I Think Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 Is Better Than Season 1. I Need To Talk About Why

I adore Squid Game: The Challenge Season 1. Immediately, it had my attention because the stakes felt just as high as the Netflix hit — just without all the real murder. Squid Game: The Challenge Season 1 is intense, entertaining, unpredictable, and satisfying. However, I wasn’t confident Season 2 would be as enthralling.

Netflix hasn’t exactly been great at keeping up the quality of its best reality TV series. Therefore, I didn’t think Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 could possibly match the quality of the first season.

It surpassed it.

Warning: Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 Episodes 1-8 spoilers are ahead. Proceed with caution.

I Am Obsessed With How Squid Game: The Challenge Starts Season 2, Even More Intense And High Drama Than The First Season

Season 2 feels a bit more rushed and high-octane than the first season. Because you’re quickly thrown into the action, the anxiety kicks in instantaneously. I was cautious to even form attachments to anyone in the first few episodes because I wasn’t sure if they made it further than 30 minutes into the season. Squid Game: The Challenge, Season 2 plays with emotions even more than the opening season.

It uses some storytelling techniques this time that I don’t remember being used as well and as much in Season 1. The show invests more into the relationships. This means you care when a father must watch his daughter compete for her life on a TV screen. You care even more when they face off for survival.

Squid Game: The Challenge forces you to dread when twins make the bold move and become leaders of a team on the first challenge. You expect their story to end in heartbreak on the first day. Then you feel joy when they both somehow survive. This season puts the bonds and relationships at the forefront, which leads to heightened emotions and concerns about these players.

The second half of the season makes individual stories a lot more relevant. This gives you players to root for or against. This season successfully plays with every emotion at every level to amplify stakes and viewer interest.

I Think The Second Season Has Better Pacing Than The First Season

The first four episodes were such a quick and easy watch. I found myself completely glued and tuned in, maybe even more than some other recent reality TV favorites. Squid Game: The Challenge sets up characters and storylines that hook you and make it easy to binge without feeling tired. The latter half of the season isn’t paced as well as the first half because it drags some, but that initial hook is enough to make you excited about the season.

I don’t think the faster pace hurts the storytelling because I feel like I get to know these contestants just as well as I did the season one contestants. This season just eliminates so many groups that it’s easy to only invest in the success or failure of some. The fewer contestants at the start allows for more focus on the few that survive. Then it puts the survivors through so much. It has the same nightmare nature and intensity as a horror movie. You fear for these people.

It feels even more like the first season of Squid Game than the first season of this competition show because it takes you on an emotional roller coaster of loss, triumph, betrayal, mystery, and hope mixed with despair. It does just enough to set the season up and keep you wanting more.

Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 Doesn't Feel Like Just A Repeat Of Season 1

I loved the first season — some even consider it better than Squid Game. Season 1 starts the spin-off series well. Season 2 takes it to another level while remaining loyal to the concept of the original show. Season 2 tells similar stories to Squid Game Season 1, but in a way that separates them. I could rewatch both seasons and not become bored with either because they are distinct, and not just because of the different contestants.

They’re unique in how the stories unfold, the pacing, the types of characters, character arcs, and many other important, but small, differences between Season 1 and Season 2. Sometimes shows can easily become repetitive or stick to a comfortable routine. It is the “it worked the first time, why not do it again?” mentality. Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 takes some risks that pay off big time.

I Love How I Find This Season Even Harder To Predict

The final five players are not who I expected to make the finals at all. Many of them were shown and given enough details to care when they made it to the end. I know who I want to win. I know who I don’t want to win. These players were barely a consideration until the final few episodes. Then they became the heroes and villains of Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2.

This season, like last, goes more with where the stories exist. It zooms in less on the winner’s journey and more on the best plots for a certain crop of episodes. The winner is less important than the individual stories.

Squid Game: The Challenge makes the winner hard to predict, and it also makes who will succeed and fail even harder to guess. The show sets up characters for major moments, but you don’t know if these will be moments of dread or glory. I enjoy not being fully mentally or emotionally prepared for what happens next.

Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 Continues The Show's Pattern Of Making The Winner Hard To Guess, And I Love That.

I don’t know who will die, who will survive, or who will win. Sometimes I enjoy when a show is predictable because I enjoy following patterns or clues that lead to the outcome of a mystery. Usually, if you pay enough attention to a show, you can guess who wins a season based on how they’re edited.

I love it when that happens. It gives me confidence in my ability to read an edit. However, Squid Game: The Challenge is one of the few great TV shows that I appreciate because I can’t figure out the ending until it happens. This unpredictability often leads to exciting reality TV moments.

I have yet to watch the Squid Game: The Challenge Season 2 finale. Therefore, I don’t know who wins, and I couldn’t even begin to predict who won — despite eight episodes of data. That’s thrilling.

Stream Squid Game: The Challenge on Netflix.