Squid Game Season 2 left one huge unanswered question for Season 3

Squid Game Season 2 has raised plenty of questions for the third and final chapter to answer, but there’s one in particular Season 3 needs to address, and it’s all to do with the enigmatic Front Man. 

Here’s what we know about the mask-wearing Squid Game boss: his real name is Hwang In-ho; he’s the half brother of detective Hwang Jun-ho; he was a police officer who got fired; his wife and unborn child died; and he was once a player in the games. 

In Squid Game Season 2, he steps into the shoes of organizer Oh Il-nam, taking on the role of Player 001 under the fake name Young-il, seemingly to keep a closer eye on Seong Gi-hun, aka Player 456.

While this allows us to see a different side to the character, there’s still one glaring question the Netflix series needs to answer: how did In-ho become the Front Man? 

Squid Game Season 3 needs to answer the Front Man’s origins

Netflix

Given Squid Game Season 3 will also be the Netflix show’s last, this is a mystery we need it to answer. As it stands, it seems entirely out of character when taking In-ho’s past into consideration. 

Before his villain era, In-ho was seemingly a loving family man who would have done anything for those he loved. 

In Season 2, Jun-ho sits down with his mother and during their conversation it’s revealed that In-ho donated his kidney to save his brother. 

He also did everything in his power to save his wife after she developed acute cirrhosis. As they both thought about what treatment to move forward with, they found out his wife was pregnant. 

Doctors recommended terminating the pregnancy due to her diagnosis but she was determined to give birth, and In-ho wanted to support her. 

The entire family was struggling with money at the time, and since In-ho had already donated his kidney to Jun-ho, he couldn’t sell it.

Instead, he turned to less official loans, which led to him being fired from his job in the police force for accepting bribes. This led him to entering the 28th Squid Games in 2015 as Player 132, which he went on to win. 

Although he could’ve run off with the prize money, he returned as the overseer of the games. But why? The second chapter kept this a mystery, leading to speculation…

Squid Game Season 2 sparks new theories 

The leading theory is that he became disillusioned by everything that had happened and felt resentful to those around him. And this was what drove him to his current position as Front Man.

We know that his wife and unborn child died as a result of her illness. We’ve also established his remaining family were unable to help him financially at that time.

Following his transformation, in Squid Game Season 1, he demonstrated his unwavering dedication to the concept of equality. 

This was evident in Episode 5 when he catches a group of Pink Soldiers who had been giving Player 111 tips to win the games in exchange for his services as a surgeon, getting him to harvest the organs of eliminated plays to sell on the black market. 

But it wasn’t the organ harvesting that ticked In-ho off. As he says to one of the soldiers before shooting him, “Whether you sell off organs from the dead, or devour them, I don’t give a damn. However, you ruined the most crucial element of this place: equality. 

“Everyone is equal in these games. Players get to compete in a fair game under the same conditions. These people suffered from inequality and discrimination out in the world, and we offer them one last chance to fight on equal footing and win. But you have broken that principle.”

Netflix

What if he felt he was unfairly treated in the real world, and this is what drives his beliefs now? This theory was put forward by one Redditor, who highlighted In-ho’s struggles with his wife and family. 

They suggested that during his position as a police officer, he may have stumbled upon the Squid Game operation and realized he could make money from bribes to keep it under wraps, all with the intention of saving his wife. 

It was this cash that got him caught and fired, but thanks to the anonymous nature of the payments, the operations remained a secret. 

“His wife will still die without a liver and now not only does he have no legitimate form of income, he also can no longer accept bribes in the hope of buying an organ. So he decides to play the game,” they said. 

“He does win – but she dies while he’s playing the game. So now he has all this money but no real family, no wife or child, and no job. 

“He’s deeply traumatized by what he witnessed. He also knows that he is a prime target to be killed by the SG people because he knows too much, has cop ties, and a lot of money to launch a shut-down.

“Knowing this, he convinces them to make him the Front Man.”

Netflix

They went on to suggest that his reasons for entering the latest round in Squid Game Season 2 is to try and recruit Gi-hun as the new Front Man. 

In response to the post, another speculated whether he wants to turn Gi-hun into the new Front Man out of principle. 

“I also think the Frontman (Player 001) sees himself in Gi-hun, which is why he’s trying to break Gi-hun’s faith in humanity,” they wrote. 

“If Gi-hun breaks, and stops trying to stop the games, or even starts working for the games as another recruiter or maybe another Frontman, then the Frontman proves to himself that his choices have been right.”

Then there’s the theory that Front Man’s goals are secretly the same as Gi-hun’s – but he’s working from the inside to try and bring Squid Game down. 

However, if this is true, he’d have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify all of the terrible things he’s done up to this point. 

For now, all we can do is speculate, and hope that Squid Game Season 3 will answer this lingering question. Until then, check out our other Season 3 predictions, every Squid Game challenge ranked by difficulty, and other shows to get excited about in 2025.