Squid Game season 2 episode 1 recap: finding the salesman

Squid Game season 2 marks the return of Netflix's global phenomenon.

Season 1 winner, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), may have proven victorious, but now he wants revenge. Despite the 45.6 billion won prize, he instead decides to track down the people behind the game in a bid to take them down and end the games forever. The cliffhanger ending of season 1 saw Gi-hun about to board a flight, but when he spots the salesman (Gong Yoo) who recruited him at the airport, he decides he can't leave. And this is where Squid Game season 2 returns.

Here's a recap of everything that happened in Squid Game season 2 episode 1.

The episode opens on Seong Gi-hun sporting the striking red hairdo from season 1 finale. Walking through a busy airport, his phone rings. It's the salesman he just spotted and he says, “What do you think you’re doing? You have nowhere to go.” Gi-hun panics and looks around him. The voice continues to tells Gi-hun that he’ll regret not getting on the plane. Gi-hun threatens to find him and leaves the airport, instead of boarding his flight. In the back of a cab, Gi-hun asks the driver to take him to Seoul.

In a petrol station, he buys a box cutter and heads to the bathroom to strip off all his clothes. Frantically searching for a tracker under his skin, he finds something behind his ear. Without hesitation, he cuts into his skin, pulls it out, and flushes it down the sink.

Meanwhile, in a hospital bed, Detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) has a flashback to being shot by Front Man, who had revealed himself to be his brother. A woman yells out as Jun-ho opens his eyes, seemingly for the first time since being there.

The scene cuts to two years later. Jun-ho is back to work as a traffic cop. A man approaches him, his ex-chief, angry at his transfer. They go for lunch and the chief invites him back to major crimes. The chief says they searched the area that Jun-ho had described, but that he finds it hard to believe what Jun-ho is saying since there’s no evidence. The photos he sent didn’t arrive and he lost his phone falling into the ocean. When asked if he remembers what the guy who shot him looked like, he lies and says no.

That evening, a couple arrive at a motel. The lights are off and no-one’s answering. They argue and it cuts to a man watching the CCTV from inside, it’s Gi-hun. The buzzer in his apartment is frantically called, yet there’s no-one to be seen on any of his cameras. He goes to the door with a gun, and a little card comes under the door with the three symbols; circle, orange, square. The door opens and Front Man is there. He says, “Player 456, looking for these?” And holds up the two severed heads of the couple from outside. Gi-hun screams, and wakes up from his dream. But, his buzzer goes.

This time, a man arrives. He says they've been surveilling subway stations for Gi-hun, but they've not found the salesman he describes, the one playing the red and blue card game, ddakji. He wants them to do more, so he hands over a satchel of cash to fund it. He insists that the man will be recruiting now and he doesn’t want to miss the chance of catching him. Outside, the man returns to a van full of men. He informs them he needs everyone for this job. He says he doesn’t believe a word of it, but Gi-hun has put a reward of 1.1 billion won if they can find the ddakji player. He offers the finder half the reward.

Meanwhile, Jun-ho goes to a harbour and meets a fisherman on his boat. They head out looking for the island together. It turns out though that this is the man who saved him after he was shot.

The man who met with Gi-hun works at Sunshine Capital - an inconspicuous office building. He gathers a team of men to track down the ddakji man for Gi-hun. They’re instructed to search each station across the Seoul Metro. Both Gi-hun’s team and Jun-ho and the fisherman search over weeks, to no avail. One night, as they’re sailing, Jun-ho says he’s finally quitting his mission to find the island.

During the search in the subway, the man who met with Gi-hun, the boss, is paired up with his friend, but they get into a debate. The boss says they wouldn’t be looking for nothing given Gi-hun's willing to spend billions on the search. But, as the partner complains that the man is not real, they hear a slap. It's the salesman on the opposite platform playing ddakji with another man. They call Gi-hun. He asks them to follow him until he can get there.

The man who was given the card by the salesman after playing ddajki is being called by his girlfriend, Jun-hee. He doesn’t answer, but as she ignores the call, she looks down at an identical card that she has also received. As she blocks the call, she appears to be at a pregnancy clinic, but when the doctor comes out to call her in, she’s gone.

The boss and his partner follow the salesman. First, he goes to a bakery and buys lots of bread rolls, then 100 scratch cards. They tail him to a park. At the park, the man approaches a homeless man and hands him a bread roll and a scratch card. He says, you can only choose one. The man chooses the scratch card, but loses. The salesman continues to offer the choice around the park. Sometimes they choose the bread roll, but more often they gamble with the scratch card. Finally he stops his game and proceeds to dump the bread rolls on the floor. When a man comes to take one, he stamps on it, then stamps on all of them in a frenzied and unexpected move.

As Gi-hun rushes to get to the men, he’s pulled over by the police. It’s Jun-ho, but he lets his young partner take the job. As he leaves, Jun-ho recognises Gi-hun's ID and looks suspicious. Meanwhile, the salesman leaves in a taxi and the men jump into another, following him to a strange location. At this point, the boss suggests the pair just take him down. He wants the reward and it's two against one. As they chase him down an alleyway, the salesman suddenly turns round and beats them with his briefcase.

At the police station, Jun-ho runs the ID and pulls up an image of Gi-hun. Suddenly, he remembers their conversation in the rain when he was looking for his brother and seeing him in the game. He writes down the address of Sunshine Capital, which is hopefully a lead to finding him.

Gi-hun arrives at the location of the men and finds only blood stains left behind. The salesman is watching from above. He's tied up and gagged the men and tells them they’re going to play a game of rock, paper, scissors, minus one. To play, they must use two hands, then take one back, if the one that remains wins, they win. If they lose, it’s Russian Roulette. A single bullet in a revolver, spun, and shot at the loser’s head. They play round after round, but no-one is shot. So, he loads more bullets into the gun. It gets to a final, intense round where the odds are no longer in their favour. As the boss and his partner put our their hands, the boss has the choice on whether he beats his partner, or loses. Instead, he chooses not to take a hand away at all meaning he automatically loses. The salesman turns to him and shoots him in the head.

That evening, Jun-ho goes to Sunshine Capital, but no-one’s there, so he breaks in. He finds the card inviting Gi-hun to the game. A man comes in and Jun-ho hides, he’s gathering weapons to look for the boss. In a drawer, he finds the address of the motel where Gi-hun is living.

When Gi-hun arrives back at the motel, the lights are on and the salesman is waiting for him. Again, he says he should’ve gotten on the plane. Gi-hun says he changed his mind when he saw him. He says he’s been trying to find him to thank him for inviting him to join the game that he won. He wants to speak to the people that hired him. The salesman begins to tell a story. He says he used to burn bodies at the games, then he was given a gun, and at one game he was told to shoot his own father, so he did. Gi-hun calls him a lap dog and insults him saying he doesn’t really understand the game because he’s never actually played. The salesman suggests then, that they play a game right there together.

Outside the motel, Jun-ho shows up, but he stays outside to keep watch. The salesman says they should play Russian Roulette, taking turns, but never spinning it, so that after six goes, someone definitely dies. By the time it gets to the fifth go, no-one has died. The salesman says he think Gi-hun will just shoot him and take what he needs to get to the people who hired him, but first he has to admit that he’s trash and he only won the game because he got lucky. Instead, Gi-hun decides to boldly fire the gun at himself, despite the 50/50 chance. He survives, meaning the salesman must shoot himself. And he does.