Squid Game Season 2 Episode 7 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun (Player 456)
Lee Byung-hun as Hwang In-ho / the Front Man (Player 001)
Lee Seo-hwan as Park Jung-bae (Player 390)
Kang Ha-neul as Kang Dae-ho (Player 388)
Park Sung-hoon as Cho Hyun-ju (Player 120)
Jo Yu-ri as Kim Jun-hee (Player 222)
Yim Si-wan as Lee Myung-gi (Player 333)
Kang Ae-sim as Jang Geum-ja (Player 149)
Lee Jin-wook as Park Gyeong-seok (Player 246)
Roh Jae-won as Nam-gyu (Player 124)
Won Ji-an as Se-mi (Player 380)
Park Gyu-young as Kang No-eul (Guard 011)
Wi Ha-jun as Hwang Jun-ho
Oh Dal-su as Captain Park
Jeon Seok-ho as Choi Woo-seok

The bathroom brawl leaves five players dead, including Thanos. Each side blames the other for starting it, and then everyone lines up to be counted. The X side now leads 48 to 47, so if nobody changes their vote, they will win the revote in the morning. Out at sea, a mercenary catches Captain Park fiddling with the team's drone in the middle of the night. When he demands to know who the captain really is, Captain Park kills him and dumps him overboard. Woo-seok hears the noise, but the captain blames the waves. The friendly old fisherman has been working against Jun-ho all along.

On the island, the staff prepare for what they call a special game, and they expect a bloodbath at lights-out. Gi-hun predicts the O side will attack in the dark, and his allies want to strike first. Gi-hun refuses. The real enemy, he says, is the people running the games, and the command center is upstairs. His plan is for his small group to hide under the bunks during the fight. When guards come in to break it up, they will be busy checking the dead, and that is the moment to grab their guns. In-ho agrees. Gi-hun tells Myung-gi to hide and do nothing.

When the lights go out, the dorm turns into a slaughter. Nam-gyu, high on Thanos's pills, hunts down Se-mi and kills her. When the guards enter, Gi-hun's group springs out, overpowers them, and takes their weapons. Some angry X players want to gun down the O side, but Gi-hun stops them, saying that would make them no better than the masked men. He asks for volunteers who can handle a gun. Hyun-ju reveals she was a sergeant first class in the Special Forces and gives everyone a quick lesson on the submachine guns. A captured guard turns out to be barely more than a kid, and they force him to lead the way.

The rebels push upward through the facility while guards fire on them. Gi-hun puts on a guard's mask to get through a security door and brings Jung-bae with him, saying it's because they're friends. In-ho takes a separate group to find another route so they can hit the guards from behind. Ammunition runs low fast. Dae-ho, the loud and confident ex-Marine, volunteers to run back to the dorm for spare magazines from the fallen guards' pockets.

Dae-ho never comes back. Gi-hun's group is pinned down, so they take magazines off dead guards and keep calling Dae-ho on the radio, but he doesn't answer. Then In-ho radios that his group has found the control room. Moments later, he says they've been caught and that it's over, and his line goes dead. Gi-hun is devastated. In reality, In-ho shoots the two players with him and slips away to become the Front Man again.

Gi-hun runs back to the dorm and finds Dae-ho frozen with fear, apologizing again and again. By the time Gi-hun returns to the front, the guards have closed in and the rebels are out of bullets. They surrender, but the guards shoot them anyway. Among them is Gyeong-seok, who begs for his life for his sick daughter's sake. His fate is left open here, but Season 3 shows he survives.

Gi-hun and Jung-bae are forced to kneel as the Front Man walks in, mask on, and mocks Gi-hun for playing the hero. Gi-hun still has no idea that the man behind the mask is his friend Young-il. To show him the consequences, the Front Man shoots Jung-bae in the head right in front of him. The season ends with Gi-hun screaming over his oldest friend's body, his rebellion crushed and the revote never held.

Player tracker

Eliminated this episode

• ❌ Thanos (Player 230) and four other players: dead after the bathroom brawl
• ❌ Se-mi (Player 380): killed by Nam-gyu
• ❌ A mercenary: killed by Captain Park and thrown overboard
• ❌ Jung-bae (Player 390): shot in the head by the Front Man
• ❌ Most of the rebels: shot after they surrender
• ❓ Gyeong-seok (Player 246): shot after begging for his life; his fate is left open, but he is alive in Season 3

Still standing

• ✅ Gi-hun (Player 456)
• ✅ Hyun-ju (Player 120)
• ✅ Dae-ho (Player 388)
• ✅ Geum-ja (Player 149)
• ✅ Yong-sik (Player 007)
• ✅ Jun-hee (Player 222)
• ✅ Myung-gi (Player 333)
• ✅ Nam-gyu (Player 124)
• ✅ Min-su (Player 125)
• ✅ Seon-nyeo (Player 044)
• ✅ Jeong-dae (Player 100)
• ✅ In-ho, the Front Man (revealed to the audience only)

Up next: Squid Game Season 3 Episode 1 Recap. Missed the last one? Read the Squid Game Season 2 Episode 6 Recap. See every episode in the Squid Game Season 2 episode guide or browse all Squid Game recaps.