Squid Game season 2 episode 5 recap: games within games

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 businessman 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 5.

Episode five begins with the second game — the six-legged pentathlon. It's time for the mother son team, including Player 120, Player 095, and Player 044 to compete for their lives. They successfully pass the first three mini-games, but as Player 044 tries to wrap the spinning top, she keeps failing. Player 120 slaps her round the face to make her see sense, and thankfully, it works.

Player 120 has the last game, she must kick the sack five times, and she asks everyone in the room to turn around and not watch her. As they count the times they hear it get kicked, they realise she's managed it in her first go. They make it across the finish line with only a second to spare.

After this, more and more teams get through, but some still lose and die. On blood-stained tracks, it’s down to the last two teams, one of which is Gi-hun’s. The first three games, they complete in the first try buying them plenty of time. But then, it comes to Front Man (Player 001). As he struggles with the spinning top, he manages to throw it far behind them, wasting a lot of time. After three fails, he starts slapping himself in the face. Gi-hun tries to calm him down, but they have under a minute left. Finally, he gets the spinning top to spin.

At the fifth and final mini-game, Gi-hun is about to miss the fifth kick of the sack with not much time left on the clock. Front Man (Player 001) lunges forward to make sure he doesn’t miss it and they make it across with one second to spare. The other team don’t make it in time and are shot.

After the second game, the teams are talking about what happened. The mother (Player 149) asks why Player 120 made everyone turn round when it was her turn. She says she doesn’t feel quite done yet and that she has still some surgeries she wants to get done to fully transition. Having people watch her makes her uncomfortable.

The guards return to their room, but two of them rush Guard 011 as she’s going inside. A guard in surveillance covers up the CCTV. She tries to fight them off, but one of them gets out a knife and holds it to her face. He gives her a final warning to stop getting in their way and shooting the players when they’re trying to save organs.

Meanwhile, in the main room, the guards enter to reveal the results of the second game. The piggy bank is filled with the money of 110 dead players — 20.1 billion won to split between 255 remaining players, resulting in 73 million won for each remaining player. The players are angry and think that more people should’ve died, so they could win more money. The vote on whether they should continue begins again.

Front Man (Player 001) goes first and votes that he wants to stop now and go to the hospital to be with his wife. While the rest of the team seem to agree, Gi-hun’s friend doesn’t sound so sure. The mother (Player 149) begs her son (Player 007) to do the right thing and vote to leave, but he votes to stay. While some votes change, it’s still fairly even. Though Thanos's friend (Player 124) bullies a young guy, Player 125, into voting to stay.

Front Man (Player 001) steps forward to plead with the players to leave. The man with the 10 billion won debt (Player 100) steps forward and says that the 73 million won’t cover their debts and that they need to keep playing. He says if they play one more game, they can have at least 240 million each. The players being to agree, saying they’re just playing kids' games and a group of players start chanting for one more game. The vote continues and this time it’s not even close — 139 vote O to continue, while only 116 vote X to leave. Even Gi-hun’s friend voted to stay.

When asked, a woman (Player 380), part of Thanos’s team, tells the young guy (Player 125) she voted to stay because if she left she’d have to face something even scarier outside. Elsewhere, the son (Player 007) tells his mother (Player 149) he had to vote to stay because the prize money isn’t enough to cover his debt. He reveals he owes 100 million that he needs to pay it off by next month or he'll be killed.

The mother (Player 149) asks why Player 120 voted to stay. She reveals that when she told everyone that she was living as a woman and started her transition, everything was different. She was let go from her job as a soldier, her friends disappeared, and her mum and dad cut her off. The debt grew and life got harder. She says she’ll play one more and go to Thailand, finish her transition, and start life over again.

Thanos’s team gang up on the crypto guy (Player 333) and are angry that he voted to leave. Thanos says he owes him the money he lost, but Player 333 says the coin did go up in value, but Thanos just didn’t sell before it dropped. For lights out, Gi-hun barricades his team in and reveals that killing each other also adds to the piggy bank, so at night, they’re not safe. Front Man (Player 001) says he doesn’t believe it to be true, and Gi-hun tells him he doesn't understand the place the way Gi-hun does.

The mother (Player 149) gets up to go to the toilet. She pulls a knife out of her hair grip to show her son that she can protect herself, if she needs to. Jun-lee (Player 222) goes with her, but the guards try to stop them from entering. The mother pleads with the guard and they let them through. Player 120 asks to come too.

Gi-hun sits up keeping guard. His friend wakes up and apologises that he didn’t lend him money when Gi-hun asked. He says he wasn’t mad at him. But, Gi-hun's friend says Gi-hun shouldn't have come back and that he should've started a new life. He says he came back to make sure everyone gets out and to put an end to the game once and for all, but now he feels like he can’t make a difference. They talk about old times, but Front Man (Player 001) lays awake listening.

In the bathroom, the mother is waiting for Jun-lee to come out of the bathroom. When she doesn't, she goes in to check on her and finds her sitting there crying, but not because she’s in pain, but because she’s scared. Elsewhere, Jun-ho and the two teams gather on the boats to continue their search for the island.

The third game is about to begin. Thanos and his friend take more pills from his necklace. The players are told to step onto the platform in the centre of the room, then the platform will spin. At some point, the platform will stop and a number will be called out. The players must form a team of people to match the number and they have 30 seconds to enter one of the doors and go into the room behind it. There's 50 doors. If they don't make it in time, or they have the wrong number of people, they will be eliminated. The music begins and the platform starts to spin.