Squid Game: Season 2

After three years, Squid Game returns to Netflix with the original deadly game show’s winner, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae)—as known at Player 456—returning to the game with the intent of finding its mastermind and ending it altogether. The music of Squid Game tends to subvert expectations, such as the use of Strauss’ “Blue Danube” to indicate the start of a new game. Similarly, the beginning of the Season Two teaser trailer begins with a conventional sounding tonal piece on the trumpet: the theme of the finale to Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto; this classical mood doesn’t last long, however. After a scant three seconds, it is replaced by another of Squid Game’s hallmark sonic signatures, a creepy, dissonant idea in a minor key, with an emphasis on half-step melody, punctuated by the rhythmic bass of a heartbeat. It’s spare and intimate, pairing well with the numbers on the backs of the participants’ uniforms that are featured in closeup in the visual.

At 0:16 this brief theme is replaced by a soundscape complementing the rapid match cut as the numbers on the players’ backs reach 456. A quickly ascending assemblage of strings and synths with a strong bass counterpoint accompanies the reveal of player 456’s face as he turns towards the camera; it’s clear at this point that this teaser is mostly geared towards faithful and familiar fans of the series—fair, given it’s become one of the cultural touchstones for Netflix’s pantheon of content.

The music cuts and the heartbeat motif returns at 0:28 with the main title card, followed by a notably different audio logo for the Netflix “tu-dum”, this time accompanied by (South) Korean instruments.

Clocking in at a scant forty-eight seconds, the teaser is an exercise in restraint, minimalism, and ultimate confidence that audioviewers will flock to the show almost regardless of its advertising campaign. Even for those who may have managed not to watch the original, less can be more—especially so for a teaser. Regardless, the music does much here to set the tone in the absence of really any expository elements, including dialogue. Further, the contrast with the first few attention-grabbing seconds of the trailer emphasizes the eerie quality of Squid Games’s original music.

Squid Game: Season Two arrives on Netflix December 26th.

— Curtis Perry