Spoilers for Squid Game Season 2: the apparently helpful Player 001, Young-il, is the Front Man, played by Lee Byung-hun. He enters the competition to challenge Gi-hun’s belief that people can change and the games can be stopped. Netflix later described Season 3 as the series’ final season; it had arrived by the time of Tudum’s November 2025 Season 2 explainer.
Who is Young-il in Squid Game season 2?
Young-il is the Front Man using a false identity as Player 001. Gi-hun treats him as an ally and friend, while viewers know that the man beside him is secretly the masked authority figure overseeing the games. The reveal turns their apparent partnership into a deliberate test of Gi-hun’s convictions.
Netflix’s Tudum explains that the Front Man joins the contest to confront what he sees as the fundamental difference between them: he believes humanity offers no hope, while Gi-hun still believes people can change and the games can be stopped. The disguise lets him challenge Gi-hun from inside the same dangerous system he controls.
Why does the Front Man enter the game?
His purpose is not simply to survive or eliminate Gi-hun. Lee Byung-hun told Tudum: “For the Front Man, he’s not really interested in whether or not Gi-hun dies or lives.” Instead, Lee said, “Front Man wants to dismantle the noble belief that Gi-hun holds on to.”
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That objective makes Young-il’s time with Gi-hun more than a cover story. In Lee’s account, the Front Man is trying to show Gi-hun that he will eventually arrive at the same bleak view of humanity. The audience can read the scenes on two levels: as purposeful manipulation and as contact with the life In-ho once had before becoming the Front Man.
How Lee Byung-hun approaches the three sides of the character
Lee said he repeatedly discussed the portrayal with creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk. The challenge, as Lee described it, was to give distinct nuances to In-ho, Young-il, and the Front Man—not to treat Young-il as a simple performance with no connection to the man beneath the mask.
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In the fictional backstory recounted by Tudum, In-ho was a police officer and husband whose wife faced acute cirrhosis and a difficult pregnancy. Financial strain intensified after his superiors treated borrowed money as a bribe and he lost his job. He entered the competition, won, and became the Front Man. This is the character’s plot history, not medical guidance.
Lee’s explanation supports a more layered reading of the deception: Young-il is a calculated identity, but the character’s interactions with Gi-hun also expose traces of a former human life. The tension lies in watching the Front Man use those traces to undermine Gi-hun’s hope.
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Does Gi-hun know about the Front Man’s betrayal?
No—not by the end of Season 2. During the failed uprising, the Front Man kills Jung-bae in front of Gi-hun, then returns to his masked role. Gi-hun is left devastated, but Netflix’s ending explainer quotes Lee Jung-jae saying he does not think Gi-hun knows that Young-il was the Front Man.
Hwang described the killing and return to the mask as the season’s climax: “That moment is really the climax of Season 2. The Front Man starts off the season with his mask off, but then returns to himself and ends with his mask back on.” The ending therefore gives viewers the truth while leaving Gi-hun without it.
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Where this twist sits in the series
This article concerns the Season 2 reveal, not the latest installment. Netflix described Season 3 as the final season, and Tudum’s November 26, 2025 explainer said it had arrived by then. That same dated Tudum article reported 192.6 million views for Season 2 “to date” and called it Netflix’s third-biggest TV season; the figure is a platform-reported snapshot from that article, not a live count.
For viewers interested in how the production built the season’s world and character arcs, Netflix’s catalog lists Squid Game: Making Season 2, a 2025 documentary featuring Hwang Dong-hyuk, Lee Jung-jae, and Lee Byung-hun. Availability may vary by territory.
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Sources
- Netflix Tudum: Lee Byung-hun on the Front Man
- Netflix Tudum: Squid Game Season 2 ending explained
- Netflix catalog: Squid Game: Making Season 2
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