal moments would be to describe just about every single second of the whole game. 

Somehow, the episode even finds a way to further wreck the one character who's virtually guaranteed to survive until the final episode: Our protagonist, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae). Cleverly, the episode gets around his plot invulnerability issue by focusing on tormenting his spirit instead. Already a reclusive mess after the failed season 2 revolt and Park Jung-bae's (Lee Seo-whan) death, the single-minded Gi-hun puts all his anger and frustration into a spirited attempt to chase down and kill Kang Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul) ... and realizes a little too late that he, as the orchestrator of the attack, is at least as guilty of his friend's death as the cowardly fake Marine. Regardless of what happens to Gi-hun going forward, he will remember the mental anguish of this episode's events for the rest of his days ... which, come to think of it, may also apply to the viewer.