Make no mistake, Squid Game Season 2 is dark, and after the first season’s onslaught of calamitous challenges, it has one game that was (almost) too tough to watch: Mingle.
I remember exactly how I felt watching the first season of Squid Game: I was arrogant, ready to enjoy the thrills of blood-soaked Takeshi’s Castle-esque violence – until the first body dropped, and the sound of them hitting the gravelly sand made my heart sink. The vicarious panic set in; can you actually imagine the terror of sprinting and halting for your life?
The rest of the Netflix series did little to allay the horror; Dalgona was unbearably stressful to watch, Glass Bridge made my palms sweat, and the grim inevitability that undercut every game of Marbles left my tears on the constant brink of free-fall.
Season 2 has been an (un)pleasant surprise. Not only has it found a satisfying way to continue the story, but it’s somehow upped the emotional ante with every game, and one really got under my skin.
Mingle is the meanest Squid Game challenge yet
Mingle is the final game we see in Squid Game Season 2. The rules are simple: the players are asked to stand on a rotating platform. When it stops, they’re told to assemble groups of a specific number and run to a nearby room; sometimes it’s six people, other times it’s just two.
Crucially, there’s only 50 rooms, so sometimes there aren’t any spaces left for the remaining players, and the pairings always leave odd numbers. What do you think happens to those who don’t make it in time? They’re shot and killed while the others watch from a small slot on their doors.
There’s so much about Mingle that’s upsetting, but it all boils down to a harrowing question: what would you do to survive?
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For example, Season 2’s mother-son duo, Geum-Ja and Yong-sik, promise to stick together. However, he’s whisked away by another pair needing a third person, and he barely resists, accepting his own survival and his mother’s death (thankfully, she survives).
In another scene, Hyun-ju grabs her closest friend and runs over to a room – but she loses her grip, and before she can get back up, another man pushes Hyun-ju inside with the others and locks the door. Moments later, Hyun-ju watches as life slips away from her friend’s eyes in a hail of bullets.
The whole thing is traumatizing; think of how scared those who lost the game felt in the seconds before they were killed; frantically running around, vision blurred by tears and stress, tripping over bullet-riddled corpses for the last round, begging for mercy until they’re put down.
Usually, I’m able to rationally assess each game and whether or not I could win, but I found Mingle too awful to imagine; what if I had to choose between two friends? What if I was left on my own, and the only way I could survive was to throw a pensioner to the floor and take their spot?
It doesn’t matter how strong your allegiances are: Mingle doesn’t just rely on you being a good person – it’s counting on you corrupting yourself simply to live.
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.
