Squid Game: Season 2 | You’re Invited

With Netflix as the dominant streaming platform globally, and Squid Game one of its most popular series ever, anticipation is mounting for the December 26th launch of Season 2. We blogged about Squid Game’s Season 2 I Welcome Players trailer back in August, and since then Netflix has been releasing trailers for the new season left, right, and centre. Today I’ll dive into the “Season 2 | You’re Invited” trailer released September 30th.

In the first 2 seconds this trailer cuts from a close-up of a clock striking 3:00 p.m. to a close-up of a needle being dropped onto a vinyl record. Ticking clocks are an established sonic cliché in suspenseful trailers (check out our blogs on Dunkirk, Geostorm, or Andor). And the vinyl record here is playing a brisk piano performance of Bach’s Invention No. 8 in F Major, conveniently at the exact speed of the ticking clock.

The video editing here meticulously synchs sound to a sequence of close-up visuals. At 0:02 The Salesman (Gong Yoo) opens his curtains on the beat, at 0:05 the shower begins on the beat. For the next two seconds, as The Salesman showers, the piano tone is muffled and reverberant, like we’re hearing the music while water pours past our ears.

At 0:13 as The Salesman unlocks and opens his empty briefcase, an ominous gritty synth bass note enters, making Bach feel like it may be about to venture into EDM territory. Then at 0:14, the keypad for a safe is punched in time and in key with the music. Appropriately for EDM, immediately after this, at 0:16, we have a drop: nearly all the sound disappears. Bach is replaced with a low hollow whistling wind tone as The Salesman takes Squid Game invitations out of the safe.

By 0:22 Bach has faded back in, but now the ticking clock is becoming less reliable, its volume is rising and following, and it isn’t able to stay quite in time with the Bach piano record anymore. But that’s okay because The Salesman turns the record off at 0:28, in the middle of a musical phrase: he needs to get to work. We are left wondering about the Bach’s purpose (besides continuing the fetishization of classical music in_ Squid Game_ trailers), although it does serve as a fitting accompaniment for his mechanistic morning ritual.

Another nod of the head to the EDM genre at 0:31 as we have background white noise sounds rising in volume and intensity when The Salesman closes his eyes in the elevator. When he opens them at 0:35 (very smooth transition!), he’s now at a subway station.

Ever since the Bach record was turned off, there is no more music in this trailer, with the ticking clock the only constant sound (note that there has also been no dialogue up to this point in the trailer!). At 0:40, The Salesman looks at his watch at the stroke of 5:00 p.m., and the ticking abruptly stops.

And then, to close the trailer, the theme music for the Pink Soldiers begins to fade in as The Salesman takes out invitations and we have our first line of dialogue as he begins inviting off-screen people to the next Squid Game.

Sometimes in a trailer’s audio, less is more, especially if you know how to get the most out of every little sonic detail. The integration of the clock, the Bach and the synched visuals in this trailer are expertly done.

Squid Game Season 2 is on Netflix on December 26, a holiday gift to its fans.

— Jack Hui Litster