Lessons from the First “Next ‘Squid Game’”

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In the never-ending march toward mortality, “It’s coming up on 4 years since ’Squid Game’ first dropped” doesn’t feel overwhelmingly significant. But as we approach that 48-month mark, and as the show begins its yearlong wrap-up/hand-off to an English-language successor, there’s never a bad time to think about how much has changed in the time since its premiere. What began as a word-of-mouth sensation has evolved into its own corner of the media world, with an expanding universe of tie-ins and merchandise and reality shows and live experiences and that impending remake. 

Sensing what was on the horizon, networks and streaming services in fall 2021 immediately searched for their own version. Pandemic-impacted production numbers meant that channels were already dipping into international markets for stopgap measures, looking for anything that might attract attention until their own in-house programming could carry its own weight again. Media outlets were also facing similar challenges in trying to fill similar expectations on the coverage side. 

So I was surely not the only person who spent part of their Thanksgiving break that year figuring out what to do about “Hellbound.” It was the first major Netflix drama from Korea post-“Squid Game,” which made it an easy target of comparison. The big question was whether it not it was capable of producing the same frenzied response (or at least a significant portion of it). Audiences had just proven that an abstract genre premise could catch fire with all types of viewers. But “Battle Royale meets Fear Factor meets Saw” was one thing. “Society begins to fray when people start to learn when exactly they’ll be dragged to hell by smoke demons” was another. Despite the connection of both coming from the same country, both “Squid Game” and “Hellbound” had impressive production value and much more under the surface than a slightly goofy synopsis might imply. 

So, in a media ecosystem desperate to find another surefire traffic driver as the calendar year came to a close, my overview of the show was framed as a genre blockbuster dessert of sorts. Three years later, in another bit of accidental (or perhaps very intentional) release date synergy, “Hellbound” Season 2 arrived right as fervor for the second round of “Squid Game” episodes was ramping up. Now that one of these shows has officially ended its run, debuting its final episodes last month, let’s look at what the other managed to do with its own shot at a follow-up. 

“Hellbound” came out of the world of webtoons, serialized online comics that for many other shows have served as ready-made storyboards for live adaptations. The TV version of “Hellbound” keeps that same central idea: Random people are being told when they’ll die, with the news delivered by ominous ghostlike spirits. When those countdown timers are up, they’re not simply ushered away by grim reapers. Instead, burly elephant-sized smoke monsters appear from nowhere to effectively pulverize their targets into damnation. Every new reaping is loud and messy and public and unimaginable. The world can’t help but take notice. 

It’s rare for a show like “Hellbound” to avoid the trap of getting sidelined by spectacle. These reckonings do still keep happening throughout both seasons, with the Smoke Fellas making mincemeat out of their intended targets before air frying them into oblivion. But rather than make that the centerpiece of the show, series director Yeon Sang-ho and co-writer/co-creator Choi Gyu-seok realize that in this world, this is a horror that would quickly become commonplace. Videos go viral and entire media empires thrive on responding to each new attack. The demons become like the chestburster in the Alien franchise. It’s a persistent threat, always in danger of being a little overdone. It’s also one of the things you come for, no less a visceral idea even if you’re confronted with it more times than you expect. 

What makes Season 2 an interesting evolution is tracking how the people of Seoul and beyond change their own relationship to having this be a part of their everyday lives. Death cults emerge. Individuals see other people’s suffering as a referendum on their own previously held beliefs. Political movements use that uncertainty as fuel. Those demon attacks in the first season were a pretty effective shortcut to sewing chaos, and the show’s second season takes a longer, deeper look at how that chaos manifests in all areas. In the show’s visual language, we get an entire POV car chase that’s right up there with the one from the “Alice in Borderland” Season 2 premiere. In their search for answers (or some warped form of absolution), some characters have convinced themselves that actively participating in these anti-raptures is some sin-purging shortcut to holiness. 

The biggest insights held inside this fictional world come from its ability to chart societal transformations during time of extreme unrest and uncertainty. It doesn’t seem like that much of an exaggeration to watch Twitch streamers become national sensations based solely on their responses to regular tragedies. It’s not all that unrealistic to watch an angry mob of delusional zealots overrun an official building, demanding a kind of twisted justice against someone who won’t do their bidding. By taking its smoke demon retribution premise seriously and literally, everyone’s response to it can be a potent metaphor for any kind of widespread ill. 

“Hellbound” doesn’t create such an overarching view of society that it goes all the way up the chain to the Korean President. There’s no equivalent of an Oval Office scene with some stern-faced staffer giving a melancholy briefing about the latest developments in the world of Smoke Demon Tracking. In a way, that makes “Hellbound” even more chilling. The vigilantism on display here — either through rogue actors or cultish movements designed to use this change in the status quo as the ultimate power grab — is what gets eyeballs. Once the concept of divine punishment becomes something people can see with their own eyes rather than merely wish on their enemies, the guardrails are fully off. The official decrees that hold weight for the people on this show are the ones delivered by the New Truth and the Arrowhead, rival factions looking to assert themselves as the one reliable source of information and true belief. One takes a more stately approach while the other relies more and more on militant action. (It probably will not surprise you which ethos becomes more politically effective once Season 2 arrives.)

It would also be easy for “Hellbound” to get bogged down in rules, pausing at various points to explain to the audience the mechanics of being viciously dragged into the depths. Instead, “Hellbound” makes the response the key focus. Even as people in high positions within those religious groups keep trying to proclaim absolute certainty, the circumstances and rules keep changing. The push to label all victims as sinners backfires, leading to constant series of contorting popular wisdom to fit an increasingly nihilist, arbitrary horror. Nothing fractures a society faster than being confronted by the worst and realizing that all attempts at preventing that chaos were futile before they began. 

You can also sense the characters in this show feeling so beat down by the constant, exhausting stress of wondering what fresh horror is right around the corner. Yeon and Choi envision an entire brain drain of resources devoted to trying to figure out how to anticipate and mitigate these attacks. Against that backdrop, we also see the efforts to prevent rogue organizations from using the confusion to slide into a growing power vacuum. Though there are plenty of true believers (enough to jump on a pile and get cooked along with the condemned), “Hellbound” has a lot of other people who seem downright peeved that they even have to think about this at all, much less devote every waking hour to find temporary solutions. 

I’m avoiding mentioning many individuals not because they don’t deserve to be singled out. The closest things that “Hellbound” has to a multi-season throughline is the aforementioned streamer who seesaws between basking in his online following and being spooked by what his cheerleading has wrought. There’s the self-proclaimed prophet whose recasting (played in the first season by “Burning” star Yoo Ah-in) makes his Season 2 reappearance feel even more like another character entirely. In some ways the biggest stars are those demons, rampaging through the opening credits even as the world around them drastically changes from season to season. 

One of the key pieces of the “Squid Game” success was its ability to paint a world just a few degrees off of our own. To do it with a healthy amount of cynicism and a dash of hope in the promise of community ended up being an effective recipe to follow. If “Hellbound” offers its own lesson, it’s in making something that doesn’t feel married to the rules of an apocalyptic franchise. It establishes a clear, constant threat and then spends 12 episodes following the progression of that threat, rather than merely iterating on a proven formula.

Late in Season 2, a character tells a group of gathered colleagues, “A new world will begin soon. Go find the world you each desire.” It’s a line that could be spoken by any number of characters in this series, said with either triumph or defeat, righteousness or disdain. Either way, that first sentence is undoubtedly correct. What matters is how they (and we) get to that second one.