By Just over three years ago, the Korean series “Squid Game” caught the world’s attention and became Netflix’s most watched single TV season of all time – a record it has upheld ever since.
Now, it has finally returned with a seven-episode second season which became available on Netlix a few hours ago and will potentially be the streamer’s biggest launch of the year.
With over twenty reviews counted so far on Metacritic, the title is at 60/100 – down from the 69/100 the first season scored. Most of the complaints stem from issues like pacing and too much left open for season 3 to clear up
Here’s a sampling of reviews:
“The seven new episodes of Squid Game are stunning, shocking, heartbreaking, and even exhilarating. Squid Game Season 2 is good! It isn’t quite as good as the spectacular first season, but coming up a smidge short of utter genius means Squid Game is still pretty great.” – Meghan O’Kefe, Decider
“Boasting several mind-blowing twists, these seven episodes advance the story to what will undoubtedly be an electric conclusion when Season 3 debuts in 2025. Additionally, the show is a reminder that it is not radical to protest injustice. After all, dissent might be the only thing to save us.” – Aramide Tinubu, Variety
“While this season of Squid Game successfully stretches beyond the confines of the first, it excels for many of the same reasons as before, namely its ability to portray our worst qualities – and to really twist the knife when it counts.” – Annabel Nugent, The Independent
“While this latest run of Squid Game feels like it would have been better served if it was cut down and combined with the upcoming third and final season, the series is still full of incisive commentary, well-founded rage, and fleeting moments of camaraderie. Its pacing may leave much to be desired, but at least its central rebellious spirit is alive and well. That said, it would be nice if it still had both.” – Elijah Gonzalez, Empire
“For all of its unevenness, particularly as it is warming up to the proper action, there is one big twist that really works, though whether it is distinct enough from what happens in the first series is unclear. And when you think you know where it is going, it turns away from its trajectory, upping the ante and finding its feet. What a shame it takes so long to get there though. Series three has some cleaning up to do.” – Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian
“I was more than ready to give Squid Game season 2 an enthusiastic four-star recommendation based on the early episodes, but a loss of momentum towards the end and a strong sense of incompleteness has brought that down a notch.” – David Craig, Radio Times
“The new episodes are still well-crafted in many ways, even if they’ve succumbed to streaming bloat, with them essentially functioning as half a season, whose story will be completed sometime next year. But they never argue forcefully enough for their need to exist” – Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone
“But now, as the long-awaited second of three planned seasons premieres, it’s clear that the Squid Game-industrial complex has undermined Squid Game the work of political art, in ways both tangential to Hwang’s storytelling and intrinsic to it.” – Judy Berman, TIME
“Squid Game” Season 2 is now available on Netflix everywhere.
The post The “Squid Game” S2 Reviews Are In appeared first on Dark Horizons.
