Squid Game Season 2 hidden detail makes Russian roulette scene even more sinister

The Recruiter was there for a good time, not a long time in Squid Game Season 2, and if you need more evidence, a hidden detail shows how he made the Russian roulette rounds even more sinister. 

Arguably the best (and most tense) challenge of Squid Game’s second chapter unfolded before the latest batch of 456 players stepped foot on that island. 

In Episode 1, after capturing Mr. Kim (Kim Pub-lae) and his associate Choi Woo-seok (Jeon Seok-ho), The Recruiter (Gong Yoo) toys with them in his typical sociopathic fashion. 

He ties them up, gags them, sits them face-to-face, and puts ‘Nessun Dorma’ on blast. Then, he forces them to play Russian roulette until one of them dies. And if that weren’t dark enough…

Russian roulette odds aren’t what they seem in Squid Game Season 2

An eagle-eyed Squid Game fan has spotted a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in Season 2 that shows The Recruiter was using dummy bullets, seemingly to torment Mr. Kim and Woo-seok for longer. 

Think back to that scene, and you’ll remember that in the first round, he only loads one bullet in the revolver. This is tense enough, but The Recruiter finds it “boring.” So he loads four more bullets, raising the odds of death from one-in-six to five-in-six.

But as said by a Redditor, their chances of death in the first game are actually zero, and are only one-in-six for the second – Mr. Kim just got really unlucky. 

“In The Recruiter’s first Russian roulette game between the loan sharks, if you look closely you can see that the recruiter actually loaded a dummy bullet (you can tell by the ‘hole’, it’s caused by the primer already being hit by the firing pin),” they explained. 

“Then in the second game when they play with five bullets, the recruiter adds three more dummies and one real bullet (you can tell as it’s flat, so the primer hasn’t already been hit). So there was actually only a 1/6 chance of dying.”

They went on to question why The Recruiter did this, saying it would have been “a bit awkward” if he’d told them their high chances of dying but they were still alive after several rounds. 

“Funnily enough though, the boss died anyway on the first shot even with a 1/6 chance. The Recruiter must have been like, ‘Hm, that wasn’t meant to happen so quick,’” they concluded. 

Fans have been quick to share their theories on The Recruiter’s motives, and many of them highlight what becomes clear in Squid Game Season 2: he’s a sociopath who lives for the games. 

“You probably have it spot on,” said one. “The Recruiter wanted to watch them suffer, he didn’t want for the game to end in one or two rounds.”

Another wrote, “It’s in keeping with the themes, as well. The games aren’t about fairness, skill, or even luck. They’re about the entertainment of those putting them on.”

“Nice catch. He is sadistic, hence the scratch card/food challenge. It was just a fun afternoon for him,” added a third. 

“There he got to torture two guys, by mock execution, making them decide who he is going to shoot. He got unlucky with the five bullets, that 1/6 odds came up early.”

Squid Game Seasons 1-2 are streaming on Netflix now. You can read everything we know about Season 3, our predictions for the third and final chapter, and which Squid Game characters might meet their grisly end.