One of the most exciting things about Squid Game season 2 is how the show will handle its new cast, as most of the original characters were dead by the end of season 1. Even though important names, such as Lee Jung-jae’s Gi-hun and Lee Byung-hun’s Front Man, are returning, Squid Game will have to make audiences care about the new characters as much as they did for the previous 456 players. Squid Game could have been a standalone series just fine, but the show’s unprecedented success on Netflix meant that a second season was inevitable. This is exactly the challenge Sweet Home faced.

Sweet Home is based on a webtoon, yet most of the source material was covered in season 1. The monster drama could have ended with just one season, and it would still have been a satisfying conclusion to the story. However, after Sweet Home quickly became a hit, the show was renewed for two additional seasons. The only way to continue the story was to reinvent the series, which is why there were so many new characters in Sweet Home season 2. Not everything about Sweet Home’s newest season worked, and Squid Game will have to find the correct balance between sticking to the formula and doing something new.