Squid Game: The Man with the Umbrella

 "It hurts a lot. It's like trying to push out a kid..."

After last episode being so drama-heavy, this is all about the island, the mysterious masked people, and the game- which an impressive 187 people out of 201 have returned to play after their respective bruising encounters with the real world.

We start with the undercover cop, Jun-ho, who is searching for his brother. In showing how he smuggles himself on the island and disguises himself as a masked underling, we get to see how these underlings are treated- unable to speak, highly regimented and living in horribly spartan and featureless cells on on site, never able to remove their masks for any reason, thereby symbolising their identity as corporate drones. This is maintained even to the point that the boy who is taken hostage, and his mask removed, is shot by the boss. These people need to get unionised pretty sharpish.

The game is, of course, evil, and therefore hugely enteryaining. The tension is incredible, and the shooting free and wide-ranging. Yet, as ever, this is all about the characters. There's our resourceful North Korean defector, and the wonderful Sae-Byeok, with her resourcefulness and her potty mouth, who may be rivalling the old man as my favourite character. Interestingly, she seems to be throwing her lot in with the gangster.

Teams are forming- and Gi-Hun is with Sang-woo, the old man and Ali, a mostly likeable bunch. It's becoming clear that, yes, the games are a glorious bit of grand guignol. But at its heart this is a series about people. And is, beneath it all, quite angrily political.