Squid Game’s creator, director and writer, Hwang Dong-hyuk, has broken down the show’s second season, recalling the most difficult scene that made everyone “really sick.”
Netflix’s hit South Korean thriller — which sees hundreds of cash-strapped individuals compete in deadly children’s games for a life-changing sum of money — returned for its second season on December 26.
The new season welcomes back Lee Jung-jae as Player 456 Seong Gi-hun, who infiltrates the contest to try and put and end to it once and for all.
*Spoilers follow – you have been warned*
After entering the contest again, Gi-hun is faced with a new set of games he must pass in order to survive.
One of them includes a six-legged race, where players are brought into an indoor room full of sand. Divided into groups of five, contestants must complete a series of timed challenges while running around a mini track. While waiting their turn, the rest of the teams are seated in the middle cheering each other on.
In a new interview with The Wrap, Hwang and Lee Byung-hun, who plays Hwang In-ho/Front Man, recalled filming the scene.
“That was the only game where participants root for each other. I thought [while writing the game], if we can increase the opportunities for people to support and root for each other, society will get better,” Hwang said.
Lee remembered the scene being “the most fun, but also the most exhausting.”
“Every time one group did a run around, [the set] was completely filled with dust, and it was hard to breathe,” he said, with Hwang adding: “Everyone got really sick. As soon as I said ‘Cut,’ everyone started coughing, including me. It took more than two weeks to shoot the scene.”
While viewers have been mostly impressed by the follow-up and its new array of characters, they were left divided over the action-packed finale, which ended with a cliffhanger teeing up what will be the third and final season in 2025.
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Addressing fan anger over the season’s divisive ending, Hwang told Entertainment Weekly: “Of course, those watching would feel like, ‘Oh, no. What’s going to happen next? Give us the next episode right now.’
“But I think that because, at that moment, Gi-hun loses everything, he fails all of his attempts [to stop the games], that is when he goes through yet another character transition. So I thought that was the best place to end the season.“
