Squid Game Season 1 cost showrunner Hwang Dong-hyuk blood, sweat, and tears — literally. In 2024, he told the BBC he lost about “eight or nine” teeth while making the first season. Teeth are a finite resource, so why would he come back for not one but two seasons after that? “Money,” he said.
Hwang developed enough story to cover Gi-hun coming back to the deadly Games for one more round. All 13 episodes were all filmed in one batch, but last summer Netflix announced it would split the episodes into Season 2 and Season 3, released seven months apart. As a result of this, Season 2 was exciting, but disappointing, as it was really only half the story. Now, we have the other half, and it’s somehow simultaneously satisfying and unsatisfying, finishing the saga with only a few hitches.
