Squid Game Season 2’s ‘Six-Legged Pentathlon’ Mini-Games Explained

This article contains spoilers for “Squid Game” season 2.

Poor Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae). You’d think that a man trying to take down the entire Squid Game organization by participating in the games for the second time would already have enough on his plate. Yet, even his chance to shine with his Sugar Honeycombs game knowledge is stripped away from him. Convinced that the second game is the all-too-familiar Dalgona candy-shaping game from season 1 and freely distributing game-winning strategy to his fellow contestants, Gi-hun ends up with egg on his face when the organizers shake things up and the game turns out to be a Six-Legged Pentathlon instead. 

The game begins with the players forming teams of five. After this, the teams have their legs tied together in a way that they have to proceed on a combined “six legs.” Then, they’re forced to take on a circular course which contains a pentathlon of games they have to complete within a strict time limit — on pain of death, as is the way of the game.

The five games the teams have to tackle are, of course, traditional Korean playground games. The first one is none other than Ddakji, the infamous envelope-throwing game Gi-hun plays with the Recruiter (Gong Yoo) in season 1. The second one is Flying Stone, where the team has to knock over a small tombstone-like piece by throwing stones at it. Next up is Gonggi, a grabbing game where players have to pick up small, shaped pebbles with various hand motions (like Jacks). The fourth game is a competition of spinning tops, and the fifth one is Jegichagi — a type of Hacky Sack game played with an object that resembles a shuttlecock. 

Six-Legged Pentathlon is the second game in the competition, and it’s tasked with heavy lifting when it comes to establishing contestant dynamics. Without going into too much detail about what happens to various characters before the game is over, two particularly notable factions soon emerge.

Gi-hun and the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who is posing as player 001 in the games, end up on the same team at the latter’s request. They’re joined by Gi-hun’s friend Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan), Player 388 (Kang Ha-neul), and Player 222 (Jo Yu-ri). This comparatively powerful group is contrasted by a quintet of outcasts that starts forming when other players discriminate against Player 120 (Park Sung-hoon) and refuse to allow her into their teams. She’s soon joined by Player 007 (Yang Dong-geun) and his mother, Player 149 (Kang Ae-shim), a tag team that also finds it difficult to secure a place in other teams due to the latter’s advanced age. This high-stakes team is eventually rounded up by Player 095 and the vastly eccentric Player 044. 

Given Gi-hun’s experience and animosity with the Front Man, it makes narrative sense to put the two in the same team that’s largely made up of capable and determined individuals. It’s also interesting to see season 2 remixing the outcast themes the viewer remembers from “Squid Game” season 1. Though Player 120 is a far more sympathetic character than the scheming Player 212 (Kim Joo-ryoung) in season 1, they both find themselves in the unfortunate role where they’re ostracized by most teams. Likewise, Player 149 discovers that few want to join forces with an elderly contestant, just like Player 001 (O Yeong-su) does in season 1 — though the circumstances surrounding the characters are very, very different. 

The second game in the 33rd Squid Game – aka the one we saw in “Squid Game” season 1 — forces the participants to choose a specific shape and carve it out of a circle of extremely fragile Dalgona candy. Gi-hun comes up with the tactic of licking the shape free from the surrounding area, which not only saves his own life but helps out other contestants. It’s a crucial moment in his transition from a self-serving, hapless loser to a more determined figure with genuinely heroic traits … which is promptly turned on its head when the show revels in pulling the Dalgona rug from under Gi-hun in season 2.

Here, Gi-hun is vocal about his Dalgona experience and manages to stir up hope among the players ahead of the second game. The revelation that he was wrong and they’re actually playing a Six-Legged Pentathlon delivers another abrupt turn in his arc — only this time, it’s in the opposite direction. While Gi-hun’s season 1 Dalgona heroics give him confidence and establish him as a resourceful player that others can look up to, his utter failure to predict the second game of season 2 despite claims to the contrary deeply undermines his authority. It’s the kind of clever twist we’ve come to expect from the best “Squid Game” episodes, and spells plenty of trouble for the character as he tries to make it to the end of the seven-episode “Squid Game” season 2, which is now streaming on Netflix.