【Title/标题】
‘Squid Game’ Stars Lee Jung-jae and Lee Byung-hun Break Down ‘Fun’ Season 2 Twist for Gi-hun and The Front Man, Plus That Game-Changer Finale
【Source/来源】
Media Outlet/媒体：Variety
Written by/作者：Matt Minton
【Transcript/文稿】
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from “Squid Game” Season 2 finale, now streaming on Netflix.
Facing betrayal from an inside man infiltrating the Squid Games is nothing new for Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) within the twisted “Squid Game” universe.
When the first season of the Korean drama released on Netflix in 2021, watching Player 001, the old man Oh Il-nam (Oh Yeong-su), be revealed as the creator of the games came as a total surprise for both Gi-hun and the viewer. But in “Squid Game” Season 2, which dropped Thursday, the unexpected involvement of head game guard The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), whose real name is In-ho, is handled quite differently when he joins the games as Player 001 upon Gi-hun’s reentry into the competition.
In-ho uses the fake name Young-il when he introduces himself to Gi-hun, who has returned to the games in “Squid Game” Season 2 to try to take them down from the inside, and conceals his real identity and motives while slowly attempting to gain Gi-hun’s trust and build a group of likeminded players.
“I think it’s kind of fun because only the audience knows that it’s him so it’s more tense for them to watch him in the game, forming this alliance with Gi-hun,” Lee Jung-jae tells Variety. “I think all the viewers will be thinking about is when Gi-hun will finally realize that he is The Front Man, or what game he can go until without revealing his identity.”
When Lee Byung-hun first met with “Squid Game” creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk to discuss possible directions for Season 2, they casually speculated over drinks about In-ho’s backstory. While Season 2 ultimately doesn’t show his past — choosing instead to give details through dialogue about In-ho’s late wife who died of illness when they were destitute — Lee Byung-hun kept thinking about how his character entered the Squid Game the first time he played and, like Gi-hun after him, won the competition, and how his spirit has changed since.
“He’s really seen kind of the bottom pit of humanity and in the midst of the violence and desperation of Squid Game, his hope for humanity and the world has really dwindled,” Lee Byung-hun explains. “He has this very pessimistic view of the people in the world around him.”
Another one of the returning “Squid Game” characters is detective Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), who teams up with Gi-hun at the beginning of Season 2 to try and find the Squid Game island again. Jun-ho made his way there in Season 1 searching for his missing brother, In-ho, later finding out that his brother has gone from a former competitor in the games to becoming The Front Man himself. Jun-ho was shot by his brother upon this revelation in Season 1 and barely survived falling off the cliffs of the Squid Game island. When he teams up with Gi-hun to try to get back to the island again and end the games in Season 2, he decides not to tell Gi-hun that The Front Man is his brother.
Showing In-ho playing the games alongside Gi-hun, who still fights to believe in the best in people and humanity — despite the cruelty of the Squid Game — pits two opposing characters together. Lee Byung-hun was tasked to act out much of this subtly as In-ho (who watched Gi-hun from behind a mask in Season 1) studies Gi-hun through the various games while forming a bond with him and not letting his true thoughts out.
Lee Byung-hun describes how “when [In-ho] meets Gi-hun, who is still trying to break down the system, who returns to the games to be able to change something, because he still has hope for humanity — I think In-ho really wants to break Gi-hun’s spirit, and that’s why you see him observing him throughout the games and very meticulously making a plan to dismantle a lot of what he is doing.”
