Squid Game Season 2 ending explained – Does Gi-hun die?

By the end of Squid Game Season 2, a ragtag group of contestants attempt to stage a coup against the guards and find the Front Man – but it goes disastrously wrong. Put it this way, Season 3 could be bleak.

After the opening episodes, the set-up of Squid Game Season 2 is relatively simple: Seong Gi-hun returns to the games as Player 456, while Detective Hwang Jun-ho desperately tries to find the island with the help of Captain Park and a crew of armed mercenaries.

The games are as violent and calamitous as you’d expect; many die in Red Light, Green Light, the Six-Legged Pentathlon wipes out a few groups, and plenty more die in Mingle. Tensions bubble over into the main hall, too, with casualties in a brutal, bloody bathroom fight.

Season 2 Episode 7, the finale of Netflix’s new season, is jaw-dropping. Some of it you may see coming, other parts will leave you stunned – and here’s how it goes down.

How does Squid Game Season 2 end?

Squid Game Season 2 ends with Oh Young-il returning to his duties as the Front Man and punishing Gi-hun by murdering his friend Jung-bae.

The finale opens with a “special game” in the wake of the bathroom brawl. With the remaining contestants divided over whether or not to keep going, those in favor of continuing the games attack those against after the lights go out. It’s a massacre, with blood spilled all across the room.

However, Gi-hun has a plan: he convinces his allies to hide under the beds until the guards intervene to stop the violence. As they scan the dead bodies, they grab their guns, shoot them, and leave one alive so he can take them to the control room.

Gi-hun, Jung-bae, Young-il, Hyun-ju, Dae-ho, and a few others pick up guns and make their way to the staircases, where a firefight ensues against countless guards. They hold them off long enough for Gi-hun and Jung-bae to make it to the next level, where they’re confronted by more armed guards, and it quickly becomes a stalemate.

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As the rest of the group runs out of ammo, Young-il takes two men to help Gi-hun. Hyun-ju asks Dae-ho to run back to the hall to collect more ammo, but he’s too frightened to come back. By the time Hyun-ju runs downstairs to find him, the remaining contestants are caught by the guards; more specifically, three of them are executed, one of them kills himself.

The guards enter the main hall to restore order, and just as Hyun-yu is about to open fire, Geum-ja stops her. “You can’t die like this,” she pleads.

Meanwhile, Gi-hun gives Young-il his remaining ammo so he can flank the guards, not realizing it was all part of his elaborate plan. Gi-hun kills his two helpers and instructs the guards to wrap things up before getting back into his black suit, complete with the mask.

Gi-hun and Jung-bae surrender (still oblivious to the fact that Young-il is the Front Man). “Player 456, did you have fun playing the hero? Look closely at the consequences of your little hero game,” the Front Man says, before shooting Jung-bae in the chest. Gi-hun screams as the Front Man walks away, and the guards scan his friend’s dead body.

How much money is left in the pot?

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By the end of Squid Game Season 2, there should be 41.1 billion won in the piggy bank. If all of the remaining 45 players vote to end the games in Season 3, they’d take home over 900 million each.

The finale doesn’t give us a final prize amount, nor does it outright say how many people died. However, with some crafty pausing, I think I worked it out. When Gi-hun and his allies stage the coup, there are still 52 contestants.

By my count, seven die in the firefights against the guards: Jung-bae, the two men who followed Young-il, and four men on the staircases. Squid Game Season 3 will confirm exactly how many contestants are remaining, but that’s a decent estimate for now.

What will happen to Gi-hun?

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It’s unclear exactly what will happen to Gi-hun in Season 3, but there are three options: he’ll be executed (unlikely), he’ll be forced to re-enter the games as Player 456 (likeliest), or he’ll be tied up or perhaps even made to participate in the games as a guard (the most interesting choice).

One thing is clear: Squid Game Season 3 will be the end of his story. Speaking to THR, the show’s creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said: “When I was thinking about the idea for the ending of Season 3, I think it sort of naturally came to me that this was the finale.

“I believed that with that story, I was able to tell everything that I wanted to tell through the story of Squid Game and also in the perspective of Gi-hun as a character, and I thought that we don’t need any further stories from here.”

In another interview with Entertainment Weekly, he also said: “I wanted to tell the story of what happened to Gi-hun after where we leave him at the end of Season 1 and what he does, what kind of actions he takes in order to put a stop to these games.

“As creator, writer, and director, it was almost my mission or my role to further tell that story. And I wanted to repay all of the love that we had received in one way or another… the story that I both wanted to tell and that I am capable of telling through Gi-hun, it has been told with Season 3.”

Who does Captain Park work for?

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While unconfirmed, it’s clear that Captain Park works for the Front Man and protects people from discovering the island where Squid Game takes place.

Captain Park was always a bit suspicious from the beginning. We know he found Jun-ho when the Front Man (his brother, lest we forget) shot him off the side of a cliff, and he’s been helping him to track down the island ever since. Could it be that it was easier to befriend him and continually throw him off the scent than never see him again?

He’s incredibly eager to help through Season 2, but he betrays the crew in the finale. During a stormy night, one of the men finds the captain tinkering with a drone that had been recording footage around one of the islands.

He’s immediately suspicious, and when he questions him, Captain Park stabs him in the stomach and throws him overboard.

Is Hwang Jun-ho alive?

For now, Hwang Jun-ho is alive – but his life is in grave danger after Captain Park’s betrayal in the finale.

We know they’ve been getting close to the games; why else would the captain be so desperate to erase the footage of the island and the booby-trap explosion?

It’s unclear how Season 3 will unfold, but if the captain gets his way, Jun-ho and his men will never set foot on that island or anywhere else ever again.

What’s the next game?

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The next game hasn’t been confirmed, but there’s an exciting tease in the post-credits scene: it appears to be a twist on Red Light, Green Light, and there are two of the giant mannequins.

It’s possible it’s a version of the bleep test, with the remaining players forced to run back and forth until they can’t anymore, with each mannequin monitoring their speed and whether or not they make it over the line in time, but this is pure speculation right now.

Squid Game Season 2 is streaming on Netflix now. If you’ve already finished it, check out our list of the best TV shows of 2024.